It's time for a new ban on television advertising.

[Ray9]

It’s time for another ban on television advertising. In 1970 Richard Nixon signed legislation officially banning cigarette advertising on television and radio. Everyone knew that greed was the primary motivation of the tobacco industry and the health risks related to the use of their products were great but warnings had been displayed on the products packaging since 1966 and were well into the process of being routinely ignored. Just being informed of side effects was not enough to dissuade the public from using the product and the broad magnitude of television advertising was attracting generations of citizens to take up the addicting habit. Now there is a sinister new health threat emanating from the screen-direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.


When we turn on our television sets today we are confronted with an onslaught of prescription drug ads aimed directly at the general public pre-empting and marginalizing the experience and advice of trained clinicians. And these medical ads are cleverly produced telling little stories with homespun humor or emotional intrigue. It’s 21st century Madison Avenue and it’s extremely rewarding to the profit margins of company shareholders.


The tobacco companies knew the power of television and the pharmaceutical giants learned from it. But the Tobacco industry leaders were at a decided disadvantage in their relationship with the medical community. In the 1960’s physicians were beginning to herald a connection to smoking and preventable disease and cigarette manufacturers were seen as wolves at the door of public health. Large pharmaceutical prescription drug cartels have a publicly perceived attachment to medicine so they have the ability to cloak themselves in a kind of medical respectability and in doing so can purchase the advantage of being wolves in sheep’s clothing which they began doing as far back as the mid 80’s. Their largest obstacle was that they were required by law to sell their wares to doctors not directly to patients-a kind of last line of defense.


The power and wealth of the drug industry dwarfs anything the tobacco companies could ever match and in 1992 the American Medical Association inexplicably dropped its opposition to direct-to-consumer advertising. Many wonder who in the AMA thought this was a good idea but it’s amazing what an army of lawyers and bribed politicians can accomplish. Sadly today the DNA-altering and immune system destroying chemicals being hawked on television rival many of the toxins cooked up in Chernobyl and just as with tobacco the warnings and side effects are routinely dismissed. The steady, subliminal and repeated nature of television drug advertising is indoctrinating an entire class of medical Manchurian Candidates predictably marching into doctors’ offices demanding the largely untested snake oil that’s been peddled on their screens.


The only two countries on the planet that allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising are the US and New Zealand and for good reason. The practice is little more than biological experimentation on human beings by effectively bypassing the middlemen who are the doctors and other health professionals whose primary motivation is their patient’s health not their money. Of course all the ads have the usual disclaimer that says: “ask your doctor” but after all that advertising patients are more likely not to take “no” for an answer and just go doctor shopping until they get the new, improved miracle drug.


Taking tobacco advertising off television was a good thing and today only about twenty percent of the American population lights up. Some older Americans remember cigarette machines in hospital lobbies, ash trays in emergency rooms and doctors with their feet up on their desk puffing on a Chesterfield. We didn’t know any better then when greedy industries were selling us things that were bad for us but today we do-or at least we should. People should be up in arms over all this dangerous drug advertising on television and they should demand that the drug industry be held to the same standard as tobacco companies.

 

[SYTFE]

YES. A thousand times yes.

 

[Montrovant]

It’s time for another ban on television advertising. In 1970 Richard Nixon signed legislation officially banning cigarette advertising on television and radio. Everyone knew that greed was the primary motivation of the tobacco industry and the health risks related to the use of their products were great but warnings had been displayed on the products packaging since 1966 and were well into the process of being routinely ignored. Just being informed of side effects was not enough to dissuade the public from using the product and the broad magnitude of television advertising was attracting generations of citizens to take up the addicting habit. Now there is a sinister new health threat emanating from the screen-direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.


When we turn on our television sets today we are confronted with an onslaught of prescription drug ads aimed directly at the general public pre-empting and marginalizing the experience and advice of trained clinicians. And these medical ads are cleverly produced telling little stories with homespun humor or emotional intrigue. It’s 21st century Madison Avenue and it’s extremely rewarding to the profit margins of company shareholders.


The tobacco companies knew the power of television and the pharmaceutical giants learned from it. But the Tobacco industry leaders were at a decided disadvantage in their relationship with the medical community. In the 1960’s physicians were beginning to herald a connection to smoking and preventable disease and cigarette manufacturers were seen as wolves at the door of public health. Large pharmaceutical prescription drug cartels have a publicly perceived attachment to medicine so they have the ability to cloak themselves in a kind of medical respectability and in doing so can purchase the advantage of being wolves in sheep’s clothing which they began doing as far back as the mid 80’s. Their largest obstacle was that they were required by law to sell their wares to doctors not directly to patients-a kind of last line of defense.


The power and wealth of the drug industry dwarfs anything the tobacco companies could ever match and in 1992 the American Medical Association inexplicably dropped its opposition to direct-to-consumer advertising. Many wonder who in the AMA thought this was a good idea but it’s amazing what an army of lawyers and bribed politicians can accomplish. Sadly today the DNA-altering and immune system destroying chemicals being hawked on television rival many of the toxins cooked up in Chernobyl and just as with tobacco the warnings and side effects are routinely dismissed. The steady, subliminal and repeated nature of television drug advertising is indoctrinating an entire class of medical Manchurian Candidates predictably marching into doctors’ offices demanding the largely untested snake oil that’s been peddled on their screens.


The only two countries on the planet that allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising are the US and New Zealand and for good reason. The practice is little more than biological experimentation on human beings by effectively bypassing the middlemen who are the doctors and other health professionals whose primary motivation is their patient’s health not their money. Of course all the ads have the usual disclaimer that says: “ask your doctor” but after all that advertising patients are more likely not to take “no” for an answer and just go doctor shopping until they get the new, improved miracle drug.


Taking tobacco advertising off television was a good thing and today only about twenty percent of the American population lights up. Some older Americans remember cigarette machines in hospital lobbies, ash trays in emergency rooms and doctors with their feet up on their desk puffing on a Chesterfield. We didn’t know any better then when greedy industries were selling us things that were bad for us but today we do-or at least we should. People should be up in arms over all this dangerous drug advertising on television and they should demand that the drug industry be held to the same standard as tobacco companies.

I think your analogy fails because you are talking about prescription drugs, not over-the-counter. While I find the prescription drug ads pretty ridiculous, you do still need a doctor to prescribe them. The problem you are describing seems to be one not of advertising, but of people being able to go from doctor to doctor until they find one willing to prescribe a medication they do not need.

 

[Fenton Lum]

I got divorced from television ages ago. So I don't feel any need to moan on endlessly about it. I just did something.

 

[Ray9]

The doctors were a filter and a good one. Doctors are on the front lines and they what the effects of these drugs are on patients. People are not guinea pigs.

 

[Ray9]

I had to do a rewrite on this:


By the time US doctors get through medical school they already have their work cut out for them because Americans are among the sickest people in the developed world. In the United States an aging population is now coming to grips with the fact that decades of tobacco use, alcohol and drug abuse, poor diet and lack of exercise has produced an epidemic outcome of diabetes, COPD, heart disease and a host of indigenous cancers many of which are preventable by screening, lifestyle and diet changes. Today’s physicians are not only swamped with patients due to a doctor shortage but they are now faced with an industry that is making billions by mining the desperation and suffering of the public for no other purpose other than to enrich itself. Corporate drug cartels otherwise known as Big Pharma have been flooding television with advertising to the extent that they now dominate commercial air time.


In 1970 Richard Nixon signed legislation banning cigarette advertising on television and radio. By the 1970’s tobacco commercials had become so ubiquitous on the tube that doctors across the country began ringing alarm bells that these ads were like a siren song for new smokers and warnings on the packaging had been routinely ignored since 1966. Prior to 1992 the American Medical Association opposed direct-to-consumer drug advertising because they pre-empt and dilute the advice of personal physicians who are the first line of defense for their patients. In 1992 apparently influenced by a requirement by the FDA that DTC ads inform the public of possible negative side effects, the AMA caved to pressure from pharmaceutical company lawyers. Apparently the doctors forgot about the lesson they learned about tobacco advertising.


In 2015 the AMA once again voted to oppose these ads but two decades of damage has already been done and today direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising has reached a television saturation point that equals or exceeds tobacco advertising in its heyday during the 1960’s. And some of the products are far more dangerous than tobacco because the pharmaceutical industry is essentially using American consumers as guinea pigs for their next big money-making breakthroughs. The chemical make- up and molecular structure of the ingredients in some of these high tech potions can compromise the human immune system, block essential nutrients, destroy liver function and introduce lethal mutations into DNA. A consumer could easily duplicate the effect of these dangerous, last-resort drugs by moving to a retirement community in Chernobyl.


The drugs are cleverly pushed by the same Madison Avenue screen advertising that was designed to make cigarette smoking appealing to the public and they are a huge money maker for the pharmaceutical industry. While no one, including doctors or patients, is arguing against pharmaceutical research, serious concerns are being raised about the motives behind all this advertising. We all owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to researchers like Alexander Fleming (penicillin) and Jonas Salk (polio vaccine) but these dedicated individuals were driven to improve the human condition not by corporate profits.


There are only two countries in the world that allow DTC prescription drug advertising, the US and New Zealand-and for good reason. It subverts the intent of the “do-no-harm” aspect of the Hippocratic Oath by bypassing the doctor as a first advisor in personal health matters. Busy doctors are now confronted with increasing numbers of medical Manchurian candidates demanding snake oil that’s been peddled to them on their TV sets and if the doctor says no some are likely to go doctor shopping until they get it. These ads very coyly turn doctors into parents and patients into nagging children.


Sick people are incredibly profitable and the history of ethical medicine and drug companies is a long and storied saga of experimentation and exploitation. Hippocrates is losing and PT Barnum is winning. The pharmaceutical giants disguise themselves as champions of consumer’s rights-something the cigarette manufacturers tried but failed at. It’s time for reasonable people to put the brakes on this travesty and lobby congress to put an end to something that makes healthcare prohibitively expensive. These television ads are just playing us for suckers.

 

[Ray9]

People who don't live in the US probably have no idea what I'm talking about but if they could watch American television for just one day they would be appalled at the extent of this advertising. Drugs and compounds that can irreversibly change the way the body works are being sold like tires or refrigerators.