The People's Pharmacy® with Joe and Terry Graedon

I watch very little TV other than "news" - in part because of the inane ads.

I agree that drug companies should not be able to advertise prescription meds on television. We patients do not hold medical degrees, let's leave the prescribing up to our physicians.

The FDA should not only be slowing down the drug ads! They should be shutting them down entirely. Our culture already suffers enough from the belief in "Magic Bullets," and the outcome is more and more drug dependency and irresponsible prescribing practices on the part of physicians who are ethically asleep and/or jaded in their attitudes! As a nurse, it is my observation that we have many more "legal" drug addicts (both physical and psychological dependencies) than "illegal" ones in our country. And I believe the FDA is largely responsible for this increasingly encroaching syndrome, as it is SO in bed with the the corporate drug world!

Am sick to death of these TV ads about perscription drugs!
Please, can't we be rid of them.

Thanks for the information Joe. I would add to your last parag... ("Drugs are not like dish detergent ...") - when I and my wife are sitting around watching t.v., presc. drug ads now dominate what's presented during commercial time. Pharma ads appear to be ALL that is being run. It's quite unpleasant to be bombasted with all of these health-related topics (some of them kind of gross) while trying to relax at home! Get them off of our t.v.'s!!

I am so infuriated by the drug companies inference that reducing their prices would reduce the amount of money available for research and development, when it is the ADVERTISING budget that should be affected!

Joe: drug ads on TV empowers the pharmaceutical companies. Doctors are pressured to prescribe things that the patients tell them to!
I'm the director of the drug formulary of a health plan...it's a big problem. Turn off the switch. Write your senator and member of congress!

You are 100% correct, Big Pharma Sucks!! I was a victim of big Pharma, I was a 29 year old critical Care RN, who had high cholesterol...thats bad, right? Thats what I used to think, because of all the hype and propaganda produced by big pharma, and completely supported by the general medical community. My father had bypass surgery at 58 years old, and I did not want to be in the same situation, so I went to my doctor and immediately he prescribed Lipitor, yes it brought my cholesterol down, but what I have discovered since becoming didabled at 34 year of age, cholesterol is Neccessary and so is Ubiquinone, which Statins so conveniently block the body's ability to produce this essential nutrient. Which for me resulted in Multiple scattered Brain lesions as seen on MRI, and multiple holes in my brain as seen under an electron Microscope done when I had a brain biopsy. My working diagnoses when I was in the hospital for the 28 days I was there, were nvCJD,(basically a human variant of mad cow disease), and MELAS,(mitochondrial encephalomyopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke like episodes, (shown when I had a muscle Biopsy during this Hospitalization), another effect of starving the body of Ubiquinone, aka CoEnzyme Q10.
I was a week away from being discharged to a nursing home!
When I began to slowly improve to the point I gould go home with aggressive Physical,Occupational and Speech therapies. I improved after I was started on a Mitochondrial cocktail, the only treatment that is known to be somewhat effective in treating MELAS. This mitochondrial cocktail includes, Ubiquinone...Coincidence? I think not! And neither does Dr. Beatrice Golomb MD, PHD, UCSD researcher into the Statin side effects.

A decade or so ago a FDA regulation prohibited drug manufacturers from advertising directly to consumers, although ads could be placed in medical journals. This regulation caused no problem, and the practice of medicine was unimpeded. Why the regs were changed to permit consumer advertising (without an act of Congress), I can only guess. If the FDA were to revert to the tried-and-true original regs, the drugs companies would save $4 billion a year which they could use to search for new drugs or to lower prices. Consumers would still have a wealth of drug information from more objective sources, such as health columns in newspapers, TV commentators, health magazines, and the internet.

I am so glad that I found this site. I know far too many people who have established recent beliefs due to straight-out lies and on certain Web-based URL's.

I thought I knew some of these dear friends, but these days I am part of the Trilateral Commission and Illuminati because I belong to an Honors Society and hold a Ph.D. in astrophysics.

(Off the record, I have been fighting a one-man war against an online quack whose name begins with the letters in the first syllable in the element HG, and the second syllable is a common belly wash.

Of course, sending them information and links from your site will likely convince them that you and I are in league against them). Sigh... ;-)

In Feb.5th,07 Health section of L.A.Times a question by one reader,re:cholesterol, he said that his total cholesterol has been brought to a very low level of 120 mg/dL. Apparently his doctor (if he has seen one)should have advised him that such low level of cholesterol is NOT necessarily the best to have. Part of this you have pointed out to him but there is another very important factor and that is HDL-C (good cholesterol) , at this level of 120mg/dL total cholesterol it is very likely that his good cholesterol(HDL-C) must be very low too,therefore such low levels of total cholesterol is NOT necessarily a good news , some one should bring this to his attention. What his doctor should be telling him that "cholesterol" as he knows it is the sum of HDL-C(good cholesterol)+ LDL-C (Bad Cholesterol) + 1/5 Triglycerides . Also very important thing to know for non- medical people is that its not only the low levels of Total Cholesterol that is important but also as high as possible levels of good cholesterol (HDL-C),
next the bad cholesterol be mentained at around 70 mg/dL and Triglycerides also should be mentained around 100 mg/dL.
The ratios of LDL-C to HDL-C and Total Cholesterol to HDL-C are very important factors in the prevention of Coronary Artary Disease.
And the most important is the education on such matters, which is an important factor to reduce the mortality rate due to Coronary Heart Disease.
Thnak you,
Moti Gurbaxani

The solution to this problem is, simply, get rid of your television. Life is so much more peaceful, happy, and healthy without television. This is one of the best home remedies, with no lasting side affects. However there are some mild addiction issues to deal with. Remember, Joe and Terry are on the radio.

I am disgusted with the commercials for prescriptions. I do not believe they should be allowed to air these. I guess money must be all that counts.

Am sick to death of these TV ads about perscription drugs!
Please, can't we be rid of them

from
http://nero.datadiri.com/

Finally a place for me to voice my opinion on drug commercials. We are in our 70's and when we want to watch the news or be entertained by TV, it is very depressing to be reminded over and over again of our ailments. We are aware of the side effects of the drugs our doctors have prescribed and some are very scary. No drugs are right for everyone and we trust our doctors to prescribe drugs that are more helpful than harmful for our particular medical conditions.

I know their commercials work because I am fast coming to the point of needing Cymbalta because of being brainwashed by their sorrowful music and droning voice. And yes, Cymbalta, it will hurt both of us because we will have to pay too much for another medication we can't afford so you can pay for your depressing commercials.

In response to the person who used the Transderm Scop for motion sickness. I used to use the Ovra-Ethra patch which also irritated me. I expressed my concern to my gynecologist who suggested I try placing some Milk of Magensia on the area that I was going to place the patch and let it dry before adhering. Needless to say...it worked!!! So this may be something else that person could try

What can the consumer do about these awful drug ads on TV?

I say BAN them the same way alcohol and tobacco ads were banned in the past!!!!!!

In Australia they get around it by having the entire commercial shot with an unbranded pack of the medication the incontinent/flatulent/obese/flaccid persons hand.
Same ads, except it's as if the product has been pixelated to protect it's identity, no, the identity has been disguised to flout the law.
The brand and company name are never spoken, at the end of the ad, "Ask your pharmacist for help with ......" problem.

It's so patronising that anyone thinks this is clever or ok to do.
It makes me sick, and no, I won't be asking my pharmacist for something for my ad induced nausea.

cat

upon a quick overview of your web site you left me with a real pain... no obvious action cited whereby I could do anything but 'groan in pain"

I was interested to hear that Barak Obama was even offended by these commercials! The worst part is the music! I have to mute the TV so I will not hear it! Why are these intimate problems so vocalized? There have been some popular movies making light of the adverse affects of these popular drugs, but where would the comedy be if something detrimental really happened? I care more for my husband's health, than his performance in the bedroom.

All the drug companies are interested in is the profit..more drugs-more money!!

I remember when we were bombarded with ads for "the purple pill" Nexium. The ads urged us to ask our doctors if Nexium might be right for us. Mind you, none of the ads disclosed what condition Nexium was supposed to help!

My niece was shy (not depressed - SHY!) at 14 and she was put on Paxil for a year. I am very skeptical re: her need to be put on an antidepressant at that time in her life; she was fully functional. Thankfully she is drug-free today. Some people
do need these drugs, but those people generally end up seeing a doctor anyway because they're running into difficulties in their lives. Prescription drugs should NOT be advertised to the general public.

The pharmaceutical companies are interested in only one thing - money! People have to go abroad to get a cure for cancer because US companies would loose money if the desease was irradicated.

It makes me happy to know that there are thinking people busy thinking and writing on this important topic. I thank you for your words. The only thing that concerns me more than the saturation of advertising done by the drug companies is the way doctors are receiving information about these very same drugs. It seems to me that most doctors receive little other information and or training related to prescribing such medications, and their interactions with other drugs, than what they receive from their drug rep; who's just doing their job. (a lucritive one at that) The people who do these jobs are just people not evil doers or bad eggs, but their own level of information about these drugs is also provided by the companies themselves. Drug reps are not doctors, they are trained sales reps. What is the FDA doing to monitor this. My question is how will they better inform doctors of these medications before they are introduced into the markets bringing every shmoe who's having a bad day to "come and talk with their doctor"?

It's ironic that while tobacco and hard liquor advertisements are no longer aired on television - presumably to "protect the health of the public" - pharmaceutical companies are allowed unprecedented air time, to blatantly peddle dangerous, and often toxic drugs, to an unsuspecting public. Enough is enough!

I'm sick of these ads. And they are misleading. Nothing ever lasted four hours for me.

The pharmaceutical TV commercials are just ridiculous. Our 7 year old grandson is visiting... watching a sports program, and on comes the Cialis ad. "What is Cialis?" he says.... HELP! Please, what can we do to get these off the air or at least limited to after 10 PM ,,, we constantly mute the commercials.

I hate the drug commercials. Our society has become one that has a pill for everything. Here take this pill, and everything will be better than fine. What about other lifestyle choices that are actually healthy? No wonder everyone is sick. In fact, I'm writing a persuasive paper in college on this very subject--to get drug commercials off of the tv. The previous comment about people having to go overseas to cure the cancer. It's true. A friend of mine went overseas to cure her two sons that had muscular distrophy. They did. Her sons are perfectly normal now. Why don't they do that here? Think about all the money that would be lost--the charities, the research, the medicine, the medical equipment...they don't care about us. It's all about the money.

After hearing the lists of possible side affects, I wonder if the "cure" isn't worse than the "disease." That's the best I can say for the commercials.
I would be happy to live the rest of my natural life without hearing about vomiting, diarrhea, "weak stream," "overactive bladder" (how about "overactive blather?") and the like.

I think the prescription ads on T.V. are peddling fear more than drugs. People start thinking they have the specific disease in question and run to doctor for these pills. This is sad, because evidently the big pharms know this about the human psyche and play on that to make money. It does not feel good to watch T.V. and know that one is being played like a violin! Switch off and read a book!

I use natural remedies and they work very good with no side effects.Who neede drugs.

Something needs to be done about the continual ad campaigns for drugs. What happened to just say no campaign? I will tell you, it got ditched when the drug companies and the FDA figured out a way to line their pocketbooks with money by brainwashing the American public into thinking something is wrong with them and that they need to take their drugs to correct it, when in fact most of these drugs that are marketed to the American public not with their best interests in mind but their own greed for money.