Advertising of medicines: harm yourself
Evgenia Nikolaenko, Saratov News, 14.10.2008
According to Russian toxicologists, more than 60 thousand Russians die annually from self-medication with pharmaceuticals, the advertising of which is imposed on the consumer by print and television media. The drug boom that has been going on in Russia for ten years now covers more and more people who have decided to choose the role of a "home doctor" for themselves and their households. Doctors are sure that the more often medicines flash in commercials, the more side effects, exacerbations of chronic diseases and allergies they have to treat. The cold snap gave rise to a new round of advertising medicines.
Poison yourself?Doctors have tried repeatedly to protect Russians from the consequences of unjustifiably high levels of drug consumption.
In 2003, the Ministry of Health strongly advocated a complete ban on advertising of pharmaceuticals on radio and television. The reason for this decision was a study conducted, according to which about 32% of Russians chose a medicine not according to a doctor's prescription, but after viewing an advertisement. At the same time, people bought expensive and not always effective medicines.
It is known that in 2005-2007, advertising of medicines and food additives on TV outstripped even beer advertising. According to doctors, in conditions of a low consumer culture, buyers are misled by advertising "miracle drugs" that can instantly relieve pain, relieve cramps or bring down a high temperature. Very often, such self-medication not only does not help to fight the disease, but also aggravates it. However, the Ministry of Health failed to calm the flow of drug advertising.
Another attempt to ban the advertising of medicines was made by deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 2005. But this time it was not possible to remove the commercials from the TV, the maximum that the legislators managed to achieve was to force them to pronounce the phrase in each video: "before using the drug, consult with your doctor." But after all, they write on cigarettes that smoking is dangerous for health, but the multimillion army of smokers is growing day by day.
Pill manufacturers are sure that the consumer must know what new medicines are appearing on the market, what are their advantages. And all this gives people, of course, the same advertising. Given the powerful lobby of pharmaceutical manufacturers, it can be assumed that drug advertising will continue to grow and flourish.
Even the prohibitions that are prescribed in the federal law of the Russian Federation "On Advertising", pharmaceutical manufacturers manage to successfully circumvent. For example, lawmakers demanded that "people in white coats" advertising pills and ointments be removed from the commercials. The doctors from the advertisement disappeared, but their place was taken by dozens of smiling young people who allegedly recovered from all their ailments thanks to no-spee, fervex or claritin.
The reverse side of the pillAs practice shows, self-medication often leads to big health problems.
Take at least the same allergy. Starting from spring and until very late autumn (the period of the "heyday" of allergic reactions), commercials are played on TV with advertisements for antihistamines that supposedly help to get rid of allergies for a long time. However, doctors warn that not every allergy can be treated "from the screen". According to Boris Semenov, director of the Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, advertising of anti-allergy drugs is harmful to health. Allergy is a very complex disease, the academician is sure, requiring a doctor's consultation and a comprehensive study. If, however, uncontrolled means are used that simply "jam", and do not treat this disease, then the consequences can be very severe: starting from chronic bronchitis and ending with bronchial asthma, which often turns into a "healed" allergy.
The same opinion is shared by the chief allergist of the Saratov region, Doctor of Medical Sciences Natalia Astafyeva. - There should be no advertising of medicines at all, - Natalia Grigorievna believes. - If one person's self-medication goes unnoticed, then another can get a lot of side effects. This is very dangerous, because only a doctor can prescribe a medicine, but not a commercial in any way. And in the treatment of allergic diseases, it is especially important to remember this.
By the way, until the last moment in our country, no one tracked the side effects of pharmaceuticals. But this spring, regional centers for monitoring the safety of medicines were established in several regions of the Russian Federation, including the Saratov region. The task of the centers is to monitor the adverse side effects of drugs. However, it is too early to talk about the first results.
In Europe, enough attention is paid to the problem of side effects of pills, since mortality as a result of adverse side reactions and improper drug treatment comes in fifth place after cardiovascular, oncological, bronchopulmonary diseases and injuries. In Russia, it is difficult to collect such data, but toxicologists suggest that at least 10-15% of deaths were caused by improper medication intake and side effects from them.
With the cold snap and the expectation of a flu epidemic, massive advertising of medicines used to treat colds and flu appeared in newspapers, magazines and on television. Meanwhile, few people know that such popular remedies as teraflu, coldrex, fervex, solpadein, efferalgan containing paracetamol can cause significant harm to the body. The same applies to drugs containing acetylsalicylic acid, that is, aspirin.
According to the therapist Tatiana Ilyina, paracetamol has a huge number of contraindications. It is strongly not recommended to take it for people suffering from diseases of the liver, kidneys, gastrointestinal tract. Also, this drug increases blood pressure and can cause toxic effects on the blood, especially if the dosage is exceeded.
- In case of poor health, patients really like to relieve a feverish condition with means containing paracetamol, since their advertising is in any newspaper and increasingly flashes in television commercials, - says the doctor. - Sometimes people forget to read the instructions and combine one drug containing paracetamol with another, in which it is also contained. If the body cannot withstand such an overdose, then patients end up in infectious departments with hemorrhagic syndrome. Aspirin is no less dangerous, both for the elderly and for the young. It has an irritating effect on the gastrointestinal tract, in my practice I have repeatedly met patients with aspirin stomach ulcers. It's too bad that the advertising of antipyretics is not controlled by anyone. As well as advertising painkillers. After all, pain is a sign that not everything is in order in the human body. And if you jam it with nurofen or solpadein every time, you can end up in a hospital bed as a result.
Another popular medicinal product that is most often found in advertising is non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that have a known anti-inflammatory effect (diclovit gel, voltaren, etc.). With the help of these drugs, the life of patients with arthritis, osteochondrosis is facilitated for a while, but the harm from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is almost greater than the benefit. It is known for certain that the abuse of drugs, the active ingredient of which is diclofenac, even a person with a healthy liver can lead to chronic hepatitis or kidney failure. Of course, they do not warn about this in advertising.
Come to him for treatmentAnother group of medicines that is actively advertised during the "cold" period is antiviral immunomodulators, such as arbidol or amixin.
Commercials attribute miraculous properties to them, but few people know that with illiterate use these latest drugs can cause irreparable harm to the body.
Doctors warn: this group of medicines is much more dangerous than antipyretics, painkillers and anti-allergenic drugs, since their reception is an artificial intervention in the body's immune system. Abroad, the danger of uncontrolled use of such medicines has long been known. According to the American experts of the Institute of Safe Medical Practice, in a series of severe consequences of the use of drugs, immunomodulators were recognized as the most dangerous.
According to Vyacheslav Ismailov, chief pediatric immunologist of the Saratov region, immunomodulators should be prescribed only by a doctor, based on the symptoms of the disease and the general picture of the patient's health. Swallowing pills on your own after watching enough ads is more expensive for yourself. - Medications can both help and harm, - the immunologist is sure. - In some diseases, drugs such as amixin and arbidol are simply useless. For example, they will not cure angina, and with the existing rheumatic disease, they can only aggravate the course of the disease. So when you see a new remedy on TV, you should not immediately buy it and start taking it, because the consequences can be unpredictable. In addition, do not forget that discussions about the benefits or harms of this group of drugs are still being conducted among Russian scientists. In the meantime, scientists are arguing, consumers are sweeping away pills like hot cakes. According to DSM Group, arbidol is the leader in the ranking of medicinal brands in terms of sales in Russian pharmacies. In the first half of 2007, the sales volume of this drug amounted to $ 32.6 million. And as experts say, this is not the limit.
At the same time, it is worth noting that practicing doctors are very cautious about miracle pills. As Saratov doctors admit in an informal conversation, they do not use immunomodulators themselves, and they do not advise their friends to do this. It is better to cure a cold with folk remedies, doctors say, than artificially boost the immune system.
But sometimes unnecessary and sometimes dangerous medicine is imposed on the patient by the doctors themselves. And not so much in commercial medical institutions as in ordinary district polyclinics. Such cases are strenuously hidden by the medical community, but occasionally specialists of the Ministry of Health and the city Health Committee admit: yes, there are complaints of Saratov residents about "medical trade". Some district doctors simply offer to be treated with a new "effective drug", others actively impose, and even arrange the sale of pills right in their office. It is no secret that for the promotion of pharmaceutical novelties, doctors receive not only branded pens and notebooks, but also a percentage of the sale of medicines. This is the meaning of the numerous ads "A good part-time job for doctors of all specialties". Fortunately, while not all people in white coats decide to openly trade pills. Someone is frankly afraid of the consequences of such activities, and someone really cares about the health of patients.
Human rights activists are sure that the advertising of medicines was invented only in order to sell as many pills, ointments and syrups as possible. And not for the usual familiarization of consumers with the benefits of new pills, as pharmaceutical companies claim. But the saddest thing is that the advertised medicines were invented not to get rid of the disease, but to treat a certain condition.
Treatment is not included in the plans of pharmaceutical companies that pay for advertising modules on the pages of newspapers and commercials on television. If this simple truth is understood by patients themselves, the number of deaths caused by self-medication and side effects of medications will be significantly reduced.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru14.10.2008