...don't even ignore 'em.
-- Samuel Goldwyn

Friday, November 03, 2006

LUNESTA'S PILL PUSHING. YA SNOOZE, YA LOSE.

It's called the Lunesta 7-Night Challenge. You can get a coupon, on the Web or in magazines, for seven free Lunesta tablets. It's one of the new breed of prescription anti-insomnia drugs. Anybody besides me feel creepy about this? Any physician out there been insulted by a patient handing you a coupon and asking if Lunesta's "right for him." Is it necessary to point out that this turns the practice of medicine on its head? Why is freebie marketing O.K. in the prescription pharmaceutical business? Ask your new Congressman or Senator if shutting this self-diagnosing-self-prescribing promotion game down is right for America.

One of the features of the Lunesta site is a cute animated "fact or fiction" quiz about insomnia causes, remedies and treatments, which confirms that warm milk often works. But, the quiz hastens to add, it isn't a cure, suggesting by pointing this out, without claiming it, that Lunesta could be one. High-quality weasel words. Well, Lunesta, and the rest of the new drugs, aren't cures for insomnia, either, according to the American Insomnia Association.

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