Do you believe in magic?
Today you're more likely to expect it in a colored pill instead
of a young girl's heart.
Slick pitchmen used to roll their painted wagons across the land
peddling miracle snake oil. They were fun to watch and they promised
cures to dwarf the miracles of Lourdes.
We loved it. Today we love the miracles promised by infomercials
and trumpeted in the ads that grace the back pages of supermarket
tabloids. We believe in the magic.
We make fun of primitive societies that believe in magic spells
and potions. But we willingly plunk down billions for magical
cures that no more sure than the ones hawked by the neighborhood
shaman.
You want to know why kids are attracted to drugs? Look at the
ads that swamp television promising that a pill or magic liquid
can put things right.
Over-the-counter medication ads led the way. They promise instant
relief from pain of all kinds. They'll put you to sleep and wake
you up. But the ones that most bring out the curmudgeon in me
are the ones that promise magical fixes without effort.
Take those Mylanta ads. The basic plot is that some guy has got
gruesome, double-me-over stomach pain day after day. He's sure
surgery will be required. But his doctor (we know it's a doctor
because he's wearing a white lab coat) has good news.
"Don't worry, son," he tells our pain-wracked friend. "You don't
need surgery, just guzzle this stuff." Note that he doesn't say
something like, "Why don't you cut back on the chili dogs at lunch."
That would be too much like taking responsibility and it wouldn't
be magic at all.
Now the prescription drug folks have gotten in to the act. There
are magic pills, each with their own color, to solve all kinds
of problems. One ad that I've seen seems to promise that I'll
still feel OK if I eat barbed wire at a restaurant.
There are magic pills for serious conditions. Erectile dysfunction
is no joke. First we got a pill that fixed the problem for a while,
with proper notice. Now the drug companies are competing by telling
you that their particular pill acts faster and lasts longer. Result:
the fastest growing group of users of this medication is young
men using it for recreation.
There are magic pills for conditions that aren't quite so serious,
like psoriasis. There's a magic pill, but it's what's called an
"immunosuppressive agent." That means that you might get rid of
your skin problem, but you add "the potential to increase the
risk of infection and cancer." I didn't make that wording up.
It came from a psoriasis drug Web site.
There are magic pills for conditions that are quite normal. One
ad promises relief if you "suffer from daily fatigue." Well, guess
what? If you work hard, at the end of the day, you're going to
be tired. Try sleep.
Ads aren't the whole story. You want to know why kids are attracted
to drugs? Look at what we do to them.
Spending on drugs to treat children and adolescents for behavior-related
disorders rose 77 percent from 2000 to the end of 2003. Half of
all children taking behavior-related medication are under the
age of 5.
Think about that. Kids that age are rambunctious, short attention
span balls of energy. They're supposed to be that way.
We're drugging them to make life better for parents, not the
kids. And the parents are drugging themselves in the search for
magic solutions to other natural issues of life.
This is dangerous stuff. When you start depending on magic solutions
you start looking for only magic solutions and you quit looking
for solutions that require effort, change, or commitment.
We've bought the idea of magic just like those primitive societies
we like to feel superior to. We think, "there they are, making
a potion from horse urine and using it to cure the effects of
aging."
Sounds weird, right, but that's exactly what we did here in this
country except we called it estrogren therapy and kept prescribing
it until studies began to show that the magic came at a price.
There is a cure for this. It's not magic and it doesn't come
in a bottle. It's a mental potion of common sense and personal
responsibility. It's a cure we'd better start taking before we
create a whole generation groping through a medication fog for
one more magic pill.
Top of page
"Powerful
Medicines : The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs"
by Dr. Jerry Avorn is an excellent overview of the development and
regulatory side of the magic pill issue. Avorn is a Harvard Medical
School researcher.
"Protecting
America's Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of
Regulation" by Philip Hilts looks at the changing nature of
regulation of the drug business. Both of these books include surprising
information about what the Food and Drug Administration does and
does not do.
14 September 2004
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