Yep. For some people they may reach a point in their life when they no longer want to constantly look like day four after a nasty motorcycle fall onto pavement and they are willing to take the risk. I reached that point. My joints don’t feel any better but at least my wife isn’t squigged out about touching me.
Chanitx may cause changes in mood. Well, yeah, stopping smoking in general might make one somewhat pissed off.
Hey, so I work in pharma advertising … you’ve got to understand the evolution of some of these things to understand how pointless they become.
(1) Start with a great idea, innovate, fun
(2) Watch the idea slowly get compromised over and over again as the medical, legal and promotional reviewers* discuss it and give feedback
(3) Re-submit the ad to the med-legal-promo review team and watch it get compromised more as they change their minds from what they told you 2 weeks ago
(4) Then that team insists that every benefit you claim has to be surrounded and balanced by safety information - ergo the giant list of side effects that were really only experienced by 2 people in the 1000±person clinical trial, but they have to mention them all anyway**
(4) Rinse and repeat a few more times
(5) Give up on creating anything special and throw the compromised piece of garbage ad up on TV or the site up on the web or whatever
Its how you end up with ads like the current Flonase “6 is greater than 1” nonsense. I can virtually guarantee that it started much better off in terms of telling you what the drug does - but probably their other taglines/claims were vetoed because they didn’t have complete, full and proper documentation on them. So, since “6 > 1” is a mathematical fact that’s hard to argue, that’s what they ended up with.
And then the safety information about side effects and “make sure to tell your doctor all the drugs you are taking” because the drug company doesn’t want to get sued.
I can tell you that pharma advertising and the rising cost of drugs has a pretty solid correlation, but let’s be honest. If the drug company can get away with charging $2000/month for something and then couldn’t advertise, they’d still charge that amount and pocket it. Capitalism! (Also I’d be out of a job and have to go find honest work…)
- medical - to make sure you’re medically correct
legal - to make sure you won’t the company sued
promotional - to make sure what’s being said is in line with the numerous FDA regs on what can be said
** there is actually a threshold for this, I’m not sure what it is
Looks like it should be pronounced Hyu-MY-ra to me. Other than that, I got nothing. Except that it’s shown way the hell too often, like every other commercial.
I believe it’s Verizon which has jumped on the bandwagon with 6 > 6. :rolleyes:
Oh, Samsung:
I asked my doctor. This thread’s not right for me.
You think that’s unique to pharma?
Well, I mini-pit you for getting “Love Shack” in my head! I’ve been singing it ever since I read this thread and my cat is giving me the “wtf?!” look.
Funkylittleshack… FUN-ky little shack!
This.
It’s a miracle drug as far as I am concerned. I was one of the guinea pigs in the initial human studies for Humira. I had rheumatoid arthritis BAD. Today I’m in remission because of Humira.
Pro-tip: Don’t boink on the stairs.
Medications are NOT limited to prescription medications. You need to include a complete list of any regular OTC treatments, vitamins and supplements.
A LOT of herbal supplements can interact with prescriptions in dangerous ways. Prescription blood thinners have interactions with a lot of common supplements, like CoQ10, cranberry, evening primrose oil and saw palmetto. Melatonin and ginseng can affect diabetes medications. And kava kava and St. John’s Wort can have dangerous interactions with a whole bunch of different medications.
Since Chantix has been mentioned. I HATE with the heat of a thousand burning nuns, the wording in the Chantix ads which say that their studies showed how many people “were quit” after taking their pill. It’s “HAD quit”, you morons!
If it were a freedom of speech issue, they wouldn’t be forced to have all those side effects listed, and the FDA wouldn’t be able to make non-medical stuff say “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
Which I don’t believe has to be on homeopathic “medication,” but that’s a different rant.
But I largely think that the advertizing is part of why they can charge that much. Everyone says advertizing doesn’t work on them, and it probably generally doesn’t. But it works well enough that companies make more money with it than without it, despite it costing money to have someone make those ads.
Did you tell your doctor about all the threads you are subscribed to?
I was in a meeting with three physicians today and had to pronounce that.
They always know when I’m stumped by pronunciation (and I’m pretty good for a non-physician), because I use the brand name.
My point is that the cost of the medication isn’t controlled by the fact it can be advertised on TV, the cost of the medication is more directly related to how much they can charge an insurance company before the insurance company stops paying. (Also, competitive pricing and other market forces). I’m sure “people clamoring for this in-demand drug that cures XYZ” plays a part too, but I’m thinking its not as big a factor.
Advertising does help the company then sell that many more pills( at the price determined by the market) and thus make even more money.
Amusing anecdote: I’ve been around for a few drug launches. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the marketing team is going for a many months designing ads, preparing pieces, writing up a “bible” of how to market this particular drug prior to the drug getting its formal brand name. See, the name also has to be blessed by the FDA, and usually a drug company submits their preferred option with a few alternates. All of these include a pronunciation guide. Why? Because the FDA doesn’t want the drug name ot look like, spell like or sound like another drug - brand name or generic (though sometimes I wonder…). That’s why Humira is pronounced the way it is, all the time, always.
None of that excuses the ads for boner drugs. What’s up with the outdoor claw-foot bathtubs? *Separate *bathtubs?
You’re an idiot.
In 1970, President Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act which **banned **cigarettes from being advertised on TV, something that the tobacco industry strenuously fought against and then lost. The very last cigarette commercial aired on January 1, 1971.
The couple and his boner can’t fit in one tub.