June 20, 2007

How Big Pharma Learned To Seduce You

It all began 10 years ago with a preternaturally green field and blue sky. Details were vague: We were told to ask our doctor. But never fear, Claritin was here. And soon that drug was not alone. Our airwaves slowly filled with more commercials of cloudless skies and the people who enjoyed them -- happy people who swung on rope tires and performed slow motion somersaults. Over those first early years, the active people's afflictions gradually multiplied. They suffered hair loss and got herpes. The guy couldn't always perform up to par. Through it all though, the people seemed to genuinely like holding hands, and they aged really well. Their seven-day forecasts were never short of spectacular.

Those first few antinasal drop ads have since exploded into a $4.5 billion-a-year industry, encompassing almost every imaginable ailment: depression, arthritis, cholesterol, PMS, HPV, restless legs, irritable bowels, toenail fungus and what, as the ads told it, seems to be an insomnia epidemic.

Learn much more here.

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