It’s a tad depressing

[erastes]

When you see the adverts for 4g phones, and realise that one’s own phone is just scraping 1½g. Two at a pinch. Bah. No-one rings me on it, anyway!

However, I must say OMG about the adverts on American TV for prescription drugs – we don’t (obviously) have adverts on the TV for these over here and I’m bloody glad!  If you’ve never seen one, nip to Hulu and watch for a while you’ll soon run across one – this is basically what they are like:

“If you suffer from XXX – then you’ll know how inconvenient it can be, not only the pain, but the way it restricts you from doing what you want to do.  PRESCRIPTION DRUG can help, so talk to your doctor to see if PRESCRIPTION DRUG is right for you.

P.D. may cause the following side affects.  Depression (often the drug is FOR depression).  PD may cause headaches Dizziness Coughing Fatigue Myalgia Viral Infection Rhinitis Nausea and/or Vomiting Abdominal Pain Back Pain Diarrhoea Upper Respiratory Infection Insomnia Somnolence Bronchitis Dyspepsia Asthenia Pharyngitis Vasodilatation Vertigo Chest Pain high blood pressure, eye problems, uterine bleeding and in occasional cases coma and or death. So do speak to your doctor to see if PRESCRIPTION DRUG can make your life a better one.

!!!!!!!!!! (and that’s NOT an exaggeration!)

Watched Tristan and Isolde today – God. How DULL was that?  I couldn’t get to the end – how on earth could they have made it SO bloody dull?  With the delicious Rufus Sewell?  Awful. Just awful.

OH AND CONGRATS ALEX BEECROFT!!!! she came 15th out of 100 of Dear Author’s best Romances of 2009.

looks like the Christmas dragons are the same as last year too.

- - - -

Comments

[beckyblack]

I think we Brits would think it quite rude to go tell our doctor "I want you to put me on this drug." We'd think it was a cheek! It's the doc's job to decide what drug we should be on. We'd kind of assume they know which one is best for us.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's probably because they pay for their health? I don't know - it is a bit shocking to see adverts for prescription drugs, to be honest.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

The drug ads are a disgrace. They used to be illegal for obvious reasons, but I think the pharmaceutical $ boys got the law rescinded during the Reagan administration. Though at least they do have to post warnings -- usually in 4-point type on an overleaf page after a two-page color spread. The worst one I've ever seen was for some arthritis drug -- later withdrawn after the company was sued for several deaths -- big photo of Granddad with kid out in the garden, a lot of BS about how this drug takes the aches and pains out of gardening... and then the warning that muscle aches and fatigue can be the symptoms of a rare but potentially fatal side-effect. In tiny print. On the following left-hand page.

There's a special place in hell. Or maybe they have to come back as lab rats.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

it is a bit of a culture shock i have to say!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I see 'em occasionally in Canada, on a few programs that are broadcast from the public TV station in Buffalo, NY, but not on Canadian stations. That cheery "Ask your doctor if 'Dreadful Drug' is right for you! has got to be one of my all-time most hated tag lines.

[scottynola.livejournal.com]

I always say "If I need to ask my doctor whether Drug X is right for me, I need a new doctor."

[erastes.livejournal.com]

heh - good point. one of the ads was for rheumatic pain, but the other one was for developing thicker eyelashes...

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

Oddly, every doctor I've seen -- from my GP to a psychiatrist -- the choice of drug has always been up to me. I tell them the symptom I want treated, they tell me the various options, and I choose what I want to take.

Though, I agree, the ads over here bug me. And every depression medication here does come with the warning that it may increase the depression or cause suicidal thoughts/tendencies. Wow. I find that a special sort of special.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

i soppose in a way a choice would be good--we are just given what we are given!

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

*ponders* My GP has always been exceptionally open about what drugs I take. He views it as it's my body, I should be able to choose what goes into it. I've refused drugs, chosen different ones after doing my own research, as well as taken his professional advice on what's best for me (I suffer from chronic insomnia and I thought to take something like Ambien or Lunesta, and he was quite firm that he'd like to never prescribe those sorts of drugs to ANYONE -- because he's always let me make my own decisions, such a stance really stuck out and I went with his alternatives to those drugs).

I think it is because we pay for our insurance/health care and want to feel we have some say in what we're paying for. I'd not like to be paying out as much as I do (we pay about $8,000/yr in premiums) and have no say in the care I receive and the drugs I take. :)

Advertisements, though, need to go. I find them misleading as well as encouraging abuse of various prescriptions. The way the ads are worded are so vague, they apply to just about everyone.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well we pay for our healthcare too, you know, its NOT free. National Health Insurance is taken directly from our salaries and everyone pays it. Not $8000 of course, but that's probably because NOT everyone pays it in the USA.

[annephoenix.livejournal.com]

My OH's NI contribution is something like £115/month (and probs going up with the new budget) and he's not a high earner and he has not once been to the GP or hospital in 10 years of living in the UK ... so that's £12000 of someone else's medical bills (touch wood it stays that way; i.e. I'd rather he stayed fit and healthy!) ...

[moons-storm.livejournal.com]

It would be nice if everyone here had health care. I wouldn't mind paying out of my taxes instead of my income. It would also be nice not to worry whenever I do get ill if my insurance company will view it as a legitimate illness they should be covering or if I'm just SOL and need to suffer with it or pay out of pocket for it.

Our heath care system needs a serious overhaul, and that includes our prescriptions prices. Oi.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Ah yes. Ask your doctor if this nasty-ass poison is right for you!

One of the principal reasons I have completely quit watching television and listening to the radio.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Me too - I watch just about everything online now, which is where I saw these, annoying that ads are spreading there too, inevitable though, i suppose.

[roma-fics.livejournal.com]

It was very odd for us when they started allowing the adds about a decade ago. I still hate them.

BTW The new Christmas dragons don't come out until midnight on the 25th, so for you I think it would be Christmas morning. :) The previous Christmas dragons produce Christmas dragons when bred this week. It will end on the 28th.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I shall try and get one, but if the Legend eggs and my luck with paper, gold, silver and dinos is any indication, I'll fail!

[ammonite7.livejournal.com]

This is one of many instances where you are so lucky to be British! Or French, or Canadian or just about anything but a U.S. citizen. I hate these ads and agree they should be outlawed. We have noted that most of them are aimed at older folks, primarily because there are now so many in the U.S. - the baby boomers. The drug and insurance companies are still fighting any kind of health reform in Congress, and it makes me sick. Their greed is pitiless and unbounded.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Can't disagree wit you there!

:)

[mrs-norrington.livejournal.com]

I've been on antidepressants for five years now and birth control for two years.

In that time, I've been suffering from increased depression and frequently sever migraines.

I moved to the UK for school and within the past few months my GP (Which I don't have to pay for, what an absolutely fantastic thing!) has since switched me to a different birth control (as they told me that the pill I was taking could have the severe side affect of migraines, something my doctor back home never said when I complained of the headaches!) and is trying to wean me off my antidepressants and see how I go on from there.

I am even more baffled than I was before I left about how opponents in the US of nationalized healthcare think this is evil! As a student in Wales, I don't even have to pay for the meds. It's brilliant.

Can anyone wonder why I may consider staying over here after graduation if I find a job?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Exactly - I can't see why anyone would think that "free" nathional health (because of course it's not free, we all pay for it) is a bad thing. Baffling. The health care system is one of the major reasons I'd have to be dragged to live in the USA.

[lb-x.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered why anyone would ask their doctor about a drug whose side effect is death. We get the ads occasionally in Canada on the US feeds, and they're just ... strange and annoying. Especially the NuvaRing ad. The song makes me want to gouge someone's eyes out, let alone when they play it every commercial break.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I can't bear the ads that play every break - they seem to have put a lid on that this year, but last year there was an Argos ad with the song "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" which was literally on every single break and the nation literally imploded with anger.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

The warning about side-effects are required by law and the pharma companies would really rather you didn't notice those.
SO they try to downplay it as much as possible. And no, they didn't come in with Reagan, it was consdierably more recent than that, eithe runder Clinton or Dubya. I think Dubya, but then I blame him for just about everything.
Pharma found out with media studies that the ads work. They do influence patients to mention something, and it starts to sound more familiar just like a political candidate in a big pool of anonymous becomes better known for media exposure. It's quite surprising how out of sync the advertised drugs are in relation to the most common conditions and what would be prescribed for those.
It was just based on overall stats, you'd expect ads for high BP, diabetes, and so on.
Nope. Lots of ads for Viagra, for instance. Which gets abused by guys who don't need it, for one thing.
Lots of ads for serious antacid/tummy drugs that are still presciption but barely, beginning to run out towards becoming over the counter.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

"didn't notice the warnings"? They take over the entire advert! I can't bear to watch them, and they'd certainly never convince me (if I were American) to go and try any drug like that!

About the Christmas dragons

[fleurrochard]

I think they'll release a new one - but the old one breeds eggs of his own breed. ;)

Re: About the Christmas dragons

[erastes.livejournal.com]

ah - that's good to know - thanks. I'll have buckley's at getting one - had no luck getting the Legend set - there never seems to be any eggs at all these days.

[ejab62.livejournal.com]

We have them here now too. A 'trend' that started a year or two back, I think. The only difference is that 'our' commercials don't tell viewers to go and see the doctor - 'just buy them in the store because they're good for you'. Add to that the exact scenes as you described and in the last seconds a soft voice that warns for 'certain' risks.
Ugh.