Word: drugging
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...ever watched television, you've seen plenty of drug ads. They urge you to take Lunesta to get to sleep, Lyrica to battle aches and pains, Cymbalta when "depression hurts." And if the commercials seem more pervasive than ever, that's because they are. Drug makers spend nearly $5 billion a year to make sure you're hearing about their products - a sound investment considering that every $1,000 they spend translates to 24 new prescriptions, according to the House Commerce Committee. But as industry spending has soared, so has public scrutiny. Last week, at a day-long House subcommittee...
...seems the inquiries are coming just in time. A commentary in the May 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine highlights a potentially risky shift in direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads - from drugs to devices. Last Thanksgiving, Johnson & Johnson launched its new TV commercial for Cypher, a drug-coated coronary stent, designed to prop open narrowed arteries. "To many consumers, the stent ad may not have seemed surprising or out of place," write the authors of the NEJM article. "But in making the leap from pharmaceuticals to medical devices, the ad campaign raises important questions regarding...
That's a feature common to most drug ads: they leave you confused about the information. The FDA states that DTC commercials must present a "fair balance" of the benefits and side effects of a drug, but it's obvious most don't. Drug ads are, not surprisingly, meant to sell products, not scare consumers off, so they're notorious for careening quickly through the obligatory list of the medication's risks. Even Saturday Night Live has mocked this technique, with its own commercial for a fake birth control pill, Annuale - a spoof of a real drug ad for Seasonale...
...Alvaro Uribe, a key U.S. ally in the region, Washington denies it directly aided Colombia's military in March. The Manta FOL commander, Lt. Col. Robert Leonard, insists that U.S. aircraft there, including AWACS surveillance planes that fly almost two dozen missions a week, are "only looking for illicit drugs" and drug-ferrying boats in the Pacific, and that their radar systems are activated exclusively over international waters, not on land. Ecuadorian flight control approves Manta's departures and landings, and Ecuadorian and Colombian liaison officers are on board during operations. (Ecuadorian military analysts note that U.S. help could have...
Either way, it appears all but certain now that the Manta base will be one of the most high-profile casualties of the Andean fracas. U.S. officials argue the Manta FOL has played a key role improving drug interdiction as the southern tip of a triangle that includes U.S. FOLs in El Salvador and the Caribbean island of Curacao. They estimate those three FOLs intercepted, in street-value terms, $4.2 billion worth of cocaine and other drugs in 2007. But many anti-drug experts in the U.S. nonetheless argue the bases are expendible in the larger interdiction picture...