Get longer eyelashes but beware the four-hour erection

i've rarely watched tv in the u.s., preferring to catch my favorite u.s. programs in argentina where they play in english with spanish subtitles... i find that commercials in argentina are ever so much more tolerable than the u.s. where the ads seem to get right in your face... argentine commercials are much more fluffy-bunny, mom-dad-kids, and tend to be kind of sweet overall...

now that i've been back in the u.s. for a while, i'm gravitating to my favorite shows and have been not just a tad bit appalled at the commercials i'm seeing, particularly the ceaseless pitches for prescription pharmaceuticals for everything under the sun from sexual dysfunction to mesothelioma to bone loss to longer eyelashes... it's positively disgusting not only how many there, but then to listen to the obligatory side-effects warnings, they become a real horror show: "reports of suicidal thoughts have occurred in an extremely small percentage of users"... great caesar's ghost...! if suicidal thoughts have been a factor with ANY users, it's too many...

maybe something will come of this - or not...

[P]oliticians are taking aim at the 60-second spots that have made viewers familiar with maladies like male urinary urgency and deficient eyelashes — not to mention side effects like four-hour erections.

Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, is sponsoring a House bill that would ban ads for prescription sexual aids like Viagra and Levitra from prime-time television, on decency grounds. Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, has said he favors empowering the Food and Drug Administration to bar consumer advertisements for new drugs for an initial period after the F.D.A. approves them — until there has been more real-world experience with the medications.

Meanwhile, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, has introduced a bill called the Say No to Drug Ads Act. It would amend the federal tax code to prevent pharmaceutical companies from deducting the cost of direct-to-consumer drug advertisements as a business expense.

“You should not be going to a doctor saying, ‘I have restless leg syndrome’ — whatever the hell that is — or going to a doctor saying, ‘I have the mumps,’ ” Mr. Nadler said in an interview. “You should not be diagnosed by some pitchman on TV who doesn’t know you whatsoever.”

i'm sure big pharma will pull out all the stops and deploy every lobbyist they can lay their hands on to stop this in its tracks...

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