Lashing Out to Latisse
Since I haven't deprived myself of the luxuries of TV and Internet, I've gathered that the recently passed Health Care Reform Bill took almost 5 decades to pass and despite differing ideologies, commitments, and perspectives, it is at its core a serious, socially entrenched concern.
The torrent of testimonies flooding in over this past year underpinning this debate runs something like the following: Mr. and Mrs. X will depend on Meals-On-Wheels again this month for the bulk of their food as they budget for their drugs treating diabetes, hypertensions, high-blood pressure, and a slew of other health maladies; Mr. and Mrs. B will fret and stress over the care of 8 years old lil B, whose autism consumes their focus and budget, and pretty much was the deciding factor in their decision to stop at one child.
Health and money. Drug and insurance. Reward and sacrifice. Very serious right? It's a no-brainer people would gladly pay for life-maintaining or life-maintenance health services and medicines right? Apparently not.
Observations in clinics across the country show people complain or can not co-pay for their $60 per month hypertension or kidney drugs, but they'll request then magically shell out $120 per month to pay for a prescription to get full dark lashes that Brooke Shield touts. I can't say there haven't been gathering evidence, both concrete and hearsay, to this vain behavior- the average worldwide sale of mascara is a whopping $5 billion business and the bare essential items in women's makeup bags almost always include a lip balm/gloss variant, tinted moisturizer or concealer, and, you guessed it, a mascara.
I'm not faulting the availability of a product like Latisse, whose manufacturer Allergan predicts its sale to quickly rival that of Botox's very soon. It's actually innovative to see the potential derivative(s) of a product or idea then research and develop it. In this case, it's noticing the correlation between fuller, longer, and darker lashes in patients taking medication for glaucoma then testing and narrowing down its causation.
I'm just highlighting the fallible nature of human vanity and desire over necessity that this latest commercial case exemplifies. Inspired by a higher being or not, twelve chapters of Ecclesiastis preaches about the ‘vanity of vanities; all is vanity'. Everything changes yet every people stays the same. For good or bad, if the human specie is anything, it is as a whole consistent and predictable no matter the historical context and circumstances. But I don't want to get too philosophical on this blog.
So let's take a few steps back: what's a doctor to do? Like writing prescriptions for other patient-targeted commercial advertisements, a possible solution is an overhaul of these ads. They're not really empowering, instead, they producing a psychological bias towards more affordable generic alternatives, whenever they're available. Requesting and sometimes demanding these name brands can stress your doctor! You do not want nor should you cause your physician to feel in any way adversely towards you. It's well known that drug salesrep are ubiquitous in physicians' clinics; you can bet your doctors definitely know about the latest 'miracle' drugs!
Regarding aesthetics related drugs only, the short term is a little tricky. If the patient is affluent, there's no issue (other than the potential side effects). But otherwise, a quick reflexive calculation of the patient's financial status, your ethical safeguards, and the number of patients left in the waiting room will lead you to one of the following possible scenarios: write it and be done with it (and spaz to your spouse later on), gently dissuade them with whatever intelligent and professional sounding argument you can muster at the moment, or downright refuse with or without comments.
A Chinese proverb admonishes with "desiring beauty over life, you get no sympathy." Sympathy you might not get, but that's not you're looking for is it? What you will get, however fleeting, is envy.
The torrent of testimonies flooding in over this past year underpinning this debate runs something like the following: Mr. and Mrs. X will depend on Meals-On-Wheels again this month for the bulk of their food as they budget for their drugs treating diabetes, hypertensions, high-blood pressure, and a slew of other health maladies; Mr. and Mrs. B will fret and stress over the care of 8 years old lil B, whose autism consumes their focus and budget, and pretty much was the deciding factor in their decision to stop at one child.
Health and money. Drug and insurance. Reward and sacrifice. Very serious right? It's a no-brainer people would gladly pay for life-maintaining or life-maintenance health services and medicines right? Apparently not.
Observations in clinics across the country show people complain or can not co-pay for their $60 per month hypertension or kidney drugs, but they'll request then magically shell out $120 per month to pay for a prescription to get full dark lashes that Brooke Shield touts. I can't say there haven't been gathering evidence, both concrete and hearsay, to this vain behavior- the average worldwide sale of mascara is a whopping $5 billion business and the bare essential items in women's makeup bags almost always include a lip balm/gloss variant, tinted moisturizer or concealer, and, you guessed it, a mascara.
I'm not faulting the availability of a product like Latisse, whose manufacturer Allergan predicts its sale to quickly rival that of Botox's very soon. It's actually innovative to see the potential derivative(s) of a product or idea then research and develop it. In this case, it's noticing the correlation between fuller, longer, and darker lashes in patients taking medication for glaucoma then testing and narrowing down its causation.
I'm just highlighting the fallible nature of human vanity and desire over necessity that this latest commercial case exemplifies. Inspired by a higher being or not, twelve chapters of Ecclesiastis preaches about the ‘vanity of vanities; all is vanity'. Everything changes yet every people stays the same. For good or bad, if the human specie is anything, it is as a whole consistent and predictable no matter the historical context and circumstances. But I don't want to get too philosophical on this blog.
So let's take a few steps back: what's a doctor to do? Like writing prescriptions for other patient-targeted commercial advertisements, a possible solution is an overhaul of these ads. They're not really empowering, instead, they producing a psychological bias towards more affordable generic alternatives, whenever they're available. Requesting and sometimes demanding these name brands can stress your doctor! You do not want nor should you cause your physician to feel in any way adversely towards you. It's well known that drug salesrep are ubiquitous in physicians' clinics; you can bet your doctors definitely know about the latest 'miracle' drugs!
Regarding aesthetics related drugs only, the short term is a little tricky. If the patient is affluent, there's no issue (other than the potential side effects). But otherwise, a quick reflexive calculation of the patient's financial status, your ethical safeguards, and the number of patients left in the waiting room will lead you to one of the following possible scenarios: write it and be done with it (and spaz to your spouse later on), gently dissuade them with whatever intelligent and professional sounding argument you can muster at the moment, or downright refuse with or without comments.
A Chinese proverb admonishes with "desiring beauty over life, you get no sympathy." Sympathy you might not get, but that's not you're looking for is it? What you will get, however fleeting, is envy.
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