Those TV Drug Ads Distract Us From The Medical Care We Need
As I stood up to end our visit, Frank indicated he had one more question.
"You know those commercials for Cialis?" he asked. "Would that be all right for me to try?"
Here we go with the bathtubs again, I think to myself. Toned silver-hairs in side-by-side bathtubs on a deck somewhere looking out at the sunset.
Give me a break.
It's not always drugs for erectile dysfunction. I've been asked about TV spots hawking pharmaceuticals for nail fungus, depression, acid reflux, cholesterol and irritable bowels, just to name a few.
Two decades ago the Food and Drug on television. Prior to that, the only ads we saw for brand-name drugs were targeted directly at us doctors, the keepers of prescription pads, and placed in the medical journals we read and in the detailed handouts given to us by pharmaceutical reps.
