Speedy Alka-Seltzer never killed anyone

Speedy Alka-Seltzer never killed anyone

One of my favorite advertising characters from the 1950's was Speedy Alka-Seltzer. He was an antacid tablet come to life, promising 'speedy' relief from indigestion. Speedy, and his cohorts pitching OTC (Over The Counter) medicines were both engaging and harmless creatures; never once needing a sound over voice warning of heart attacks, strokes, internal bleeding and suicide, rattled off by the winner of a fast talking contest. Nor did Speedy extol us to demand a prescription for him from ol' Doc Jones since we simply plunked down our twenty-five cents for Speedy at Friendly Pharmacy.

Then in 1997, Speedy was relegated to the TV advertising back shelf when the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Direct To Consumer Advertising (DTCA). This was a brilliant and pernicious scheme in which Big Pharma pitched their dangerous and colossally costly prescription drugs directly to consumers, who could only get them by demanding 'ol Doc Jones write them a prescription. It only takes a few hours to boob tube watching to endure a dozen or more such disgusting ads.

It has been a money geyser for America's leading drug pushers, worth many times the $7 billion spent annually enticing gullible couch potatoes to self-medicate.

On DTCA, America is an outlier. All but New Zealand in the industrialized world wisely prohibit DTCA.

Research shows doctors meet two thirds of patient requests for a specific drug; and nearly half of all patients make such requests. Doctors are businessmen too; why risk losing a paying customer simply because he's determined to get his TV ad induced drug of choice.

Getting back to long gone Speedy. He never killed anyone. And unlike many of the Cadillac priced prescription drugs being hawked on TV by Big Doc Pharma, Speedy didn’t need a barely discernable speed reader rattling off the debilitating side effects including possible death at the end of his hilarious pitch.

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