Awhile ago I was watching the telly and saw a commercial for Mirapex, a medicine for restless leg syndrome. For some reason all drug commercials now feel like they have to elaborate on all possible side effects. And they try the cleverest ways to do it . . . four women sitting around discussing the side effects of that pill that makes you have a period once a year (SNL did a riotous parody of that - I think it included chain saws and other weapons of mass destruction). Or med students. Why is this happening? Maybe it's because we've become so lazy that we don't take the time to read the information that comes with the medication. Or maybe the doctors are paying the drug companies to do part of their job. Who knows . . .
Back to Mirapex. One of the possible side effects is the increased desire to gamble. AN INCREASED DESIRE TO GAMBLE? That's quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever heard. What kind of research did they do to determine that? Did they load up the test subjects with the drug and then take a field trip to Harrah's? Or did they just see their test subjects huddled together on a street corner shooting craps? Or were they making risky stock purchases? Did they suddenly abandon the practice of looking both ways before they crossed the street?
There's some other drug that has this side effect: May cause you to drive while sleeping, accompanied by the inability to remember the event. Just shoot me now.
1 comment:
i'm pretty sure they are required by law to put all the horrible side effects in the commercial so it's not false advertising. But still, seems like the list goes on and on for at least 30 seconds of possible horrible side effects. makes you think you would be worse off than if you even took the medication to begin with.
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