The Big Con: Prescription Drug Advertising in the US

Prescription drug advertising is big business. Really big. So much so that the pharmacy industry currently spends over $4 billion a year to push the sales directly to the consuming public.

And this investment works well too.

Slick marketing vignettes that accentuate the attractiveness of their products, while effectively downplaying any negatives (like debilitating conditions, diseases, or death caused by use of the product). People head to their doctors to get prescriptions for these “must have” products that are so well advertised.

These guys are good.

Are We Healthier Because of Prescription Drug Advertising?

Remarkably not.

Despite the pharmaceutical industry contention that a better educated consumer who buys their products will be healthier because of receiving treatment for their symptoms. However, people in the US continue to suffer and die from chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes at alarming rates. While wholly preventable through lifestyle changes, the symptoms of these conditions are the focus of many of drug therapies. (The patient stays alive long enough to buy a considerable amount of product.)

There is much more profit to be made off a symptomatic population than a healthy one. THAT is the motivation for the drug industry. Money.

The message to the public is that any kind of illness is normal because the industry has a treatments for the symptoms. And if your medications produce side effects, there are other medications that you can buy to treat these side effects. The reasoning becomes increasingly circular.

The resulting buying behaviors now affect the overall healthcare (in this case, a term I use ironically) industry by driving costs up for the same consumers who have bought into the fanciful world painted by the pharmaceutical companies.

Pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare industry garner greater profits while larger and larger portions of wage earners’ salaries go to supporting those profits. With the advent of so-called Obama care, these household expenditures have now become government mandated.

Life is good for the healthcare corporations.

We may however be reaching a breaking point in this profit equation. Just a few months ago, the American Medical Association (AMA) initiated a call to ban the television ads so vigorously put forth by Big Pharma. The reasoning: costs to the consumers. Patients are increasingly becoming unable to afford the high profit medications. At the same time, the selective advertising promotes certain expensive drugs exclusively when lower cost alternative medication are available to the consumer. Patient care is losing out.

A Healthy Alternative

As with any sales pitch, it is up to us, the consumers, to acknowledge or ignore the advertising. Being educated and invested in our own Health is our job, not that of pharmaceutical or health insurance companies. As a form of treatment, pharmaceuticals have their place in the overall healthcare spectrum but they do not represent the only and best option each time.

Be smart. Embrace your responsibility to yourself and your family by making intelligent lifestyle choices.

• Eat nutritious food
• Drink plenty of water
• Get your body moving with exercise
• Give your body the rest it needs
• Feed your mind as well as your body
• Find enjoyment in Life and share it with others

The solution is as simple. Appreciate what is important to you and your family, not what is important to some corporate industry. You are responsible for your Health and happiness, so enjoy!

 

Greed, envy, sloth, pride and gluttony: these are not vices anymore. No, these are marketing tools. Lust is our way of life. Envy is just a nudge towards another sale. Even in our relationships we consume each other, each of us looking for what we can get out of the other. Our appetites are often satisfied at the expense of those around us. In a dog-eat-dog world we lose part of our humanity.
― Jon Foreman