“Ask your doctor . . .”
You’re watching your favorite trash TV when suddenly, a commercial for male enhancement supplements, heartburn treatment, or allergy relief comes on the screen, and you’re forced to sit through a bizarre portrayal of a happy consumer made happier by the addition of one drug or another.
It’s a strange phenomenon, almost completely unique to the United States. That’s because in the majority of other Western nations, drug ads are as taboo as cigarette ads have become here.
With all of the issues we are having with Big Pharma these days, it really makes one wonder: why do we let prescription drugs hawk themselves to us daily and nightly on television? Should it be legal, and is it ethical?
News media outlet Vox explored the evolution of the drug ad and answered some of these questions.
Watch.
