Have you noticed the increasing number of prescription drugs television commercials? Marketing of prescription drugs in such a blatant fashion flies in the face of the belief that nothing should stand between ‘the patient and their doctor’. So what is the purpose of prescription drugs advertizements? These only create a non-medical market demand for a drug, when such medical issues should be left for doctors to determine. Doctors are either pressured by patients to prescribe a drug they’ve seen advertised (against their own independent judgment), or doctors themselves are complicit with such advertisement, as they see their new roles as sales distributors for such products.

Americans have the highest cost for health care and prescription drugs in the world. As a country we pay two to three times as much per man, woman and child (insured and uninsured) for health care than any other country. People in others countries pay far less for the same prescription drug by the same pharmaceutical company than Americans pay. Many of us go to Canada or Mexico to purchase the prescription drugs we need but can’t afford to buy in the U.S.

Advertisements of prescription drugs and other marketing activities account for some 70% of the price we pay for these drugs, by some estimates. At a time when so many people cannot afford health insurance and are at the mercy of fate were they to get sick, such vast and costly advertising of drugs is just unconscionable. It is unnecessary and inexcusable and should be stopped. Certainly if we can prohibit cigaret and alcohol advertisements in television, we can stop prescription drugs from being advertised as well. These advertisements create an artificial demand and raise the cost of drugs for all of us. They also provide the pharmaceutical companies with a gateway to our collective consciousness to influence and shape our public opinions and attitudes. All this power paid for by us in blood, sweat and tears.