How creepy is THIS?
Big Pharma uses ads
that sow hypochondria, raise health fears and sell diseases to adults and their
children. In fact, they often CREATE new names for normal "difficulties" and turn them into problems that need medical intervention. All images can be greatly enlarged.
By Martha Rosenberg
January 10, 2012
It's no secret that advertising works. Big Pharma wouldn't spend
over $4 billion a year on direct-to-consumer
advertising if it didn't mean massive profits.
What is more unknown is why drug ads that sow hypochondria,
raise health fears and "sell" diseases are often the most common--and
effective--even when the drugs themselves are of questionable safety.
The nation's fourth most frequent drug ads in 2009 for were
Cymbalta, making Eli Lilly $3.1 billion in one year, despite the
antidepressant's links to liver problems and suicide. Pfizer spent $157 million
advertising Lyrica for fibromyalgia in 2009, despite the seizure pill's links
to life-threatening allergic reactions. The same year, it spent
$107 million advertising the antidepressant Pristiq, even though it also had
links to liver problems.
So, how does Pharma dupe us into using unsafe drugs? Today's
drug ads, targeted directly to consumers since 1999, seem like they sell
diseases and often cast women, children, the elderly and mentally ill in a bad
light. But a quick look at ads before direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) in
medical journals shows that drug ads have always done so. It's just that
patients didn't used to see them.
Here are some of Pharma's most offensive ad campaigns, then and
now.
1. YOU'RE SICKER THAN YOU THINK
When psychiatric drugs first became popular for use in the
general population, in the late 1960s, everyday personality problems became
imbued with psychiatric labels. "Lady, your anxiety is showing (over a
coexisting depression)," says a 1970 ad, showing an older, wrinkly woman in a
bouffant wig with gigantic sunglasses and garish jewelry.
"On the visible level, this middle-aged patient dresses to
look too young, exhibits a tense, continuous smile and may have bitten nails or
overplucked eyebrows," says the ad copy. "What doesn't show as
clearly is the coexisting depression."
The ad, both sexist and ageist, suggests the woman needs the
antidepressant and tranquillizer Triavil.
Another ad from 1968 shows a bored, upper-middle-class couple
whose hauteur is also said to really be
depression. "Do you have patients who try to hide frustration behind
conformity?" says the ad for the antidepressant Aventyl HCl.
You'd think such demeaning ads would vanish with DTC advertising
because people would be offended. But You're Sicker-Than-You-Think ads are
alive and well since DTC advertising and even flowering.
A three-page consumer ad in the late 2000s similarly conveys
that everyday psychological traits could actually be dire mental problems that
require medication. If you are "talking too fast," "spending out
of control," "sleeping less," "flying off the handle"
and "buying things you don't need," you could be suffering from
bipolar disorder said the ads, which appeared in magazines like People. And here you thought it
was the coffee. Accompanying photos of a woman screaming into a phone and
contorting her face are so extreme they could come out of the movie Halloween Part II, if the woman
were holding a knife.
Psychiatric drugs are not just advertised for everyday personality
problems. Pharma is pushing them for everyday pain conditions. Eli Lilly's
original depression campaign for the antidepressant Cymbalta, "Depression
Hurts," seems to anticipate its subsequent approval for pain
conditions including back problems. Now ads tout Cymbalta as a "non-narcotic, once daily
analgesic FDA approved for three indications across four different chronic pain
conditions," as if it does not have severe controversial psychiatric risks including
the suicide of volunteers who tested it.
And seizure and epilepsy drugs, known for major allergic and
psychiatric reactions, are also becoming pain franchises. "What's causing
your chronic widespread muscle pain?" asks an ad for the seizure and
epilepsy drug Lyrica. "The answer may be overactive nerves," says the
ad, even though "widespread muscle pain" and "over-active
nerves," are not mentioned in the approved labeling for Lyrica, says
pharmaceutical reporter John Mack. The military spent $35 million on seizure and epilepsy
drugs in 2009 alone, including for migraines, headaches and pain.
ED: The so-called "rain" looks a lot like white phosphorus!
And speaking of overkill, ads for genetically engineered
injected drugs like Humira, approved to treat serious diseases like Crohn's
disease, psoriatic arthritis and chronic plaque psoriasis look like they are
designed to sell beer or beauty
treatments, not immune suppressing drugs that invite
cancers and lethal infections.
DTC ads don't just escalate everyday problems into psychiatric
problems, they also escalate real psychiatric problems into irresponsible,
sensationalistic stereotypes. Ads for the best-selling antipsychotic Risperdal,
widely used in children, and in soldiers with PTSD, suggest that people with
mental illness have hallucinatory fears about "boiling rain" and "dog women."
The "dog woman" ad, showing a half-dog, half-woman
crouched on her elbows, her eyes blackened, furthers the sensationalizing of
mental illness with the tagline, "Because relapses are a living
nightmare."
2. YOUR KID IS SICK
DTC ads don't just convince people they're in need of new drugs,
but also that their kids may be, too. And it's been going on for decades.
Long before Pharma convinced parents, teachers and clinicians
that millions of US kids had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),
kids were said to suffer from "minimal brain dysfunction" (MBD) and
"hyperkinesis," two conditions that were essentially the same as
ADHD. In fact, so many kids had MBD by 1976 that an ad for the drug Cylert hailed the
"Importance of single daily dose to the child, the parents and the
teacher," because kids wouldn't have to be singled out anymore at pill
time at school. (ADHD has been so huckstered, a YMCA ad spoofs it with the headline, "Before
video games, before Facebook, before Ritalin, there was basketball.")
Yet neither Cylert--whose approval the FDA withdrew in 2005
because of liver failure and deaths ~ or the current ADHD drugs are safe. In
2009, researchers reported that kids are more likely to die sudden deaths while taking them and
the American Heart Association recommends electrocardiograms (ECGs) before kids
take them. And yet, combined sales of ADHD drugs continue to grow from $4.05
billion to $7.42 billion in 2010.
Thirty years ago, it certainly looked like kids were being
overmedicated. They were given the antipsychotic Thorazine for their
"hyperactivity," "hostility," sleep problems and even for vomiting. Picky eaters and kids who wet the
bed were given tranquillizers. Kids with tics,
stuttering and school phobia were given the tranquillizer Miltown.
But today, ads promoting drugs for kids continue, and now they
are aimed at parents. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference between ads
for drugs or ads for sugary cereals! Pharma tells moms to give their kids the bubble gum-flavored ADHD med,
LiquADD and the grape-flavored ADHD med, Methylin. The latter campaign, to
parents, is "Give 'em the GRAPE!"
DTC advertising has also convinced parents their kids suffer
from GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) otherwise known as acid reflux
disease, which was barely a disease in adults much less kids, before consumer
advertising. "GERD Can Be a Big Problem for Little Kids," say award-winning ads for Prevacid, which won a "RX
Club" Silver award in 2004. In Europe, kids are treated for
another "adult disease" and given chewable Liptitor to
lower their cholesterol.
Some of Pharma's most aggressive advertising has been designed
to convince parents their children's minor sniffles or wheezing are imminent asthma and require
immediate and expensive drugs. To make the asthma drug Singulair (which also
comes in a yummy chewable), the seventh most popular drug in 2010, Merck inked partnerships with the
American Academy of Pediatrics and Scholastic, both of which parents consider
neutral organizations and not Pharma mouthpieces. Merck also partnered with
Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Peter Vanderkaay and NBA kid clubs to sell the asthma drug.
"A kid who's got what your kid's got is out doing what your
kid's not," says one Singulair ad campaign. "Find
out how you can help your child breathe a little easier."
If Singulair were not harmful, the huckstering would simply be a
case of wasting money and overmedicating kids. But Singulair has been linked to
both pediatric suicide and to
emotional, behavioral and ADHD-like symptoms in kids, the latter likely
inspiring parents to give their kids "the grape."
Of course, another kid-targeted campaign is for the vaccine
against the sexually transmitted Papillomavirus or HPV, immortalized by Gov.
Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann in hot exchanges this fall. Many object to
the sexualizing of 9-year-olds, to government lining Pharma's pockets by
promoting the vaccine (including overseas) and to the risks of the vaccines
themselves. But the ads for Gardasil and Cervarix are also offensive.
Last spring, poster-sized ads for Gardasil on Chicago's commuter
trains pretended to sell real estate in sought-after neighborhoods. A closer
look revealed descriptions of women in those neighborhoods who thought they didn't
need the HPV vaccine but did, positioning HPV not only as a general risk to the
population, like flu, rather than an STD but as "hip."
HPV vaccine ads got even cooler when GSK rolled out Cervarix extravaganza
TV ads and its "armed against cervical cancer"
campaign with an Angelina Jolie-like model displaying a skinny arm with a
Cervarix tattoo.
3. BE LIKE ME, AND CAN YOUR BEER DO THIS?
Prescription drugs may affect health, but they are still
consumer products sold with the same marketing principles as toothpaste or
beer. In fact, the wacky, "Can Your Beer Do This?" Miller Lite
campaign of the 1990s, came back to life to sell the antidepressant Wellbutrin
XR. In a glossy, color magazine ad, a young man rows his girlfriend on a scenic
lake and lists the benefits of his Wellbutrin XR. "Can your medicine do
all that?" he asks.
What does it say about the success of DTC advertising that
people are assumed to have an antidepressant?
Experiential ads also sell prescription drugs like vintage ads
for the "Kodak Moment," "Maalox Moment" and the old
cigarette ads for the "L&M Moment" did. "Lunesta Sleep. Have
You Tried it?" asks a 2007 ad in Parade
magazine, elevating the experience to something akin to "designer
sleep."
And just as celebrities move other consumer products, they have
been deployed to sell prescription drugs. TV personality Joan Lunden and former
baseball star Mike Piazza stumped for the allergy pill Claritin, ice skater
Dorothy Hamill and track star Bruce Jenner for the pain pill Vioxx, and Sen.
Bob Dole for Viagra. NASCAR figure Bobby Labonte also endorsed the
antidepressant Wellbutrin XL in 2004. Yes, his medicine could "do all
that."
But there has been a problem with celebrity drug endorsements,
unlike product endorsements in which a celebrity like Tiger Woods or Martha
Stewart could taint a product, a prescription drug can taint a celebrity!
Did Dorothy Hamill know that Vioxx doubled the risk of heart
attacks in users when she stumped for it?
Did the model Lauren Hutton know that hormone replacement
therapy causes a 26 percent higher incidence of breast cancer, a 29 percent increase in
heart attacks, a 41 percent increase in strokes, and a doubling of the rate of
blood clots when she shilled for it?
Does actress Sally Field know that bone drugs like Boniva are
linked to esophageal cancer, jaw bone death and the very fractures they are
supposed to prevent as she pushes
them?
Of course, good product marketing includes public relations.
When Pharma sells a disease with no mention of the drug it is really selling,
it's called "unbranded" advertising. Since DTC advertising, Pharma
has invaded public service announcements (PSAs) that TV and radio stations
confer for free, pretending their take-a-drug messages serve the public good,
like messages to change smoke detector batteries or put kids in car seats.
One such "educational" "awareness" campaign
called "Depression Is Real"
saturated the radio air waves in 2011, funded by the National Alliance on
Mental Illness, which was investigated by Congress for its Pharma funding from Wyeth,
part of Pfizer, and other groups. The high-budget ads, running for free,
compare depression to diabetes because it doesn't go away and to cancer because
it can be fatal.
4. ONE KIND OF AD YOU WON'T SEE ANYMORE
Animal research at drug companies and the National Institutes of
Health is a great scientific iceberg of which people only see a tip. In drug
development, millions of animals die to prove a drug's "safety." At
academic and medical centers, animal study grants from NIH provide millions to
researchers and labs.
As sentiment grows against animal experiments and the
government's gigantic National Primate Research Centers (new rules will limit
the use of chimpanzees), the research is downplayed and
even hidden. But there was a time when Pharma actually flaunted animal research.
"More than a decade of animal research on various animal
species has suggested that Librium (chlordiazepozxide HCI) exerts its principal
effects on certain key areas of the limbic system," says an ad from the
1970s, showing three monkeys crouching and dangling in cages as assorted
experiments are conducted.
An ad for the diet pill Pre-Sate is even worse. It says,
"one of the most sophisticated comparative animal studies ever conducted
demonstrates direct action on the satiety centers," and shows five photos
of cats in experiments. One shows a life-size white cat looking at the camera
with a chain around its neck and invasive instrumentation embedded in its
skull.
Today's consumers, it seems, wouldn't tolerate ads like these.
(Or the experiments behind them.)
Why do they tolerate derisive ads about "dog women"
and ploys to market pharmaceuticals to kids as if it were candy?
Martha Rosenberg
frequently writes about the impact of the pharmaceutical, food and gun
industries on public health. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, San
Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and other outlets. Martha Rosenberg's
first book, Born With a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks, and
Hacks Pimp the Public Health, will be published by Prometheus Books in April.
People need to stop popping pills so willfully and at least try to heal themselves. Dis - ease, it's just our bodies making us aware something is out of balance (no doubt because of big pharma) so what do we do? offset that imbalance with another and perpetuate the cycle.
ReplyDeleteDr. Bach who discovered the ancient and wonderful Bach Flower Essences said disease was dis-ease of the soul.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say the Flower remedies cannot cure everything but I have seen some wonderful cures take place under their usage, and experienced such a "miraculous" healing myself when I was in my late twenties.
Dr. Bach was I believe a surgeon and he was inspired to create and experiment with his essences on the psychologically damaged from the London blitz and the rest is history that the AMA and regular medical chaps around the planet would like to relegate into the dustbins of history.
His on line (and printed) book HEAL THYSELF is worth the read.