Barbara J. Hamby

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Pills for Thought

As a senior citizen, I take a certain number of prescription medicines. Some of them have outrageous prices. Fortunately, my health insurance pays part of the cost or I wouldn’t be able to afford them. The cost of the health insurance keeps rising also, but that’s another subject.

My rant, at present, is the practice of pharmaceutical companies that advertise new medications on television at great expense. They hint that everyone probably needs their product, but fail to explain why. Then they have their actors rattle off a lengthy list of possible side effects. Who, I ask you, would possibly want to ask their doctor for a product that might possibly cause headaches, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, thoughts of suicide, etc. etc.?

Even if I were dying, I would think long and hard before swallowing any such message and/or product. And I would not insult my doctor by asking about any such advertising.

It defies reason that people might actually fall for such hype, but they must, or those commercials would not be so prevalent. Could it be that pharmaceutical companies make such huge profits they need this advertising expense for a write-off? I wonder.