All pharma. All the time

Have you ever noticed that virtually every television commercial nowadays is for some sort of medicine? Be it a cure for high cholesterol, heart disease, impotence, osteoporosis or nervous leg syndrome, there's sure to be a TV commercial running somewhere every second of every broadcast day. In my mind, pharma commercials now join death and taxes as the only thing one can count on in life.

So, I thought, why not create a “Big Pharma" cable network? I'd call it: 'MedNet.' And I'd give it a direct, hard-hitting tagline: 'All pharma. All the time.' I'd add a cautionary note, though: 'Frequent viewing has been known to cause severe headache, dry mouth and definite suicidal tendencies.'

MedNet wouldn't bore viewers with talk shows or any of those 'I was an 800-pound teenager' dramas. Nor would there be any 'mystery diagnosis' pseudo documentaries or 'House' type mainstream entertainment.

Instead, I envision a pure viewers' ‘hell and marketers' heaven of non-stop pharmaceutical commercials. I'd naturally match the ads with the viewer demographics, being sure that housewife-specific commercials ran during the day. Seniors would have their Alzheimer's spots and Wilford Brimley/Robert Wagner old folk-specific insurance policy ads just in time for their early bird specials, ('And, folks, don't worry, even if you have less than a week to live, the SeniorSensitive Life Insurance Company has an affordable policy just for you.').

Boomer commercials would dominate prime time, with erectile dysfunction, frequent urination and '.....the little blue pill' spots holding down the critical 8-10 p.m. slot.

Think about it. A 24x7, all-pill, all-gel, all-suppository channel!

The big pharma companies could switch their mind-numbing spots from ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN and, instead, go bonkers on their very own med network leaving the rest of us the hell alone. Now that's what I call health care reform.

Comments

[Debrah]

You know it's bad when your kids randomly sing the "Viva Viagra" tune on a regular basis. Think you might be onto something..

[Art]

I personally question the return on this investment. As a consumer, I don't go to my doctor and ask them about a particular drug. Instead I go to the doctor with a condition for which he/she will prescribe the proper medication. I trust my doctor, which is how I think it should be. I'm not going to trust my health to an advertisement.

[RepMan]

I couldn’t agree more, Art. And, yet, big pharma is spending billions of dollars on this nonsense. The TV spots have become laughably predictable, especially in terms of the possible side effects (Why don’t they just say, “Taking this drug can kill you’ and just stop with the plethora of side effects?”).