Gout epidemic

[SpikeC]

What is up with the barrage of commercials touting gout remedies?
Is this something that we should be worried about? How many out there have been visited by this scourge?

[Eamon Burke]

Usually a barrage of a certain med has to do with some change involving how it is allowed to be advertised, a change in the hands of who owns the drug, or a sign of distress for a specialized section of an otherwise properous company.

Usually, ads come first, then the epidemic.

[SpikeC]

And right now there is a shortage of very necessary but not very profitable drugs.

[Vertigo]

Usually a barrage of a certain med has to do with some change involving how it is allowed to be advertised, a change in the hands of who owns the drug, or a sign of distress for a specialized section of an otherwise properous company.

Usually, ads come first, then the epidemic.

Well said.

[JohnnyChance]

One of my former "chefs" (a total hack and fatass) has gout.

[Andrew H]

And right now there is a shortage of very necessary but not very profitable drugs.

+1

[Delbert Ealy]

I really loath the advertising of prescription drugs(and otc weight-loss ones too), but I have started listening to the side effects, and I am a relatively healthy person, but some of these side effects sound worse than the condition they are supposed to treat. I get a kind of perverse satisfaction of listening to the side effects now.
Del

[JohnnyChance]

I really loath the advertising of prescription drugs(and otc weight-loss ones too), but I have started listening to the side effects, and I am a relatively healthy person, but some of these side effects sound worse than the condition they are supposed to treat. I get a kind of perverse satisfaction of listening to the side effects now.
Del

Exactly. Shouldnt your doctor be telling you what you need? Advertising just adds to the already ridiculous cost of medicine. The whole system is broken and corrupt.

[Ichi]

The lunch lady said "I wear these brown orthopedic shoes 'Cause I got a bad case of the gout"

[mr drinky]

Exactly. Shouldnt your doctor be telling you what you need? Advertising just adds to the already ridiculous cost of medicine. The whole system is broken and corrupt.

Part of these ads are to help get regular people to ask their doctor about drugs. This way drug reps and patients can both waste your doctor's time. The commercials essentially create millions of mildly to poorly informed drug reps canvasing the hospitals and clinics. The FDA relaxed the rules for listing every side effect in 1997 and then when the Bush Administration came and decided not to enforce the rules, the flood gates opened. Now the FDA under Obama is enforcing rules more, so commercials are having to list side effects or be taken off the air as 'misleading'. Nothing like regulatory politics streaming into your home.

I also hate how the commercials are louder, so you have to reach for the remote to turn it down. Apparently, advertisers can advertise at volumes up to the loudest part of the accompanying show, so if there is a loud gun battle during a show, you then get a gun-shot-worthy loud commercial about gout too. Great.

Btw, the only other country that allows drug advertising is New Zealand (and all the bleed over TV broadcasts in to Canada).

k.