Drug Ads on Television

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The drugs they advertise will kill you. Or at least, it seems that way. Pharmaceutical advertisements probably don’t belong on television. Television presents problems that drug companies cannot overcome. Every commercial for a medication starts out with some attractive but average person that the audience can relate to, living a fuller and more beautiful life with the aid of a pharmaceutical. They are always in fields of flowers in flowing dresses, or baking cookies or simply hugging those they love because they can now - without the pain of arthritis or the embarrassment of an overactive bladder. The commercial goes well up to this point. But then it goes wrong. In the old days, drugs were something the doctor told you to take and briefly told you a little bit about. You would pick up your prescription and somewhere on the printout that goes with it, would be the fine print about side effects. Most people will ignore that. Drugs advertised in magazines also have that fine print, and few read it because it is small and boring and they didn’t bring their magnifying glasses. But on television, they can’t scroll that fine print by you, they have to announce the side effects. And since they want to emphasize the benefits of the medication, they don’t leave much time for this. So then, they have to hire an auctioneer to breathlessly read a long list of seemingly serious problems that could arise from the use of this medication in under 10 seconds. The fact that he has to read it so quickly makes the viewer uneasy. He’s rushing through it so we won’t realize this drug is a killer! When you get right down to it, the truth is that most of those side effects don’t occur in most users of the medication. But that doesn’t matter. They said it could cause liver dysfunction, that’s the only part the viewer hears. Then they have to wonder… would I rather deal with an overactive bladder or a non-functioning liver? After all, who wants a cure that is worse than the disease? After hearing the long list of possible serious and sometimes fatal side-effects, I wonder if anyone takes the advice to “ask your doctor about_______?" Would you?