It started with “Touched by an Angel” when the “Angel of the Lord” tells a musician that his medication is a “Gift from God” and he should be on it. The poor fellow couldn't function without his meds, but couldn't be creative while on them. The Angels told him he had to make a choice and give up being creative. Some choice!
Today, TV is selling the concept of medication.
“Criminal Minds” has a fellow who is psychotic because he is off his medication. If he had been on his meds, he would be all right. To the message is “Stay on your meds.”
On “The Mentalist” a police detective tells the consultant, who is acting unusual, “Are you off your meds?” Just another hint to stay on your meds if you don't want to be considered odd or off-kilter.
Do I sound like an alarmist? Should I just ignore one little wise-crack among friends? Or is this part of a new wave of sales techniques for the message of the largest sponsors.
For years everyone on TV smoked. Lighting up a cigarette was a statement, a show of emotion, an offer of love and so on. Have you notice that everyone on television drinks? They meet in a bar, have wine with dinner, have a beer after work or on the weekends. They never get drunk and never have a driving-related accident, unless a character needs to have a shady past – then a DWI comes in handy. But the message is “Have a drink, you won't get drunk or wreck your car.”
And now, the message is creeping in: “Take your medication.” There is no assumption that someone would get along better without artificial medication, just the presumption that someone would be silly enough to think they might. The message is that they had better not try – terrible things happen!
Every time I see that the writers of a show have run out of ideas, the show becomes about the lead character's long lost child from a former flirtation. Ex-soap-opera writers seem to invade every show sooner or later. Soon after, the show dies, replaced by the latest clone of the latest most-watched show.
Lately, I also turn a show off as soon as I see Big Pharma sticking its nose into the writers' business. They'll look for a twist and stick in a pro-psychotropic message, as with The Mentalist – a casual quip between friends. Or they'll write a whole new show around the message, as with Criminal Minds.
There are surely more examples, but truth be told, I don't watch all that much TV of late. One thing I did watch is a video by Citizens Commission for Human Rights, called Making a Killing.
The video covers one of my favorite beefs – the commercials that tell you to “Ask your doctor if Xyzzyx is right for you.” Take a look: Watch it at http://www.cchr.org/#/videos/making-a-killing-introduction.
Showing posts with label big pharma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big pharma. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Luna Nightmares
From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 6
Ted opened the door, “Phil? What's up?”
“You know,” I was thinking fast but talking slow, I hadn't thought this through. “I'm just perplexed by this whole thing and I thought, you know, that we have, you know,” I realized that I had said 'you know' three times in a sentence. “that we don't spend any down-time together. We used to do that, and I thought it would be a good idea ...” My eyes fell on a cut-glass decanter of Scotch on the counter, “... if we could just have a drink together...” I looked at Ted, an innocent smile crossing my face. Ted just looked back at me. It seemed like an hour, but it was only a few seconds before he spoke.
“Sure, Phil, it's a little early for me, but I have no plans, so why not. I'll get us a glass.” Ted took out two short glasses with heavy, cut-glass bottoms. They were part of the set with the decanter. He poured two of what I knew to be first class Scotch and added water from a bottle in the fridge. As he opened the fridge door to return the bottle to the shelf inside, I emptied the pink envelope into Ted's glass. I watched the few tiny crystals disappear into the Scotch.
“Here's to a successful test and a popular product,” I said, lifting my glass.
“I'll drink to that,” responded Ted, drinking half the glass in a gulp. I drank as well, looking around for something to take the attention off of the glass, just in case there was a taste.
“Have you redone the kitchen?”
“Nope. It's the same as the last time you were here.”
“Hmm! That was Thanksgiving...” I realized that I had brought up a memory of Carol and decided to stop there. “Well, I must have forgotten what it looked like, you keep it so nice, it looks new.” I smiled, taking another sip.
Ted finished his drink on that cue. We stood there regarding each other. Then Ted got a look on his face; he stiffened, moving his hand to his belly. His face questioned what he felt, then the answer was written in his eyes. Ted looked straight at me. His mouth opened. I expected him to ask, 'What have you done?' but he didn't, he just gagged and his eyes lost focus.
Ted convulsed and fell on the floor, writhing out of control. I stepped back, giving him room to flail against the floor and cabinets. He spat up some ugly, colorless gunk and jerked to a stop. His arms and legs, hands and feet were all at right angles; his fingers splayed. Ted spasmed once, twice, a third time and then released across the floor, completely limp. The eyes were open.
Standing there, watching my friend of so many years, I couldn't help but feel that this was the right thing to do. In his front pocket, I pulled the paper, torn from the pad at work, with a corner missing. It said, “I love you and the kids.” It was exactly like my dream, only it was Ted on the floor, not his wife and kids. I reached into his shirt pocket and took out the blue envelope.
“Ted? Are you home?” sang Alice, coming in the front door. I ran to stop her from coming into the kitchen. She was surprised to see me. “Phil! Uh, how nice to see you. You haven't visited in a while. Where's Ted?”
“Alice, you've got to go upstairs.”
“What are you talking about?” Alice gave a shallow laugh, then became afraid. “What's going on? Where's Ted?”
“Alice, just go upstairs now. Everything will be all right, but I need you to go upstairs right now.” A noise at the door revealed my worst fear, the kids were with her. “Alice, go upstairs and take the kids. Please!”
“Phil, you're scaring me.”
“Go! Now!” I cried.
“Tyler, Spencer, come with mommy.” Alice reached her hands for her children and lead them upstairs, her face pale, her eyes wide with fright.
There was only one thing for me to do; go to the phone and dial 911.
“911 Operator,” said a male voice.
“I've just killed my best friend,” I told him.
Episode 6
Ted opened the door, “Phil? What's up?”
“You know,” I was thinking fast but talking slow, I hadn't thought this through. “I'm just perplexed by this whole thing and I thought, you know, that we have, you know,” I realized that I had said 'you know' three times in a sentence. “that we don't spend any down-time together. We used to do that, and I thought it would be a good idea ...” My eyes fell on a cut-glass decanter of Scotch on the counter, “... if we could just have a drink together...” I looked at Ted, an innocent smile crossing my face. Ted just looked back at me. It seemed like an hour, but it was only a few seconds before he spoke.
“Sure, Phil, it's a little early for me, but I have no plans, so why not. I'll get us a glass.” Ted took out two short glasses with heavy, cut-glass bottoms. They were part of the set with the decanter. He poured two of what I knew to be first class Scotch and added water from a bottle in the fridge. As he opened the fridge door to return the bottle to the shelf inside, I emptied the pink envelope into Ted's glass. I watched the few tiny crystals disappear into the Scotch.
“Here's to a successful test and a popular product,” I said, lifting my glass.
“I'll drink to that,” responded Ted, drinking half the glass in a gulp. I drank as well, looking around for something to take the attention off of the glass, just in case there was a taste.
“Have you redone the kitchen?”
“Nope. It's the same as the last time you were here.”
“Hmm! That was Thanksgiving...” I realized that I had brought up a memory of Carol and decided to stop there. “Well, I must have forgotten what it looked like, you keep it so nice, it looks new.” I smiled, taking another sip.
Ted finished his drink on that cue. We stood there regarding each other. Then Ted got a look on his face; he stiffened, moving his hand to his belly. His face questioned what he felt, then the answer was written in his eyes. Ted looked straight at me. His mouth opened. I expected him to ask, 'What have you done?' but he didn't, he just gagged and his eyes lost focus.
Ted convulsed and fell on the floor, writhing out of control. I stepped back, giving him room to flail against the floor and cabinets. He spat up some ugly, colorless gunk and jerked to a stop. His arms and legs, hands and feet were all at right angles; his fingers splayed. Ted spasmed once, twice, a third time and then released across the floor, completely limp. The eyes were open.
Standing there, watching my friend of so many years, I couldn't help but feel that this was the right thing to do. In his front pocket, I pulled the paper, torn from the pad at work, with a corner missing. It said, “I love you and the kids.” It was exactly like my dream, only it was Ted on the floor, not his wife and kids. I reached into his shirt pocket and took out the blue envelope.
“Ted? Are you home?” sang Alice, coming in the front door. I ran to stop her from coming into the kitchen. She was surprised to see me. “Phil! Uh, how nice to see you. You haven't visited in a while. Where's Ted?”
“Alice, you've got to go upstairs.”
“What are you talking about?” Alice gave a shallow laugh, then became afraid. “What's going on? Where's Ted?”
“Alice, just go upstairs now. Everything will be all right, but I need you to go upstairs right now.” A noise at the door revealed my worst fear, the kids were with her. “Alice, go upstairs and take the kids. Please!”
“Phil, you're scaring me.”
“Go! Now!” I cried.
“Tyler, Spencer, come with mommy.” Alice reached her hands for her children and lead them upstairs, her face pale, her eyes wide with fright.
There was only one thing for me to do; go to the phone and dial 911.
“911 Operator,” said a male voice.
“I've just killed my best friend,” I told him.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Luna Nightmares
From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 2
Horns woke me. I was toppled over onto the couch; my neck and back were stiff. I got up and went into the bathroom, stubbing a toe on the way.
Standing in front of the mirror as the florescent bulb flickered to life, I looked myself over. 'Gees! I look terrible. No wonder Carol left. No, that wasn't it,' I told myself, starting my daily routine, going through the steps as if it mattered. 'It was the fights, the long hours, the second drink, then the third just to tune out the day. Then a fourth to tune out Carol, screaming how I promised her more.' I sighed deeply, picked up a razor and looked at it. 'Not much chance of me cutting myself badly enough to do any good. Might as well just shave.'
An hour later I pulled into the lot at Lunadyne, parking far away from the entrance, hoping no one would see me in a car I ordinarily would have traded two years earlier. The back stairs were rarely used and even more rarely swept; they had become my 'main entrance' so as not to be detected by co-workers I wanted to avoid. Only Ted was in the lab as I opened the door.
“Hi Ted,” I cheerily tossed over to him, already in his white coat and looking over the results of yesterday's tests.
“Hi Phil,” Ted said without looking up. “C might be the one. C seems to be testing like we hoped Luna-A and B would. If these preliminary results keep up we may have something.”
“Glad to hear it. That'll take some heat off.” I said as I busied myself with some items on the desk, trying to get up some excitement for the work. Ted nodded solemnly.
There hadn't been a lot of enthusiasm of late. Word came down that Lunaprex was falling off, people were starting to think of it as the 'old way' to handle depression. “Other brands are touting new cures to new stresses of life,” said the people upstairs in the rarefied air of the board room, “the public wants breakthroughs – Lunaprex is something they already knew about; It's yesterday's news!”
Luna-A, as we called it until Marketing could come up with a catchy name, was the answer. Fewer side effects and a stronger internal formula with a thinner, faster-acting coating made Luna-A a leading contender for the top slot in the anti-depressant race. “A” removed the highs and lows of life leaving a gray middle ground where nothing was very good, but nothing was very bad. It was like whiskey-and-water in a capsule.
There was only one problem with “A”; the subjects died. We couldn't tell what it was that made “A” deadly, because every autopsy result was different, thought the results were the same. After a dose of Luna-A, the subjects would convulse wildly and eventually beat themselves to death. It was ugly and very disturbing to watch. It was a wonder I didn't have nightmares about that.
Luna-B was much better. There were no fits, no convulsions, no beating of oneself to death. It was a breakthrough. “B” was testing well in the lab, then went to the animals where it tested well, then to human tests where one of the subjects simply dropped his head into his mashed potatoes. We went back to the lab.
We found what was causing it this time. One of the masking ingredients interacted badly with common foods, resulting in death. You could take Luna-B safely, you just couldn't eat. It was a disaster. Pressure was on from the board room upstairs to come up with a safe product.
Reformulation of “B”, avoiding the pitfalls of “A” brought us to what we called, naturally enough, “C.” When tests began, first in the lab, then on animals, it seemed to be working. Of course, no one breathed that sigh of relief until human test subjects took it without dying.
“Yes, this may be it,” said Ted calmly, not being one to get excited prematurely. “The first returns seem to be within acceptable levels.”
“You mean no one has died yet?” I asked, standing beside Ted looking over his shoulder at the results.
“Precisely!” said Ted. “Of course, we're still doing in-house lab tests.”
We both scanned the reports in silence.
“You up for a coffee?” I asked, once the report was fully digested.
“Yes, I'm ready for a coffee,” replied Ted, putting the report down and turning his attention to more worldly things.
The coffee bar was a long walk from the lab on purpose. We wouldn't want anything falling into the coffee, now would we?
“How's things?” I ventured.
“Things?” replied Ted.
“Yeah, you know, Alice, the kids, life in general.”
“Great! Couldn't be better. Alice is going to start photography classes now that both the kids are in school. They're doing great, seem to get on well in the school environment. All in all, life is good. The only cloud on the horizon is the Luna-alphabet problem.”
“Well, I'm glad things are good at home.” I was, in fact, glad to hear it. Of course, that meant that my dream was totally a projection of my own problems, but that was expected.
“And how are you, Phil. Adjusting OK?” asked Ted.
“As well as can be expected, but I could sure use a bonus.” Carol was financially draining me dry. She must have gotten advice from every divorced friend and sister she had. Carol had three divorced sisters, all full of spite and advice.
“The failures were costly. Some of those test subjects had relatives who want to be compensated. I doubt there will be a bonus,” Ted said, wincing at his coffee.
“They were homeless volunteers – paid volunteers who signed wavers. Any family they had abandoned them years ago. How can they expect compensation?”
“That's the way the world works. People smell money and the third-cousin twice-removed-that-never-got-invited-to-Thanksgiving-dinner suddenly becomes a terrible loss to the family.”
Ted and I stood there, looking into our coffees and pondering the ways of the world.
Episode 2
Horns woke me. I was toppled over onto the couch; my neck and back were stiff. I got up and went into the bathroom, stubbing a toe on the way.
Standing in front of the mirror as the florescent bulb flickered to life, I looked myself over. 'Gees! I look terrible. No wonder Carol left. No, that wasn't it,' I told myself, starting my daily routine, going through the steps as if it mattered. 'It was the fights, the long hours, the second drink, then the third just to tune out the day. Then a fourth to tune out Carol, screaming how I promised her more.' I sighed deeply, picked up a razor and looked at it. 'Not much chance of me cutting myself badly enough to do any good. Might as well just shave.'
An hour later I pulled into the lot at Lunadyne, parking far away from the entrance, hoping no one would see me in a car I ordinarily would have traded two years earlier. The back stairs were rarely used and even more rarely swept; they had become my 'main entrance' so as not to be detected by co-workers I wanted to avoid. Only Ted was in the lab as I opened the door.
“Hi Ted,” I cheerily tossed over to him, already in his white coat and looking over the results of yesterday's tests.
“Hi Phil,” Ted said without looking up. “C might be the one. C seems to be testing like we hoped Luna-A and B would. If these preliminary results keep up we may have something.”
“Glad to hear it. That'll take some heat off.” I said as I busied myself with some items on the desk, trying to get up some excitement for the work. Ted nodded solemnly.
There hadn't been a lot of enthusiasm of late. Word came down that Lunaprex was falling off, people were starting to think of it as the 'old way' to handle depression. “Other brands are touting new cures to new stresses of life,” said the people upstairs in the rarefied air of the board room, “the public wants breakthroughs – Lunaprex is something they already knew about; It's yesterday's news!”
Luna-A, as we called it until Marketing could come up with a catchy name, was the answer. Fewer side effects and a stronger internal formula with a thinner, faster-acting coating made Luna-A a leading contender for the top slot in the anti-depressant race. “A” removed the highs and lows of life leaving a gray middle ground where nothing was very good, but nothing was very bad. It was like whiskey-and-water in a capsule.
There was only one problem with “A”; the subjects died. We couldn't tell what it was that made “A” deadly, because every autopsy result was different, thought the results were the same. After a dose of Luna-A, the subjects would convulse wildly and eventually beat themselves to death. It was ugly and very disturbing to watch. It was a wonder I didn't have nightmares about that.
Luna-B was much better. There were no fits, no convulsions, no beating of oneself to death. It was a breakthrough. “B” was testing well in the lab, then went to the animals where it tested well, then to human tests where one of the subjects simply dropped his head into his mashed potatoes. We went back to the lab.
We found what was causing it this time. One of the masking ingredients interacted badly with common foods, resulting in death. You could take Luna-B safely, you just couldn't eat. It was a disaster. Pressure was on from the board room upstairs to come up with a safe product.
Reformulation of “B”, avoiding the pitfalls of “A” brought us to what we called, naturally enough, “C.” When tests began, first in the lab, then on animals, it seemed to be working. Of course, no one breathed that sigh of relief until human test subjects took it without dying.
“Yes, this may be it,” said Ted calmly, not being one to get excited prematurely. “The first returns seem to be within acceptable levels.”
“You mean no one has died yet?” I asked, standing beside Ted looking over his shoulder at the results.
“Precisely!” said Ted. “Of course, we're still doing in-house lab tests.”
We both scanned the reports in silence.
“You up for a coffee?” I asked, once the report was fully digested.
“Yes, I'm ready for a coffee,” replied Ted, putting the report down and turning his attention to more worldly things.
The coffee bar was a long walk from the lab on purpose. We wouldn't want anything falling into the coffee, now would we?
“How's things?” I ventured.
“Things?” replied Ted.
“Yeah, you know, Alice, the kids, life in general.”
“Great! Couldn't be better. Alice is going to start photography classes now that both the kids are in school. They're doing great, seem to get on well in the school environment. All in all, life is good. The only cloud on the horizon is the Luna-alphabet problem.”
“Well, I'm glad things are good at home.” I was, in fact, glad to hear it. Of course, that meant that my dream was totally a projection of my own problems, but that was expected.
“And how are you, Phil. Adjusting OK?” asked Ted.
“As well as can be expected, but I could sure use a bonus.” Carol was financially draining me dry. She must have gotten advice from every divorced friend and sister she had. Carol had three divorced sisters, all full of spite and advice.
“The failures were costly. Some of those test subjects had relatives who want to be compensated. I doubt there will be a bonus,” Ted said, wincing at his coffee.
“They were homeless volunteers – paid volunteers who signed wavers. Any family they had abandoned them years ago. How can they expect compensation?”
“That's the way the world works. People smell money and the third-cousin twice-removed-that-never-got-invited-to-Thanksgiving-dinner suddenly becomes a terrible loss to the family.”
Ted and I stood there, looking into our coffees and pondering the ways of the world.
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