New Medication to Treat Lack of Motivation

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In Belgium and other European countries, it is illegal to advertise prescription drugs. Advertising for over-the-counter or OTC drugs is allowed however. This motivated Test-Aankoop to launch a campaign for a new OTC-drug that is supposed to treat lack of motivation.

According to De Standaard, the leading Dutch-language newspaper in Belgium, the campaign is a real, professional campaign, just like the real thing, complete with user testimonials and the like.

The campaign is meant to make people aware of the fact that they are more often than not being misled. Products that contain no active ingredients, or products that are known not to work are often advertised as being the newest innovation and/or revolution in medical research. Test-Aankoop's campaign shows how easy it is to make utter nonsense sound and look convincing, at least to a relatively uneducated and/or gullible public.

In Canada, we have a similar campaign from "concerned advertisers". It features a short documentary snippet about the house-hippo, a very well made anti-commercial that illustrates how easy it is to present fakery as genuine.

Test-Aankoop hopes that its campaign will motivate European leaders to create more stringent rules against false advertising and -hopefully- outlaw advertising for drugs.

In my opinion, this type of legislation is badly needed. Far too often, snake-oil merchants mislead a sometimes desperate public by selling remedies that don't work. Just think of all the products to lose weight, to alleviate arthritis pain, to make hair grow, or more grim, to cure autism. Most often, the only legitimate claim these merchants can make is that their product does not have side-effects. They are usually right, since they don't have any effects, at least not physical effects, but they sometimes do lead people over sinuous paths to indescribable suffering, even death. Homeopathy to cure cancer comes to mind.

What do you think?

The picture I chose features two OTCs. However, these are not fakes, they *do* indeed contain proven active ingredients.