"Ask Your Doctor About..."

 

As regular readers are well aware, issues which outrage/annoy me are not in short supply.  One on the list is the pharmaceutical industries's regular onslaught on our concerns regarding our health with a never ending stream of ads imploring us to "Ask your doctor about _______ (insert difficult if not impossible to pronounce drug here)."  In fact, how many times have you asked yourself following the commercial, "What is that drug prescribed for?  What does A1C or HR positive HER-2 negative mean?" because the ads throw these terms and others out like vendors tossing bags of peanuts at sporting events.  An insult, in my opinion, to those for whom A1C or HR positive HER-2 negative is part of their daily lives.

So I decided to take the pharmaceutical companies up on their offer.

My yearly physical was scheduled for this past Monday.  On Sunday evening, while watching the Golden Globes, I made note on my phone of the various commercials offering subject matter for consultation with my doctor.  

During my physical, my doctor and I were discussing the various medications I take (in full disclosure: for high blood pressure; depression and anxiety; IBS-C, otherwise known as irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (or, more commonly, TMI); restless legs syndrome; sleep aid), and I leapt at the opportunity to "Ask My Doctor About."  I read him the list of 16 distinct medications jotted down during 2 hours of Golden Globes viewing.  Most shared the consonants v and z, often separated by the sometimes vowel y.

He's got a good sense of humor and so he laughed, adding that because he's a family practice physician, he seldom if ever prescribes anything on the list.  He also shared that the drugs were very expensive and target a very specific group of patients who predominantly receive their health care from specialists.

For reference: The pharmaceutical industry in the United States spent 6.88 billion U.S. dollars on direct-to-consumer advertising in 2021. The expenditure remained stable compared to 2020, when 6.86 billion dollars were invested into big pharma ads.  To put this into perspective, in 2022, the pharmaceutical industry spent some 244 billion U.S. dollars on research and development, which is a decrease of five billion compared to the previous year. By 2028, expenditures are expected to reach a total of over 300 billion U.S. dollars.

There's no big take away from this adventure.  To be honest, I thought it would be kinda fun to bring in a list because I figured my primary care provider would appreciate the humor, and he did, and now I can go back to ignoring all those commercials because I have done what they asked me to do.

I Asked My Doctor.