A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting of some columnists from El Ojo Del Lago. One of my colleagues, Jackie Kellum, writes the column “You and Your Doctors Are Your Medical Team.” She mentioned that she was running out of ailments about which to write. I can only say, she apparently doesn’t watch the American TV channels that I do.
There must be 57 varieties of prescription medicines advertising on American TV. No other country except New Zealand allows prescription drugs to be advertised directly to the public. A recent study showed that last year, almost one third of commercial airtime during evening news programs was for prescription drug ads.
It wasn’t always that way. Before 1997, no prescription drugs could be advertised on TV. Back then, we mostly saw ads for “patent medicines.” Those were over-the-counter products that claimed to cure ailments but provided no clinical evidence they worked. We’re talking “Snake Oil.” If you are old enough, you may remember ads for Geritol that claimed to cure tired blood. Or Carter’s Little Liver Pills that supposedly aided bile flow in the liver. Truth-in-advertising laws eventually caught up with them.
In the 1970’s, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that there was no such medical condition as tired blood. And they found that Carter’s Little Liver Pills had nothing to do with bile or the liver. The company changed the product’s name to Carter’s Little Pills, which didn’t sound very medicinal. And without the poetic alliteration of little and liver, the ads didn’t quite roll off the tongue. You never see those ads anymore.
These days, many of the prescription drug ads on TV claim to treat ailments I’ve never heard of. And at least half of those don’t even bother to tell you the full medical name of the ailment – just the acronym. One thing all these ads have in common is a litany of adverse side effects. Every 60-second commercial includes at least 30 seconds of health warnings. While you are distracted by scenes of people hiking along mountain streams, or frolicking at the beach, the announcer rattles off a dozen harmful side effects ranging from flu-like symptoms to a full–blown heart attack. And if the medicine itself doesn’t kill you, it may cause suicidal thoughts so you can do the job yourself.
The ads all end with the tagline, “Ask your doctor if this medicine is right for you.” I don’t know about you, but my Medicare Advantage plan only allows me 15 minutes for a face-to-face appointment with my doctor. It doesn’t matter if it’s for an ingrown toenail or triple bypass surgery. If I were to ask about all the ailments advertised on TV, I would never get around to discussing what the lab found in the six vials of blood they sucked out of me prior to my appointment. Fifteen minutes is barely enough time to lie about how much exercise I do, or how little alcohol I drink.
So, as a public service to hypochondriacs everywhere, I have provided an alphabetical checklist of the mysterious acronyms and technical names of a dozen medical conditions that are mentioned in various TV ads. Just cut it out, hand it to your doctor and ask him to check off any that might apply to you.
Keep in mind that before writing this article, I had never heard of any of these acronyms. Even after looking up their full names, I only recognized three of the illnesses they describe. If you were able to identify more, I can only guess that the “mute” button on your TV remote doesn’t work, forcing you to listen to all those damn commercials.
So there you go, Jackie. The list provides a whole year’s worth of ailments for you to write about. Knock yourself out. I just hope that all this medical jargon doesn’t give our magazine’s proofreaders suicidal thoughts.
Mysterious Medical Acronym Checklist
ALS – Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
AMD – Age-related Macular Degeneration
ATTR-CM – Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy
CIDP – Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy
CLL – Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
GA – Geographic Atrophy
gMG – Generalized Myasthenia Gravis
IBS-C – Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Constipation
NASH – Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis
NSCLC – Non Small Cell Lung Cancer
RMS – Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis
TD – Tardive Dyskinesia
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