Big Pharma

Now I will start off by saying I have never, and most likely will not any time soon, be a supporter of Big Pharma. What I mean by this is that, for the most part, I will not support large corperations who exploit people by giving them medication they do not truly need. I am trying to decide on a Junior Theme topic, a major research paper we do Junior year at my high school. And I think talking about why pharmaceutical drugs have increased in the past thirty years, and how it has been and will continue to affect our society.

After doing some research, I am not a master in the topic, I found out that 

"Drug companies spend $4 billion a year on ads to consumers. In 1997, the FDA rules governing pharmaceutical advertising changed, and now companies can name both the drug and what it's for, while only naming the most significant potential side effects"

"Then, the number of ads really exploded. The Nielsen Co. estimates that there's an average of 80 drug ads every hour of every day on American television"

So what we see here is a significant change in the FDA advertising policy, allowing companies to choose the most "significant potential side effects"... Uh, no. This is not okay. If half of the commercial is talking about only the "significant" side effects. Just how many other side effects are there? And why is no one stepping up to demand answers? Because the Federal Government decided to increase revenue via more advertising, thus decreasing the amount of legitimate information available to the public. Does this seem fair? Why or why not?

Leave your thoughts below.