Drug panic: causes, consequences, and public response

Drug Panic

It used to be that drug companies could not advertise prescription medications, but now that they can it seems as though there are more and more commercials every day for medications that cure or help with the symptoms of some disease or condition, but yet the side effects of many if not all of these medications can be very severe and often they sound as though they will be worse than whatever the medication is supposed to help with.

In truth, the side effects, especially the most dangerous ones, occur very rarely in a minute number of people but everyone must be warned just in case any of the side effects do occur (Reinarman & Levine, 1989). Most medications are very safe, but yet there are lawsuits and many other problems that are seen on television on an almost daily basis. This is true with prescription medications, but it is also true of non-prescription medications such as cold/cough remedies and pain relievers. These are very important to point out as well because they are so common and so many people use them. This being the case, there could be problems with a widespread panic for these kinds of drugs, too.

Because of this, a 'drug panic' could occur very easily, and this paper will explore some of the ways that this could take place and how it would be fueled by the media and by attorneys bringing lawsuits for medical problems caused by a new medication that would come out and be on the market. Whether this medication was prescription or non-prescription would not be that relevant when it came to creating a panic, with the possible exception of the fact that a non-prescription drug might be somewhat easier to create a panic over due to the simple fact that more people take these types of medications.

The media and television are both very important when it comes to how people feel about various issues, including prescription and non-prescription medications. It is well-known that people who are watching television often change channels while the commercials are on (Haines, 1979). If they were not intensely interested in what they were watching in the first place, and if they see something good on another channel during a commercial that they really want to see, they will very likely not go back to the first channel to finish watching whatever it was they were watching when the commercial came on.

Commercials that are interesting enough to keep an audiences' attention will make advertisers and network executives happy because those that are watching a show at the time will not change the channel while the commercial runs, therefore lessening the possibility that they will change channels and the network will lose ratings. It will also make the medication companies happy because their medications will continue to sell to individuals that see the commercials and ask their doctors about the medications and if they may need these medications for some specific ailment or go to their pharmacy and ask the pharmacist whether a particular medication would be a good idea based on their symptoms or based on the concerns about their health that they might have.

While television and its available advertising are very important, it is not the only area of the media that is significant when it comes to prescription medication. Medications are also advertised on the radio and in magazines, and advertisement is not all that is seen. Prescription and non-prescription medications get plenty of 'free advertising' through news stories as well, but it is not always the type of advertising that they are looking for. Usually, this kind of 'advertisement' is the wrong kind in that it has to do with lawsuits, drug problems, dependency issues, CEOs of drug companies that did not tell the truth about the dangers of their medications and other difficulties that the drug companies would prefer to have not known (Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988).

In many ways it would be very easy for the media to cause widespread panic when it came to a new drug. News stories that had to do with the problems seen with the drug, or even potential problems that could come about from the drug's side effects, could be broadcast on many channels and discussed on radio new programs. Newspapers and magazines, if they picked up the story, could spread a large amount of information very rapidly, and whether this information was accurate or not it would still cause problems for the drug company that marketed the particular drug (Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988).

The media, however, is not the only problem where panic resulting from a drug is concerned. Attorneys could also add to the concern by advertising for lawsuits regarding a specific drug. Some of this is already seen with Paxil and other antidepressants, but even a new drug could easily be the object of paranoia if enough attorneys felt that class actions lawsuits were necessary to get the attention of individuals within the medical community. This much of an uproar would also get the attention of the media which would then become involved through the aforementioned news programs and other venues.

If one wanted to generate public fear for a new drug, one would first have to show that there was danger - either real or imagined - in that particular medication (Reinarman & Levine, 1989). Once this was done, the story and/or the information would have to be disseminated to many different media outlets and any other individuals or companies that would work to spread the word without stopping to effectively determine whether the information was completely and technically accurate or whether it was only created by someone that wanted to worry and concern others. This information would also have to be spread very thoroughly and very quickly simply because it could therefore spread very far before anyone proved it untrue if it actually was untrue (Levine & Reinarman, 1988). Without this, a story like that would die out rapidly and nothing would come of it except for a few upset people and one or two days of concern (Goode, 1990).