Big pharma cash cow: Ask your doctor why.

You are right stopnoise , health and education should never be for profit . The more the motive is for profit , the more the vulnerable will be shortchanged . And we are all vulnerable at one point or another in our lives . I had insurance . Car accident stopped me from moving . No work , no pay bills , no more insurance . Free vioxx samples . They will take your money for years , while you are healthy . When you need help , they throw you to the wolves . As alive pointed out , children are always exploited for profit , they , especially must be protected .

Pharmaceutical advertising direct to consumer should be banned like Cigarette commercials were banned.

That is what selling out your Health to Capitalism brings to you! We have sooo much corruption in this area that cost many people lives and abuse from the manipulation of profits from big pharma. My question is: -When the majority of people will wake up that we cannot sell out our Health or Education? This actual "US System on Health and Education it is a killer on the run!"

Three problems underly this almost uniquely American problem.

The first is that people assume that looking at some lunatic "advocacy" site equips them with the knowledge to say whether or not granny needs the 10 pills she takes every day [usually she will actually need several more, but there is a limit to how many she will comply with]. This is ludicrous, and spills over onto the the other two factors.

The second issue is the American obsession with consumerism as an activity in its own right, distinct from the simple process of getting a chair for the lounge or a new lightbulb for the kitchen. There is a preoccupation with buying things, and a concomitant desire to be sold things.

The last is psychological. Doctors have an ethical obligation to treat the patient in front of them. Usually, that means maintaining a long-term relationship if possible between the patient and an individual care team, or at the very least between the patient and the wider medical/healthcare profession. If Joe needs heart pills and doesn't really want to take them, keeping him onside by indulging his advertising-derived fear of restless legs may be the most effective strategy available to his care team.

A fourth factor that occurs to me now is the relentless drive seen in American culture to blame other people - note how fervently people lay the blame for overmedicalisation with "big pharma" and medics and the FDA and a hundred other bodies, when in fact it's their own doing.

This video was from 2004, I guess. These days they say SSRI's and other drugs should not be prescribed to children and "young adults", but it hasn't always been that way. I was a teenager living in an unstable and abusive environment. In the age of Prozac and Adderall and all the rest, doctors loved to diagnose MDD, ADD, ODD and so on. They also love to ignore what kids are saying and only listen to the parents. After all, its the parents who have the control and the insurance. I was put on nearly every kind of SSRI and it totally fucked with my brain. My "depression" was situational, and as soon as I was removed from that harmful environment, my depression went away. Unfortunately, I was still made to be a guinea pig for Big Pharma. That was years ago now, but I have never heard an apology from anyone, not even my fucking parents. I strongly believe commercials for any kind of prescription should be banned from TV, radio, internet, newspapers, and magazines. And people who were forced to take experimental drugs for non-existent disorders as minors should be compensated for damages.

Assuming you have a corpratized doctor...

As an RN I can see the good and bad of the situation. There will be doctors who are not good at diagnostics and miss anxiety, depression and other mental health issues for many reasons. I've seen first hand what a difference the correct medication can do for many a patient's life if utilized correctly.
On the other hand drug companies push their reps to push their drugs to cover costs of finding a med that works( thousands may be developed that never make it to market) yet the reps that are good at their jobs get doctors to hand out trials to patients to see how effective they are and then prescribe them and not another one that may be better for that patient.
I understand free samples are no longer the norm.
You, also, must understand that these free samples were how some doctors could help patients with no health care and drug coverage get treatment.

I removed this from Comedy.
JH

I see no difference in Big Pharma, Illegal Drugs, & Alcoholic Beverages. While Illegal drugs are not advertised on TV, drugs and alcohol are, and they are advertised in almost the same way,...as lifestyle pick-me-ups.
Ask yourself if you really know what chemicals are in drugs, how they effect your body(in a positive or negative way), and why you have the urge to take, or ask your doctor about any drug on the market?
effective advertising is essentially creating a need when there isn't one there.
in the early 1900's Post Cereal, was advertised as a cure all drug,...mainly for $ale$

I feel that this pharmaceutical commercials are really getting out of hand. They shouldn't be trying to encourage people to diagnose themselves. Pretty soon they will stop going to the doctor's all together? Then we will all be in some real trouble. They are disease mongoring, that's for sure, and they are going to harm more people than doing good. They are going to make hypocondriac's worse and more and more scared and frightened and sucidal? THEY BETTER STOP NOW!

I cannot open the video. However, my ex-wife was "rep" for one of the largest drug companies in the World. If you knew, what I know, you would lose all respect for most Doctors.

"Drug", interaction? I spent two days in Intensive Care in an Angola, Africa Hospital. as a result of interaction between blood pressure medicine and a gout prescribed medicine. The result was a dangerous drop in blood pressure that mimicked a heart attack. Take my word for this; unless you speak Portuguese, a Hospital in Angola is not a good option.

because our sole purpose in this 'land of the free' is to fuel the insatiate need of corporations and greedy CEOs for markets, markets and more markets. We are here to work and pay taxes, that in turn go to make wealthy executives in

Big Pharma
Petroleum
Defense Contracting
Banking....

and the rest of the usual suspects.

scaremongering!