BBC: America is, I think, the only country in the world which permits advertising of drugs which are available only through your doctor. The insidious message is simple; if your doctor is not offering you this drug, maybe you should be asking for it.
Americans do accept advertising in areas where it does not tend to appear elsewhere. It is not uncommon here for a sports presenter to be required to break away from the main business in hand to draw your attention to the succulence of a sausage or the ruggedness of a truck.
Prescription drugs though are surely different. After all, the whole point of them is that it is not considered safe to let us simply buy them over the counter. They are so strong or so habit forming that it is up to the doctor to decide that we really need them. Advertising subtly changes that relationship by sending us in to see the doctor filled with nameless dreads about the symptoms of diseases we might have, and a detailed knowledge of the drugs that might help us…
Those adverts with their sure sense of how to play on our doubts and insecurities are a symptom of the restless energy of American capitalism and of the belief that it can apply to issues of health and happiness just as readily as it can apply to polish or pet food.
2008.06.15 at 12:06 am
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