New York - Part 6

The final installment.

US TV is mostly commercials. Eight out of ten commercials are for take-away food - KFC, Dominos, Pizza Hut and so on. One out of ten commercials is for Weight Watchers or slimming food. The tenth advert is for medication to take when you've eaten too much and so have high blood pressure, depression or are so fat that your joints have packed up.

They have an awful lot of adverts. A half-hour programme in the UK typically has adverts before the show starts, one break during the middle, and adverts at the end. The US half-hour show will start, run for five minutes, have adverts, run for ten minutes, have more adverts, and then show the final section of the show (often with adverts just before the last scene) - before running straight into the next show (no adverts) to ensure you keep watching.

Our two least favourite commercials were:

The never-ending "reverse mortgage" advert with some really dodgy old bloke. It wasn't annoying in itself, only that it was a two-minute commercial and was played during every single commercial break of the film we were watching. Ironically I can't remember the product's name. In your face, advertisers.

Celebrex. Celebrex was a fascinating advert because it was very hard indeed to work out what this drug was supposed to cure (celebrities perhaps?). After a bit of Googling, it seems as though it's an anti-arthritis drug. Fine. But it was the advert itself that was a bit disturbing, notably the line, "You may be interested to know that Celebrex has never been taken off the market."

What the fuck? I would be a lot more interested to know if it had been taken off the market. What on earth are they doing with their drugs in the USA to make "not being proved lethal - yet" a selling point?

I'm not naive - I realise that most drugs have some sort of side effect. But take a look at this (I've bolded my favourite bits. Yes Americans. "Favourite" with a "u"):

This medicine can increase your risk of life-threatening heart or circulation problems, including heart attack or stroke. This risk will increase the longer you use Celebrex.

Seek emergency medical help if you have symptoms of heart or circulation problems, such as chest pain, weakness, shortness of breath, slurred speech, or problems with vision or balance.
This medicine can also increase your risk of serious effects on the stomach or intestines, including bleeding or perforation (forming of a hole). These conditions can be fatal and gastrointestinal effects can occur without warning at any time while you are taking Celebrex. Older adults may have an even greater risk of these serious gastrointestinal side effects.

Call your doctor at once if you have symptoms of bleeding in your stomach or intestines. This includes black, bloody, or tarry stools, or coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds.Do not drink alcohol while taking Celebrex. Alcohol can increase the risk of stomach bleeding caused by Celebrex. Do not use any other over-the-counter cold, allergy, or pain medication without first asking your doctor or pharmacist.

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So - an arthritis medication which causes more side effects in older people - presumably its target market. Arthritis is as far as I know, a chronic condition, so you're going to want to use it indefinitely. Which will again increase your risks. It may also make you vomit coffee grounds and cough up blood.

But you may be interested to hear that it's never been taken off the market. And is advertised on primetime TV. America. Love it.