Blogpost # 981    MEDIA MEDICINE (Redux)

Our Nation, inarguably, merits the Olympic gold prize for quantum success in the area of media televised sales promotion. The commercial practice, in some countries, is strictly limited or entirely unlawful.  In our Nation, there are scarce few subjects of such proscription which include tobacco, fireworks, and narcotic drug products and their related paraphernalia. The television viewer eternally witnesses the theatrically presented marketing of automobiles and cosmetics; the latter, aimed at retarding the natural process of aging; bizarrely inclusive of the sale of Botox (one of the World’s most lethal substances for the advertised and egotistical removal of life’s natural scalp wrinkles). Most relevantly, it has been our view that in the interest of public safety and health, the media’s irresponsible and hazardous practice of the marketing of medicine should be included in the list of forbidden subjects.

Televised advertisements for the indiscriminate, mass marketing of medicine include those for diabetes, heart health, depression (including, bi-polar, categories 1 and 2) eczema, arthritis, senile dementia, asthma, high blood pressure, toenail fungus, colds, viruses, migraine headaches, pneumonia, muscle cramps, anxiety, insomnia, colitis, heartburn, diarrhea, cognitive dysfunction from aging, dandruff, glaucoma, and just about every conceivable pathology or discomfort, are regularly transmitted, at every program and film break,

Notably, the responsible, personalized, prescription of medicine or course of treatment, written by a physician, has specific application to the particular patient, whose medical history, nuanced physiological chemistry, and current use of medicine are known to the prescriber. The irresponsible marketing of medicine or related health substances, indiscriminately and irresponsibly, to the general public risks the dangers of undesirable reactions and toxic interaction with other medicines.

While we do acknowledge that, generally, with regard to such advertised items the fact of approval by the FDA, or, the responsible revelation of their pending or non-approval by such public protective agency is usually disclosed, and that such advertised medicines are not “snake oil,” such assumed confidence is not contextually relevant to the thematic caution expressed in this essay.

It is undeniably and universally recognized by physicians, pharmacists, and as well, the non-professional public, that the human body is a complex amalgamation of sensitive chemical and neural components. To, empirically, refine, and particularize the previous declaration, we would note that there generally appear to be nuanced, natural features of the same as between individual humans. The precise knowledge of an individual’s existing medical chemistry, including his present intake of existing medicines, is a vitally necessary awareness in the prevention of an unforeseen happening of a negative interaction.

One’s prescribing physician is cognizant of the weighty responsibility of being completely informed of his patient’s individual, personalized medical history and present intake of medications including, his possible allergies, and particular chemical, medical, neurological, and predictable inclinations. One of a great many illustrative and precautionary examples of this vital necessity is the nuanced response in the case of peanuts. People who have an allergic reaction to the ingestion of even tiny amounts of peanut may respond with anaphylaxis, a serious, condition that has life-threatening potential.

Medicine is not a product, to be responsibly and morally advertised for sale to the mass public like bathing suits and toothpaste. Profit and commercial enterprise, albeit in a free capitalistic economy, needs to responsibly and empathically, take a back seat to the primary and existential responsibility of concern for citizen health and public safety.

-p.