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May 18, 2008, 12:34 pm
Flag as Inappropriate Klara  

Advertisments for drugs is said to lead patients to see their doctors but they are not fully clear if consumers actually understand the medicines they are asking for, especially like the side effects.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080515/hl_nm/fda_advertising_dc;_ylt=Aj6U26U9z1m6aGBUJVUGPS7VJRIF

I really hate how drugs are being advertised. I don't think that patients have any benefit from this-we as consumers do not know enough about drug interactions, drug side effects and the diseases that require drug treatment to be making choices as to whether to use a particular drug.

All the ads do are encourage patients to ask docs for particular meds, and get mad when the doc thinks that something else would be better suited for them.

Yea, I agree and I wished I would have researched the drug "Effexor". My doctor quickly prescribed the drug to me and because of all the side effects I needed to stop taking the medication ASAP.

My doctor never warned me about "Discontinuation Syndrome" where you feel like your going through hell and back. Once I began to start tapering off my medication I started to exhibit severe flulike symptoms like, headache, chills, dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and fatigue.

It takes a really good doctor to know when NOT to prescribe drugs.

I agree with johndaly. It does take a good doctor to know what to prescribe.

All medications have their ups and downs.

If the ads didn't lead to more sales they would stop running them. So you know that people are going and asking their docs for meds they "think" they need....and are getting them.

I think the worst problem with drug advertising is that many people are self-diagnosing. They hear the symptoms and convince themselves that they have that illness. Then they give the doctor a hard time when his diagnosis differs from theirs.

I don't like the advertising at all. People hear about the possible symptoms on the commercials and become paranoid. It's almost like these drug companies are more concerned about making money than helping people.

Another strange thing about these drug commercials, is that some of them just mention the name of the drug and that you should ask for it from your doctor. Some commercials don't even mention what the drug is supposed to help!

Lately I've been concentrating on those commercials, not just waiting for them to pass the way I usually watch commercials, and they don't mention much about it but a website and a phone number to call about it. Do the drug manufacturers think that the public already knows all about their drug and knows what it's for?

I get the feeling that I am the only person who doesn't know all about their wonder drug. It doesn't make me care enough to call about it, but I do think it's a mighty strange way to advertise a product.

I really don't think the pharmaceutical companies should be advertising for consumers. We aren't the ones who are specially trained to know how a drug works or interacts with other types of medications. Personally, I'm waiting for someone to sue a pharmaceutical company because they told their doctor they wanted a specific drug based upon a commercial and then had a bad reaction.

I don't like the ads. I actually believe they should be banned, just like cigarettes. These ads glorify the supposed outcome of using a drug, then get a speed talker to ramble on about the side effects, which are often very scary. People don't hear that; they just see the pretty pictures of how they wish life would be.