Drug ads are making me ill

How many times have you plopped down on the couch to watch the news, only to be assaulted by a avalanche of drug advertisements? AntiAgita, OvertheAche, YouthinaPill… the drug companies seem to be taking over prime time. Last night, I counted eight commercials that mentioned side effects during one half hour news program. Forget the cure, all these drug ads are giving me a headache.

While we have the right to change the channel when someone tells us to ‘ask our doctor’ about a new medicine, these commercials are costing viewers much more than TV time. You may want to sit down now if you are one of the thousands of Americans who are forced to choose between medicine and meals. According to the Christian Science Monitor, “In 1991, drug companies spent $51 million on advertising. By 2000, it topped $2.3 billion.” HeathDay News recently reported that, “Pharmaceutical companies now spend an estimated $4 billion a year promoting products on TV, radio, in print, and on the Internet.”

The cost of these ads has to be absorbed somewhere. Let me take a wild guess as to where the cash is coming from…yep, our pockets. The drug companies should not be peddling their products on prime time. America can barely afford outrageous drug prices. Drug costs are so high that many American’s are even heading over the border to Canada to get what they need to stay alive.

If a drug company has an effective product, doctors are the only folks who need to be sold on it. When I lived up north and went to a country doctor, I recall at least half-a- dozen times when well-dressed, drug sales representatives arrived with cases of samples and big toothy grins. Friendly, attractive drug reps are encouraging doctors all over the nation to prescribe their treatments by handing out information packets and samples. This takes up a doctor’s time, but does allow some under–insured patients to take home much-needed samples.

I know some folks who work in the pharmaceutical industry; one is a scientist and the other a lawyer. They are each making well over $160,000 (plus bonuses) a year for their services. They are hard working, highly educated employees. They deserve to be fairly compensated. But if the drug companies are paying thousands of lawyers and scientists on staff at that rate, how can they keep drug prices at a reasonable level? Simply put…they can’t.

Prime-time ads are a waste of money, theirs and ours. They are also an insult to the citizens of our great, under-insured nation. Shame on the pharmaceutical giants! The next time a new drug dances or sings across your television screen, grab the remote. The less we watch the channels that profit from drug ads, the fewer ads there will be.

Now somebody please get me an aspirin.