So I was on a coast-to-coast flight {deep vein thrombosis?}, feeling a crick in my neck {fibromyalgia?} and a bit of the blues that sometimes set in around Colorado heading west {depression?} thinking about loosening the seat belt {irritable bowel?}, watching a CNN roundtable discussion of the health-care crisis. Polarities abounded: We should spend more on prevention, we should hold people to account for their lifestyles and focus on cure, we have to ration, but won't that mean only wealthy people can afford care? Is an angiogram a great tool or a billing bonanza, and how about those stents?
And then Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm addressed a question to the pharmaceuticals executive who was defending high prescription costs, even though some of them cost half as much in Canada. He pointed out that generics are reasonably priced, which should provide comfort to anyone suffering from a disease whose treatment's patent has already expired. He talked about the cost of research and development, a reasonable enough topic, but the governor pressed him on a slightly less logical line item: Direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription drugs.
Anyone who has ever seen the network evening news has seen these ads; aside from deep vein thrombosis, every medical condition that flitted through my brain on that airplane ride was planted there by a television commercial. Actors who personify the demographic of a particular ailment are avoiding the unemployment lines convincing us, in an unintended riff on "Amazing Grace," that they once were lost but now they're found, thanks to a remedy they should ask their doctor about as soon possible. If an alien landed in your media room during the news, he/she/it would think that we are a very unhealthy species indeed.
Governor Granholm wondered: If pharmaceutical companies cut consumer advertising, which hit the airwaves big-time when the FDA relaxed its advertising restrictions in 1997, would prices come down to a level where more of those consumers might actually be able to afford their drugs? If drug companies weren't spending - here it comes, and these are 2005 figures -- $4.1 billion for direct-to-customer ads, part of a $29.9 billion marketing budget - would their product perhaps cost a wee bit less? Stories abound of older people who practice their own sad form of medical rationing, taking less medication or taking it less often because they cannot afford the proper dose. The governor wondered: As long as doctors know what medications are out there, which is the way drug advertising used to work, why spend so much money building brands with civilians?
I don't recall who at the table piped up with an answer, but here is part of it: A viewer might see a commercial for an anti-depression medication, recognize her own symptoms, and get help she might not otherwise have thought to seek. A commercial - not the crushing symptoms it describes, but the HD image and the background score and the happy, relieved loved ones surrounding the newly-happy patient - can make the difference in someone's life.
Which raises a new question: How dumb do they think we are? If we're suffering as badly as the people on screen, aren't we perhaps going to mention it to a friend or loved one, or, holy intake form, to a doctor? Isn't someone going to notice that we're off our feed? Do we need to see something on television to know that what we're feeling is real? And is it reassuring or somehow terrifying to think that a doctor would prescribe based on a patient's suggestion? Call me a cock-eyed optimist; I'd like to think that someone who suffers, chronically, might do something about it on his or her own. On the other hand, people who are in such denial that they ignore these kinds of symptoms probably aren't going to change their minds because of a sixty-second spot.
Let's not even address the likelihood of mis-self-diagnosis - and if you doubt that possibility, go up onto one of the medical sites, type in a set of symptoms, and see how many possibilities you get.
But back to the economics of branding: How much likelier might we be to ask for medical help if we thought we could actually afford the offered solution?
So kudos to Governor Granholm for her plain-wrap, straight-out question, to which she did not get an equally straightforward answer. May she keep asking. And as certain groups send out emails exhorting people to "join the mob" protesting President Obama's health-care plans, may we find a dignity similar to hers, in which we ask these kinds of pertinent questions with a reasonable and reasoned voice.
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All drugs are toxic. Just look at all the side-effects listed on every one. Take them as little as possible, preferably none at all.
And don't watch TV. I just watch dvds and I don't have to endure those commercials. And my daughter doesn't get brainwashed by them.
The drug companies and private insurance companies need to stop putting greed in front of human lives. Here's my solutions to successful healthcare reform - http://rxvette.blogspot.com/2009/06/biggest-key-to-health-care-reform-in-us.html
1) The faceless being. A few very well known pharmaceutical companies use faceless people in the ad spots for their most profitable drugs. These beings aren't human because the big pharma companies do not see us as humans at all. They see us as faceless orifices into which their medication flows, and conduits from which money drains out in small trickles, which are then combined into a large revenue torrent. You wouldn't put a human face on a water faucet, nor would they. You have no face, and therefore no spirituality, no mind, no dignity.
2) The harried sheeple. You know who you are...you're perplexed, and even a little frightened by your medical condition. You are, above all, powerless without the drug being peddled. As the somnambulant voice quavers in a soothing monotone about possible fatal consequences from taking this drug, you are assured that once you do take it, you will be saved from that thing all Americans fear most of all, fear of the unknown. And only your big pharma company knows for sure.
We should also limit the level of profit that is made on health insurance. Japan and Switzerland do this, and their insurance companies are healthy and well.
Jeez, just realized what I wrote. We are more concerned about the health of the insurance companies than of our people. SICK!
Then the HUGE AND MORE HEINOUS problem is most doctors will prescribe almost any medication in order to get you our of his/her office in rapid fashion. They rarely mention potential side effects or mention withdrawal problems. (Buyer beware....you should GOOGLE the drug BEFORE you buy!)
Any extra minutes with one patient means money out of their pocket; which also brings lectures from the healthcare insurance company covering the patient.
I have just experienced such "patient care" and it is frightful!
It's DISGUSTING what goes on. You don't want to know.
http://www.petitiononline.com/PubOp676/petition.html
I also don't want to explain to my little grandchildren what viagra is, or why the people are sitting outdoors in two bathtubs. This is ridiculous, stop the drug companies from running these, and have them lower the cost of drugs by not having to pay for the commercials.
Can't wait to see the news story about the four year old who took Viagra right before bath time.
Should be a lollapaloozer.
I canceled my cable 7 years ago and feel much better.
Whenever i'm at an airport lounge, I'm appalled at the Drug Advertisements and other disgusting commercials for polluting companies like BP and Exxon Mobile, etc.
I am one of the few fortunate to have realized the corruption in our food/cleaning/energy/medical systems. I buy most of my food from local farmers markets and some organic products at the store. I make my own cleaning solutions with soap nuts, vinegar, baking soda, etc. I use mass transit as much as possible and when I purchase my house in the near future, I'm installing small wind turbines and solar panels. I want to e able to cancel my electric company one day. I'm also buying a true hybrid electric car from Aptera, that gives 300/gallon.
In terms of medicine, I eat as well as possible, avoid sugars, sodas, milk, packaged juices, fried foods and salty foods. I prepare my own juices and drink lot's of filtered tap water and almond and rise milk, and eat a mediterranean diet. I never take medicine I absolutely need it, usually to cure a fever. I exercise regularly; which includes weught lifting, hiking, bicycling, and yoga.
It's a constant battle to eat and live well, but the effort is worth it. Each passing day, I feel better that I am making the best decisions for my health and wealth.
It says and I quote: "A generic drug is identical--or bioequivalent--to a brand name drug in dosage form, safety, strength, route of administration, quality, performance characteristics and intended use."
In the same vein: "Are generic drugs as effective as brand-name drugs?
Yes. A generic drug is the same as a brand-name drug in dosage, safety, strength, quality, the way it works, the way it is taken and the way it should be used. FDA requires generic drugs have the same high quality, strength, purity and stability as brand-name drugs."
Propaganda is expensive -- but they can afford it, since they're using our money.