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Danny |
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Sing: “How You Gonna Keep ’Em Down On The Pharm, After They’ve Seen TV?” A recent item in The New York Times by Milt Freudenheim states that the pharmaceutical industry now spends $2.6 BILLION on TV and magazine advertising to promote new drugs that “only your doctor can prescribe”. That’s a lot of pills. In most cases these new meds are variations of existing drugs whose patent protection has expired or is about to. Rather than allow your doctor to suggest a less expensive generic alternative- -aspirin is aspirin- -the brand doesn’t matter- -the pharmaceutical behemoths are bombarding the airwaves with ads for stuff you don’t need, but that would make a fat profit for them.
“Ask your doctor. Be sure and tell him what other medications you’re taking.” Right. He’s my freakin’ doctor- -he’d better know what other medications I’m taking. These ads clutter up the evening newscasts on all networks and many cable shows aimed at aging boomers and downright geezers- -or is that aging boozers and downright beemers. Whatever, they pound away at you to ask your doctor for stuff they can only sell with a prescription. No generics. And if it wasn’t having a successful effect, they would probably step up the process and hammer away more. So if you have ganglions the size of radishes growing out of your arm, you’re going to see one of these ads and run to the doctor for the latest cure- -provided the doctor is allowed to prescribe the latest cure. Some states- -twenty-two in all so far- -are now limiting a patient’s access to these newer high-cost drugs if these patients are among that state’s poorer citizens who get their meds from Medicare. For example, two of the most widely advertised drugs are Nexium for acid reflux and Celebrex for arthritis pain. There are no generics for these yet and they are on the list of the most frequently excluded drugs. So if you see an ad for one of these, and many others, and you go for a prescription and you’re on Medicare, forget it. Lie there and ache. Take a Tums and an aspirin. But here’s an interesting fact reported also in The
New York Times in a piece by Richard Pérez-Peña on the
Medicaid discussion now going on in Congress.
The majority of patients who go to the doctor for one of these
high-priced meds they’ve seen advertised are happy to accept the
cheaper, and usually just as effective, generics when told their program
doesn’t cover the high-priced meds.
And the greatest part of this is it annoys the stuffing out of
the big pharmaceutical companies who are trying to sell their
high-priced gel-cap snake oils. They
are paying lobbyists big bucks to fight this. Of course, doctors can go through a
barricade of red tape and get “prior approval” for some of these
meds, but usually it’s too time consuming.
I suppose it might only be worth it if another new disease crops
up- -and you know it will- -and you need the latest fix. “Really. How do you know?” “I have a wicked craving for bananas and the urge to climb trees. What can I take?” “How about a South American vacation?” One of the greatest pieces of silliness associated with the ads the drug companies run on TV are the disclaimers. I mean, here you are being sold “Uncle Willie’s Cure-All and Horse-Liniment” in its latest incarnation, but the law says they now have to tell you all the side effects. Who would take some of this stuff? “Some people experience side effects such as nausea, night sweats, dry mouth, drooling, anal leakage, hangnail, atrial fibrillations, constipation, diarrhea, incontinence, boils, festering lesions, sexual dysfunction, increased or decreased urination, hypertension, heart attack, shortness of breath or stroke. Ask your doctor if Damitol is right for you.” The culture of greed which surrounds today’s
pharmaceutical conglomerates is no
different than the medicine show histrionics of one hundred years ago. “Just two dollars a bottle. This amazing tonic is able to grow hair and cure dandruff, heal insect bites, corns, bunions and string warts, and relieve you of the contents of your wallet. It’s just that now there is an entire company division devoted to giving these products catchy high-tech names. Prilosec. Mevacor. Xopenex. Lipitor (that one always sounds like a Jurassic carnivore- -Sixty-five million years ago The Giant Lipitor roamed the earth). Some say the companies need the money for research and some of that is obviously true. But they also need the big bucks to throw at lobbyists and to treat their own sales staffs. Makes you sick to your stomach enough to take something. Hmm..what would that be? A whole Donnasec? Oh, hold on a sec. I have to go lie down.
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