Perhaps I'm one of the few prescribers here, a disciple of a consumers union board member who taught me thermodynamics in college. in the ensuing thirty years i've watched the capacity of the drugs improve for sure and the means of promoting them swing in both patient-friendly and patient risk directions. With respect to direct to consumer advertising, my reaction tends to be a mixed one. As a senior specialist I tend to have a lot of credibility and discernment for the conditions that I treat, When I tell people that Viagra will not make you horny like the TV ad implied, I also have at my disposal the physiology knowledge to teach why. The ad does benefit the patient since they never would have brought up abscence of libido and the need to screen for hypogonadism and treat that. My primary colleagues tell me the challenges are more difficult for them, partly because they are more numerous and they don't have quite the familiarity with how these agents work. For the most part, though, the industry has generally marketed to consumers worthy products to extend their lives or comfort. I think they learned the lesson of Exubera, inhaled insulin, not to try to bypass the doctors to palm off inferior products on unsuspecting patients.

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"For the most part, though, the industry has generally marketed to consumers worthy products to extend their lives..." www.BaumHedlundLaw.com has a link to 1986 correspondence between Eli Lilly officials about how to HIDE THE SUICIDE PROBLEMS during the clinical trials so that the German Gov't would approve PROZAC !!! In 1992, the CEO of Eli Lilly, Randall Tobias told the media that the PROZAC she had just started taking... had absolutely nothing to do with his wife Marilyn committing suicide. He left Eli Lilly 6 months later with an extra $ 6 million in his pocket. There is a little 1960"s video clip of an Eli Lilly "research scientist" telling the media that... " a therapeutic dose of LSD is good for children". Fortunately, the FDA did not approve Eli Lilly's request to sell LSD. In 2004, the FDA would not approve Eli Lilly's drug Entreve as a "stress induced urinary incontinence drug " for older women because... THERE WERE TOO MANY SUICIDES IN THE CLINICAL TRIALS. But... Entreve is also known as Cymbalta... and the FDA approved Cymbalta as an "antidepressant" !!! Go ahead... google " Traci Johnson " The recent Zyprexa scandal exposed by an Alaskan lawyer and The New York Times certainly proves that Lilly's claim of weight gain on the drug averaged between 3 to 5 lbs was a serious lie. Lilly's documents from the trials report an average gain of 55 to 60 lbs. DRUG COMPANIES ARE IN BUSINESS TO SELL YOU DRUGS. IF THEY KILL YOU... THEY LOSE A CUSTOMER. IF THEY CURE YOU... THEY LOSE A CUSTOMER. THEY WANT YOU TO BUY THEIR DRUGS. NO ONE GETS "BETTER" ON DRUGS.

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