For as long as people have been people there have been certain plants that they used to cure certain ailments. This plant is good for this, this plant is good for that, and these will kill you type stuff. It’s where most of the medicines in the world today come from.
Somehow though, people being people, it’s taken a wrong turn. At some point someone found a way to make money off of sick people. That in itself seems wrong to me but I have a conscience and a soul, something I am pretty sure is lacking in most of the pharmaceutical world.
All you have to do is watch TV for a little while and you’ll get blasted with a lot of pseudo-medicine advertising that is sketchy at best. Ethics went out the window a long time ago, or at least it has in America.
I’m not getting into politics but I am curious if people are actually paying attention to what they're being told, and in this case,
what they're being sold.
The commercials
40% of the people saw a 30% improvement 40% of the time.
That’s one of the vaguest ways I know of to say, ”It probably won’t work but you should buy it anyway.” Brilliant marketing.
I would have loved to have been at that meeting.
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“Look this product should be labeled as poison but for some reason it got approved as medicine and we are the ones who get to market it. There is absolutely no way we want people to buy this, so let’s throw some ridiculous numbers out there and hopefully people will realize we are trying to tell them to stay away from this if there is any negative feedback but if it sells we still get credit and a bonus for it.”
“Couldn’t we have just said we won’t take the contract?”
“They paid us a lot of money.”
“Maybe that should have been a sign to walk away from it.”
“You want to walk away without getting paid?”
“Money isn’t everything.”
“But it buys those things.”
“I’m done with this.”
“You can’t leave, you signed a contract.”
“Watch me!”
Ethics in marketing, who would dare to think of something like that? Oh yeah, all the companies that said NO to that product! I’m probably just being optimistic again though.
This is one of my favorites from the other day: May cause diarrhea or constipation How can something cause diarrhea and constipation? Water might make it wet or it might dry it out. Ummm, no it doesn’t. I don’t think you did enough research on your product, or your marketing team is laughing their socks off at the fact that you are actually trying to sell something this bad. Until they realized it wasn’t a joke.
I predict some sleepless nights in some people's futures. (I don’t even need a crystal ball or some weird star chart animal nonsense to know that.)
Money can’t buy peace of mind but there is a pseudo-therapist waiting to take most of it back from you with a promise of clearing your conscience. I wonder what they will prescribe for that? And what the side effects will be?
I would rather just say: NO and live on less money. It’s cheaper in the long run anyway. Unless you believe in life coaches . . . there’s also a tooth fairy. It really is a shame what some people will do for money. . . and what some people will pay for.
Life coaches . . Who started that nonsense?
Don’t get me started on weather people either. I can look at the radar too, why do we need you?
That’s a whole other article, that’s coming out this summer.
“In this region . . .”
Sounds like a military campaign
“It might cause death, but it might heal more people than it kills. It’s an acceptable loss.”
That’s war talk. Who are they at war with: the disease or the people who take it?
“We will wipe out this disease and it will only cost the lives of 60 percent of the people who take this medicine.”
“It’s only fatal for 6% of the people who get it.”
“And we will save that 6% by killing 60% of the ones who take the medicine.”
“What . . .that's not winning. . . that’s not medicine?”
“Keep quiet and you can have yours for free.”
“Well since you put it like that. HECK NO!”
When did helping people have a death toll? Wars have those kinds of statistics not MEDICINES! Or at least they didn’t used to. The side effect listings are longer than the things they supposedly help.
I might not be a military tactician but if I was going to lose 60 people to save 2, I might not be inclined to call that a victory. Maybe I’m wrong about how military people view wins and losses. I guess it depends on which side you're on. The side left standing, or the side considered a casualty of war.
But this isn’t about war, it's about medicine. I guess that too depends on how you look at it: by the numbers or by the definition of a medicine. You can’t redefine what a medicine is just because somebody gives you a lot of money. . . .or have they?
It is war alright, on common sense, good judgment, ethics, morals, Common decency and people's intelligence in general.
Is this just an American thing
I know Americans pay more for their medicine but are those medications marketed to people like this in other countries?
No, I’m not getting into a political debate. I stay as far away from all of that stuff as possible. I’m just curious how it’s marketed in other places. Are medicine commercials in the rest of the world made for adult children too?
“For the Americans we better explain it like we do with a child. It may cause death, which is serious.”
“Oh, OK, thanks, can we go play now?”
“After you take your medicine. Enjoy the circus.”
It’s a good example of what happens when the wrong people have money and power and no morals and bad judgment. Things fall apart when the wrong people are in charge and there are a whole lot of examples from history that prove it. I don’t focus on those though and I try to stay positive but some of these commercials make me wonder if anybody else notices this stuff. There’s already enough out there trying to lead people into places people aren’t supposed to be but calling it medicine it seems like people would start to notice some things are not right and shouldn't be that complicated.
I also thought leaders were supposed to be the best example of a people. I feel sorry for the Americans. . . . from a safe distance.
”Enjoy your circus.”
It’s not really the marketings fault
The really weird thing about all this is that all these fake medicines are actually approved by the American Academy Awards.
I know that’s not really who approved them but if they are expecting people to believe they haven't just been paid off and don’t care what gets put out on the market then there is some serious acting going on.
It’s almost as bad as the petroleum industry buying up patents on any other type of energy source or invention that would have hurt their profits. But that could never happen. Not in America. Americans are some of the most intelligent, well informed, sound judgment making people in the world. Just look at their medicine commercials.
I can’t really blame the marketing people for taking a contract to promote something they knew was harmful, . . . or can I? If they didn’t take it someone else would have?
Supposedly.
“We’ll take the money and the blame.” If only it was that simple. You never know what saying no to something you don’t believe in will do. It could lead to other people saying no to things that are wrong too. Little things add up into big things.
It’s pretty simple in my world but this isn’t really something that happens a lot in my world. Things either do what they say or they don’t get used. It doesn’t really matter how flashy the advertising is for a fishing lure. If it doesn’t work people won’t buy it.
. . .and we sleep very well at night. . . .after a good day fishing. . . . we might not have as much money . . . but some things can’t be bought. No I’m not in marketing but I am a fisherman. ‘
And a little observant.
Are there people who need medicine?
Yes.
Are they being taken advantage of?
Sometimes.
I’m not even sure if a lot of these would qualify as experimental treatments in Europe but in America, if you have the money, and pay the right people, you can get away with anything, as long as nobody asks any questions, or just says no, or thinks, or is observant, or . . . .
Amazing what you can learn from a commercial.
Amazing what some people traded for money. . . or do for money.
Love of money is what?
The root of all evil.
You know what a love of fishing is?
Really peaceful. . . .And . . .uncomplicated.
But I’m just a fisherman, what do I know?
Just one more thing
I’m not getting involved in what people do recreationally but I am a little curious about one aspect. Maybe two. Why are plants that make you feel a little funny illegal but ones that are poisonous aren’t? Shouldn’t the ones that could be used to hurt people be the ones that are so regulated?
“Don’t eat that plant, it will kill you.”
“What about this one?”
“You’ll feel different for a little while, it might even help some people with some things.”
“So you want me to eradicate the funny one and leave the poison.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. Plus we wouldn’t want people to get addicted to that.”
“But more than half the adult population in the U.S. is already on PERMANENT medication.”
“That’s different. Pharmaceutical companies make those, and they call them medicine. If people use plants to get better who's going to buy all those pills?”
"WHAT?"
See what happens when you think it through, it stops making sense.
Now that I’m on the subject of plants that make you feel a little funny I have noticed something peculiar about it. Most of the plants that were made illegal were used to make “medicines” and sold to people or to doctors to use on people. Instead of them being free to use if you have a little gardening knowledge, people were forced to buy a concentrated form from a pharmaceutical company and it was enforced by gov't. Then they found a way to make synthetic versions of the plants substances but with a lot more side effects, and not the good kind.
It went on to become a cabillion dollar a year illegal drug market and helped fund cartels and organized crime, and who knows what else.
I’m sure money was not the motivator in the legislation though. They had people's best interests in mind. As long as those people don’t ask questions, and have insurance or money, instead of a green thumb.
“If our people say you can have it, and you only get it from us, then you can have it.” Doesn’t that make the gov't the first cartel?
Unless it was a plan. Maybe the whole war on drugs thing was just a gang fight. South Americans were taking money from the beloved pharmaceutical companies of the US.
Never mind. I don’t want to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole. (it’s only a conspiracy theory if it’s wrong. Otherwise, it’s actually the truth.)
I admittedly have a lot more questions than I do answers, but I’m just a fisherman, what do I know?
I would like to think that somewhere in that mess are people who genuinely want to help people. Unfortunately, the only road they have to do that, is paved by people who just want money. The right people are there, they’re just locked behind a wall of people who only want to profit off them. Sounds familiar but where else in the world could that possibly be happening? Hmmmmm.
I also can’t help but think that some of the reasons people need so many medicines are because of whatever else has been added to food to make it more like food or because people are trying to adjust to a world that makes no sense. That would drive a lot of people to need medicine.
I also feel like some of those companies think:
"We could make a cure, or we could make a fortune by treating symptoms. Then we can make more medicines for them by treating the symptoms from the medicine we gave them for the symptoms."
But I’m just a fisherman, what do I know.
Enjoy the circus.
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written by Benjamin Evans