BlogHer - Disease Marketing: The Tales of the Modern-day Snake Oil Salesmen - Comments

and on the subject of the 'pink ribbon machine'

laurie — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:18:07 -0500

I linked to this article in a post I wrote today called "not in my name."

Big Pharma is a nasty business, indeed and they work really hard to walk that fine line between wanting people to believe their prodcuts will work and keeping them sick enough to keep creating more need...

And I won't even start on how the profit motive keeps life-saving drugs from many folks who desperately need them...

laurie
www.notjustaboutcancer.blogspot.com

An apple a day

alyssaroyse — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 10:38:38 -0500

This is SUCH an important issue. On so many levels (I think I could write a book.)

1. The perpetuation of "Normal" as a desired state is so alienating for people who don't live on the center of the spectrum - whether it's moods, weight, energy, sexual desire. The simple truth is that most of us are not "average" and the marketing of "normal" makes people feel alien, and worry with each notch away from "normal" that they find themselves. I don't find this any different than Victoria Secret models posing as the desired female body. The fact that this is seeping into every area of our lives - couched as science - is frightening to me.

2. Lizzie's comment about Bi-Polar broke my heart. My husband has very real and serious battles with depression and anxiety, and finding the right solution is tough as hell, on all of us. And although I consider the right meds to be life-savers, I hate the way they are marketed, because it is a catalog of gee-whiz cars, when all you really need is a dependable one. One of our best friends is an MD / PhD who specializes in these issues, and he swears that for most people, the most effective med is still lithium, but no one prescribes it because it is cheap, old, generic and no one makes any money on it And most doctors aren't specialists, and just believe the salesmen. YIKES! But this also speaks to the point that there is a pill for everyone - not just people who have serious conditions. The spectrum of mood and personality that is, in fact, normal, is huge, but we are popping pills if we aren't happy all the time, or feel a little blue, or a little stressed out..... as if the normal emotions are a condition. Which does, I think, lessen the awareness of the very real battles some people fight with depression of all sorts.

3. AND, in all the marketing of diseases and cures, there is very little focus on the very simple steps we should all be taking of eating wholesome, natural, unprocessed food (not microwaved from a box) and getting enough exercise. And that the simple behavior of eating nutrient-rich food and getting exercise goes a log way towards preventing disease - of course, there's no pill to be marketed for that.

All in all, the whole industry makes me cringe. Some of us are bigger and smaller than others. Some of us are happier or sadder that others. Some of us are hornier and not as horny as others. And it's all normal.

Diseases should be treated, for sure. But they shouldn't be created - being normal (and flawed) is healthy. It's life. And life is not a disease!
___________
Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE
make some good news!
www.JustCauseIt.com

Legit illnesses

lizzen — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:39:45 -0500

The problem with making "mild conditions ... a serious illness, worthy of it’s own medication" is that is lessens those with actual serious illnesses. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder several years ago. I lived with it for nearly 10 years but had no idea as to why I behaved so erratically at times and was so horribly depressed at others. My diagnosis and subsequent treatment have saved my life, to say the least. Now there are commercials and websites and magazine ads dedicated to bringing attention to this illness. I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, it can help save people like me who lived unaware for so long. On the other, I think it causes doctors to be complacent about treatment, adopting "one size fits all" treatments for the masses who come in with their checklists of symptoms only realized after reading about them in Glamour or Time Magazine.

I cringe when, while seeing my doctor, he prescribes a new medication for me that I see plastered about in promotional products. I wonder, is he treating me as an individual or simply peddling pills?

Just the Way It Is - A laugh, an epiphany, a like-minded soul

Great way to begin October

Suzanne Reisman — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:13:47 -0500

Thanks Amanda, for this excellent post about disease marketing. Given that we are entering the most over-hyped disease campaign month of the year, this is the perfect opening and way to create awareness of the marketing onslaught. I am so proud to be affiliated with BlogHer as we get the word out about the motives that are really behind the highly profitable pink ribbon campaign that exploits women's fears.

Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS)& Other Rants

Disease Marketing: The Tales of the Modern-day Snake Oil Salesmen

Amanda Shaffer — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 21:18:02 -0500

As we start October, one is reminded of the tenth month not by falling temperatures or early sunsets, but by pink products bombarding us at every turn. The start of the largest annual medical awareness campaign is a time for us to stop, pause, and think about the ramifications and true intentions behind this and other awareness events. Sometimes, medical awareness campaigns can be a prime example of disease marketing--that is, they are sometimes launched for the purpose of creating demand for pharmaceutical products.

Lainie Liberti of the jungle8 blog explains further:

By promoting “disease-awareness” campaigns our trust-worthy drug manufacturers have since changed the public perception of what is normal, what is dis-ease. Suddenly, mild conditions are now a serious illness, worthy of it’s own medication. Billboards, tv, magazines invade insidiously the public subconscious and saturate consciousness with an infinite number of barbaric names that will blossom in the American medicine cabinet across the mighty landscape of the land of the free.

Suddenly, a benign condition has ferociously launched into, “If you have…” suddenly carry a FRIGHTENING dimension. “You may be at RISK for…” a curable DISEASE, obviously! They create fears about conditions to draw the attention to the latest treatment!

Sadly, this distribution of misinformation isn't limited to human patients, either. Dogged Blog author Christie Keith tells of her own experience with disease marketing:

So, after the obligatory advice to ask your veterinarian (or, as I'm sure Fort Dodge thinks of them, their marketing partners) "about a vaccination program that includes protection against enteritis-causing pathogens such as parvovirus, coronavirus, and Giardia," we get to the footnotes.

Now, you'd think for something I've never heard of before, this newly discovered trifecta of canine intestinal doom, we'd have some pretty cutting edge science. They must surely cite some new studies, hot off the presses, for me to not have seen them before. Right?

Wrong. Because those footnotes cite one study that is 19 years old, and another that is 25 years old.

No, dear dog lovers, the diseases are old, the citations are old, even the vaccines being promoted are old. The only thing new is the marketing campaign.

Furthermore, there is an excellent documentary, "Big Bucks, Big Pharma," that is available on YouTube (abbreviated version) and Google (full version--1.2 hours). The Manic Ramblings of a Swede provides this synopsis:

Big Bucks, Big Pharma pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain. Focusing on the industry’s marketing practices, media scholars and health professionals help viewers understand the ways in which direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising glamorizes and normalizes the use of prescription medication, and works in tandem with promotion to doctors. Combined, these industry practices shape how both patients and doctors understand and relate to disease and treatment. Ultimately, Big Bucks, Big Pharma challenges us to ask important questions about the consequences of relying on a for-profit industry for our health and well-being.

Stay tuned for more information throughout October about disease marketing, its evil twin cause marketing, and the Pink Ribbon Machine.