Big Bucks, Big Pharma

This movie, http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=224 <-- preview, was shown to me in Brain and Behavior.  It really ties into the whole marketing scheme.  This is an excellent example of marketing at its worse.  A little summary of the movie is that big pharmaceutical corporations are taking over the marketing world and not for a good reason.  These companies make over $550 billion dollars just in marketing the prescriptions.  The content is intended to market to the viewer in a such a way that they will go to their doctors and asked to be prescribed these medications.  Keep in mind these medications are "brand name" and cost nearly quadruple the amount for generic brands that are exactly the same.  The company also markets "new" products to entice the viewer and uses scenes that make you think the pill will provide happiness.  in most cases this is not true.  Doctors and patients are being hypnotized by pharmaceutical corporations into thinking their product will solve all problems.  In reality these drugs can cause serious risks.  Lets take one example form the movie.  we all know what Prozac is.  The company that produced it advertised for another medication when Prozac's patent ran out, this medication is called Sarafem used to treat PMDD (which may not even be a real disease.  Both Prozac and Sarafem are exactly the same in chemical compound.  Yet they were advertised to treat different things.  Do you think this is a good thing for consumers to be marketed this way?  How do YOU feel about being bombarded by these advertisements? Next time when you sit down to watch tv, notice how many commercials there are for prescription drugs.