jake

THE AMERICAN DRUG CARTEL
AND DOCTOR KNOWS BEST
By Chet Day


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Out of respect for my brain, other than the local and national news, I
don't watch much television.

But it dawned on me Monday evening when I eyeballed the CBS Nightly
News broadcast that the
pharmaceutical companies have in place an insidious advertising
campaign to influence the buying
habits of an already drugged-out nation that so blindly relies on the
often specious notion that
"Doctor knows best."

While you're reading, in the back of your mind think about how often
you've heard the phrase on
television commercials, "Ask your doctor" or "My doctor said..."

Note the implied authority in these simple words, two phrases that
empower the
medical/pharmaceutical industry and weaken self-reliance and
self-responsibility.

If memory serves, not too much more than a half dozen months ago, most
national news casts were
sponsored by advertisements for fast food or candy. Right on the heels
of these ads, we'd usually
see a spot or two for Tums or Rolaids or some other indigestion or
heartburn product.

This junk food/over-the-counter-remedy advertisement pattern has both
amused and appalled me since
1993 when I first started noticing it because the pattern so
dramatically reflected the cause and
effect model of health and disease I write about.


But this past Monday when I watched the news, I realized the old
pattern of health-related
commercials had changed, and that the large pharmaceutical companies,
what I call the American Drug
Cartel, now advertised their powerful prescription drugs more
convincingly and more efficiently than
other companies used to advertise over-the-counter remedies. Do you
know what I'm saying?

Think about Viagra for a moment.

I submit the success story of advertising Viagra has opened the
floodgates for this new technique of
pharmaceutical sales propaganda.

I don't know about you, but when I see Bob Dole pitching Viagra for
his erectile dysfunction or ED,
as he calls it, I want to not only put my foot in his mouth to get him
to stop embarrassing himself,
but I also want to put it through the television screen to protest
what the drug companies are
trying to do to viewers.

Seeing a former senator of some distinction prostituting himself to
peddle a drug with multiple side
effects is pretty much enough to gag a maggot, but it gets worse, in
my opinion, when, ten minutes
later, the Dole ad is usually followed by yet another ED ad. In this
one, we see several handsome
but impotent guys who suffer erectile dysfunction. Or they at least
HAD suffered erective
dysfunction.

If we are to believe this particular ad, which I've seen as many as
four times in thirty minutes,
once they started popping Viagra, the men could... well, let's just
say they could once again use
the marital bed for more than sleeping.

Oddly enough, though, in this ad, these couples are standing up,
smiling at each other, either in
the kitchen or out on a dock or in the backyard. And, in the weirdest
scene, a good- looking gal
sits on the lap of her man, who is confined to a wheelchair. They
smile at each other like they'd
just taken Regis for a million dollars. Then she crosses her legs and
they smile as if the IRS had
told them "No more taxes for life."

I don't know about you, but I find these Viagra depictions of life and
normal relations between men
and women downright creepy.

I mean, seriously, between the music and the happy smiles and the
slick filming techniques, you'd
think these men and women in the commercials hadn't had sex since
Custer made his last stand at the
Little Big Horn.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm no prude, but in real life, even at wild college parties back in
the 60's I've never seen anyone
look as pleased about the idea of a potential roll in the hay as the
folks we see in those Viagra
spots.

Well, as you can see, I think the Viagra ads are unrealistic, stupid,
and insulting to both men and
women, but I find downright dangerous and disturbing newer commercials
for newer drugs, commercials
using the same techniques as the ones Viagra has pioneered and used to
sell billions of dollars
worth of the world's most popular ED drug.

For example, the most recent advertisement I saw on Monday during the
national news was for a
mood-altering drug.

This spot started off showing the viewer a sad-looking woman before
segueing into a list of symptoms
that she, and no doubt most of the rest of us probably have in modern
America a lot of the time:
lack of restful sleep, occasional unhappiness, worrying about the
future, and so on.

The solution to these serious symptoms, according to this ad?

"Talk to your doctor and see if Drug X isn't right for you."

Now, when you realize this ad wants to sell you a powerful,
mind-altering drug available only by
prescription from a doctor, you may well join me on the high horse of
outrage about how the American
Drug Cartel now plans to sell even more of their dangerous and
expensive wares.

I would imagine many responsible physicians also find this approach
offensive since the ad is
essentially telling the patient to tell the doctor what he/she wants
in a prescription.

Imagine the conversation, "Oh, Doctor, I don't think daily exercise
and cutting back my stress will
help my depression. I really think I need Drug X. In fact, that's what
I want." And what's the poor
doc to do? When many patients are shelling out $75 or more bucks per
office visit these days, I can
see a lot of doctors writing out the Drug X prescription rather than
trying to convince the patient
to take a more sensible approach.

Better living through chemistry at Lord knows how many dollars per
pill.

Seriously, I think the American Drug Cartel has hit on a real winner
with this current approach to
selling drugs. Soon they'll not only be leading the ill of America
around with a collar on their
neck, but they'll have the doctors on the same leash.

If you think doctors aren't influenced by the drug companies, you need
to do some homework, believe
me.

From reading "Heart Failure: Diary of a Third Year Medical Student"
(http://chetday.com/medbook.ZIP), I learned that many members of the
medical profession apparently
spend as much time in bed with drug salesmen as they do with their
wives.

And now the pharmaceutical companies are not only influencing the
doctors in this country to
prescribe and sell more and more drugs, but in their endless greed
they are also going to use
television to convince an already drugged-stupid nation to
consume even more of their expensive poisons.

Have you ever _really listened_ to some of these modern drug
commercials?

Professionally made and psychologically manipulative, they are
powerful and convincing.

You can bet an aspirin to a pop of Prozac that the American Drug
Cartel wouldn't be spending big
time bucks to advertise on Dan Rather's nightly news if their ads
weren't pulling in millions of
dollars in new sales.

So at this point, we have the American Drug Cartel using the American
media to convince the American
people to get America's physicians to prescribe more and more new
drugs.

Then, to add insult to injury, we have President Clinton releasing his
latest budget, and it's
apparently full of proposals on how we can spend even more tax dollars
to buy more drugs for more
people.

Since so many politicians spend more than a few nights each year in
bed with the American Drug
Cartel, you can be sure some of these proposals will find their way
into law, and more of our tax
dollars will wind up in the wallets of the drugs pushers and those who
own stock in their
conglomerates.

I don't know about you, but I think this aspect of our so- called
"health care system" stinks like
week-old fish on an asphalt basketball court in Dallas in July.

We have a bamboozled and ignorant public that believes drugs will cure
their health problems.

We have a medical education system that beats the idealism and
humanity out of men and women who
initially go to medical school so they can help people.

We have a pharmaceutical system that uses free lunches and weekend
"seminar trips" to popular
tourist spots to essentially bribe physicians to prescribe drugs that
even the AMA admits are
killing hundreds of thousands every year.

We have a government that spends more on drug welfare to fund
"research" into new drugs than it has
ever spent on welfare to feed children and to provide care for the
mentally ill.

And now we have the American Drug Cartel using the American media to
convince the average person to
tell his/her doctor to prescribe even more drugs for what ails them.

I think fish on hot asphalt smells better than this system.

I think it's past time for each of us do what we can to educate a
friend or relative to the fact
that we can take charge of our own health and that we don't need
strong drugs advertised on
television to be healthy.

I think it's time to stop the American Drug Cartel in its tracks.

We can do it too if we stop buying their poisons and their lies.


an excellent article..
Thank you for posting it