Advertising and Drug Safety

I got on my soapbox today on drug safety. Couple of articles for you. Just click the links to ready the whole thing.

Is that Prescription Drug Safe?

Your doctor wrote you a prescription. He is supposed to know. He is the expert. But is that new drug really safe. Or, will you come up in a few years with cancer or heart disease or stroke or liver failure.

Yes, we all will die. But isn't the goal to live well as long as possible. When I am 100 years old, I want to still be able to walk and drive and think clearly. I want to see and hear the world around me. I do not want to stare at a wall in some lovely nursing home even if the staff there is really good and caring.

Watch TV any evening and you will see dozens of commercials for new drugs. Always with the message to ask your doctor about this drug. The people in the ads are pictured as attractive, younger and healthy and active after taking any of these drugs. Your mind thinks, yes I want that. I could have that problem. Let me go see my doctor and get that new wonder drug.......

Drug Advertising and Reality

Ah the miracle of advertising. TV introduced the world to the mind of the manipulator. The question was never is it good for you or bad for you but only how much money will it make.

You can't feed your body junk and sit like a stone and expect to live long or well. No product herbal or artificial will help. You have to do the work. The best advertising in the world tells you how easy and fast this "product" will work to cure you. Everything from losing weight to better sex to staying young and beautiful. It appeals to our vanity and presents itself as the Genie in the bottle. Your wish is my command.

If you cannot afford to buy the big lie you get stressed. If you exhaust your funds to buy the big lie and it doesn't work or just makes you worse, you get stressed. There you sit, depressed (there is a drug for that) and stressed (there is a drug for that) and you probably can't sleep (there is a drug for that).....

Joke of the Day

Excercise

Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old
to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5000/month.

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. Now
she's 97 years old and we don't know where the hell she is.

The only reason I would take up exercising is so that I could hear heavy
breathing again.

I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there.

I have to exercise early in the morning before my brain figures out what
I'm doing.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.

If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.

And last but not least...

I don't exercise because it makes the ice jump right out of my glass.
*******

Time to go pick up the daughter at college. It is a 40 minute drive. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can get her car fixed and she can go back to using my gas card instead of my car and me. First the shop has to do a diagnostic ($80) to see which of 4 things in the system is broken. We have a possible: ignition, solinoid, or 2 different sensors in the steering column. It will start randomly and not start randomly. Sort of like some people's exercise program.

until next time smile
Sharono