Pharmaceutical ads . . . out of control. In the past, when they were banned from television and radio, the promotional campaigns of pharmaceutical companies were directed towards doctors and hospitals which makes sense. Consumers can't buy this stuff off the shelf at the drugstore; it can only be purchased through prescription. That means that commercials push consumers to hound their medical providers for medications that may not only be inappropriate, but actually dangerous when compared to ways of healthy living (exercise, good nutrition, eating the proper amounts of food) which are often as effective in heading off problems. It's not good for the consumer and it seeks to second-guess the medical profession.
Heavy television and radio advertising is expensive. Since our government now allows pharmaceutical companies to develop, purchase and air expensive commercials, guess who they pass the cost on to? And that's something we don't need when medications in the USA are already too expensive for many to afford.
One recent commercial is particularly annoying. Lipitor has recruited Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart to hawk its product. Jarvik lacks credibility for several reasons. First, his kind of science represents "last resort" medicine while Lipitor is supposed to head off high cholesterol and prevent heart attacks and heart disease (and that may be questionable; it has been proven to introduce other problems in some patients). Secondly, Jarvik's heart was not the roaring success it was cracked up to be. Twenty years ago when Barney Clark became the first recipient, he was never able to leave the hospital. He had to be kept on blood thinners to prevent clots and strokes and suffered from them anyway. He finally died of multiple organ failure. Jarvik was forced from the company he worked with and retired from public view. He started another business with a more modest goal that did not involve the production of artificial hearts; rationale for development of the current product, the Jarvik 2000, a thumb-sized heart pump came, ". . . from the understanding that people want a normal life and just being alive is not good enough," said Jarvik.
The commercials themselves contains some curious faux pas: The most recent one appears to take place in the sweeping futuristic lobby of a medical facility. But despite the fake signs and people walking around in lab coats, the location (as a blogger recently noted) is easily recognized as the new addition to The Brooklyn Museum of Art. The voiceover in both commercials hails Jarvik as "the inventor of the artificial heart." He isn't, however, and why he didn't insist that this be corrected is unknown. More correctly, he invented the first permanently implantable artificial heart. Although the invention was called the Jarvik 7, it was developed with the aid of a partner, William J. Kolff. Paul Winchell first invented the artificial heart and donated it the University of Utah. Any improvements were probably based on Mr. Winchell's original heart. Finally, Jarvik says, "The average heart beats two billion times." If the average heart beats 2 billion times and we assume an average heart beats at 72 pulses per minute then - according to the commercial - the average heart beats for only 52.9 years. The last I heard, the life expectancy of an American was somewhere around 70.
If a couple of commercial about a product can be so full of interesting errors, do you think it's possible that large multinational pharmaceutical companies just might lie to us about other things as well?
|
