Senator Byron Dorgan Reads Scripts Of Televised Pharmaceutical Ads On Senate Floor (VIDEO)

A Senator going on at length on the Senate floor is generally not a riveting experience, but there can be exceptions.

This video of Byron Dorgan (D-ND) reading scripts of televised pharmaceutical ads is definitely one of them. TIME's Michael Scherer is trying to get a Facebook group together so Dorgan knows his efforts are not going unappreciated.

This is just good television.

WATCH:

Comments

[Agent420]

08:01 PM on 12/10/2009

The doctors love it because the only way they can make more money is to increase traffic through the office. A patient comes in and asks for a certain drug, it is very easy for the doctor to say yes and shove them through the out door.
If you want the crap scared out of you just listen to the side effects. The best one is "uncontrollable bowel movements." I don't remember what the pill was for, but it was something really lame. Another has you having a side effect that is supposed to be one of the things the pill "cures." Then there is the one that has death as a "side effect."

[MikeHermit]

04:59 AM on 12/11/2009

All of these Anti-Depression drugs that can cause depression.

[zxrod]

02:43 PM on 12/10/2009

Wow! A true master of deadpan. Some comedic genius here

[Sinister Minister]

02:06 PM on 12/10/2009

These ads are actually a great benefit to people that don't know they're sick. I found out that my cricket has "restless leg syndrome". The good news was that I while can't afford his meds, I did manage to get him on Medicare..

The senator says this is not a big problem. Why is it not a problem to talk thousands of people into going to their doctor each week creating an artificial demand.? Next time your really sick and sitting in a waiting room, ask yourself how many people in front of you are there to get that purple bill they saw on that ad. When demand outpaces supply the price goes up.

[MikeHermit]

05:04 AM on 12/11/2009

I actually have RLS. I didn't know it at the time. I just thought it was growing pains that I just never outgrew. I just thought it was some wierd quirk I had. Til one day I saw a comercial for one of the drugs. Refering to feelings of creapy crawlys, tingls, all sorts of odd descriptors. I knew then that I had RLS. Whan you cannot describe what it is to anyone it it RLS. Also known as "I can't stop my leg."

Not sure though that anyone, excluding hypocondriacs, really reflect on these comercials. Most, I am sure, just ignore them like I do.

But the Enzyte commercials are somewhat funny.

[Joethepauper]

10:58 AM on 12/11/2009

That's why doctors go to school for so long and get paid so much. THEY know what RLS is, and if you describe the symptoms, I'm sure he/she can figure it out and prescribe something for it. If your doctor can't figure it out, he/she needs some supplementary schooling to keep-up with new knowledge. I'm pretty sure I have RLS, and I have the same symptoms that you described. Do you know what I take for it? Nothing. I stretch my legs or ignore them. Not everything is a "syndrome". Maybe RLS is a biological solution to our ancestors having ants trying to crawl up their legs at the campfire (since we were outdoors for millions of years of our evolution, that might be a reason to keep your legs in motion). Maybe the extra movement is keeping your blood moving in your legs to keep it from pooling-up, causing peripheral artery disease (PAD). Does anyone know or care what is in the drugs, or how they are made? No cares as to the chemicals we flush down the toilet, causing genetic mutations in the fish we eat down the line. What might temporarily relieve your RLS might be making fish and amphibians hermaphroditic. Does your highly-trained physician know much about hermaphroditic frogs? I doubt it. We don't know what we are doing to our planet with these drugs.

[Statler N Waldorf]

10:36 AM on 12/10/2009

I wish they'd just ban direct to consumer ads.

[shearm]

08:50 AM on 12/10/2009

When you don't allow competition, prices can't ever go down. We ban pharmas from places like Canada and Mexico, and say they are too dangerous. Well yes, they are when you make it illegal and individuals have to purchase them illegally so they can live, because then you get a black market. But if you allow it, and they can do it out in the open, reputable people can sell them at a low cost.

[koppenberg]

01:59 PM on 12/10/2009

The reason other places have meds cheaper than we do is because those other places have price controls, we do not, and the pharmaceutical companies make up for reduced revenues from the rest of the world on the backs of Americans. So it is not really a normal competition situation.

If somehow 300 million Americans could suddenly buy drugs cheap from Canadian pharmacies (that now serve 33 million Canadians), then the companies might stop selling anything to Canada and prefer to keep charging higher prices in the U.S. and Canadians would have to cross the border or buy from the UK or wherever.

The current way things work is a huge mess (well, for U.S. residents anyway--it's apparently fine elsewhere) and there's no simple solution that we in the U.S. can really impose on our own, short of imposing price controls of our own. But then the argument goes that the pharmaceutical makers will stop producing. I don't know if I buy that--what else are they going to do, and if they stopped spending so much money (more than they do on R&D) on marketing, maybe they could charge lower prices and still make fortunes, and we wouldn't be subjected to graying couples in bathtubs every 15 minutes on TV to get us to start using or switch between multiple ED drugs.

[MikeHermit]

05:08 AM on 12/11/2009

More like we are the guinea pigs, the ones the pharma companies do their costly tests on, so we are also the ones who absorb the costs of the research. Yet they still want to mass market their products, so they sell the goods to other countries at a discount.

Isn't our inovation just grand?

[Joethepauper]

11:09 AM on 12/11/2009

And instead of trying to find cures, they are paying Sally Field to hock "treatments". I don't want to keep taking a pill that I know nothing about....that causes more symptoms than it treats.....and ends-up in our rivers, oceans, and eventually our plates. We have treated the oceans as both a garbage dump and a kitchen pantry. Now, it's our bathroom pantry too! Potomac river: "Some 42 percent of male smallmouth bass surveyed showed signs of intersex development. A second sampling this spring produced an even higher rate—79 percent showed sexual abnormalities". I want cures that we won't have to keep buying and keep taking. I'm sure there are cases where someone had a minor problem, took a drug to combat it, got symptoms from it, and started taking an additional drug to combat those symptoms, and had to take yet another to combat the symptoms of the second drug....ad infinitum.

[disgustedcitizen]

08:39 AM on 12/10/2009

One of the worst things to happen in modern medical care was allowing Big Pharma to advertise their drugs on TV. Advertising is expensive and now they put more money into advertising their product then in developing it. The cost of which is paid by the patients.

Thank you, Senator Dorgan!

[elaygee]

10:20 AM on 12/10/2009

Dead on right

[yellowdoggie]

06:20 AM on 12/10/2009

I wm almost ready to move to North Dakota. I have senator envy. I'm stuck with lousy Inhofe and Coburn.

[Mum]

04:21 PM on 12/10/2009

Dorgan is an excellent senator, whose vision extends beyond his state. The same cannot be said for North Dakota's other senator, Conrad. But given the fact that you have Inhofe and Coburn I can definitely sympathize with your senator-envy. With Bayh (a Democrat in name only) and Lugar as my senators, I am often afflicted with senator-envy. I know that it could be worse (South Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and, yes, Oklahoma - been to them all, nice people, beautiful places, but their legislators are some of the dimmest bulbs in the Senate), but I'd love to have even one senator that had even a scintilla of progressive or liberal blood flowing through his/her body.

[tubette]

04:41 PM on 12/10/2009

Yes, Okies should just move, it's embarrassing to have our senators... can't tell you how many doors I went to campaigning for Rice to no avail. I personally know Coburn unfortunately and he has told me on more than one occasion pharmaceutical tv ads should be banned... yet is so silent when it counts, what a joke they both are..

[ipastor01]

03:43 AM on 12/10/2009

he should read from the side effects lines...now that would be funny

[LeftRight]

08:01 AM on 12/10/2009

I'd start watching C-Span if he did that!!!

[Faelsun]

01:48 AM on 12/10/2009

I wish they would address why Grocery prices have gone up 5 to 10 percent in less than two years, while gas prices went down.

And how companies that make beef jerky somehow get away with a 200% price hike in 2 years. For those of you that didn't notice your overpriced beef jerky 5.99 bag is the same price for 2 to 2.5 ounces LESS, it used to be 6. Apparently there is a huge demand now for waste beef ankle. They also cheat on their taxes and steal from the IRS, CVS pharmacy is robbing the government blind.

But we can only get the senate to pretend care about one crooked lot at a time I guess. Maybe they will focus on this money sink when the country goes bankrupt and there is no one left to attack while were all waiting in line outside of Save Right.

[koppenberg]

02:03 PM on 12/10/2009

Not to mention "half gallon" packages of ice cream quietly shrinking to 1.75 quarts and now to 1.5 quarts as prices remained the same or went up. It's probably a good thing though for us to be eating less ice cream. Paying more for the privilege though, I'm not so sure :-).

[tehixe]

11:39 PM on 12/09/2009

Honestly, I think lobbyists are engaged in a competition to see what kind of craziness they can get legislators to read in Congress. Someday soon, we will get a house rep saying "cacapoopoopeepeebumbumpoopie" for five solid minutes because a lobbyist told him to.

[ReverseUniversal]

02:15 PM on 12/10/2009

He's making a poignant point AGAINST pharmaceutical ads and prescription drug prices. You might try clicking the play button on the video before posting next time.

[mainemichael]

11:07 PM on 12/09/2009

Just listen to the "small print" warnings required at the end of these ads; essentially..."side effects may include death."

[LDF]

11:20 PM on 12/09/2009

"side effects may include death, but ask your doctor if ___________ is right for you."

[Joethepauper]

11:13 AM on 12/11/2009

Yeah, the "death panels" are our own doctors and Big Pharma.

[avchavis]

08:46 PM on 12/09/2009

Drug Ads should be banned just like Cigarette ads.

[walsenberg]

09:24 PM on 12/09/2009

I agree, BAN pharmaceutical ads NOW!

[LDF]

11:17 PM on 12/09/2009

These ads are like manna from heaven for the broadcast and cable networks.

[capitaldysfunction]

02:55 AM on 12/10/2009

Yes to that. I also like the pharmacies in Mexico. Doctor prescriptions are usually not required. And the drugs are cheaper. Even better, however, is the approach of Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D., HuffPoster, anti-for profit medicine, who asks "Who says we need drugs?" The bottom line: Big Pharma must not be allowed to bankrupt us. The drug companies want us to think they will not fund research if regulatory powers are exercised. If that were true they would not put more money into marketing than they do research. Even with less profits, European pharmaceutical companies are putting more $ into research than American Pharma.

[avchavis]

08:35 PM on 12/09/2009

Senator Dorgan - I salute you! Thanks for all you do!

[avchavis]

08:48 PM on 12/09/2009

To all the supporters of the "free market" : You shouldn't have any problem with Americans going across our boarders for less expensive Meds.

[Untitled]

08:01 PM on 12/09/2009

So ask your doctor if Congress is right for you!

[cornelison]

08:43 PM on 12/09/2009

He's up for reelection! He's a Democrat and another can run against him in a primary in his state. Please pass the word. How many Democrats would vote for someone who's "employed" by lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry? Would you?

[305Rider]

11:09 PM on 12/09/2009

Dorgan is the good Senator from North Dakota, you're thinking about Conrad.

[DrFitz]

07:52 PM on 12/09/2009

Best thing either Congress or the FDA could do to reduce health care costs is to reverse the decision allowing direct-to-consumer advertising. It was a mistake, and should be completely eliminated.

[alternate id]

10:50 PM on 12/09/2009

I agree. And also forbid gifts to doctors.

[shriekingviolet]

12:23 AM on 12/10/2009

Completely true, and I think that was the point (unrecognized by a lot of the commenters here and likely the author of the post) Dorgan was trying to make. BigPharma spends massive amounts of money to market their products to consumers, about 25% of their annual expenditures which is about 2x of what they spend on R&D. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when people are paying exorbitant prices for their medication, they're paying nearly as much for the branding of that medication itself as they are for whatever is in that may improve their health or what it cost to develop it. That's a real problem considering that our patent laws see to it that it takes years for drugs to become available as generic where that cost isn't built in.

I don't know if Dorgan made his point clearly enough, but he wasn't needlessly wasting time, talking about something irrelevant to the debate or shilling for the industry as some have suggested. This sort of predatory marketing is actually a pet issue of Dorgan's so I wasn't surprised to see him bring it up in the healthcare debate.