|
16 sep 06 "What do you think of those Herpes commercials?" commercials for herpes! And now, for a limited time only, you, too, can contract herpes for the one-time, low, low price of $19.95, plus shipping and handling! Act now! This offer won't be around forever! teehee. yeah, i've seen those valtrex commercials, featuring moral, upstanding, good-looking, late-twenty-and-early-thirty-something yuppies looking earnestly at the camera and telling you, frankly, "i have herpes", as if they hadn't contract it via drunken sex with 5 "delts" in some moldy frat house basement when they were 19. then they go on to talk about how it's still possible to spread herpes, even if you aren't exhibiting any signs (leprous lesions on your junk). i haven't done any studies, or peered at any data, and i can only assume that the valtrex guys (© 1997-2006 GlaxoSmithKline, All Rights Reserved) are telling the truth when they say that it's possible to spread herpes when you aren't showing symptoms. their goal is to get people to stop thinking they can manage their own herpes by timing their copulation to coincide with lesion-free time periods, ostensibly for humanitarian reasons, but actually so people will buy more valtrex. that sort of self-managment reminds me of the use of the rhythm method, or withdrawal, for birth control -- somewhat effective, but not a wise gamble, considering the risks. remember how i feel about folk medicine. what do i think of those commercials? they're a good thing in that they don't make herpes sufferes feel like a reviled bunch of filthy criminal perverts, but of course g.s.k. is doing this so it can make a buck off of valtrex, which may or may not matter (if oily capitalistic interests work to make a drug more available or curb associated social stigma, then are they still bad?). of course, the problem is that valtrex isn't made available for free, or for a reduced price, to destitute herpes sufferers, of which there are obviously more than there are of yuppie herpes sufferers, a few of whom are portrayed in those valtrex commercials ("this is a drammatization -- actors do not actually have herpes, probably"). drug companies have recently implemented programs by which free drugs are provided to poor patients who qualify (glaxco's is called bridges to access), even though those drug companies are of course doing the programs for PR reasons. the reason i know this isn't because i'm a conspiracy theorist or a mind-reader, but only because capitalism is, by definition, amoral. i don't mean it's evil, per se, but only that it doesn't consider what's "wrong" or "right" -- it only works to earn a profit for shareholders, by any means necessary. a capitalistic entity is like a shark swimming at some bloody meat in the water -- that's its goal. nothing more, nothing less. someone at glaxco figured that the positive PR gained in providing "joe crackhead" with AIDS medication (once he fills out the forms in triplicate) outweighs the cost of shipping him a vial of pills every month. you might think i'm being overly-cynical, but i'm not -- this is admittedly how the profit motive works. that's why they call it the "profit motive" -- making a profit is the corporation's motive, and not doing what's right, what eases suffering, what benefits the greatest number of people, or what provides education, medicine, food and shelter to the world's population. but likewise, the corporation isn't evil -- it's not out there setting the homeless on fire while they're sleeping; it simply doesn't care about them, unless doing so somehow increases profits. there are some people (i like to call them "market fundamentalists") who have faith that the open market, ie, free-range capitalism, untethered by antitrust laws and such, will provide for everyone if allowed to fourish (or metastasize, depending on how you voted last election). i don't personally agree with this, because it's been demonstrated that leadership will always arise from anarchy -- upon the collapse of a government in a country (a body which regulates the market), it isn't long before some group of warlords (corporations) takes control, because they can; consider angola, the sudan, etc. people are inclined to power, some more than others. those first "some" will inevitably come to lord over those second "others", in less time than you can say "mikhail bakunin" (19th century anarchist). you know what they say in "lord of the rings": It began with the forging of the great rings. Three were given to the elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain holes. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men, who above all else desire power. power. that's why george w. bush ran for office, and that's why shareholders want the profit corporations are legally responsible for attempting to provide. in order for there to be powerful men, there have to exist weak men, and it's in the interest of those in power to keep those who are weak, weak. it's tautological, in fact: there cannot exist powerful men unless the men hold power over someone. of course, the powerful men want to retain their power, so they scheme and work hard to keep the weak man weak, and the black man down. the greater the weakness of the weak man, the greater the power of the powerful man. libertarians, anarchists, and even conservative republicans tend to underestimate the human need to crush his fellow, or even ignore it altogether. true, not all people are like this -- you're probably not like this. but it only takes one with "leadership qualties", one "type A" asshole to herd the sheep. what left-wing revolutionaries regard with disdain ("the sheeple"), i regard with compassion (theoretically), because they fall under the tyrrany of aspirants to power; they are what makes this tyranny possible, not that this implies their complicity or even their responsiblity. back to herpes commercials. they're pretty slick, no doubt about it; drug companies enjoy well-funded marketing departments. oh! i have to show you something; it's one of the funniest things i've seen on the internet. i keep forgetting about it. if i didn't, i'd watch it regularly. humble, bambi-eyed apologies to the creative and witty folks at astonishedhead.com, from whom i "stole" the ovoid-creature swf. see, they refuse to allow direct linkage, which annoyed me, so i grabbed the flash file from my temporary internet files and uploaded it to this webspace. if i get an irrate letter, i'll take it down (maybe). the goal (or at least the wish) of drug companies is to keep you sick, or convinced you're a sick, inherently defective ovoid creature (visit the link!), so you'll keep coming back for more juice. sometimes you really are sick, but this is not to say drug companies want you to get better, and don't exaggerate the clinical nature of your issue, not to mention eclipse other, sometimes better, treatment methods. i'm pretty sure you asked this question only because it's rather funny to see, as i said, these upstanding quasi-youths on the screen, telling you "i have herpes", and you wanted me to write about it; perhaps you didn't want another lecture on how the market is bad for society, and how you should feel guilty about having that IRA account. but, as always, you can do nothing. herpes is pretty common, actually -- if you look in the "personals", you can sometimes find a whole section dedicated to people who have herpes, and are seeking an infected partner who won't mind being polluted with additional cooties. herpes enjoys a particular cultural status, like everything, i suppose: it falls into the category of "venereal diseases that aren't fatal, so we can laugh about them and say "nyeah nyeah, serves you right for your amoral and careless sexual behavior'". we don't laugh at AIDS patients this way, even though it might have been similar behavior that got them into trouble. but we can laugh at herpes, gonnhorea, and the clap, along with their sufferers. that's probably why you and i find valtrex tv commercials silly and sort of morbidly amusing -- because we're not supposed to be taking herpes seriously; we're supposed to be laughing at it. it's beneficial that those commercials present the sufferer as "someone like you or me", but this is still the result of a shifty-eyed marketing scheme design to fatten the already fat pockets of shareholders at the expense of he who doesn't have what it takes to be a shareholder, and therefore can't afford the valtrex he needs to make his herpes less unbearable ("there is no cure for genital herpes"). fight the power. but in the meantime, take your valtrex. |
ask a question