Life as a Spectator Sport

One of today's mailings from Truthout touches on something that has aggravated me for years. Every time I see a prescription drug being advertised on television, I wonder how many suggestible people will see it and immediately think of some symptom that seems to match the advertising. Off to the phone they'll go to call the doctor, and bingo--another customer for Merck, or GlaxoSmithKline or whoever happens to be selling the drug. Ian Sample, science correspondent for The Guardian, calls the drug companies on this:

You are lying on the sofa after a hard day at work and should be relaxing. But you are overcome by an insatiable urge to kick your legs about. As you struggle to control yourself, your kids run riot in the room. And to cap it all, your sex life is rubbish.

Just an everyday scene in many people's ordinary lives, or the combination of three newly identified medical conditions that can be treated at the pop of a pill?

The latter, according to some of the world's biggest, most profitable pharmaceutical companies, which have come up with a range of new drugs to treat "restless legs syndrome", attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children, and female sexual dysfunction. But according to reports published today, the truth is more complicated. Healthy people are being turned into patients by drug firms which publicise mental and sexual problems and promote little-known conditions only then to reveal the medicines they say will treat them.

Few people think Viagra and its ilk were anything but huge cash cows for the pharmaceutical corporations that created them. But that level of disillusionment doesn't always transfer to the scores of other widely advertised drugs. Sometimes the conditions are common ones--allergies, asthma, mood swings, lack of energy. Others are things most people never heard of before, so rare that the percentage of sufferers is in the single digits.

In 11 papers in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine, experts from Britain, the US and elsewhere argue that new diseases are being defined by specialists who are often funded by the drug industry.

According to the researchers, the campaigns boost drug sales by medicalising aspects of normal life such as sexuality, portray mild problems such as irritability in children as serious illnesses and suggest that rare health conditions, such as the urge to move ones' legs, are common.

"Disease mongering exploits the deepest atavistic fears of suffering and death," said Iona Heath, a general practitioner at the Caversham Practice in London who contributed to the journal. She added: "It is in the interests of pharmaceutical companies to extend the range of the abnormal so that the market for treatments is proportionately enlarged."

Phizer, the manufacturer of Viagra, replied that Pfizer "only promotes prescription medicines to healthcare professionals and only in line with its licensed indications. Pfizer does not promote any of its prescription medicines to the general public and does not recommend, or promote the use of Viagra, outside of its licensed indications."

That may be true in the UK, where this article was published. It is, of course, emphatically not true in the US, where prescription drugs are routinely marketed to the general population through every available segment of the media.

The article concludes with a list of maladies currently being hawked by the drug companies (this is from commercials in the UK, not necessarily what is being advertised at the moment in the US):

Erectile dysfunction
Pfizer asserts that more than half of all men over 40 have difficulties getting or maintaining an erection, a figure contested by many studies.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Prescriptions for ADHD drugs escalated during the 1990s following the organised penetration of the education system by the pharmaceutical industry. Teachers may be most likely to report signs of behavioural disorders.

Female sexual dysfunction (FSD)
Publicised as the female equivalent of erectile dysfunction, FSD has been plagued by vague definition. In the British Medical Journal, John Bancroft, director of the prestigious Kinsey Institute, called it "preconceived" and "non-evidence based".

Bipolar disorder
Selling bipolar disorder has become "the latest mania" according to David Healy at Bangor University in Wales. Awareness campaigns have encouraged people to "mood watch".

Restless legs syndrome
A campaign launched by GlaxoSmithKline in 2003 raised RLS as a "common yet unrecognised disorder". In 2005, the company was granted approval to use its drug, Ropinirole, to treat the condition.

I lived for years with someone who had bipolar disorder, and I know first hand that mood swings are only one component of the disease. To suggest that the behavior of someone with bipolar disorder can be "fixed" by popping a couple of pills every day is an insult to both the patient and to the family members who have to deal with the behavior. What's more, I'm sure most of my kids would have been medicated for ADHD, if they hadn't all escaped from public school before the Ritalin craze began. They were hell on wheels as children. Strangely, though, they turned into perfectly normal, high-functioning, intelligent adults without ever once having popped a Ritalin tablet.

With the stranglehold that corporate America now has on the government and the media, it's likely to be a long time before we see the end of prescription drug marketing. So what new disease will suddenly come to light tomorrow, I wonder?

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RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email to liz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002