Should Pharmaceutical Ads be Banned from TV?
Written by Ann Pietrangelo on July 28th, 2009 in Doctors, Health Care Policy, In The News, Linked Articles, Medications.
“If you think you may have (disease of choice), ask your doctor about (latest pill).” Rather than advise that you seek diagnosis and consider all treatment options, you are directed to request a particular prescription. Sometimes it’s every day folks urging us on, sometimes it’s a celebrity endorsement — none so surprising as Brooke Shields telling us about the pill that will give us longer, fuller lashes. Seriously.
Pharmaceutical companies are playing into every fear and every illness, real and imagined, as never before. Why market only to doctors when you can reach the patient — the consumer — directly. The number of pharmaceutical ads in prime time television has risen so dramatically that they are all but impossible to ignore. Whatever ails you, there’s a pill to make you feel better.
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/755991
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