Do You Understand Drug Commercials?

I can't tell you how excited I am to see this article on Cnn News:

Do Consumers Understand Drug Ads?

Every time I turn on the t.v., I see commercial after commercial telling me that I need a drug to handle everything I experience: from colds to arthritis to trouble socializing. Literally, there are commercials advertising for everything under the sun. It's incredibly disheartening.

According to this article, drug makers spend 5 BILLION a year directly marketing their drugs to YOU and YOUR families. Even more troubling is that it seems to be working. For every $1,000 the drug companies spend, 24 new presciptions are filled, that according to the House Commerce Committee.

"That's a feature common to most drug ads: they leave you confused about the information. The FDA states that DTC commercials must present a "fair balance" of the benefits and side effects of a drug, but it's obvious most don't. Drug ads are, not surprisingly, meant to sell products, not scare consumers off, so they're notorious for careening quickly through the obligatory list of the medication's risks."

I hope you realize this when you're watching your favorite show and these commercials come on. The drug companies don't want you to notice the possible dangerous side effects. They want you to focus on the magical qualites of their "wonder drugs". Ha! Read the article on Cnn.com/health to see all the psychology that goes into making drug commercials. They even have an example to show; a one-minute ad from Merck/Schering-Plough's cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin." They spend a lot of time and money figuring out how to distort the facts. Nice, right? Does that give you confidence in that new wonder drug you just got a prescription filled for?

Check out the article to see the "eye-opening data on several DTC drug ads" and how the stacked up. What you read may surprise you. It surprised me, and I've been studying this stuff for a few years.

Other people are noticing these insane drug ads. Check out this Saturday Night Live spoof of the drug "Annuale" meant to poke fun at a very real birth control pill, Seasonale.