Drug Ads – What a joke!

Have you seen them lately?  But then how can you miss them? It seems that every other commercial on the radio and television is about drugs – a pill for this, and a patch for that.  Is it driving you crazy also?

What is so funny is that legally they have to give us the side effects of the drug in the ad and it is hilarious to hear about a drug that is supposed to stop diarrhea or constipation that may actually cause those very same symptoms.  Other drugs also seem to just be swapping symptoms, taking away one symptom while giving you another one.

It is comical to see how the drug companies search for symptoms, and illnesses to market their drug for, and how they keep creating new names for diseases or symptoms just so they have a pill to sell for it.  In addition, they advertise drugs for other drugs “if you take this drug and have these symptoms – take this drug now to help those symptoms, and here are the side effects of this drug.”  Another ad that is popular is the one where people are paid to take drugs. I know these are for drug testing – but come on, this is really getting ridiculous.

What they don’t tell you is how many people die every year from taking these drugs, although some of them do actually mention in the ads that you can die from them.  It is documented that over 140,000 people die every year from taking prescription drugs (JAMA, 1997, 277(4): 301).  This does not include OTC (over the counter drugs), which brings the total much higher. But of course you don’t read about those. We only get to read about the 1 case in the past 2 years of someone taking a supplement and having a problem with it.

What is just sick to me is how they are using billions of dollars in advertising to get us all on some form of drug.  Forgive me, but isn’t there a War on Drugs?  What is the difference between us taking a prescription sleep aid, and taking a street drug?  Other than the fact that one is legal and one isn’t – they are both addictive, both are toxic and both have side effects.  And yet it is okay for the drug companies to advertise their drugs to millions of people every day. There are so many natural products that can help us sleep, including ones that are free like exercising, eating a less toxic diet and working on simplifying our lives so we aren’t so stressed.

It is a joke that the pharmaceutical companies, which are supposed to be helping people with their health, are using so much drama and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) to sell us their products.  It is just depressing that people have given so much of their power away that they are so attached to their diseases and drugs instead of to a healthy happy life. So many people have such an emotional attachment to being sick, most likely because they don’t have what they want out of their life - and they feel they have to take a drug to bury the pain. God forbid that we tell them to eat better, get outside and exercise more, or read a book or see someone who can help them make some life changes to make their life better, rather than just get drugged up.  As I have said before, there is an emotional attachment to all illness and once people acknowledge and work through their issues, their illnesses often go away.

We have so many people coming in our store every day trying everything they can to get their power back, telling us that they don’t want to do surgery, that they don’t want to take a drug – and we do our best to educate them to show them all their options, so they can make the best choice for their body.

Don’t get me wrong; I am not completely against drugs – as I have said before I think as long as they are used as tools to help us get to a better health place where we can then use natural tools to work to achieve our health goals.  But taking a drug every day for the rest of our lives, for most people just doesn’t have to happen.

I congratulate Tylenol for telling people to NOT take their drug if they aren’t going to take it correctly. I know they used that as a marketing ploy also – but at least it is headed in the right direction.

Of course it is all about the money. The government doesn’t care because they are in on it also – money talks. What is sick is that the pharmaceutical companies have become so greedy that they are not just using the doctors or pharmacists to market their drugs, they are now using TV and radio which opens up a whole new income stream for them of course, as patients are now coming in asking for drugs. Oh, I forgot, this helps to make the doctor’s job easier. Sigh.

We have a subscription to an on-line software program here in our store called Lexi – www.lexi.com. It allows us to put in any drug and it tells us all about the drug and what nutrients the drug pulls out of our bodies in real-time.  It is very informative for our customers. If you going to take a drug, at least know what is doing, know what it is pulling out of your body so you are not creating more illness to fix later.

What blows me a way is how accepted it has become to tell our bodies to SHUT UP!  What does this mean you ask?  Do we ask our body what it needs?  Do we take a minute, take a breath and find out what our body really needs or wants? Or do we just tell it to shut up by taking a pill?  Do we give it more water, more salad, more fresh air? No we are educated by society to just take a pill and tell our body to shut up!  Only problem is, at some point it is going to hurt you so bad, that popping a stronger pill just won’t make the pain go away.  You will have to address the pain sometime – you get to choose when that will be – now or later.

But WAKE UP!  You don’t have to buy into the drugs.  You do have other options. You may have to do a little searching, and a little work on your part, but if you keep searching and ask the universe and your body of course, for answers, you will see, like I did, that there are several solutions which may be just right for you.

I was so excited about an advertisement I heard the other day on the radio for Broccoli – it was great!  They talked about all the benefits and how good it is for our bodies – it put  a smile on my face.