Motherboard TV: Side Effects May Include

Think of an ailment – dream one up, even – and there are any number of treatment options you should consult your doctor about. There are a mountain of pills available, at our disposal, to cure every low. Bukowski described the situation in Factotum:

Paul was one of the clerks. He was fat, about 28. His eyes were very large, bulging. He was on pills. He showed me a handful. They were all different sizes and colors.
“Want some?”
“No.”
“Go ahead. Take one.”
“All right.”
I took a yellow.
“I take ’em all,” he said. “Damn things. Some want to take me up, some want to take me down. I let them fight over me.”

The crazy thing about all these pills and medications is that, rather than being relegated to some giant book for your doctor and pharmacist to peruse and prescribe at their discretion, they’re being actively and aggressively branded. It’s an insane business model, at least in the U.S. and New Zealand, the only two countries that haven’t banned direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. Drug companies put that freedom to use: A 2008 study found that big pharma spent more on ads than R&D.

It’s such a strange phenomenon: You’re sitting there watching the boob tube, and some guy holding a puppy shows up to list off some generic ailments you may or may not have. Then, over flowery music and wonderful b-roll of the type of natural spaces you haven’t seen in the years since you started your shitty job, he promises you health (and a future of a young-looking wife and perfect salt-and-pepper hair) as long as you pester your doc about Flojazmapram or Carnostidine. In one fell swoop the commercial implies that it (and you) know more about yourself than your doctor, and that a couple pills a day will solve all of your problems.

But even in the TV dreamland, that perfect future doesn’t last long. At the end of every commercial that fast-talking dude makes his voice-over appearance to warn you of all the horrific side effects the medications may cause in a small number of users. Now, being totally anti-medicine or anti-pharma is surely a quick way to an easily-cured death. At the same time, there’s something completely screwball about the guy who wanders into his doc, demands a prescription the TV told him to, and walks out with unstoppable diarrhea, blindness, and death. But you never think about it because, these days, even the herpes commercials are hopelessly idyllic.

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