Misleading Ads Fueled Rapid Growth of Online Mental Health Companies (wsj.com) 50
In an advertisement on Facebook and Instagram, a middle-aged man holding a dumbbell says testosterone "literally changed my life," restoring his energy and happiness. What the October ad from telehealth startup Hone Health doesn't say is that the unidentified man is an actor who has never used the prescription drug. From a report: It doesn't mention that testosterone is approved by the Food and Drug Administration only for men with specific disorders and that among its risks are heart attacks and stroke. Similar telehealth companies are flooding TikTok, Instagram and other platforms with ads that don't conform to longtime standards governing the marketing of prescription drugs and healthcare treatments. They feature actors posing as customers, tout benefits of drugs with no mention of side effects and promote medications for uses not approved by the FDA.
Since the pandemic, online advertising has drawn hundreds of thousands of people to telehealth companies such as Cerebral and Done for treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and other medical conditions. Some employees and patients have said their marketing practices contributed to the abuse of controlled substances. In a four-week period spanning October and November, about 20 companies ran more than 2,100 ads on Facebook and Instagram that described benefits of prescription drugs without citing risks, promoted drugs for unapproved uses or featured testimonials without disclosing whether they came from actors or company employees, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of ads collected by the nonprofit Algorithmic Transparency Institute from Meta Platforms' ad library.
Since the pandemic, online advertising has drawn hundreds of thousands of people to telehealth companies such as Cerebral and Done for treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and other medical conditions. Some employees and patients have said their marketing practices contributed to the abuse of controlled substances. In a four-week period spanning October and November, about 20 companies ran more than 2,100 ads on Facebook and Instagram that described benefits of prescription drugs without citing risks, promoted drugs for unapproved uses or featured testimonials without disclosing whether they came from actors or company employees, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of ads collected by the nonprofit Algorithmic Transparency Institute from Meta Platforms' ad library.
A deceptive ad? (Score:2)
Oh, heavens to Betsy! An advertisement that over sells a product? Say it ain't so!
Something brand new like this needs a term... like "snake oil" or something...
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And for anyone that wants to point out that doctors are lobbied and bribed to push a certain manufacturer's drug - that is another issue.
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Arguably the upside of drugs being advertised like any other product is unlike any other product the manufacturer is forced to disclose the side effects.
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Are there side effects to the covid vaccine? I don't remember being warned of the downsides every time an official said to get our shots.
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Are there side effects to the covid vaccine? I don't remember being warned of the downsides every time an official said to get our shots.
Okay. I'll feed the whining troll.
An official is not the same as advertisement to purchase a product. An official is merely recommending it is the person's best interest to get vaccinated so as to not get sick and/or die from contracting covid. They are not directing you to do so, nor are they recommending any specific product. It's the same thing when recommending wearing a seat belt. You aren't warned of the side effects of that recommendation, are you?
Whereas an advertisement is a direct pitch by a c
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So do I understand you correctly?
You obviously don't understand correctly. There's more than one Covid Vaccine. The official is recommending you get vaccinating, not one specific vaccine and they're not recommending one specific provider. The provider themselves, whether it's a hospital, your doctor, a walk-in clinic, or a pharmacy are the ones who give you the vaccine. They are also the ones who can inform you of the specific vaccine's specific known side effects.
As for the physicians including specialists paid for their consultation (pai
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Are there side effects to the covid vaccine? I don't remember being warned of the downsides every time an official said to get our shots.
I was warned every time I went. Maybe you're a liar.
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You're an idiot.
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Re: A deceptive ad? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Should a person be allowed to choose their own medicine? My body my choice, says the pro choice crowd
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Sure you should be able to choose your own medicine as long as you are getting valid factual knowledge about what you are putting in your body. If someone is selling you spent uranium pills as a weight loss medicine you should be told that along with losing weight you will also lose your hair and your life (yes an extreme example but sometimes it takes the absurd to point out the obvious).
That being said I think you should always consider anyone in any ad to be an "actor" even if they say in the ad that the
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spent uranium pills as a weight loss medicine you should be told that along with losing weight you will also lose your hair and your life
That would be a lie. Uranium poisoning can lead to death from kidney failure, but it is barely radioactive, as the half-life is billions of years.
Perhaps you have been influenced by anti-nuclear advertising financed by the fossil-fuel industry?
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They didn't say anything about the radiation. Although, the radiation from spent uranium would be harmful inside your body, the heavy metal poisoning would be worse. As it happens, heavy metal poisoning often causes hair loss. Whether uranium specifically does is a bit hard to find out, but it does end up excreted through hair and nails, which would probably lead to concentration in hair follicles. As for losing your life, that seems pretty likely if it kills your kidneys.
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What's that got to do with advertising? Here's a hint: nothing.
You can still read around, look at research papers and talk to your doctor in other countries. What you don't have is advertising behemoths with a side business in making pills.
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On the other hand I, as an expat of one of those European nanny states, quite enjoy making up my own mind, (legally) owning fire armS, driving pickup trucks, and being able to throw my physician's prescription in the dustbin (or only get it filled partially) and go cure the respiratory tract infection with bed rest and chicken soup. (I also enjoy not having a television so I have actually no idea which car, beer, politician, talking point, or medicine is currently being pushed on the collective consciousnes
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One of the many insane things in the U.S. when you are a foreigner, besides the love for guns, raised pickups and many other things, is to discover advertisement for medicines. Your doctor is the one who chooses your medicine, not some ad company. That's absurd, counter productive and dangerous. To say nothing about the budget of many pharma corps that are bigger on advertisement than on research!!!
It's worse than that. In the US, pharmaceutical companies can offer kickbacks to doctors for prescribing their medication. Anywhere else in the western world this would be malpractice and result in the very least, the revocation of the doctors license to practice.
I understand why there is so much distrust of Big Pharma in the US.
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And I should not be living in an HOA community, and I should not watch tv via OTA, nor streaming services with unavoidable ads, and I should not expect useful advice such as 'use an ad blocker' from those who respond by reflex to such inanity.
Like I do.
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There is no situation where it's reasonable for an internet user to see ads.
How ironic the fucking FBI is merely recommending you block ads.
Any mention by lawmakers of outlawing the fucking things? Or maybe taking the priority of Think of the Children for once when it comes to social media? They're apparently SO dangerous and useless a Federal organization is taking an effort to educate the ignorant masses, but it's apparently not enough for lawmakers to actually give a shit enough to DO something about the problem?
And yet you wonder why we still deal with robocalls.
The FBI appar
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It is however, obvious that the current attempts to educate the citizenry is not working too well. But then you really can't teach common sense. But you can breed it out.
-Apathy is on the rise, either do something about it or not, either way it's not my job to care.
Re:FBI recommends you block ads (Score:4, Funny)
But then you really can't teach common sense. But you can breed it out.
Unfortunately, it's apparent this approach doesn't actually work.
Scams Feeding Scams. (Score:1)
Scams feeding more scams.
Tune in later this week on PBS as we delve deeper into PT Barnums caplitalist legacy.
tis the American way (Score:2)
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Low IQ. Not being able to tell what being pitched is bs or not.
Re: tis the American way (Score:2)
Re: tis the American way (Score:2)
Golden age of Scamming (Score:2)
We seem to be in a golden age of scamming, particularly health scams. I've seen elderly family members get swept up in it firsthand, and the plague spread to other elderly family members, especially because at that point it's coming from a "trusted" source.
Every retarded thing you can think of, drowned in extra retard sauce. Apple Watch lookalikes that periodically emit beeps (healing waves) that you can set to cure everything from high blood pressure to cancer to insomnia. Every quack covid cure that's out
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I've seen elderly family members get swept up in it firsthand
At times I wonder if many elderly because of limited mobility become more lonely and more susceptible to scams. Good health practices take time but a magic pill claiming to fix ailments or offer "youth potion" can look highly desirable.
Occasionally I watch OTA TV and it seems the ads targeting old people are relentless (commercial break every five minutes) for some sort of medicine for some ailment I've never heard of.
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It is a factor in the cases I've seen. One of them is wheelchair-bound, another has bad knees. It's definitely a factor in their heavy social media usage. They got on Facebook first to talk to the grandkids, but with that come all the scammers, and the "engagement"-based radicalization. Effectively, Facebook uses access to the grandkids as leverage to suck them into the scammerverse. It's sick.
I see the commercials on TV as well. A lot of them coming from insurance companies selling Medicare Advantage, whic
no. (Score:1)
No, what fueled this was nearly 3 years now of a climate of pure, bedwetting fear promulgated by officials across the planet. This following a generation of brainwashing children into believing that normal weather is a global extermination catastrophe just around the corner. Now we have a cadre of crazies justifying their own neuroses by insisting that a girl who likes baseball isn't just a girl who likes baseball, but that she needs to have "gender affirming" irreversible surgery that will cut off her ti
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No, what fueled this was nearly 3 years now of a climate of pure, bedwetting fear promulgated by officials across the planet.
If you wet the bed when you hear about reality, the problem is with you, not the officials telling you about reality.
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Which "reality"? Do tell!
What would you like to discuss?
That if we measure by excess deaths it's clear that Sweden WAS RIGHT about no lockdowns over COVID, and that by implication we may have wrecked our economy and 2 years of school for a generation of kids for....nothing?
That paleoclimate records show comparable spikes in temp and CO2 every 120k-ish years that is indistinguishable from what's happening now for something like the last 4 MILLION YEARS meaning that if what's happening now is driven* by anth
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Covid loonie, climate loonie AND gender loonie. I guess this is crank magnetism in action.
That if we measure by excess deaths it's clear that Sweden WAS RIGHT about no lockdowns over COVID, and that by implication we may have wrecked our economy and 2 years of school for a generation of kids for....nothing?
Sweden has about two thirds of the population of London, spread out over about 400 times the area. Sweden also has a very solid healthcare system (less likely to be overwhelmed), less of a reflexively con
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That if we measure by excess deaths it's clear that Sweden WAS RIGHT about no lockdowns over COVID, and that by implication we may have wrecked our economy and 2 years of school for a generation of kids for....nothing?
Sweden was not right. Comparing mortality in Sweden vs. Norway, which is a very similar country which _did_ implement Covid-19 measures, mortality increased significantly more in Sweden than Norway.
That paleoclimate records show comparable spikes in temp and CO2 every 120k-ish years that is indistinguishable from what's happening now for something like the last 4 MILLION YEARS meaning that if what's happening now is driven* by anthropogenic sources then somehow that mechanism also, mysteriously, simultaneously stopped and the mechanisms that have scores of times returned the planet to a holocene optimal also somehow mysteriously will no longer function?
This sounds like nonsense. Do you have any reliable citation for this nonsense claim?
The "reality" that gender dysphoria is only a thing for actually something like 0.001% of the human populace, and that the rest of this is a melange of grooming, neurosis-projection, and kink-evangelism resulting in the permanent mutilation of scores if not hundreds of (mostly) young women who will now be forever sterile and unable to ever experience orgasm? And that this entire 'movement' sprang from the sick brain of a dishonest, sadistic pedophile John Money? His first two 'patients' suicide will unfortunately likely only be the first of thousands resulting from this malignant dogma.
The "reality" is also that very, very few young people are getting any kind of surgery or other medical intervention to alter their sex. You're the one blowing an edge case out of proportion. No-one except sick wierdos like you i
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"mortality increased significantly more in Sweden than Norway."
Not according to the most recent EU statistics on excess deaths.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/... [europa.eu]
"Do you have any reliable citation for this nonsense claim?"
Your eyes?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
"very few young people are getting any kind of surgery or other medical intervention to alter their sex. "
In absolute numbers? No doubt. But it's vastly, vastly more than any study had ever suggested actually need it:
https://www.reuters.com/invest [reuters.com]
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What part of that page are you expecting me to look at? Are you just looking at the map for October, 2022? If you read the article on the page you linked, it says:
During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the highest excess mortality rates in the EU were recorded in Spain (80.8 %), Belgium (73.1 %) and the Netherlands (53.8 %). Four other countries had a greater than 35.0 % increase in the number of deaths in April 2020, namely Italy (41.7 %, although the highest increase had already occurred in March at 49.6 %), Sweden (38.2 %), Ireland (38.0 %) and France (36.4 %).
So that certainly does not seem to support your position.
"Do you have any reliable citation for this nonsense claim?"
Your eyes?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik [wikipedia.org]... [wikipedia.org]
You're talking about the Eemian. So, your claim that "... paleoclimate records show comparable spikes in temp and CO2 every 120k-ish years that is indistinguishable from what's happening now..." is nonsense. The temperature spikes were not from CO2 levels anything like those seen today. Ther
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And?
What part of "...the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic,..." is relevant to now?
Excess mortality is exactly that - it's pretty much the opposite of a number taken from the initial stages of an epidemic event; in fact that data is almost meaningless until consolidated with later numbers to determine if, in fact (as was likely the case here) we were losing MAINLY the borderline people who weren't likely to make it anyway. To be sure, anyone losing time off their natural span is sad. But a 92 year ol
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And?
What part of "...the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic,..." is relevant to now?
Excess mortality is exactly that - it's pretty much the opposite of a number taken from the initial stages of an epidemic event; in fact that data is almost meaningless until consolidated with later numbers to determine if, in fact (as was likely the case here) we were losing MAINLY the borderline people who weren't likely to make it anyway. To be sure, anyone losing time off their natural span is sad. But a 92 year old dying that might have made it to 93 is a vastly different story than the implication that healthy normal adults are dropping dead.
Sure, and the excess mortality numbers were worse in Sweden than Norway. You still have not answered the question of which part of the page you referenced supports your position. All you anti-vax/covid denier/whatever types all seem to like just throwing pages of information that you obviously haven't really read at people during discussions. Try being a bit more concise.
So? That's EXACTLY my point.
No, it clearly wasn't, or you would not have written: "That paleoclimate records show comparable spikes in temp and CO2 every 120k-ish yea
Whelp (Score:2)
Wait... Did people not know that ads a full of paid actors and lies?! Huh?
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Why is there no consistency across mediums? (Score:2)
Amazon and other online retailers claim that it would be too burdensome to include country of origin labels on the products they sell, even though that information is required to be on the box. Whay BS excuse are these drug dealers