Progress # 7 - New (Health) Deceptions

So I might just have fixed my dilemma on narrowing down health deceptions in the media. Okay, are you ready for it?

- Deceptions in advertising for drugs and what they don’t tell you.

It wasn’t until recently that advertising for drugs became geared towards the people that take the drugs ant not the doctors or health professionals. This changed how the drug is being advertised; there isn’t a large concern to provide information to the consumer, but simply to sell the product. That means filling a ad with calming voices, soothing music, soft lights, and smiling people who said this drug helped them.

I found an article in Consumer Reports that is really interesting and talks about how new companies have to keep on putting out new drugs for problems people don’t really have. They do this to make money, not in concern that they are probably worrying their audiences with big words and similar symptoms so what they might already have.

Now Consumer Reports also uses the drug Requip as an example, but I have seen this one several times. Requip is a drug that helped Restless Leg Syndrome. The ad was filled with aesthetics and special effects. The music and lighting made RLS look to be a very large-scale issue that women had, but from what Consumer Reports says, it only affects 3% of adults. The whole ad was very played up. It put words in a doctors mouth, who’s we don’t know or know if he is even a real doctor, about the drug. Because of the special effects, it downplayed the strange effects like falling asleep while you drive, vomiting, and drowsiness. Ironic that this pill is supposed to help you sleep, while drowsiness is a side effect.

Hopefully I will have this health deception thing worked so I can start my paper!