America is unusual in its approach to healthcare. Just one of many examples of this includes that we allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers. I think the only other nation to allow this is New Zealand. I used to believe that drug companies have the right to advertise directly to consumers due to the 1st Amendment. Well, I still believe in free speech, but I am not so sure about corporate free speech or where to draw the line.

Drug companies use direct to consumer advertising (DTC) to try to get patients to demand that their doctor prescribe them the drug in the ad. Often, it is easier for the doctor to just prescribe the drug than to explain to the patient why he/she does not really need it, and risk alienating that patient. Medicalization refers to the phenomenon where the territory of medicine encompasses more and more of everyday life and experiences. DTC certainly contributes to the growing perception that for all of life's ills, there is a pill, and if your doctor won't prescribe it, another will. This is problematic on two levels: Medicines are essentially controlled doses of poison that may help with a condition but usually introduce side effects. Thus it is important that they are prescribed only when necessary. Second, the DTC helps drug companies convince more and more people that they are sick, and need more drugs. This could introduce a sort of nocebo effect (reverse placebo) on people. Essentially, if people believe they are sick, this will contribute to illness in much the same way that a placebo sugar pill can do the opposite by changing their states of mind.

Thoughts?

Actually all advertising use direct to the consumer advertising, not just pharm drugs. I dont have a problem with any of that. It is what it is. A product. The only way for people/comsumers to know what is out there is to advertise the products available, otherwise how would anybody know what is out there?

I think you hit on something though with the whole "....companies convince more and more people that they are sick.." It is not the companies per say doing this. I believe it is the whole psychology establishment. They are just creating diseases for everything nowadays, then doing some quasi-research to back up their claims, then making some drug for people to take for their made up disease, when all the person needs is a swift kick in the ass. The companies are more then happy to make a product for the doctors, but it is the doctors creating the environment. From road rage, to sticking kids on psychodelic drugs b/c mommy wants them to sit still instead of being a kid. It is nuts, I dont understand how our parents and grandparents made it through life without a chemical compound to fix their "supposed diseases".

We are so well off in this country, we are now just making up problems to pass our time and to make things seem more dire then they really are b/c we have nothing better to do.

Well the idea is that DTC is different for drugs because drugs can have serious side effects and there is no way for somebody to know if they should ask for a drug based upon a commercial.

I'm sure psychologists and doctors still contribute to medicalization, but it's the drug companies that spend more on marketing than they do on research and development. They also pay for a majority of our doctors' continuing education. All this money is going towards the effort of expanding the market for drugs by marketing conditions to both doctors and patients, and expanding the definition of a condition so that more people will buy more drugs. But patients don't have the knowledge to critically assess what the drug companies are saying.

For example, Viagra and Levitra commercials depict men in their early 40s who appear to be in decent health. They also imply that diabetes and high blood pressure lead to ED, when actually men who physiologically have ED are a much smaller group than this would suggest. Most men have had trouble getting an erection at some point due to alcohol, fatigue, or psychological hangups. Even to these men, Pfizer says that they need Viagra, when really the problem is mental.