From this article
Is there any reason why I see such a prevalence of “ask your doctor about ‘so and so’” commercials in the US while I don’t see them anywhere else I have been to? Is there any advantage to pitching these drugs to the general public? What is the general consensus among doctors in the US about this state of affairs?
I add some more but I have to go take a pill for my Itchy Nostril Syndrome.
I use a spray pump, works much better, you should ask your doctor about it.
Not that I put much past the pharmaceutical companies in terms of ethical behavior, but what if it’s the exact opposite? IMHO, there are quite a few people in this country who go to the doctor for anything, including boredom. They complain about whatever ache or pain that’s manifested itself, and want treatment. If enough people begin coming to doctors with “Tingle Ear”, what’s to stop a drug company from marketing a compound that blocks feeling to the ears, and calling it a treatment for the completely made up, but not by them, condition of Tingle Ear? Once word gets around, more level headed folks realize that there is no such thing as Tingle Ear, so why is there a drug for it? Well the companies must be inventing new conditions for people to suffer from! Again, not that I put it past the pharmaceutical companies to do it, but there’s the chance of it happening the other way around.
Link doesn’t work. But I agree that there are way too many people on drugs these days, for problems that could be helped much better–and much more cheaply–through non-pharmaceutical means. Just to use the example in the post, sexual dysfunction in women is almost always the result of psychological factors and can be more easily dealt with through getting in touch with one’s own body, a loving partner, or in extreme cases sex-centered therapy. But instead, they’re going to mess around with women’s hormones (AFAIK most of the drug treatment for SD in women deal with testosterone boosters), leading to possible fertility problems, inappropriate masculinization, and even cancer.
Likewise, symptoms (not diseases) like high blood pressure and heartburn can be dealt with by a simple change in diet and lifestyle. It makes me sick to see all these people going about their unhealthy lifestyles, then slapping a pill on top to make it all better. You see it all the time, even on these very boards. Even if they could make a medicine that has no side effects, why not just change your lifestyle? Personally, I think a lot of people are just lazy. They don’t want to take control of their bodies, they want someone else to do it for them. And they all want to think their doctor is “doing something” about their health, which in most cases means giving them a pill. They’d raise a ruckus if the doctor let them go with a list of heart-healthy foods and the number for a gym.
I think it is both the result of aggressive marketing and a growing hypochondria on Westerners’ part. The two things complement one another. And don’t forget the role doctors play–they get fat kickbacks from drug companies that they don’t when they prescribe their patients vegetables or a healthy round of mutual masturbation.
They’re not allowed anywhere else! In Canada drug companies can advertise a product, but not say what it’s for, or advertise a medical issue but not mention their prescription product.
Not that it’s really relevant to this thread, but Cite? Not there this isn’t true for some, but “almost always”?
I thought we were beyond such pseudo-Freudian blame the patient nonsense and understanding that libidos come in all flavors and sizes and there’s a huge range of “normal”?
Male pattern baldness is not a “disease,” but there’s still a market for Rogaine and Minoxidil.
If you’re a physicalist, then there’s no essential difference between using drugs or psychological/traditional means to modulate biology. Both effect physical changes. There’s a general aversion to using drugs, since it conflicts with the folk metaphysic of free will and a mind-body dichotomy, developed before the advent of modern biology.
Onto the general topic, diseases are being invented, but not out of whole cloth. What’s happened is that modern science, with its vantage point of epidemiology and quantified metrics, has codified attributes of human being into schemas, and declared behavior at the fringes to be pathologies. Hence, although most kids have short attention spans, a minority with more severe and persistent cases, are diagnosed as ADHD. Although everyone can be saddened at times, those with relatively severe and persistent cases, are ‘depressed’.
Halfway down the page. I wasn’t “blaming the patient,” if anything it is the partner (if there is one) who is to blame, not to mention the patriarchial structure that tells women to feel shame about their bodies and that sex is for babymaking. And of course, libidos come in all types but if a woman is upset at the size of her libido then she should try to alter it. And there are much better ways to do that than a pill (for most).
Tom Cruise? Is that you?
I agree with the op 100% on this one. I mean, really, Restless Leg Syndrom? A pill to kill to fungus? I saw an ad last night for a dry eye cure! A dry eye? Im sure having dry eyes is not fun…it just seems overkill to me.
Reminded me of the “ask your doctor” parody in a Firefly thread a few days back
Huh? I didn’t even mention psych meds in my post, though I do think lots of people take them that don’t need them just like heart/SD/fungus pills.
I would just like to see more doctors treat lifestyle problems first (whether a poor diet, lack of exercise, or exposure to Scientology) and see chemical measures as a last resort.
First, a couple of really big caveats: I don’t know advertising laws in other countries, and I don’t know profit margins on drugs in other countries, so take this as speculative.
Perhaps one reason is that other countries regulate the prices that drug companies can charge for their products, unlike in the US, so that new drugs in the US typically have very high profit margins, and these advertisements therefore make more economic sense here than elsewhere.
Restless Leg is the one that I thought of, though dry eye is just as bad. The nail fungus thing, though, is nothing new. A friend of mine had it for years, nothing seemed to work until he went with a pill based cure. It’s serious stuff, he had to take blood tests all the time, but it cleared up the problem.
I never even heard of restless leg, and the commercials are looking for people to self diagnose. “Do you have THIS or THAT? Then you have RLS and should see your doctor about our highly profitable medicine.” If your patients need you to instruct them on the existance of the problem, you’re inventing the disease.
This drives me especially crazy, because my mom’s had RLS since the mid-eighties before anyone else knew what RLS WAS, and now there’s a decent chance it’s turning into a pop disease.
I guess I could say that I have “restless leg” in that occassionally, my legs bother me when I’m trying to sleep, and I keep kicking out and can’t relax.
However, I found a sure fire way to deal with it-dab a little Ben Gay type ointment on the backs of my knees.
It was my weak attempt at humor davenportavenger, which it seems was weaker than even I had imagined it would be!
I don’t know the link works for me. How about this URL: BBC NEWS | Health | Drug firms 'inventing diseases'
I don’t know our local laws on advertising drugs to the public either. I *have *seen adverts for weight loss pills (Xenical for example), but have not seen anywhere near as many as I see in any US Network. And by the way, we Dominicans are infamous for auto-medicating ourselves.
Another thing that bugs me is all these painkillers adverts that makes it look like everybody is in debilitating pain. I hate pain, I fear pain, but on more than one ocassion I have not taken painkillers that have been prescribed to me after some medical procedures. I didn’t hat to suffer any pain, the painkillers were not necessary (but nice to have there just in case). That leads me to think that because of the patients’ expectations doctor fall on the cautious side and maybe are “over-prescribing” painkillers.
Actually, the aversion to drugs is because in most cases (though not all) the drug treats the symptoms while ignoring the underlying problem. As mentioned above, high blood pressure is usually caused by poor eating habits (ie, too much salt). It’s much better for the patient if they alter their eating habits, but it’s much easier to just pop a pill. Another example is yeast infections in women, which are usually caused by poor hygene habits. Even cigarrettes can be included in this category. I know many people who started smoking because it supresses your appetite, making it easier to lose weight. Obviously, it would be much, much better if they excercized more and ate less, but that’s harder than sticking a cigarette into your mouth and inhaling.
There are some cases where drugs really are the best solution, but quite often drugs are basically a lazy person’s solution.
To cite two examples mentioned earlier (high cholesterol and high blood pressure) - lifestyle factors may indeed be important. This does not mean that an obese person with dangerously elevated blood pressure can be sent home with advice to diet and exercise. Similarly, if “bad” cholesterol is up in the danger zone, lifestyle modification may need to be paired with drug therapy.
I am a pathologist, not in clinical practice, so I don’t get all these fabulous kickbacks with which you seem to be familiar, but far more pervasive than any such awards is the demand by patients in general to be prescribed drugs, only partially driven by TV ads.
Some of the conditions for which drug therapy is promoted sound a bit fishy to me (do we really need to be on medication for “social anxiety”, for example?), but in other cases drugs have been developed for problems that there were no good answers for previously. One could always wear Depends and forget about that pill for overactive bladder, but in the right setting medication can provide major lifestyle benefits (as soon as this thread is picked up by Google, there’s a chance that the restless leg sufferers will descend en masse to kick your butts, so to speak ;))
This would be a good line to insert in the very next Fat People thread in the Pit. :eek: