Anyone else frustrated by the high volume of television prescription drug advertisements on TV?

I'm British but often use a VPN on American sites. it genuinely amazes me those ads are allowed. "ask your doctor for medication x"", No the doctor advise me on medication not the other way round,

It's also always like >Symptoms may include diarrhea (dad pushing kid on swing) constapation (family walking in park) abnormally high blood pressure (family laughing at dinner) it is also known to cause cancer or death (child being helped with homework by parent) and it's always funny to me.

This isn't new to television. It's been that way for more than 30 years.

My country has heavy restrictions on what and how you're allowed to advertise drugs. It's great. Anytime I go to the states and get bombarded with drug advertisements it kind of drives me crazy.

I don’t pay any attention to commercials. They’re just white noise to me.

Yes, there are definitely other people who are annoyed by both the high volume of commercials, and prescription drug commercials. People complain about both of these things all the time. I have a hard time believing that you've never heard or read anyone else say that they're frustrated about it.

Totally! They are as bad as political candidate commercials.

No, but my doctor is getting sick of me asking if medications are right for me

The really wild part is how niche they’re getting. 10-20 years ago the target consumer for these commercials was a far broader audience, relatively speaking—people with major depressive disorder, for example—but now the commercials have such a small laser-focused target consumer that it really leaves a majority of the audience just scratching their heads in confusion. The most niche one I’ve seen so far was some drug for people with “HR-positive HIR2-negative breast cancer,” and while I’m all for making sure patients are informed and are able to advocate for their care, I can’t help but wonder how many people from this group actually (a) saw the commercial, (b) “asked their doctor” about it, and (c) their doctor didn’t know about it beforehand.

These days? This has been happening for almost 30 years.

Can't get TV ads if you're sailing the seas

Better them than sports betting apps 

Must be a US thing

We don't get them as much here in Canada. Instead we're flooded with annoying gambling ads.

That’s how I know I’m watching an American channel. Drug commercials, lawyers trying to collect. They’re not allowed in Canada which is nice.

They have good music on those things. Jardience is really swell the little pill with a big story to tell

My mom says it's always fast food ad, beer ad, followed by prescription drug ad.

NOTHING MEANS EVERYTHING TO MEEEEEEEE. SKYRIZI HAUNTS MY DREAMS

I really want to be sarcastic and rude about the “these day” part but I’ll abstain. But yes.

Population’s getting older, dog, and therefore more reliant on various medications. It is what it is.

I always hated ads. But for the love of god they’re all so fake feeling. Everything feels like a grift or an ad for a mobile game. I’d give anything to see a f****** tide commercial at least. Jesus.

Pharmaceutical and AI ads are all I see on prime now. It's madness.

I heard that they play adverts louder so that you hear them when you get up and do something else whilst waiting for the adverts to finish and it makes so much sense.

We don’t get drug ads on Prime. Usually travel, shampoo/beauty products, laundry detergent, sometimes gambling.

Drug ads are one of the few I can sometimes tolerate solely for the side effects. The best was some Restless-Leg-Syndrome drug...no lie one of the side effects was "increased gambling tendencies"

Canada has them too but you’re not actually allowed to say what the drug does, just “ask your doctor” Not sure if that’s better or worse

Nah cause i dont watch them

I do get irrationally mad at these. With all the info they collect on me, they could give better targeted ads. Mine are 60 p*******/ 30 online gambling/ 10 travelogue for a garbage state I’d never visit. 

I miss the anti-drug commercials. “You, alright? I learned it by watching you!” “This is your brain on drugs.”

My socials are where the ads for medications I’ve never heard of and dont need or want reside. I’m looking at one typing this comment. 😂

It's frustrating when I'm in a hotel and trying to watch TV. At home I don't watch TV, unless it's the Olympic Games. We only watch our own media collection.

Welcome to America.

They're the only ones making money in this fucked up hellscape.

Hate them. They should have remained illegal 30 years ago.

I mean the demographics that are still watching tv skew older, causing this type of advertisement to concentrate on tv instead of other venues. What’s the point of advertising some common consumer goods to this demographics anyways? New toothpaste, drink, snacks, detergents etc.. don’t work well with this demographics that why we are seeing them less on TV. All the major retailers are concentrating through mergers/acquisition no point putting out so many ads for them. Besides, everybody complains about the long list of side effect they have to speed up to go through during the ad, maybe complain about the regulations that’s causing this phenomenon, all the disclaimers just to have the plausible explanation of avoiding some liabilities.

“Side effects include…..lower limb loss” Maybe lead with that?

What I find funny is Ro. Theres a ro pill for erectile dysfunction, theres a ro pill for losing weight. I assume there will be a ro pill to soften your stool. At some point SNL is going to need to make a sketch for this.

They do bother me, but not nearly as much as the all the ads for gambling apps. Maybe it's because the only time I watch live TV is for NHL games, but I find it genuinely disturbing how many gambling apps are out there, and how aggressively they're marketed.

RFK said he was going to do something about them.

Drug ads are so f****** gross. I can't stand them.

No because rfk jr banned them. Right after he cured autism.

I don't consume content with advertising any more. Your observation is a big part of why. But really all advertising has gotten out of hand.

I'm just waiting to hear about AdVerta - the once monthly infusion when all of the pharma ads get to be just too much for you ... consult your marketing specialist to see if Adverta is right for you.

I haven't really noticed it myself. I feel like most days you'll see one or two each time commercials come on anyway.

I saw one yesterday for dog medicine shot like an Ozempic commercial

I don’t understand why pharmaceutical companies pay the money to advertise a product I typically can not go out and buy. Do they really think my doctors is going to listen when I say “I saw a commercial for drug x on cnn and I want you to prescribe me that” I just don’t understand what benefit they get from spending so much money on advertising, it’s never made sense to me.

This always amazes me about American television

I need to cancel prime. I’m not watching this propaganda bs.

It's to make up for the revenue networks lost when cigarette ads were banned. 😁 The big problem has always been that they didn't always say what the product is for. How many doctors here have had a patient ask about a medication that was not made for their gender. Imagine a 20-something guy asking his doctor about a post-menopausal hormone treatment.

It's been that way forever, I remember seeing them and Y2K survival rations at the same time. Remember, the demographic doesn't change year after year. You eventually get to the point of needing them, and they never age out.

Thankfully, my country has zero. I was so weirded out when in the US and they had ads for drugs. So odd. We just get prescribed exactly what we need by the medical professionals.

Who watches ads ? Mute them and change the channel.

I hate them too, but a fun way to pass the time when you can't skip it is try and spot all the phallic imagery they put in the erectile dysfunction commercials. There's one with a muscle car slowly coming out of a driveway, and if that doesn't scream a certain imagery, nothing will.

YES! It’s one of the reasons the drugs are so expensive! It’s criminal! Wait…it’s not because of guess who…THE SACKLER FAMIKY!

The government never should have started allowing Big Pharma or attorneys to make advertisements for television. Huge mistake for everyone except the advertisers.

I've always wondered who these ads are for. It's not like I'm going to impulse buy gut-focused entivio, no matter how catchy the jingle is. Do enough people really ask their doctors about drugs they saw an ad for to make those ads worthwhile? Or are the ads aimed at someone other than the consumer, like maybe doctors? The structure of the ads, where they have to spend considerable run time describing often-horrible side effects, seems like it would make the ads a liability for the platform airing them, with a higher likelihood of people being made uncomfortable and changing the channel/app than an ad for just about anything else.

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I really don't know what most of them are treating. Sometimes I try to guess based on the trademark name. I'm guessing there's a law about it in Canada.

I only ever see ads when watching live sports, and probably 80% of the ads are for betting/gambling websites. It's really annoying and predatory.

Why do they advertise drugs you can't actually directly buy? Isn't the, er, qualified medical professional, supposed to prescribe medicine?

Not really.  The conditions they treat are so specific and the names are nonsensical enough that, combined with the visuals that have little to nothing to do with the product, make it some sort of AV test pattern or screen saver I don't mind missing while I'm cruising listnook, taking a bio break, snack break, etc.

This is one of those cases where a little bit of personalization would go a long way. I do not have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. My time and their money is wasted marketing the treatment to me.

No, don't watch ads. You all should stop watching them too. Also is thisnone of those post to try and normalize watching ads? If its free, it can have ads, if you pay it should be sd free.

My biggest mark of success is that I don’t have to watch any media with prescription drug ads.

Just wait until you find out they spend the vast majority of their budget on advertising, R&D and manufacturing are afterthoughts. We spend exorbitant amounts on drugs so they can market them back to us to spend more money on them.

Hit pause on the warning graphic sometimes. You’ll see something like “Patients who took Zeltreekuh lived an average of 5.4 months vs patients who took a placebo who lived 4.8 months”. Who doesn’t want to bankrupt their family to live two more weeks in agony?

Glad I don’t live in America

You see ads?

If you watched TV with an older viewing audience like the nightly national news, it has been like 80% pharmaceutical ads since I can remember in the 90s. The reason we’re seeing more pharmaceutical ads these days is probably because we’re getting older and watching shows older people watch.

I never get tired of hearing about potential side effects between the a*** and genitals (looking at you Monjouro).

Lucky you you're one of two countries in the world that does this.

Yes. All of them are reprehensible. Even the anime one. At least that one is good to look at stylistically. But they all follow the same plot. Overly cheerful people doing shit normal people don't do, while a voiceover asks if you have a symptom you never heard of in your life. "Do you have **tardive dyskenesia**" "Do you have **Pieronie's disease**" Then they implore you to "ask a doctor about Tremfydant" or whatever medication they are shilling. But not after informing you of the possible side effects of **death**, **vomiting**, nausea, oxidation, manifestation, diarrhea, and gas. Listen, it's quite possible that even if you could even afford the medication or had insurance, you might be "helped" by whatever. And I'm not naive, peptides like "GLP-1" and Wegovy with happy cheerful singing people singing off-brand covers of 70's pop hits ("Let's groooovveee tonight!") may help some people lose weight, but overall, if you're not feeling well, go to a doctor, and let him prescribe drugs to treat your ailments. You should not "ask your doctor" about any drug at ALL that you saw on TV. This, and political ads, are the two most reviled ads I see. When Youtube shows me them I actively rush to my computer to block and report them as soon as I physically am possible. /rant

I've seen a couple recently where, buried in the list of horrific side effects, is a disclaimer that studies are ongoing to prove the drug's effectiveness. So now they're selling pills that might not even help with the issue they're telling us about.

I wish we had laws against it like other countries do.

Welcome to America 

I'm always amazed by that when I visit someone's house who watches TV with commercials.

every week it's about 3 new ones too. Along with the fact that the advertisements for drugs are every other commercial.

Super frustrated. They take up 80-90% of ad space on Hulu which is gross. We’re back to the point where we mute ads and leave the room for a minute.

*Don’t take dibubblipeptide if you’re allergic to dibubblipeptide.*

A mostly American problem

No

Capitalism run rampant. I think we’re the only country that allows this.

I hear a lot of doctors say that patients are constantly asking them for the drugs they see on tv so the stupid incessant advertising must work.

On some post asking international folks about culture shocks they experienced in the US, I said prescription drug adverts, and things got pretty heated. For whatever reason, there are a lot of Americans who will defend to the death their god-given right to watch prescription drug ads on tv.

The only way it's going down is if we get Congress to ban it like they did smoking adverts. So it's never going down.

Don't watch tv

Definitely!!

The depression meds ads are fascinating.  The core message is always that the depression is always looming, even with the medication.  There's one where there's like a sunny town on the edge of a dark cliff, the one where the lady carry around the "mask" she used to hide her depression in her purse.  I think there was one where it was a little cartoon guy that followed the actor around. All the actors were clearly given the direction "you are coping, but the depression is still there".  The lady in the mask one is so good at acting like she's empty inside, it's crazy. There's a good YouTube video essay going over these just waiting to be made.

I tend to zone out on most commercials, but apparently my 8 y/o pays enough attention that she asked her allergist about Neffy at her appointment last week. 🤦🏼‍♀️

If you’re allergic to ebglyss, don’t take ebglyss! You don’t say??? How many people have these fuckin diseases? Like 1% of the population?

Part of it is that people in the States tend to ignore symptoms due to our miserable healthcare system so for every thousand people who will ignore the ad one person may go “huh, that’s a thing and there’s a treatment?”. The sane answer is to only get advice from medical professionals but if you’re not going to the doctor’s in the first place you may not ever have the opportunity.

Same here man, I’ll add those HIV drug commercials, you know the one that promotes unsafe life styles and says the HIV can be undetectable! Who the heck wants to hide HIV! Like it should even be allowed. I don’t understand it

I’m from Australia and was (still am) astounded at the number of ads for prescription medication airing in the US.

Billy mays here.

I don’t see ads. 🏴‍☠️

Nope they're really fun, especially if they list the side effects before saying what the medicine is designed to treat. Then I can go "damn this shit better cure AIDs and double my d*** size" I think the last one ended up being for congestive heart failure

It’s only in the US and it’s disgusting. Plus all the celebrities peddling. You don’t see this in Canada or Europe.

No. Who pays attention/watches commercials?

I report all listnook, YouTube etc drug ads as misleading

They pay for advertising to influence the networks.

And food. We eat more b/c of all those commercials. But those medicine commercials are one of the reasons the prescriptions cost so much. I hate them. I hate healthcare in the US.

American political opinion programming networks that once called themselves the cable news media rely on seniors as their target demographic audience and as a result that demographic is also big pharma's target demographic audience as well so the majority of the advertising on these networks is from big pharma.

Why are you watching ads?