General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Safety advocates seek stronger warnings on Chantix [View all]calimary
(81,267 posts)it just strikes me as a big red flag when watching these commercials about all these drugs, whether it's for non-smoking or flaccid penises or depression or "COPD" or whatever cutesy, coy little nicknames (heard a new one just yesterday -"Hep-C" - file that one away next to "Low-T" and all the "hip" little abbreviations and nicknames and 140-character approaches, I suppose) we have these days that allow us to avoid naming the actual names of the disease/syndrome/malady/whatever-the-hell.
And that's ANNOYING AS HELL, just by itself.
But what else bothers me is - if you'll notice during any one of these commercials, a comparatively long portion of the voice track involves reading the fine print, the contraindications, the "don't take this if you have blah, and blah-blah, and blah-blah-blah, or blah-blah-blah-blah, or colon-blah-blah-blah, or ailment A-B-or-C-blah-blah-blah" - and finally even to the "may-cause-death-blah-blah-blah." That makes me wonder - um... gee, um... should we REALLY be advertising this? Should we REALLY be pushing this particular medication that "may cause death..." ?
It makes me wonder what might happen if the pharmaceutical conglomerates redirected all those billions of dollars in advertising money getting you to "ask your doctor if blah-blah-blah is RIGHT for YOU!" into MORE RESEARCH so that maybe we'd be a little more sure of some of these drugs? Maybe we'd come up with a few safer options? If almost half the commercial - featuring a fast-reading voice-over announcer trying to squeeze a LOT of complicated copy into just a little window of time - cautions about the hazards of taking such a drug, WHY is there such an aggressive push to get people to take it?
I would rather they splurge all that ad-buying money into research and development of more and better, more effective, and possibly even more AFFORDABLE meds.
Again, not a doctor here. Not even married to one. So my views on this issue are probably already compromised to some extent. And undoubtedly naive. Deep down, I know what the answer is. Cuz they're in it for the money - just more corporate vultures looking to exploit the large available pool of gullible and/or desperate consumers with health challenges. But that's my mental go-to, every time I see one of those commercials.