Two days back I was watching a commercial I thought was either selling cars or ladies ‘hot’ party wear. I waited to a few seconds to see which it was and was astonished when I saw the name of a pharmaceutical company appear at the end. Dang! These days all the ads seemed to look alike or do they save money by using different versions of a single commercial and simply change the product name at the end? Come to think of it, whether it is a commercial for a new plasma TV, flashy car or a direct-to-customer drug or even prescription drug – all these commercials use the same hooks: sleek images and videos, great music, some classy acting and a lot of lofty promises. The commercial is so well packaged it sticks somewhere in your subconscious and rings a bell when you pass by a car show room or drug store or whatever.
It’s a dangerous trend that started over the past 10 years and has grown to become sleeker and more powerful – ad spends on drugs.
Let’s face it, if you were to buy that feature filled sleek 72-inch plasma TV what is the worst that could happen? You may end up having wasted a lot of money and possess an unwanted TV. But what if you or your doctor were to be seduced by a pharmaceutical company into buying or prescribing a dangerous drug that promised to revitalize your life and bring back that ‘lost happiness’ or promised to make all those pounds disappear forever or promised to re-energize the kidneys? These days our internal organs are so corrupted by pollutants in air as well as the food we eat that even God might hesitate to make the claims our pharmaceuticals do.
How many pharmaceutical companies really do comprehensive in-depth testing?
How many manipulate the system so they can market drugs before they are properly and ethically tested? Where drugs are concerned, the worst case scenario is death – and even that would be a gift from the heavens because some of these drugs have been proved to be so dangerous they could ruin internal organs beyond repair. But the question that keeps coming to my mind all the times is,
why are pharmaceutical companies spending billions on TV commercials for drugs that can only be procured via your doctor’s prescription?
Aren’t these companies supposed to visit individual doctors and explain in detailed technical terms what the drug does, under what circumstances it should be prescribed, to whom it should be prescribed, safe dosage and side effects if any?
Let’s face it, would you prefer to buy or be prescribed a drug based on our own or doctors analysis of the most appropriate drug or would you be happy with buying a drug that was prescribed based on what we or the doctor saw on TV? Why should anyone even bother going to a doctor?
Don’t believe all ads you see, especially the drugs ones!
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