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| Shmeng of the Week: Bitter Pills |
Posted by
Maranda on Saturday, November 17, 2001 - 02:04 PM PST
There is an evil lurking within our country. There is a conspiracy threatening to destroy the health and sanity of the American people. They have bases within our borders, and we, the American public, support them without reservation.
Their stronghold? Madison Avenue. Their new campaign? Prescriptions.
I'm not talking about the TV "patients" touting the glory of America's Pharmaceutical Companies. I don't even mean the warm-and-fuzzy grandparents with heart disease who urge you to Ask Your Doctor About Lipitor. It's worse than that.
Background
Seven years ago I was diagnosed with a rare medical condition that affects, among other things, my ability to sleep. For years I tried combinations of warm milk, regular bedtimes, melatonin, carbohydrates at bedtime, Zen meditation and relaxing baths. No luck. My insomnia escalated to where I could barely work.
My doctor suggested medication. No way, I said. No tranquilizers. I've seen those movies where the heroine starts with sleep aids and ends up robbing hospitals to get morphine. No thanks.
My doctor replied: No. Not tranquilizers, or antidepressants, or anything addictive. You have abnormal biochemistry. There's a drug out there with the side effect of altering certain biochemicals in ways that make most patients sick, but could be just what you need.
He wrote the prescription. I carried it around for a month before filling it. From the night I took the first pill, my life changed. My short-term memory is back. No muscle spasms and cottonmouth at 2 AM. The daily chills are gone. I can sleep. I can think. I can work. Hallelujia.
I've been taking a low dose of this stuff for two years and I've never felt better. I could be one of those patients raving about America's Pharmaceutical Companies. But I'm not.
The Evil Hits Home
Yesterday I went into the pharmacy for my fix. I also needed another prescription for something unrelated. The nice lady in the white coat hands me a bag. I look inside to verify that I got the right pills. (Once they gave me something that looked like Ritalin. That would have been Bad News.)
Inside the bag, stapled to the information about my prescription, arecomputer-generated ads for two different drugs.
Let that sink in for a moment: Enclosed with the medicines that my doctor has recommended for my condition are computer-generated flyers for DIFFERENT MEDICINES. Not generic equivalents of name-brand drugs. Not the mass-produced pamphlets about Lipitor or Prozac or Viagra or Prilosec that get shoved in everyone's bags. Information that was, supposedly, personalized for me. Urging me to Ask My Doctor about medications that could actually make my condition worse.
I nearly threw the flyers at the pharmacist.
This Matters Why?
Imagine, if you will, some poor uneducated patient who sees the doctor about depression, or heart disease, or ulcers, or HIV. The doctor recommends a treatment. The patient gets these slick flyers from the pharmacy and thinks: This looks like what I need. Maybe my doctor doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe he's a quack. Maybe they're all quacks. Maybe I'll die because the cancer drug I've been prescribed isn't the best, newest, flashiest thing on the market. Maybe I should go somewhere else and get this new thing.
More money for the drug companies. More confusion and grief for the patient. More time lost by treating the illness incorrectly.
I'm lucky. Years of managing my health have taught me what to avoid. I know if I took the drugs that flyer recommended, I could land in the hospital.
And I don't have AIDS, hepatitis, cancer, or any other disease where life or death can come down to the choice of drugs given. I can't even imagine how vulnerable such patients are. I don't lie awake at night between bouts of chemotherapy-induced nausea, debating whether I should have Asked My Doctor About Prescription X.
Back in ancient times, when I was in high school, one could avoid being the victim of an advertising attact by turning off the TV and radio and picking up a book instead of a magazine. It's different now. Books aren't even safe: the Bulgari Connection has seen to that. In the name of the Sacred Economy, ads for Yahoo.com are stamped on the Pepsi bottle I'm drinking from as I write this. Harry Potter is selling Coca-Cola. Public schools serve McDonalds hamburgers. Annoying? Yes. Of course.
But using an ignorant electronic database to second-guess the treatment regimens of seriously ill patients? Not annoying. Disgusting.
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| Bitter Pills | Login/Create an account | 6 Comments |
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Uhmmm.....
by Comedian (comedian@callatg.com)
on Nov 17, 2001 - 04:51 PM
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1. Did you read the flyers about the drugs, and di you ask your doctor about them next time you saw him?
2. The patient only gets the flyers by buyig a prescription, yes? Therefore: He cannot buy the other drugs unless he gets another prescription for them.
3. What if the second set of pills you bought that were for an unrelated issue are manufactured by the same company that placed that computer generated ad on your bag? It could be that most of the patients who take that prescription have a high percentage of returning at another point to pick up one of the other prescriptions?
There's a lot to consider. There's also the fact that you're letting yeaars of telivision overdramatization about "women who knock up pharmacies for their morpho fix" influence the way you live in harmful ways.
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Re: Bitter Pills
by Ironboots on Nov 17, 2001 - 05:13 PM
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http://ranger.vr9.com/Flash.html
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Comedian may be right, but there's nothing good about advertising to patients. There is no real reason to advertise to patients, because they are not smart enough to decide what is best. The patient has no idea how these medications work, how they interact with other drugs, and what it will do to you. The doctor does know this. He went to college for 8-12 years, and Madison Ave is insisting on patients making decisions.
It is like letting a kid eat whatever he wants. Without parental influence, he will eat the flashiest stuff. He will get sick.
It is the same with this situation. A person continually pushes for a damn drug just because its flashy. The doctor denies it, yet the person keeps pushing... It takes the power away from doctors to make decisions.
Think about antibiotics. They work against bacteria. They will not work against viruses. But continually doctors prescribe antibiotics to cold/flu patients because the patients push for it. The doctors tire of it and eventually give in.
There is no need to advertise to patients. Doctors know what medicines are out there and will prescribe them accordingly. We, the patients, do not need to know this information.
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Re: Bitter Pills
by NightSide (nightside@vampirefreeks.com)
on Nov 18, 2001 - 11:18 AM
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http://hcgothic.iwarp.com/
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YES... Though got to remember YOU are the one that HAS to be responcible for your OWN safty.... Even in this type of matter.... If we call on government to protect us it just gives them more ability to choke more freedom. A person MUST educate themselves and learn HOW to survive in this world or natural selection takes them. If we depend on the gov. to do it for us we lose all around.
Capitolisim is a tough system and it tries to eat everything, we must become smart enough to see what is real and what is just a pile of profit mongering crap. I feel that one must take the responcibility for thier life that includes learning what one needs to on ones medical problems... Me I am a diabertic been one since 15 and am 47, the quacks nearly did me in with the crap thay pushed on me, then I under took it to educate myself on the condition and found a MD I could work with and I have done great for years but it took taking managment of my condition over myself. Sad that is has to be that way but maybe it is part ov the evolution of man to a more intellegent level.... The trick is to not let that sort of adverts do what they are intended to, dumb down the mind, condition it to accept the computers/advertisers word as fact and go get that drug.... Maybe it is better that those in this world that are that gullable and easly led fall to natural selection.... I don't know but there is some logic in survival of the most fit....
Advertising of that nature is one of my big gripes too, it is just a further part of the big industries goal to make people so stupid and reliant on them and big-gov that they will swallow anything they are fed.... But on the outher hand if we go to the big-gov and beg them to legislate that sort of thing out, we have just fallen into the other side of the trap and again have chosen stupidity over self awareness and self determination.... Maybe I am jsut babbeling but I hope you see my point. I DO NOT agree with that sort of add tactic it SUCKS, but I do think that people HAVE to take the responcibillity of educating themselves and not depend on the powers that be to protect them.
If you give up freedom for safty you deserve and will have neither. Quote from T Jefferson...
Nightside
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