Being sick can make you sick

Unlike most people nowadays, I don’t watch much television as we don't have cable to peruse the standard 415 channels. Earlier in my life, I was one of the swells and I can still recall how my entire evening was taken up with changing channels to try and find something to watch – all to no avail.

At many of the places Trixie and I travel, though, a few channels come in over the antenna. She gets her football, awards show and American Idol type stuff and Ol’ Dutch gets an evening of Internet surfing. Since I can’t hear a thing off the TV, I am perfectly content looking for sausage stuffers, new boots, decoys and fishing boats on eBay while she hollywoods herself into oblivion.

Back in the day, watching television was safe from being presented with people’s personal problems as all we saw on there were ads for Milk of Magnesia and Doan’s Backache Pills. Now, as far as I can tell, the only ads that run on her shows are for everything from male impotence to diabetes to feminine products which most of us really don't need to see, especially during dinner.

How you ever noticed the length of the disclaimers that come along with all these ads? A typical one for a new drug will read something like this:

“Ask your doctor if Smiley Pills are right for you. Side effects of Hexaprotzylanpricknaprine are uncommon but may include vomiting, heart attacks, explosive diarrhea, vaginal discharge, varicose veins, heart murmurs, gender reassignment, hemorrhoids, sugar highs and lows, vomiting, life threatening rash, depression, allergies, high instep, back pain, front pain, headaches, ED, loss of appetite, increased appetite, liver failure, pancreatic cancer, lung collapse, foaming at the mouth, divorce, bankruptcy, bad decision making, hair growth on your palms, poor hunting success and death.”

Heck, I don't know why people even delay in going right to the doctor and signing up? But we see it every day with more and more drugs on the market and more and more people willing to shell out their hard earned money to “try” them.

And that’s exactly what Big Pharma wants you to do. They spend $4.5 Billion dollars in advertising each year so that you will ask your doctor to prescribe this miracle drug or that one regardless of the consequences.

One time I asked my doctor friend why so many people don't get well and he had to admit it was a “medical practice” and not to be confused with “medical perfection.”

If a drug company tells you that their product does this or that, then you should at least have the expectation that it might work almost like they said it would, right? And, if not, we should return it and get our money back. Too bad Sam Walton didn’t establish a pharmaceutical company, he’d made sure that we customers were satisfied or our money back.

One thing they never seem to advertise is drugs that have a side effect of weight loss. Now there is a side effect I could sign up for and most of America would be at your doorstep even if they didn't have any symptoms except of being fat.

My mother always said, “You can never be too skinny or too rich.” Never having been either one of these I have to agree but not sure I want to endure being sick to find out.