From the Lown Institute: For pharmaceutical companies who use scare tactics to sell drugs, every day is like Halloween. This list of egregious advertisements shows how the drug industry uses fear-mongering to sell their products.
“This 2007 advertisement for Sereoquel, schizophrenia medication, features screaming mouths hovering in the air, representing voices in the head of a patient. A distressed parent is ostensibly telling her doctor, ‘My son says he can’t shut out the voices…we need your help.’ Below that quote is the tagline, ‘When they turn to you, turn first to Seroquel.’ This ad isn’t the only campaign for schizophrenia medication that uses fear to motivate. A 2008 print advertisement for Resperdal uses the image of an impending earthquake to show readers the danger of skipping medications. The ad urges patients’ caretakers to ‘Recommend Risperdal as his next option’ to keep disaster at bay.”
