Those Absurd Drug Ads

Like lots of old people, I don’t sleep much: in bed by 7:00 p.m., tossing and turning (between bathroom runs) until midnight, then staring at the walls (between more bathroom runs) until 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. (4:00 a.m. on Sabbath). Which was why I was fascinated by a sleep medication ad that popped up on my computer screen. As soothing music tiptoes about your ears, a woman’s voice gingerly glides through rooms with slumbering people while a radiant green sprite (looks like a cross between a butterfly, Peter Pan, and a pterodactyl) eases through the air in and out of the rooms of those peacefully sleeping (thanks to the drug, obviously). 

As the music, the flying green essence, and the sleeping people all continue uninterrupted, the woman’s voice (without changing tone or rhythm) adds: “Walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep without remembering it the next day have been reported. Abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. In depressed patients, worsening of depression along with risks of suicide may occur. Alcohol may increase these risks. Allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. Side effects include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness.”

Yes, our drug could make you aggressive, confused, suicidal—and it might even suffocate you. (But, well, at least you can sleep.)

We in the United States have seen the smiling and happy people walking on the beach, or enjoying a family picnic, or working in a sunny garden, or traveling to exotic places as they carefreely cavort while the narrator extols the wonders of the pharmaceutical that allows them to do all these happy and smiley activities.

Then, almost like, And, oh, by the way, this wonder drug or that wonder drug can cause “serious infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, heart failure, nervous system problems, blood disorders . . . blood clots, serious infections, heart attack, stroke, cancer, death . . . thyroid tumors (including cancer), pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, kidney injury . . . increased risk of death in elderly with dementia, suicidal thoughts, weight gain, high blood sugar, uncontrolled body movements. . . infections, liver injury, allergic reactions, PML (a rare brain infection).”

Is This a Joke?

If you didn’t know better, this would seem like a spoof, a parody, a joke. Yet what is funny about those who, afflicted with disease, see these carefree and happy and smiling people afflicted (supposedly) with the same disease (often they are actors) and, wanting that happy and carefree life for themselves, push their doctors to prescribe for them the advertised drugs, despite the risks? (The ads must work, because Big Pharma spends billions of dollars doing it.)

At least this alluring promise comes with a warning.

However crassly ridiculous the idea of drug companies directly advertising their chemical wares to credulous and, perhaps at times, desperately diseased customers—between free speech protections; capitalism; and Big Pharma helping fund our representative democracy—the United State is the only country (except New Zealand) that allows for direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs. Unfortunately for the drug companies, their money can corrupt the political process only so far (at least for now), which is why the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA, 21 U.S.C. §352(n)) requires that their ads include a “fair balance of benefits and risks.”

And so we see these smiling and carefree people living life to the fullest, thanks to Big Pharma chemicals, while a pleasing background voice says that their drugs might cause anything from heart attacks, stroke, impulse self-control disorders (compulsive gambling, binge eating), kidney failure, liver failure, cancer, or even diarrhea. The one that gets me the most: anti-depressants that can lead to . . . “suicidal ideation.”

Though forced to admit these dangers, the drug companies stage their charades to make their products look beneficial anyway. It’s how sin works, too, it is not? When Satan tried to trip up Jesus, he “showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” (Matt. 4:8) and promised that it all could be His if Jesus would worship him, even though Jesus, better than anyone, knew what a farce worldly “glory” is.

Who among us has not experienced what “the pleasures of sin for a season” (Heb. 11:25, KJV) can do after the season ends? A few moments of lawless indulgence spawned by the lure of the world—always more alluring than Zoloft, Humira, or Stelara ads—can breed sorrow lasting eons (it seems) after the echoes of the original ecstasy have evaporated from memory. The side effects of sin can be brutal, not just on the sinner but on those wedged inside the backwash (as most children of divorce know).

Decades ago I preached a sermon called “The Wages of Forgiven Sin,” which meant exactly that. How many people wallow in the ruins of sin (theirs or others) that has been forgiven (Eph. 1:7), covered (Ps. 32:1), cast into the sea (Micah 7:19), even (eventually) blotted out (Isa. 44:22)? Or, to look at it another way: God forgave King David even as Uriah the Hittite’s corpse rotted.

Sure, tossing and turning when I should be in stage 3 of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, I can’t help thinking of that radiant green sprite gliding through the night and how nice it would be to ride with it softly into dreamland. But at least this alluring promise comes with a warning. Sin often doesn’t.