Editorial – July 2022 – Another Kind of Drug Ad

There is a kind of advertising called “Direct to Consumer” (DTC) which is only permitted in the U.S. and New Zealand. The drug companies use it to push sales of prescription drugs. One of the few limitations on the ads is they must include the side effects of the drugs.

Here’s a typical ad for a drug prescribed for eczema and rheumatoid arthritis.  Listen carefully for the side effects at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeDXCXBOIoA

In case you missed some of it, here are the actual side effects:

• Serious infections including tuberculosis and other bacterial, fungal and viral infections. Some people have died from these infections.
• Cancer – Increased risk of lymphoma, skin cancers and lung cancer.
• Heart attack, stroke, or death, increased risk in people over 50 who have at least one heart disease risk factor.
• Blood clots in the veins of the legs, lungs or arteries which may be life-threatening and cause death.
• Allergic reactions, some serious
• Tears in the stomach or intestines

In the U.S., these ads are on TV all day long.  They often state that you need to take the drug daily. In other words, for the rest of your life.  In short, you would have a pharmaceutical sword of Damocles hanging over your head forever.

The idea behind these ads is that patients will then ask their doctors to prescribe the drugs. Apparently, that works. Drugs advertised direct to consumers are prescribed nine times more than those promoted by other means.

You might think that the side effects would scare people away. To counter that fear, the ads come with relaxing music or calming voice-overs and images of happy people who (for instance) had arthritis but are now playing sports, or who had skin problems and are now in bathing suits enjoying the beach.

Now imagine a similar advertisement but for homeopathic treatment of eczema or rheumatoid arthritis. It would show the same happy people enjoying themselves, but it would state that the medicines had no chemical side effects, and that once you were cured, you needn’t take it anymore. That would be a tough act to follow.

If that sounds to anyone too good to be true, then brief samples of homeopathic cures of eczema and rheumatoid arthritis can be found by clicking on those words. There are hundreds of such cases recorded over the last 150 years.

If patients were to see such homeopathy advertisements, perhaps they would demand their doctors treat them homeopathically. And if doctors saw the ads, they might perceive a way to stop offering patients a deal with the devil: trading temporary relief of symptoms, for deadly side effects. It must be difficult, in good conscience, to constantly give patients such terrible choices.

Finally, in promoting homeopathy, a state-of-the-art advertisement might work better than just presenting formal research. What do you think?

A couple of cartoons relevant to this editorial :

https://hpathy.com/medical-cartoons/fda-approved/

https://hpathy.com/medical-cartoons/the-vision-test/

 

IN THIS ISSUE

 

EDITORIAL

––– Another Kind of Drug Ad –  Alan V. Schmukler

–– Letters to the Editor – Feedback from the June 2022 Issue

 

HOMEOPATH IN THE HOT-SEAT

–– IACH educated homeopath and teacher of homeopathy Petr Hoffman is interviewed by Alan V. Schmukler

 

SPECIAL PRESENTATION: Six Cases by Petr Hoffman

–– Autism in a Girl of 2.5 years

––Sudden Blindness in a Woman of 19

––Ulcerative Colitis I a Woman of 41

––Anxieties in a Woman of 46

––Asthma in a boy of 16

––Hydronephrosis in a Baby Boy

 

FEATURED

–– Online Homeopathy Course by George Vithoulkas

–– 50% Discount on Homeopathy Foundation Course

–– Lectures on Organon of Medicine VOLUME 3 now available!!

 

ARTICLES

–– Allergies – Challenge for Twenty First Century Homeopathy – Manfred Mueller

–– The Relationship of Remedies – (W.E. Boyd and his emanometer )  – Sue Young

–– “Causticum” – from Absolute Materia Medica by P.I. Tarkas & Ajit Kulkarni

–– The Soul of Remedies  – Lilium tigrinum – Rajan Sankaran

––Medorrhinum  –  Julia C. Loos

–– Message # 3 from The International Hahnemann Center, Torgau in Meissen – Siegfried Letzel

­–– Re-Connecting with Oneself – Wiet van Helmond

–– Constipation and Its Homeopathic Management – Shubhanshi Bhasin

–– Tidbits 92: Wasp Sting! (Another Picture Case) – Elaine Lewis

–– Homeopathy TIPS – July 2022 – Alan V. Schmukler

 

FEATURED

–– Free Homeopathy Books Online

–– Best Homeopathy Course for Beginners

–– The Best Book to Study Organon!

 

CLINICAL CASES

–– Trauma and Triumph in the Pandemic – A Homeopathic Perspective – Part II – Sunil Anand

–– Post-COVID Fatigue Resolved with Polarity Analysis – Karen Allen

–– A Covid Case Solved Using Polarity Analysis – Jo Harper

–– A Lichen Sclerosis Case Solved with Polarity Analysis –Michele Brookhaus

–– Polarity Analysis and Adult ADD Treatment – Tim Shannon

–– Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 with Advanced Mononeuritic Multiplexa with Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy – Sunil R. Thumar / Jagdish Thebar

–– Enteric Fever in a Man of 65  – R. Gupta, T. Jadhav, Y. Sadri, A. Darwin

–– Frequent Burning Urination – Vipul Shastri

 

RESEARCH

–– Analysis of Homeopathc Clinical Practice from Community Clinics in Kwale County, Kenya – Richard Pitt

 

BOOK REVIEWS

–– Healing Women with Homeopathy by Kavita Chandak – reviewed by Firuzi Mehta

–– Gentle Medicine -The True Causes of Disease, Healing, and Health by Dr Joachim-F. Grätz  –  reviewed by Dr. David Levy

–– Experimental Homeopathy by Dr. Girish Gupta is reviewed by Kavitha Kukunoor

 

VETERINARY

–– Ask the Holistic Vet – Deva Khalsa – July 2022

–– Canine Astraphobia in an Eleven-Year-Old Border Collie -Sarah Penrose

–– The Power of Tinctures – Gautam Unny

 

AGRO-HOMEOPATHY

–– The Plant Doctor – July 2022 – Radko Tichavsky

 

CARTOONS

–– Cell Tower Radiation – Alan V. Schmukler

 

HOMEOPATHY CROSSWORD

–– Homeopathy Crossword July 2022

 

SOLVE THE CASE QUIZ

–– QUIZ: – The Worst Case In The World! – Elaine Lewis

–– Revisiting:  Polio Party!-  Elaine Lewis