Blockbuster drugs

So now it looks like Pfizer-produced Celebrex is joining Vioxx as the latest "blockbuster" drug to come under suspicion for being, well ... dangerous to its users. Lots of media talk about how we have to do something about these drugs, but the FDA's in a shambles, etc. The real problem, folks, is not the drugs themselves, but the marketing of the drugs. Ever since August 1997, when the FDA relaxed its rules for "direct-to-consumer" advertising on television, things have gotten dodgier. Very quickly, the US was flooded with drug ads in Prime Time (and the US became, with New Zealand, the only country in the world that allowed this). Now drugs are marketed like major Hollywood movies -- hence the term "blockbuster". Only mass-marketing drugs is a very different proposition from mass-marketing the latest piece of Hollywood rubbish. ("Blockbuster," btw, was originally a term applied to huge WWII bombs, 5,000 lb and over, carried on RAF bombers and big enough to destroy entire city blocks). Drug companies wheel out new drugs that might or might not be marginally better than existing (and much cheaper) drugs, and then hawk them as new "wonder drugs" -- relying on massive marketing and advertising campaigns. By the time we find out there might be a serious problem, the industry has already seen to it that millions of people are using these drugs. Just rubbish!