An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.” - Anatole France  

  Could You Be Taking A Fake Drug For A Fake Illness?  

ig Spring  –  Hope you got your seatbelt on… because you’re in for an amazing… and quite shocking ride in this month’s newsletter.

            Why?

            Because on February 16, 2007, Reuters reported a media exhibit featuring a campaign for a fake drug to treat a fictitious illness is causing a commotion because some people think the illness is real.

            Here’s what this is all about:  Australian artist Justine Cooper created the marketing campaign for a non-existent drug called Havidol for Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD), which she also invented.  Heck of a name… don’t you think?

But the multi-media exhibit at the Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York is so convincing people think it is real.  The gallery includes a website, mock television and print advertisements and billboards

"People have walked into the gallery and thought it was real," Mahmood said in an interview.

“They didn't get the fact that this was a parody or satire."

Sham Illness Exploded On The Internet

But Mahmood said it really took off over the Internet. In the first few days after the Web site (www.havidol.com) went up, it had 5,000 hits. The last time he checked it had reached a quarter of a million.

"The thing that amazes me is that it has been folded into real websites for panic and anxiety disorder. It's been folded into a website for depression. It's been folded into hundreds of art blogs," he added.

If you’ve watched any television lately, you know there is no shortage of prescription drug ads.  Consumer advertising for prescription medications was legalized in the United States in 1997.

Cooper said she intended the exhibit to be subtle.

"The drug ads themselves are sometimes so comedic. I couldn't be outrageously spoofy so I really wanted it to be a more subtle kind of parody that draws you in, makes you want this thing, and then makes you wonder why you want it and maybe where you can get it," she added.

Identify With A Fake Condition?

Mahmood said that in addition to generating interest among the artsy crowd, doctors and medical students have been asking about the exhibit.

"I think people identify with the condition," he said.

They identify with a fake condition?  Really?  Or was it something much more powerful at play…

Like what?

Here’s a very good possibility as to the reason why:  According to a January 29, 2007 article in HealthDay News, there’s not enough information and too much emotion in drug company ads.

New research claims that televised ads for prescription drugs are riddled with emotional appeals and lack helpful information on the disease itself.

"The ads really use emotion instead of information to promote drugs," said the study's lead author, Dominick Frosch, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "The question we have to ask ourselves is: (Should buying) prescription drugs be the same as buying soap?"

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