Comments on: Medicalization and Everything That's Wrong With America

By: STEEL

STEEL — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 04:30:24 +0000

Imagine the health care cost savings if we could get rid of the ridiculous drug advertisements. One thing though its not just the big drug lobby that would fight this. TV media would most certainly throw down the gauntlet just as hard. It seems like at least 1/3 of the adds on TV are for drugs. That would be a huge cash flow loss to them.

By: Larry Castellani

Larry Castellani — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:08:41 +0000

The pharmaceutical corps and their advertisers are selling you more than a disease and a drug to cure it; they are selling the consciousness that believes it needs drugs to be healthy and that sees many differences and variations as likely abnormalities or sicknesses. …. We can only argue that it’s the consumers’ responsibility to buy this sales pitch if we had a population of consumers who were sufficiently educated and psychologically healthy to be able to distance themselves objectively and critically from the onslaught of brainwashing on TV, in the schools, by the doctors themselves and by a culture which is basically unhealthy if not essentially pathological. That is, the people have to already be responsible and that is being conditioned out of them.

By: Brian Castner

Brian Castner — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:15:36 +0000

I have to admit, I thought RLS was bullshit when I was diagnosed with it during a sleep study. Then I had my knee reconstructed, and woke up every 5 minutes in shooting pain because my legs twitch all night. Who knew?

That being said, I agree with your overall assessment. The hijacking of useful drugs for profit to the masses is annoying. I would feel better about it if drug companies spent as much on research as they do on advertising.

But embrace your inner right-wing Stossel – its good for you. Before you know it, you’ll be for personal responsibility and against government fixing all your problems.

By: Mike In WNY

Mike In WNY — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:34:21 +0000

I thought restless leg syndrome is what Jack Kemp and other NFL quarterbacks suffered from – aka happy feet.

I understand your disgust with some of the drug advertising, but isn’t it the responsibility of consumers to know what they are buying? Caveat emptor, n’est pas?

By: Ethan Cox

Ethan Cox — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:01:59 +0000

On the plus side, Soupy’s pimpin’ for hyperhydrosis did provide some entertainment in the local medicalization market for a season or so.

I should add that besides all the “ask your doc” crap, there’s also the even more destructive side of this, which is kids. ADHD… Autistic Spectrum disorder… and it doesn’t end with faux-psychiatric diagnoses; they wanted to put my 2-year old on Prevacid! (as though perhaps some common sense and diet changes might not suffice to reduce his reflux, the diagnosis of which itself seemed a bit sketchy to me). But what parent doesn’t want the best for their kid? It’s easy to peddle fear to parents.

Americans want a pill for everything, including happiness, but decriminalize pot? Oh No!

By: Chris Smith

Chris Smith — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:14:33 +0000

I’m sure that the millions of people who are prescribed these drugs are undoubtedly advocates for them. Why wouldn’t they be? So you think that someone who has convinced themselves that they have RLS would all of a sudden tell you that they think the drug was pointless? Wouldn’t that imply that they don’t really have a made up “disorder”? It’s probably just a coincidence that almost every study about RLS has been funded by the pharmaceutical company which has a patent on the drug to treat it.

Also, the lash drug was originally intended for glaucoma treatment until the company found that a side effect of the drug was eyelash growth, which kicked the marketing department into high gear so they could maximize profits through direct to consumer advertising with an eyelash disorder.

Of course, the pharmaceutical companies, who spend nearly twice on promotion than they do on R&D and have been accused of ghost writing journal articles, bribing doctors with straight cash, trips and other benefits as well as incentive programs rewarding doctors who frequently prescribe their medications. There is an entire industry dedicated to making you think you have an illness or disorder which can be treated if you talk to your Dcotor about the prescription for it.

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050001

Damn, I feel like John Stossel all of a sudden…it’s not a good feeling.

By: Labgrrl

Labgrrl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:05:51 +0000

At the risk of sounding like a jerk who is playing devil’s advocate, this drug (previously called Lumigan) was a great thing for several cancer patients I’ve met through my work at RPCI.

Not having eyelashes sucks big time. Ever get something caught in your eye? Now imagine it 10 times a day…. yeah. not a small problem.

The problem is not the medicalization of these things, but the marketing of them as cosmetic panaceas… hell, the marketing of them at all. It degrades people with an actual real condition, making them the same as people who want a drug from stupid cosmetic reasons.

And in this, I speak from experience, having had an insurance company deny me botox once for a tremor because botox was “cosmetic.”

The chicka I met who hadn’t slept more than two consecutive hours in years and was saved by a restless leg drug, and the other who went back to work after 3 years on disability after being prescribed a drug now used for Fibromyalgia are enough to convince me that these drugs work for actual real conditions, but the marketing of them is designed to ensnare people who no real doctor would ever recommend them to… because if a drug isn’t being sold to at least 1% of the populace, it isn’t making the company money…

So half of what we do in pharma is find stupid money making uses for drugs being used for other crap… So the glaucoma drop that gave Mary full eyelashes after chemo becomes the latest cosmetic crap treatment…

It doesn’t make poor Mary’s experience less traumatic…

But, heck yeah, if you’ve stopped sleeping because your legs are doing the rhumba in the night, or you almost go blind because you’re always getting crap in your eyes, by all means talk to your fricking doctor. But don’t diagnose yourself based on TV.