We may be losing the United States, but we are gaining PHARMACEUTICAL NATION. Ammo Grrrll writes [Editor’s note: Ms. Grrrll, a special thanks for the laughs from the line this week]:
Just within the space of my lifetime, we have seen the United States of America go from a mostly agrarian nation – a FARM NATION, if you will – to an urban nation and drug-dependent nation. Coincidence? You be the judge.
How do I know this shift from Farm to Pharm is so? Yesterday I went to check the weather first thing in the morning – low of 50, high of 80 with sun, sorry, people with beautiful summers — it’s OUR time now!
And up pops an ad for TEZSPIRE which is some kind of asthma shot. Mind you, it’s not an inhaler for emergency attacks. It’s an “extra” thing that might help. It also contains the usual small print or rapidly read ad copy. It turns out if you are allergic to it – which may happen at once, but could take days or weeks to develop – it could kill you, just sayin’.
Every single drug on earth, including aspirin, COULD kill you, so it’s all a crapshoot about what “side effects” you are willing to tolerate versus what possible benefits you might gain from adding yet another drug to your segmented daily pill caddy. I have read that if aspirin had to go through the FDA testing rigors today, it could not pass muster. The four-page, single-spaced, lawsuit-protecting handout that I get at the Walmart Pharmacy tells me that though my blood pressure meds will probably lower my BP, it will also probably raise my blood sugar AND cholesterol. Talk about your Whack-A-Mole health scenario!
Make no mistake. The Pharmaceutical Industry has without question saved tens of millions of lives, probably hundreds of millions. But it also clearly wants every single one of us on as many drugs as they can convince us to take. At one point my Daddy, himself a Pharmacist and True Believer, was taking 22 different drugs a day. When he moved into Assisted Living in his late 80s, the nurses there weaned him off some of them and he still lived to 96, so apparently he got along fine without his cholesterol drug and his anti-depressant.
It’s all a perfect symbiosis with the Class Action Trial Lawyers of America. First tout this mesh clot catcher for a few months, and then when enough people have used it bring out the ads from the lawyers: “Have you or a loved one ever used this mesh clot catcher? You might be entitled to big bucks of which we will take just 50 percent…” And so on.
The television commercials I remember from my childhood pushed certain over the counter potions and remedies couched in pleasant phraseology. The actress in the commercial would sidle up to the Pharmacist and ask in subdued tones about something to help her husband with “irregularity.” Now during dinner we are treated to overweight women sitting on a toilet saying out loud, “Women poop.” In another part of the forest, incontinent women of every size and color, but mostly large, parade around in various kinds of Depends. Pretty soon that will be a halftime Show at the Super Bowl.
When trying to watch a little music on YouTube, here comes a platoon of portly prancing diabetics, just thrilled about a new drug to “do diabetes differently.” I guess losing 50 lbs. and turning down that fourth doughnut at coffee break is out of the question.
The ads that break my heart and perplex me are the ones for the brave women fighting metastatic breast cancer, putting up with any wretched side effects to prolong their lives a few more precious weeks or months. I pray for a cure every day, but what person who does NOT have metastatic breast cancer is going to “ask [her] doctor” about such a drug? Exactly who is this drug aimed at? You would think most oncologists would already be aware of such a drug. And the general public has no use for it. Very odd marketing that can’t be cheap.
A more recent entry into the Absurdity Olympics is a drug – could take effect within a week! – for hot flashes. Come ON, ladies, get a grip! This is a completely non-life-threatening condition that probably won’t last very long. Weeks or months, if you’re lucky, or a couple of years at worst. I kind of enjoyed my hot flashes, truth to tell. It was “trippy” and gave me a good chance to make note of what interesting and/or edible leftovers were in the refrigerator as I stood there naked with the door open until the flash passed. Sure, I had some moist, uncomfortable nights, a couple weird embarrassing moments in public, especially if near a refrigerator. But not for a moment did I think I needed a drug.
And then, give a listen to the side effects: some cancers – WUT? — diarrhea, nausea, AND yes, worse — hot flashes! The ad shows a woman sweating on a plane. Reimagine that ad taking the side effects into account:
“I used to have hot flashes…but now I take ldiotica. Now when seated on a plane next to a good-looking guy, instead of being embarrassed because I am SWEATING, I have to clamber over him, kicking him in the face on my way toward the aisle. My only hope is that the coach bathroom is not occupied by people doing cocaine or having Mile High Sex – because I don’t know which will hit first — the nausea or the diarrhea. But at least I’m not sweating. What an improvement! Ask YOUR doctor about Idiotica!”
The Internet pop-ups are full of THE most grotesque medical conditions and diseases. And I, for one, resent it! They prey on those of us who might be considered just a teeny tiny bit over-inclined to worry about our health, depending on how you define “insane hypochondriac.”
My favorites are the “Do YOU Know the Warning Signs of [insert wretched disease here]?” Then they show a cartoon woman holding her lower back! And I think, “OMG – I have lower back pain every morning!” In another cartoon representing a completely different dread disease they will show a woman scratching her itchy legs or a sleeping woman drooling on her pillow case! That cartoon woman is a hot mess.
And I am forced to conclude: “I’m a Dead Woman Walking…I live in a place where there’s three percent humidity most of the winter, where my legs look like two chubby albino lizards. My lower back hurts and my pillow case was a little damp this morning – I will probably be dead before this column runs!”
If you ever click on these “Know the Warning Signs Of…” pop-ups, they will quickly lead to other click-bait items. The one I couldn’t resist the other day was called “The animal most likely to kill you in every state.” Huh! News you can use! In Arizona, I thought it would be a Hamas terrorist coming across the wide open border, an MS13 Gangsta Migrant Voter already here, or a wrong-way driver on the I-17, but it turned out to be just a snake.
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