Pharmaceuticals, School Advertising

One of the most interesting parts of our supplemental reading for this week was the video entitled, "Big Bucks, Big Pharma: Marketing Disease & Pushing Drugs." It is a topic that most everyone is familiar with, because as the video points out, as consumers we are bombarded with drug ads all day long. It seems that a commercial break doesn't pass without at least one drug commercial that states, "To find out if ___ is right for you, talk to your doctor." I now wonder how many patients schedule appointments and ask if such-and-such medication is something they should take.

Especially deceptive is the commercial that the video featured for Adult ADD. The commercial tries to simulate the brain and thoughts of a patient that suffers from ADD, but the ways in which ADD is represented, it seems as if any busy human being could suffer from the disease. All that is truly represented by the commercial is that being busy and being stressed can equal disease--which is not the case. How many over-worked, over-stressed adults are convinced that they have adult ADD just based on that commercial? Should we really be running to our doctors to stock up on pills we don't need?

I have always been skeptical of medications, but now I am even more so. Typically, the possible side effects sound worse than the effects of the disease itself.

Another interesting point brought up in "Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom" is how invasive, perverse, and unethical it is to market toward children. I didn't realize how bad it was until I watched the video and saw the montage of brands and logos in the school hallways of the school featured in the video. It reminded me instantly of middle school because we were required to use book covers on our textbooks, and the covers given to us were sponsored by Got Milk? An especially disturbing ad showed a teenage girl with a tagline to the effect of, "If so-and-so keeps drinking her milk, it won't be just her milk mustache the boys will be staring at."

In a 6th grade classroom, that is obscene. If Got Milk? was sponsoring or providing any kind of funding for any program, at least their contributions should have been age-appropriate. Marketing in the classroom is clearly a problem. A school should be a safe place for kids and not a place where their wants and needs are exploited and taken advantage of.