Dumbing the Youth

In a world where so much hoopla goes into banning beer and cigarette advertisements (and rightly so) it's ironic that we are bombarded CONSTANTLY with pharmaceutical ads all day long.

For quite a while now upon signing out of hotmail, when redirected to the MSN homepage, a very disturbing pop-up ad for Intuniv is flashed in my face. Intuniv is a creation of Shire, a company hell-bent on drugging the youth of America and beyond.

As one reader put it, Shire's philosophy on children is straight and to the point: "Drug them up real good while they're young, and they'll be nice and quiet. Because your time at home should peaceful, even after making that big step into parenthood. "

The Intuniv website is littered with info about how the drug is great for making mindless drones. Take these examples for instance:

• " INTUNIV can slow thinking and motor skills."

• "Brandon is still an average 10-year-old boy, but when confronted with problems, he is learning to accept our input and to redirect himself without an argument. Our family feels like a family!"

• "Symptoms of ADHD may include being easily distracted,... arguing with adults,..."

• "Behaviors such as temper outbursts and arguing with adults are associated with ADHD."

Serious possible side effects of INTUNIV include low blood pressure, low heart rate, fainting, sleepiness, tiredness, and drowsiness. The most common side effects of INTUNIV in clinical studies included sleepiness, drowsiness, low blood pressure, headache, nausea, stomach pain, dry mouth, dizziness, irritability, constipation, and decreased appetite.

The presentation of these ads are just as bad if not worse than your average beer or cigarette commercial. The particular pop-up ad that influenced this blog entry portrayed a young boy as a monster for having "symptoms" that every normal young person should have! The ad send the message that your life as a parent can be much easier if you drug your child into a sleepy, lackadaisical mind-state.

These constant bombardments of advertisements urging us to drug the soul out of our kids are an indicator of where we are headed as a society of junkies.

Get on board and take a stand against this kind of brainwashing and petition against this brand of pseudoscience brought to you by the pharmaceutical company marketing departments that create diseases and treatments on a daily basis. Do it for the mental health of society as a whole.


Links:
http://democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/commercialalert/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1415&t=stop_drug_ads_home.dwt

http://www.commercialalert.org/issues/health/drug-marketing