45 - Healing Migraines Naturally - Why do Drug Companies Advertise on TV
Leslie: Today I'm talking to Mary, who runs our awesome Facebook community about why the drug companies advertise on TV and in newspapers and magazines. Welcome, Mary. How are you?
Mari: Doing good. Is it for our entertainment because I always find those ads to be quite, I don't know if hilarious is the right word, but entertaining on a level because of the 10 minute spill about side effects, everything that could ever go wrong could go wrong.
Leslie: Right, right. I mean, how many little comedy skits, and now in today's day and age, little TikTok videos have been made by aspiring comedians, joking about drug ads on TV and all of the side effects. My daughter, who's 12 actually just showed me a little YouTube parody about drug side effects. Right, because she thought that was funny too.
So, exactly.
Mari: It's always the worst possible scenarios, like you're going to ooze from every orifice.
Leslie: Uhhuh,
Mari: What? How many people in a drug study have had that happen before? They put it on the list, you know.
Leslie: Right, right. And even putting it on the list doesn't stop the drug from being used.
Mari: Right. Interesting.
Leslie: The little parody that my daughter was showing me a couple weeks ago, the last side effect, because it was like a little make up of the drug, of a fake drug. The actor started going into the rapid speech side effects.
You know how it's a nice easy breezy tone until they get to the side effects and then the pace speeds up. He lists some of the most ridiculous side effects. And then the final side effect that he stated was the symptom that the drug was trying to treat.
Mari: Oh, of course . Not only can I help you, but it can also give it to you.
Leslie: Exactly.
Mari: Uh, that's crazy.
Leslie: So, yeah, we've all been entertained by these ads for many years now. They started advertising on TV in the mid eighties. Now I know some of the people listening maybe were just newborns during that time. I was not, I was a teenager by the time the mid eighties came around, but it's funny to even conceive of a world where you would watch TV and not have drug ads on the tv.
Mari: Yeah, that's so true.
Leslie: I like to watch a lot of HGTV shows. I love those house flipping shows and those house remodel shows. I watch them on demand, so they have the commercials kind of programmed in there. I don't know if they match the commercials to the household interest or not. You know when you're watching YouTube on your phone, they curate those advertisements on YouTube to be something that you're interested in. But I tell you, whenever I watch my HGTV shows, 75% of the ads are migraine drug ads.
Mari: Well, that's interesting. Like how did HGTV figure out that you were into that kind of thing?
Leslie: Right. So I don't know. I mean, obviously migraines affect women so much more than men. I would have to assume that mostly women are watching these home remodel shows and so on, and home flipping shows. Certainly my husband never seems to have any interest in them. So I don't know if it's just that they assume that women are watching; the programming and migraines affect women so much, or if they actually have connected my browsing history, which is obviously going to be very migraine focused to my cable account. I don't know.
Mari: I wouldn't doubt it. I think it's very interesting how targeted advertising is and how much they are tracking. I know we call it cookies on our computer, but just how much tracking and information do we really give these advertisers?
Leslie: Mm-hmm. . So, you know, prior to this, the FDA did not allow pharmaceutical advertising on tv. Actually, interestingly enough, the United States and one other country are the only two countries in the world where you can advertise pharmaceuticals on television. It's quite interesting.
Prior to the FDA decision, the rationale was that you wouldn't want to insert the for-profit motive that the pharmaceutical industry obviously has, you wouldn't want to insert that for-profit motive into the doctor-patient relationship.
Mari: Hmm.
Leslie: Doctors take an oath, right? And naturopathic doctors are no exception. I took an oath on my graduation day up on stage, you take an oath.
One of the things is to do no harm. There are other parts of that oath as well, but certainly the most weighty aspect of that oath is to do no harm. So, that doctor-patient relationship, there's an oath involved. It is a very personal relationship and a very sacred relationship.
To insert a for-profit motive into that, obviously there was some concern about that.
Leslie: But in 1985, the FDA rescinded that. Now, for those of you that are familiar with the term institutional capture, this is a problem that we have within our regulatory bodies, whether it be the pharmaceutical industry, oil and gas industry, the food industry. We have organizations within the government to help protect the public. Because all of these other industries have a profit motive and I'm not saying that having a profit motive is a bad thing, but as we have seen over and over again, profit motives can get in the way of doing the right thing.
Mari: Right. It's a matter of which one is the priority. It's okay to want to make a profit, and I think people get angry and we forget that those people have to make a profit in order to stay in business and feed their families too. Are we putting that above? Caring for others above not doing harm?
Leslie: Exactly right. Ethics, these types of things, good business practices, quality products. Unfortunately, I'm sure people have heard the term “revolving door” between industry and our regulatory bodies. The head of the FDA, when he or she retires from the FDA, six months later they're sitting on the board of a pharmaceutical industry and vice versa.
Mari: Yeah.
Leslie: I can imagine that this regulatory capture phenomenon, by the time we hit the mid eighties, suddenly the FDA isn't that concerned anymore. The justification or the rationale in the mid eighties to allow television advertising and print advertising was starting to be allowed about a decade before, if I'm remembering correctly. The rationale was, why shouldn't the consumer, why shouldn't the patient be empowered when they go into the doctor's office, know what drugs are on the table for them and advocate for themselves, particularly the newer medications? Doctors, they are visited by pharmaceutical sales reps and they are educated by these sales reps on new medications. Like anybody, people do what they're familiar with, what they're in the routine of doing, and so doctors are in the habit, have always been in the habit of let me prescribe you what I’ve been prescribing for the past 10 years. I know how people respond to it. And maybe by now there’s a generic one and it's cheap. Well, that doesn't help a drug company when they've got a new drug on the market that costs a hundred million to develop, and the doctors, even though the pharmaceutical drug reps are saying, “Hey, we got a new medication”.
This is the benefits, etc that the doctor, just like anybody else, is going to say, yeah, let me do what I'm familiar with.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: So the rationale, part of the rationale was one, the patient would be able to advocate for themselves and then it would allow the pharmaceutical companies to market these new drugs right to the patient.
The patient gets hyped up, oh, there's a new medication for my migraines. Let me ask for that.
Mari: I actually kind of like the concept of empowering people to advocate for themselves, but there's a lot of strings attached to that.
Leslie: Well, I think that you can make a reasonable argument on either side.
Mari: Yeah. That's fair.
Leslie: What I want to talk about today is the effect that this has had on our medical system and the way that we, the public, the patient, the person suffering from the migraines, now view our options.
Mari: I feel like the first time you see something, especially like we've talked about before, if you're in pain you will do anything to get out of pain. I feel like the first time you see a new advertisement, it's almost a frenzied emotion of …I can do this, I have to get it right now. Kind of a panicky motivation.
Leslie: Right, and particularly with the CGRP antagonist meds that started coming out in 2018. These are the ones that are being advertised on my HGTV shows. They're not advertising Imitrex anymore.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: So yes, and it is presented as new hope for migraine sufferers.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: Why is it new hope for migraine sufferers?
Because the triptan meds, which were 30 years ago, have been around for so long and people have been on them for so long that they are really no longer effective for people. If you want to know why that happens, we have some free training and some podcasts on that phenomenon.
What was happening within neurology practices was that they were running out of options for their patients because people were no longer responding to the triptans. Your neurologist, if they can't give you a medication that works, they don't have a practice, they don't have a business. So, they were really dependent on the pharmaceutical industry for a new round of migraine medicines, a new round of hope for migraine sufferers.
Now, you're never going to see, I guess never say never, but I mean I don't even have a concept of running an advertisement on an HGTV show. I cannot imagine how much that costs
Mari: Right.
Leslie: So for one, the options presented to people are the options that can be paid for. That is definitely going to have an impact on what people perceive as a solution for their suffering.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: And then, I wanted to talk about what I think the real downstream impact has had on our society, that was probably not intended back in the mid eighties. Thirty years later, we can really see the impact. That is our media. Whether it's all of the news programming that we watch, the newspapers that we read, the magazines that we read, any media source is what I call bought and sold by the pharmaceutical industry.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: It's one thing if you're watching an HGTV program and 75% of the ads are pharmaceutical ads. That tells you that a big portion of your HGTV show is being paid for by the pharmaceutical industry.
Mari: Mmm.
Leslie: Now, that's one thing if it's a show on house flipping. It's another thing when you're watching your local news or the national news, or you're reading the newspaper or you're listening to NPR or a radio program. It's another thing when those media sources that we are relying on to educate us on medical topics are bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry.
Mari: Is there any bias there? I can't , I can't do that.
Leslie: The next time you're watching any sort of news program, media show, even things like 60 Minutes, listening to your local NPR station, notice who's funding the programming and notice how they are approaching medical topics. 60 Minutes, maybe they're doing something on a medical topic, notices…do they ever interview anyone outside of conventional?
Mari: That's a good question. Not that I'm aware of.
Leslie: It never happens. Or if they are, they're choosing somebody that's really out there, right? The alternative medicine practitioner with the whole bit, the incense in the background.
Mari: The ones that make everyone look like they're half crazy.
Leslie: Right. So this is the impact that all of this pharmaceutical money has had on our media and the coverage of medicine and health related topics, even things like big sporting events, etc. You can see the amount of pharmaceutical money that is coming in and is funding so much of our culture.
Mari: Hmm.
Leslie: Do you think that they are going to tolerate things that go against their profit motive in the reporting, in the coverage?
Mari: Right.
Leslie: They're not going to tolerate it. This sets up a very subtle bias within the media, within the magazines, within the radio stations, within Dateline or 60 Minute type programs. You are not going to be presented with anything other than… if you have a symptom, it means you're defective and broken, and the best shot you have is to take something, to make that symptom go away, to stop your body from producing that symptom.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: You're never going to hear anybody talk about how your body has an amazing ability to heal itself if you just give it what it needs.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: Particularly, we're just coming out of the Covid Pandemic. When so many of us were just glued to the news, trying to understand. People don't have a medical background, a microbiology background.
They're relying on the media to give them the education and the information that they need about things like viruses in the immune system. Who paid for that coverage? The pharmaceutical industry. I challenge anyone, next time you are consuming any sort of media news program, magazines, etc, notice the pharmaceutical industry advertising and notice just what percentage of the programming is paid for by the pharmaceutical industry.
Mari: Yeah, that'd be interesting. I've definitely never done that myself. I usually don't watch a ton of commercials. But it's usually late at night and you're watching your favorite show. That's when those weird commercials come on. But I never really paid too much attention to how many in several hours of watching my shows, but we won't go there . Yeah. That's interesting to think about.
Leslie: The pharmaceutical industries have taken no oath to us.
Mari: Which I find that so, so, so interesting because they can. I mean we wouldn't have so many lawsuits with pharmaceutical companies if they had a do no harm oath. It would significantly lower how much damage is happening.
Leslie: Yeah, you can see when you look up the biggest damages levied against private industry, the pharmaceutical industry tops that list. I'm not disparaging the individuals that work in that industry, but there's something that's naturally going to happen when people are suffering. They can be taken advantage of, they can be manipulated.
This is why medicine has always had an oath associated with it, because when you are trying to help people who are suffering, you have to maintain a very high ethical standard. Like we've talked about before, people will do anything to get out of pain.
Mari: Mm-hmm.
Leslie: I don't think that the pharmaceutical industries are sitting around a smokey table and talking about how they can exploit people and so on.
But there's just this problem within human psychology. Then you combine that every industry has had its problems. In every industry, there's been harm done and an investigation is made. You know, PE there were some people that didn't uphold high ethical standards. So, it's not like this doesn't happen everywhere, but when you're talking about the amount of suffering that people are experiencing relative to their health and the unbelievable market that the pharmaceutical industry has because of this… there's so much potential for poor ethics, unfortunately.
Mari: I was going to say abuse, but yeah. I mean, that might be a strong word, but…
Leslie: Yeah. No, I mean I think you could say abuse.
Mari: That's unfortunate.
Leslie: Why don't we give everybody a little homework here that’s listening to the podcast? Next time you watch the Nightly News, something like 60 Minutes, open up a magazine, anytime you are consuming something from the media that is supposed to be educating us and giving us the straight story, notice just how much of it is funded by the pharmaceutical industry.
Mari: I'm going to go do my own homework because I'm kind of curious now.
Leslie: Uhhuh. Well, thank you Mary. Thanks for joining me today.
Mari: Yep. We'll see you guys next time.
