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Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies Greg Critser See book keywords and concepts

And why not DTC drug ads? Borow-Johnson argued. "Times have changed," she recalls telling her boss. "Why would you limit the ability to give information to patients? When my mother had me, she had only Dr. Spock. When I had my baby I had a hundred videos and books. Why wouldn't you allow this?" Richard Corlin, then the vice speaker of the AMA, was convinced that DTC was now a fait accompli — "the train was leaving the station," he later recalled — and he commissioned an AMA committee to look into the matter of ending the association's 1984 blanket ban on DTC ads.

Drug companies discredit negative studies and blacklist honest researchers Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

But common sense has not prevailed: the industry pressured the FDA to legalize direct-to-consumer advertising in 1998, and since that time drug ads have polluted the airways and the world of print publications, and prescriptions for those advertised drugs have risen considerably as a direct result of the advertising. The drug companies know this: Advertising works. Thus, they continue to run those ads and they continue to focus on the promotion of pharmaceuticals for profit rather than education about chemical agents that should be used with caution, and only in specific circumstances.

Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels See book keywords and concepts

Because rather than good science, it is the roar of the promotional machine, from the detailers to the television drug ads, that influences what a lot of doctors prescribe to their patients. After a brief burst of publicity when the study was first published in JAMA in late 2002, the dust soon settled, and it became clear that marketing would again trump science. At least that's what Curt Furberg, one of the study's key researchers, believes.

Prime-time television news bulletins are dominated by drug ads.5 Increasingly, however, these commercials are not just selling drugs, but also the diseases that go with them. The shopping cart ad for PMDD is part of a new form of TV advertising, designed to introduce millions of people to previously unheard-of conditions. While the advertising claims made about the benefits and risks of medicines are regulated by law—albeit very loosely—claims about diseases remain a virtual free-for-all. The U.S.

Gunpoint medicine: Why conventional medicine must use intimidation to control patients (opinion) Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Most people are easily fooled into conventional treatments by drug ads, junk science and disease mongering. But for the rest, there's always Gunpoint Medicine. Coming soon: Pharmaceutical ammo What's next for conventional medicine? It's not enough to demand the mass medication of the public by dripping toxic fluoride into public water supplies. Why not mass-medicate the entire population with pharmaceutical-tipped ammo? Prozac-coated bullets would make cops' jobs much easier: After you shoot patients, they actually feel better and are far less likely to sue!

Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies Greg Critser See book keywords and concepts

In 1981, Joe Davis was a senior advertising executive at the esteemed Ogilvy Agency in New York, overseeing a broad line of over-the-counter drug ads for Bristol-Myers and Ciba-Geigy. Davis had always been a bookish fellow, inclined toward tomes that, as he put it, "stretched my mind." One recently published polemic, Medical Nemesis, blew his mind. Nemesis was not exactly a New York Times bestseller, but its author, a former Catholic priest named Ivan Illich, managed to get his ideas out to a lot of influential people. He was a product of the times.

The statement registered in establishment realms, a further worry to pharma, when, in 1978, a number of influential medical journals began to consider banning prescription drug ads in their pages. As Steve Conafay, then a lobbyist for Pfizer, recalls, "There was definitely the feeling that the industry was under attack and that something big had to be done." Donald Rumsfeld, then the CEO of G. D. Searle, Inc.

At the FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC), a small and traditionally underfunded unit dedicated to making sure that drug ads to physicians were accurate and balanced, evidence of the trend was clear. On September 6,1994, for example, DDMAC obtained compelling evidence that sales representatives of SmithKline, makers of Paxil, were handing out unapproved, homemade promotional materials containing false and misleading claims. One of the items was a handwritten note, on Paxil stationery, left with physicians. "Dr. [X]. Hello!," it said.

More Natural Cures Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products That Cure Disease Kevin Trudeau See book keywords and concepts

The FDA has stated that the drug ads are false and misleading. The FDA has stated that millions of consumers were ripped off and lied to and bought products under false pretenses. The drug companies have made hundreds of millions of dollars by selling products under false and misleading pretenses and flagrantly breaking the law. Yet, the Federal Trade Commission takes absolutely no action against the drug companies. There is no penalty. This is the outrage. This is why you cannot trust the FDA or the FTC to protect you.

The ad quickly goes on to state all the negative side effects, including heart disease, stroke, blood in the urine, seizure, and death. The drug ads are so ridiculous they would be laughable. The bad news is the only people laughing are the drug company executives, all the way to the bank. These ads have been produced using brainwashing techniques developed by the CIA and KGB. These ads work; they get people to buy more drugs. It's sad, but true. I should know, I helped develop some of them! (More on how I did this later.

Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele See book keywords and concepts

A study by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and Davis, involving 329 randomly selected Sacramento residents, found that half of the respondents wrongly believed that drug ads are pre-approved by the FDA, and 43 percent wrongly believed that only "completely safe" drugs can be advertised. Prescription drug ads—few of them screened for accuracy—are as prevalent as commercials for toothpaste and laundry detergent. Turn on the television set any time and you will see a drug commercial. Begin with one of the morning shows, Good Morning America, and Pfizer's Lipitor.

Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels See book keywords and concepts

Allina boasts an extraordinary collection of drug ads including Hutton's Parade appearance that come in very handy whenever she speaks publicly about the way menopause has been sold, and is still being sold to women. "We use the ads to show how drug companies expand the market for HRT," she says. "They all promote the idea that there is something wrong with women's bodies, there's something wrong with getting older, and these drugs are going to fix you." "This wasn't a change, it was a catastrophe," says a middle-aged woman in one ad from a medical magazine of the 1970s.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived Dr. Timothy Scott See book keywords and concepts

False Claims The FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC) is responsible for keeping drug ads from making false claims. Now that the ads go out to anyone who watches television, it is more important than ever to monitor advertisements. But it is hard to regulate an industry that knows it can increase revenues by tens or even hundreds of millions with one dishonest but effective ad.

FDA accused of suppressing drug safety information (commentary) Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

Did you notice that they're 50 percent drug ads? There's hardly any news in the news magazines at all. The news that you find is highly censored and edited. Much of the bad news about drugs is suppressed. Have you looked around your local community lately? Did you notice how many pharmacies are being constructed? There's a drug store on every corner, it seems. Even grocery stores are building pharmacies like mad. Everyone wants to get in the drug business all of a sudden. It's like we have a country of drug pushers, drug runners, drug retailers, drug manufacturers and drug apologizers.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived Dr. Timothy Scott See book keywords and concepts

I have investigated a number of these ads recently and found that the research behind most of the mind drug ads I checked was just as phony. Even when studies are conducted by non-employees and published in the best medical journals, the financial ties between the authors of studies and the drug companies are so great that the studies consistently fail to use research designs that would be utilized by those who were unbiased and objective. One example of the ties that commonly exist brought a much discussed editorial from Dr.

Proof" #3: PET Scans PET (positron emission photography) scan photographs which show a difference in the brains of the depressed and the non-depressed or the schizophrenic and a healthy person are found in every psychology textbook, in nearly all the brochures on antidepressants or antipsychotics left by the drug reps in doctor's offices, in psychotropic drug ads in magazines, and in the literature of all the organizations that promote a drug approach to solving mental or behavioral problems. These colorful scans seem so scientific that they are convincing.

Hey, medheads! Here's the new language of the medication population (satire) Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

United States, of course, where consumers are subjected to a never-ending barrage of ridiculous drug ads showing happy, healthy people popping purple pills they would never consume in real life. Of all industrialized nations in the world, only the U.S. (with the ever-caring support of the Food and Drug Administration) endorses drug madvertising.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived Dr. Timothy Scott See book keywords and concepts

The American Journal of Psychiatry, the official journal of the American Psychiatric Association, will typically have over 50 pages(!) of drug ads before the articles begin. As you might suspect, they refuse to require authors who own stock in the drug companies whose drugs they research and write about to disclose these or any other financial ties. No specialty has more financial conflicts of interest than does psychiatry. Allowing this system to continue as is is unconscionable.

The lawlessness of the FDA, Big Pharma immunity, and crimes against humanity (opinion) Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

The rampant disease mongering, the mass drugging of schoolchildren with amphetamines, the false claims of drug ads, the bribery of doctors, the collusion at the FDA... it's all coming to the surface now, and by the time this house of cards comes tumbling down, the resulting criminal trials against drug company executives and FDA officials will make the Enron trials sound like a high school debate.

The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers Katharine Greider See book keywords and concepts

But in a Kaiser Family Foundation study, nine out of ten respondents shown three televised drug ads couldn't remember where to get this additional information. Respondents who were shown the drug ads (which included mention of major side effects) judged the side effects to be more serious than those who hadn't seen the ads, but just after viewing the ad, only about half could identify the side effects. As in all advertising, the main event isn't the discursive information the ads deliver directly, but the suggestive fantasies buried in their music and pictures.

Natural Health Solutions Mike Adams See book keywords and concepts

These billions of dollars are spent on advertising because drug ads work. False claims of benefits and positive imagery of healthy-looking actors (who do not even take the drugs being advertised) convince consumers to ask for drugs by name at their doctors' offices, even when they have no idea what health conditions the drugs are supposed to treat. As reported in the April 27, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, an experiment was conducted to determine the actual impact of drug advertising on the drug prescribing behavior of doctors.

America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived Dr. Timothy Scott See book keywords and concepts

Why do even the leading medical journals accept these drug ads (nearly all the ads are for drugs)? An editorial in the British Medical Journal gave a blunt but honest answer to that question: "The stark reality is that without pharmaceutical sponsorship many journals would not survive."53 Put the experimental research on mere-exposure effect with the reality that research and non-research medical journals are filled with drug company ads,54 and we are forced to conclude that there is a daily, unconscious growth in appreciation for drugs among physicians.

Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele See book keywords and concepts

THE TV AD BLITZ Hard as it may be to believe, amid the current barrage of drug ads, advertising of prescription drugs to consumers is a fairly recent development. In the first half of the twentieth century, doctors wrote out on a prescription pad the various ingredients to treat a cold, fever, infection, or some other condition. A neighborhood pharmacist would then compound, or combine, all the substances to create the medication. Compounding declined through the 1930s and 1940s as manufacturing of specific medicines increased.

Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About Kevin Trudeau See book keywords and concepts

The average eighteen year old will be exposed to over 50,000 drug ads. • Ads trying to convince people of adult attention deficit disorder are being called false and misleading, and nothing more than a marketing ploy by the drug company to convince people they need to buy their drugs. It is obviously working as the sales of these drugs skyrocket. 11. Still not convinced that horror stories in relation to the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry don't exist? Then consider this: • An infant, Alexander Horwin, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer and underwent two surgeries.

The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers Katharine Greider See book keywords and concepts

Other drug ads come off as public-service announcements: Bob Dole wants to talk to you about erectile dysfunction. These "helpseeking" ads mention a condition and may flash the company name, but won't name the drug (Viagra) you'll get when you follow the ad's exhortation to see your doctor. Indeed, to browse the archives of FDA notices of violation to drug companies for misleading ads is to get a sense of how utterly at a loss the agency is to address the various ways expert image makers get across their "claims.

Respondents who were shown the drug ads (which included mention of major side effects) judged the side effects to be more serious than those who hadn't seen the ads, but just after viewing the ad, only about half could identify the side effects. As in all advertising, the main event isn't the discursive information the ads deliver directly, but the suggestive fantasies buried in their music and pictures. "The Nexium ads are so phenomenal that I'd like to take the drug and I don't even have the problem," says Gerstein.

Other drug ads trade on the cachet of various famous people—baseball legend Cal Ripken Jr., pitching a blood-pressure drug, figure skater Dorothy Hamill praising arthritis medicine, journalist Joan Lunden flogging an allergy med. Med Ad News recently reported on a team-up between pharmaceutical-marketing firm Catalyst Communications and a sports-marketing company founded by a former New York Yankees VP. Catalyst's chief stated, "We chose Perello & Company because it understands the divergent worlds of pharmaceuticals and sports." So much for the square in the white coat.

Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele See book keywords and concepts

A study by Consumer Reports showed that in 2002 "the number of regulatory letters [the FDA] sent manufacturers about false or misleading drug ads has dropped precipitously, from more than one hundred per year in the late 1990s to just twenty-four as of November 2002.

Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About Kevin Trudeau See book keywords and concepts

The ads look eerily similar to drug ads. The packaging of the products makes them appear to be drugs. But in this instance, they are not drugs at all. They are natural products being manufactured and sold by the pharmaceutical industry at outrageous prices, because it's the pharmaceutical industry, these ads are allowed to run. If a small, independent company were running the same ad, the FTG would come in and charge them with false and misleading advertising and making unsubstantiated health claims.

These drug ads have been deemed, in many cases, to be misleading and false, yet the FTG has taken absolutely no action against any pharmaceutical company for producing these false and misleading ads even though these ads are encouraging people under false premises to use these dangerous and ineffective drugs. Most notable is the fact that every single ad is accepted by the publication. There has never been a drug ad rejected by a television or radio station, newspaper, or magazine.

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