Agreed. Having a hypochondriac father,the last thing he needs to watch an ad on TV and then come in and pressure an overworked doctor to prescribe him whatever he wants just to get him to shut up and out of his exam room.
The ads are often remarkably effective, esp. in areas like psychiatry. The thing is, while there's a lot of evidence supporting certain classes of drugs in treating certain conditions in population studies, when it comes down to the individual, if doctor & patient opt to go down the medication route, there's often a period of trial & error to find the particular drug that works best for that individual patient. There's often very little way of knowing in advance which drug will work best for the person sitting in front of you, so you usually pick based on your own experience as a prescriber (see, I use the term sometimes!) and based on the kinds of side effects each drug can cause. If the patient knows about different drugs already, then they can help with the decision-making process, which will improve concordance rates (how likely they are to stay on a med) and probably also increase the placebo component of any subsequent improvement (all drugs have a placebo effect as well as their actual effect). It can also build a stronger therapeutic alliance, which may facilitate other forms of therapy in the future and reduce relapse rates. So education about pharmacology is a big part of the job. Far worse in my opinion is when patients take a drug simply because their doctor advises them too. I much prefer patients who educate themselves about their condition, because I believe it will reduce their dependency on a magical cure and return some sense of control about their destiny to themselves (again, a big component of long-term recovery in my experience). Drug ads are very much a double-edged sword in this regard, similar to the internet or to advice they're received from friends, family & fellow sufferers. It's good in that it gives them a raw level of familiarity with the topic and you can have a conversation. But there's often a strong component of "unteaching" them the wrong things they've learned from these sources. On balance, I don't mind pharma ads, but not every doctor has the kind of time to actually discuss therapeutic options (or dare I say it, the inclination or ability) that a shrink does in this regard. Oh, and while there's no major TV advertising of prescription meds in the UK, the pharma companies have lots of marketing routes to the general public, from websites, through funding some ofthe information leaflets that sit in GP practices, etc, etc, etc. In an way, TV advertising at least brings it more out into the open!
Is it just me or does abilify sound like a word made up by George Bush? As in: "We're going to abilify the Iraqi people to fight the dirty terrorists on their own"
That's why doctors and the concept of consultation exist. The point is to know what you are putting in your body and what it could potentially do to you good OR bad. That way you can actually monitor the situation throughout your regimen. Those who avoid medicine like the plauge out of primal fear are just as foolish as those who are all to eager to shovel prescriptions down their throat (side effects be damned) simply because a commercial told them to. Some side effects may be flukes, that's true, but let's also not forget the fact that many people have died because drug companies were less than eager to reveal the true risks behind their medicines. Hence why, by law, they need to be up front about them in the first place (Not that they are even then in alot of cases).
True enough. I know that here in Oregon that there are some classes of drugs that require a physician to prescribe them, but there are still lots of things that a nurse-practitioner, a physician's assistant (PA) or a psychologist can prescribe.
To borrow from Dr. House, himself. Dr. House "Is [the mother's son] using his inhaler?" Mother: "Sometimes, but I worry about him taking such strong medication." Dr. House "His doctor was probably concerned about it too, he probably weighed that risk against the one for not breathing." In essence, the side of effects of, say, a blood-pressure medication might be pretty severe; but is it worse than high blood-pressure?
Yeah, I know of a couple people who thought they thought would much rather have the side effects than not be able to take it actually.
You know people who would much rather have a severe heart attack or a stroke than take a different medication for their arthritis?
Vioxx wasn't half as bad as the media made it out to be, actually. It was very effective with much less severe side-effects than other NSAIDS. If you had no heart problems, the increased risk was pretty negligible.
I know people who would have rather had an increased risk of heart attack or stroke than to have no alternative after Vioxx was the only medication that helped them with pain. I mean, if I'd much rather have a risk of death with the medication I take than have it pulled from the market.