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People suffer from multiple illnesses and conditions each day: fevers, colds, headaches, diabetes, high blood pressure, and many more. With the high demand for drugs, pharmaceutical businesses have developed medicines to provide pain alleviation. However, these businesses are part of a multi-billion industry chasing after profit, using advertisements to convince consumers that the medicines are a panacea for all their medical problems. Medicines that have been advertised in the past and continue to be promoted today have shown extensive success, but the negative consequences are often concealed, leaving consumers with a partial understanding of the actual effects of usage. This leaves us to weigh the risk and dangers of businesses promoting medicine as a means to increase profit.
Headaches are one of the most common symptoms, coming in different forms and severity. A main component of the commonly used medicines for headaches is acetaminophen, found in 1893 in the urines of patients who took phenacetin, which is a type of crystalline compound that was commonly used for pain alleviation but is now banned (“Acetaminophen”). Today, Tylenol is the world’s best-known acetaminophen medicine brand, strengthening its reputation as the safest, non-prescription painkiller (“At 50”). However, before Tylenol’s great success story came to be, a drug class called triptans was first commercially introduced in the 1980s, promoted as a “gold-standard acute treatment for migraine” (Alam). Despite showing great popularity, the use and prescription of triptans were quickly discontinued because of their lack of efficacy and knowledge of their side effects. Some doctors discovered that triptans’ effect of contracting blood vessels led to several cases of cardiovascular disturbances, making them reluctant to prescribe triptans to ordinary patients, and triptans were soon limited from use. In this case, triptans gained popularity through the promotion of this medicine as a “gold-standard” treatment although its side effects weren’t completely understood. Surprisingly, people are seldom aware of the tactics that pharmaceutical companies use. This, I believe, is because of our underlying bias that promoting medicine is done with a good purpose: to improve the health of the entire population.
Pharmaceutical advertisements are subtle yet powerful. In more than 20 U.S. magazines and various publications’ advertisements, “Depression Hurts” was a slogan used as an Eli Lilly & Co. campaign for the antidepressant Prozac amongst its competitors Pfizer, SmithKline, and Beecham. Prozac was one of the first new breeds of antidepressants called “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors” which can treat depression by increasing the level of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain through inhibiting uptake (“Selective serotonin”). According to the Wall Street Journal, Proaz's campaign appeared in a variety of publications, featuring “a black page with a rain cloud and the ‘Depression hurts’ inscription.” On the facing side, a yellow sun with the message “Prozac can help'' was featured, highlighting Prozac as a “happy pill” that would take away one’s gloominess (Burton). Prozac’s advertisements failed, however, to effectively inform consumers of the possible repercussions of taking the drug. According to the Los Angeles Times, Prozac has lasting side effects such as allergies and hair loss, and taking it can result in psychological side effects that are not easily treated (Bernstein). Nevertheless, Prozac sales increased by 39% in the 1990s and reached worldwide sales of $2.6 billion in 1997. Eli Lilly & Co. stepped onto the controversial stage of marketing and saw a big success, but their tactic “goes to the heart of the controversy over whether pharmaceuticals should be advertised on television” (Bernstein). Marketing directly to consumers is designed to reach out to patients, but industries are exercising more influence on patients’ healthcare decisions. These advertisements are pitched at patients, “turning to consumers, rather than doctors and hospitals, to create demand for their products'' (Bernstein). Drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry, although seemingly promoted for the health of humanity, hold the duality that they are mere products, harmful if not taken with caution, that can be advertised for profit.
Contraceptive pills are considered a revolutionary product today that has transformed people’s sex lives and increased safety for women for sex before and in marriage. However, according to Harvard Crimson, “the story of birth control pills is also one of conflicting ideologies and medical exploitation” (Pendergrass). A former assistant professor at Harvard University, George G. Pincus, was a key figure in creating contraceptive pills after the feminist Margaret Sanger implored him to work on their development. When he first started, he knew that his work entailed a lot of risks and problems. In fact, according to Atlantis, Pincus and a doctor who worked with him conducted tests on women in the asylums of Massachusetts, as well as clinical experiments, even on men, in the slums of Puerto Rico and Haiti (Eig). Many of these trials were not conducted under consent, and some women complained of serious psychogenic side effects. Moreover, Pincus recruited 16 female patients and fed them birth control pill prototypes, then sliced their uteruses to understand the drug’s effect on ovulation; this methodology raised serious ethical criticisms (Pendergrass). Nevertheless, contraceptive pills have become an industry worth over $5.6 billion, and their implications are celebrated by many as a revolution in reducing the possibility of accidental pregnancy while also increasing safety in sex. However, the final product has come at the expense of the women involved in experimental trials, which are often neglected in pharmaceutical history in the name of business success.
Ethical and moral considerations must be considered when we choose our intake of medicines each day. Drug businesses in most parts of the world seek to promote a healthier population, but there is no doubt that drug marketing is a big business which oftentimes “offers you an easy solution to a health problem you may or may not have” (“Do not”). According to Harvard Health Publishing, the United States and New Zealand are the only countries where pharmaceutical industries are allowed to advertise drugs directly to customers (“Do not”). Although concerns for profit-focused uses of pharmaceutical drugs aren’t prioritized in other countries, we must take responsibility by being aware of the implications and the possible side effects that companies are reluctant to share. More importantly, pharmaceutical companies should exercise more caution and consider the ethical implications when they deal with the production and promotion of their products, and avoid earning profit at the cost of the pain and death of humanity.
References
“Acetaminophen.” New World Encyclopedia.
Alam, Aftab, et al.“Triptan Use and Discontinuation in a Representative Sample of Persons
With Migraine: Results From Migraine in America Symptoms and Treatment (MAST) Study (P4.10-019).” Neurology, 16 April 2019. n.neurology.org/content/92/15_supplement/p4.10-019.
“At 50, Tylenol brand still gaining steam.” NBC News, 1 Nov. 2005.
Bernstein, Sharon. “Drug Maker to Pitch Prozac in Television Infomercial.” Los Angeles
Times, 14 May 1999. www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-14-mn-37116-story.html.
Burton, M. Thomas. “Ads for Prozac Are Aimed At Consumers, Not Doctors.” Wall Street
Journal, 1 July 1997. www.wsj.com/articles/SB867704975623734000.
“Do not get sold on drug advertising.” Harvard Health Publishing, 14 Feb. 2017.
Eig, Jonathan. “The Team That Invented the Birth-Control Pill.” The Atlantic, 9 Oct. 2014.
Pendergrass, Drew, and Michelle Y. Raji.“The Bitter Pill: Harvard and the Dark History of
Birth Control.” The Harvard Crimson, 28 Sept. 2017. www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/9/28/the-bitter-pill/.
“Selective Serotonin Reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).” NHS Inform, 23 Feb. 2023.
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