Pharma-toxicity

With the marketing departments of multibillion dollar pharmaceutical corporations carpet bombing society with their versions of the latest and greatest magic cure-all that comes in the form of a prescription medication, we as a society may be becoming pharma-toxic via unnecessary over medication. Is Direct to Consumer advertisement of prescriptions that carry the potential for heavy adverse reactions or habit forming behaviors, to persons who may only be suffering conditions based on suggestions, causing a larger medical problem than it is treating? My goal for this project is to show how the large pharmaceutical companies use multi media advertising to push their medications into the public sector. It can be found in our living rooms through our televisions. It can be found in our internet worlds on side bars and pop-up ads in our browsers. It can and will be delivered to you through almost any type of media you use on a daily basis.

 

 These advertisements are omni-present; they exist almost everywhere where human eyes or ears can absorb them. This is by design! The pharma-machine is a multibillion dollar a year industry (around 291 billion); to keep those kinds of revenues and profit margins rolling hyper vigilant advertisement is a necessity. While these corporations are lining their pockets with both insurance money as well as the cash out of our wallets (for their cure-alls) there is another price being paid.

 

This other price is physical damages that are paid by livers, kidneys, hearts, endocrine systems, or any other human organ required to metabolize the medications; organ systems that are targeted by these medications. This type of advertisement is currently only allowed in two countries the US and New Zealand. Do people really need these medications? There is strong research showing that most of the Direct to Consumer advertised medications are prescribed much more frequently than medications not advertised directly at a consumer group. This insinuates people are being prescribed medication on the basis of instilling the notion a person has a condition, and in turn seeks treatment, is then prescribed a medication based on signs and symptoms that are potentially based on suggestions of a commercial.