If constantly being told about blurry vision, hives, nausea and diarrhea, blood disorders, suicidal thoughts, cancer, and even death are enough to make you want to throw your TV out the window, you’re not alone!
Unbelievably, only America and the island nation of New Zealand allow DTC (direct-to-consumer) ads for Rx drugs to air on TV. And Big Pharma is taking advantage of having our attention to the tune of the $5.6 billion – yes, with a “B” – that it spends in a single year to sell us its wares.
And despite the fact that the American Medical Association voted in favor of banning DTC advertising three years ago, this constant annoyance in our own homes doesn’t appear to be ending any time soon.
But maybe now we’ll have more ammunition on our side to fight the corporate drug-pushing scheme – because according to a new study, these DTC drug ads aren’t just annoying: Many are misleading and brazenly in violation of FDA rules.
But don’t count on the feds to lift a finger to make Big Pharma toe the line. There is, however, something we can all do to put a lid on these interruptions, ones that could literally end up making us sicker than we were before.
As seen on TV
Name the condition… and there’s probably a commercial for it playing on some station right now.
The worst one of all time was the ad featuring that creepy green Lunesta butterfly that fluttered into people’s bedrooms and hovered over them like Count Dracula.
Yikes, that was enough to make me keep my windows closed at night!
Recently, researchers at Yale University had the stomach to review nearly 100 drug commercials in order to find out how closely they complied with FDA regulations and if there was a “fair balance” of risks and benefits.
In the end, the big takeaway was short and sweet: These ads are “doing more harm than good.”
Big Pharma, of course, is sticking to its story. By airing them, its reps will say, it’s providing some kind of generous public service – letting patients know all about the latest meds for their conditions.
Well, thanks for nothing!
As the Yale team discovered after carefully analyzing so many of these ads, the drug companies are giving us information that is “unreliable and potentially misleading.”
Take that Lunesta commercial, for example.
The bizarre imagery of that luminescent butterfly distracts us while the narrator tells us that “walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities” while still asleep “have been reported,” along with agitation and hallucinations.
Those would be bad enough, but it turns out that there’s a lot more to say about this drug than what you’ll hear in an ad, as the FDA only requires that the “major” risks be given in commercials.
Past research found that hypnotics (the technical name for these kinds of sleep-inducing meds) can make you three times more likely to die prematurely – whatever your age. That sounds pretty major to me!
And seniors who take them are twice as likely to take a fall and suffer a hip fracture… even during the course of the very next day!
Yet you won’t hear a peep about those risks from one of those commercials.
The Yale team also made note of how blatantly such ads break FDA rules by sneaking in off-label uses for these meds.
The ones for diabetes drugs, for instance, make a point of saying that they may help you lose weight or lower your blood pressure. Only drugmakers are not allowed to bait you with those claims, as these meds haven’t been approved for such uses by the FDA.
That should be a very big deal, but — like so many other abuses — these have been falling on the deaf ears of regulators.
Look, this isn’t like buying car insurance or breakfast cereal. Starting up on an Rx drug could be one of the most critical health decisions you’ll ever make.
The “Mad Men” who craft these commercials, however, don’t get paid the big bucks for nothing. They know exactly how to fill our heads with messages that sell.
And as the Yale researchers noted, what they’re doing is just “selling products.”
But the “products” that these ads are casually (often frivolously) trying to sell you involve making serious decisions – ones that your physician should be suggesting, not a cartoon wolf doctor!
So, here are three ideas for fighting back:
#1 Record your favorite shows on a DVR and fast-forward past all of this drug chatter.
#2 To really grasp the severity of the risks that come along with these drugs (the “major” ones!), close your eyes to the distracting scenery and happy people… listen to what’s being said. When you focus on that, you’ll find that it’s scarier than a Stephen King movie.
#3 Be sure that your remote has good batteries. Locate its mute button and make frequent use of it.
Remember, even though we might not be able to stop them, we can shut them up!
“TV commercials for prescription drugs ‘doing more harm than good’” David Lazarus, April 10, 2018, Los Angeles Times, latimes.com
