In Martha Rosenberg’s excellent article in the online magazine “Alternet”, we can take a worrying look at the mechanics of just how the drug companies manipulate information and promote ‘illness’ to influence you into believing that medication is necessary. In Beat Depression the Drug Free Way, I write extensively on the subconscious desires that many people have to ‘find an illness’ to divert responsibility away from themselves. This is exactly the plan of drug companies when they take everyday experiences and brand them as diseases.
Rosenberg offers an identical argument to my own when I write specifically about antidepressants and the attempts that many of us go through to end depression and fight the concerning idea that we need to be drugged for the rest of our lives.
Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s in America – particularly on television, the number of people on prescription drugs for life has ballooned. Yet, in Australia, where direct-to-consumer drug advertising is illegal (but still cleverly carried out in a surreptitious way through encouragement to ‘see your doctor’ about one condition or another) the trend has seemed to follow, with a greater proportion of the public than ever before having built reliance, dependency or outright addiction to prescription drugs.
This article, 6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life, is worth a good read, and can be found here.
Rosenberg offers an identical argument to my own when I write specifically about antidepressants and the attempts that many of us go through to end depression and fight the concerning idea that we need to be drugged for the rest of our lives.
Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s in America – particularly on television, the number of people on prescription drugs for life has ballooned. Yet, in Australia, where direct-to-consumer drug advertising is illegal (but still cleverly carried out in a surreptitious way through encouragement to ‘see your doctor’ about one condition or another) the trend has seemed to follow, with a greater proportion of the public than ever before having built reliance, dependency or outright addiction to prescription drugs.
This article, 6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life, is worth a good read, and can be found here.
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