Copyright (C) 2004 Robert S. Rosson. All rights reserved.
A few years ago I developed a nasty habit of watching television while eating my evening meal. At first I simply ignored the commercials promoting various brands of beer as a way to attract sexy women in bars, or showing new cars being driven at breakneck speeds in dangerous places.
Then the commercials began to sell deodorants for every body part as well as toilet bowl cleaners. If those weren’t nauseating enough, there appeared a commercial showing a man choking on a piece of meat (the classical “café coronary”) while his table companions calmly and abstractly discuss the best way to deal with the problem.
Along came a deluge of products aimed at acid indigestion and gas. From the variety of products advocated and the intensity of the ads one would think that acid reflux is the worst epidemic since the Bubonic Plague. Acid boiling up from the stomach, abdomens bloating like balloons, foods turning into tacks all cry out for relief by such nostrums as the “purple pill”, the pink liquid, or at least eight other products.
All the medical advertisements are punctuated by cries of “Ask your doctor if (fill in name of drug) is right for you”. To avoid product liability suits the adverse affects are read at warp speed and barely audible volume straight from the Physicians Desk Reference.
The ultimate in medical advertising is the emergence of the ads extolling the virtues of drugs to treat erectile dysfunction (“ED”). These preparations seem to attempt to convert erectile dysfunction, real or imagined, into erectile hyperfunction! The ads show a man and a woman caressing each other’s hands while sitting in twin bathtubs, or a man throwing a football through a swinging tire. Another shows a beautiful, smugly satisfied woman lauding “my man’s performance time after time”. And then this profound warning: “Erections lasting more than four hours may require immediate medical attention”!!! My imagination soars trying to guess what some sorry emergency room physician will do in this situation.
From arthritis to asthma, from cholesterol to constipation, from headaches to hemorrhoids, we are ceaselessly subjected to a barrage of medical hucksterism. By the time the regular programming resumes, I feel too ill to pay attention. The result of all this? I no longer watch television during meals - - in fact I no longer watch TV at all!
Published originally in YJHM July 4, 2004
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