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EDITOR IN CHIEF
Ryan Frank
EDITORIAL EDITORS
Jonas Allen, Kameron Cole
Happiness
in a Bottle
Mo Doctor NEEbEP,
^tST Pop A Prozac W«w LtFE
^ CfETS AL.TTLzbuLL. ^
Giovanni SaJimena
Drug company’s ad
campaign nudges us ever
closer toward becoming a
Prozac nation
America, the land of the free and
the home of the consumers. If you
have a problem, we have a product
that can fix it — or at least make you
feel better for a little while. You don't
feel manly enough? Buy a Ford. You
don’t feel sexy? Try this
new shade of lip
suck. Money,
power, love
and securi
ty can all
be pur
chased with
your Visa or
Mastercard.
This consumerism
nas now moved into un
charted territory: mental health.
Eli Lily, a pharmaceutical company,
has recently taken out two full-page
ads in more than 20 national maga
zines to tout the virtues of Prozac.
Who needs years of counseling when
you can take a little pill that will do it
all? After all, Prozac is just another
product, right?
Wrong. Prozac is a psychoactive
prescription drug that is used to treat
mental illness.
Unfortunately, doctors can get
Prozac for their patients without even
consulting a psychiatrist. The symp
toms of clinical depression, which is
one of the most common uses for an
tidepressants, are vague and some
times cannot be distinguished from
the kind of depression everyone feels
from time to time. This has led to an
overprescribing of antidepressants.
Twenty-eight million Americans were
on antidepressants in 1996, although
the American Psychiatric Association
reports that at any point in time there
are only 16 million adults who suffer
from disorders that require antide
pressants.
And Eli Lily’s ads for Prozac are
only making the problem worse. In
stead of targeting doctors in their ads,
which is the practice of almost all pre
scription drug companies, Lily entices
consumers to do a self-diagnosis with
the following line: Feeling depressed?
If the answer is yes, then Lily claims
Prozac can help.
Lily pharmaceutical company is
trying to create a consumer market for
its prescription product. And why
not? Antidepressants are big business.
According to a recent article in Insight
on the News, consumers already
spend approximately $5.5 billion a
year on antidepressants such as
Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil. The problem
with marketing antidepressants is
that there is a fixed market: Those
who have been diagnosed with de
pression. Therefore, when companies
such as Lily suggest to the general
population that “Prozac can help,”
many consumers may end up trying
to solve their problems with a pill.
In addition, Eli Lily is securing a fu
ture generation of users for its product
by targeting kids with a peppermint
flavored Prozac. According to a recent
Opinion
Stephanie
Knowlton
article in U.S. News
Online, 580,000
American kids as
young as one are on
antidepressants, even
though the Food and
Drug Administration
is still in the process
of evaluating the ef
fects of antidepres
sants on children.
What would it be
like to grow up on
Prozac? Children
would have no point of reference to
understand what normal feels like
and would learn nothing of coping
skills. What would stop parents from
seeking Prozac for their children as a
means of making parenting more
manageable or smoothing over some
rough edges? After all, kids on Prozac
could be a lot easier to deal with.
Maybe everyone would be easier to
deal with on Prozac.
Depression is a real disorder that re
quires psychiatric attention and pos
sibly medication. Eli Lily’s ads are
simply trivializing mental illness to
promote their product.
The message is simple: if you are
unhappy with your looks, status, in
come or even your moods, we have
the ultimate product. Try Prozac. It
may not make you prettier, richer or
more liked, but you will feel better
anyway.
Stefanie Knowlton is a columnist for the
Emerald. Her views do not necessarily
represent those of the newspaper.
I THINK bad CONDUCT
frankiy, is ENOUGM for’
IAAPEACMMENT...