Published on Saturday, October 7, 2000 in the Philadelphia Inquirer
Today, your kid's more likely to be using Ritalin than marijuana. There's a good chance Bob Dole turned your father on to Viagra. Olympic athletes are being disqualified for using cold medicine. And the presidential candidate who figures out how best to help grandma pay for her prescription drugs may win November's election.
And we better hope one of them figures out a permanent solution because by the time we boomers are seniors, we'll be doing more drugs than anyone could have imagined back in the 1960s.
That's because the drug companies are advertising new drugs with a vengeance. The pharmaceutical industry is expected to spend $2 billion this year on advertising, according to the American Medical News, most of it on television. That's up from $300 million in 1997. Thirty years after we banned cigarette advertising on television, we are being bombarded with an equally insidious message: namely, that for every problem, there is an easy painless solution.
Most of these commercials appear simple and straightforward, complete with FDA-approved disclaimers. Some masquerade as educational public service announcements. But they're part of a sophisticated marketing strategy based on the idea that with enough frequency, specific drugs can win what marketers call "share of mind." Which is the goal of every brand of soda and tennis shoe. Each company wants to be the one you reach for first.
Last year, thanks to millions of dollars of TV advertising, Viagra grabbed share of mind for a problem called "trouble in bed." It bumped out other competing solutions: talk therapy, a second honeymoon, more exercise. For some, it was truly a miracle drug; for many others, it was a crutch.
Drug companies are reframing many of the shortcomings in the human condition as problems and providing the solution. Are you shy? That's not part of your personality. No, we've discovered that shyness is really a problem called Social Anxiety Disorder, and it can be treated with the drug Paxil, which is also marketed as an antidepressant. Old solutions such as taking a public speaking class or avoiding stupid parties you don't want to go to anyway will quickly lose share of mind to Paxil. In this loud, brash culture of ours, shyness just can't be tolerated, which is too bad because shyness and social anxiety help keep us civilized by promoting modesty and politeness.
But I digress. Hey, I wonder whether there's a drug for that yet - Digressex or something. Why not?
There's a new drug to treat PMS called Serafem that, according to its Web site, helps you be "more like the woman you are." Only Serafem isn't new - it's Prozac repackaged in a pink and lavender capsule. It promises to relieve the physical and emotional symptoms of PMS, which in a small minority of women can be quite severe.
The problem is, TV advertising isn't seen only by that small minority of women who might benefit from Serafem. It's seen by everyone. And so we can assume once Serafem wins share of mind for irritability and mood swings, millions of women will be asking their doctors about it. And to keep patients happy and in some cases simply to keep patients, many doctors will prescribe it. By bypassing doctors, drug companies can create a demand that is geometrically larger than the need.
That may be good marketing, but it's not good ethics.
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