The following comes from a July 30 story by Claude Curran on Mercatornet.com.
As each sporting season draws to an end it seems that the championship celebrations have barely ended when speculation begins over changes in team rosters, who will be back next season and who will not be back. That is the unpredictability of sports.
However, one perennial staple of televised professional sports in the US is those annoying “men’s pills” commercials. These ads seem to have no-cut contracts with all pro sports—baseball, football, basketball, hockey, golf, all of them. It is impossible to watch any professional sporting broadcasts without being molested by these ads.
Most everyone whom I have talked to about these commercials finds them annoying but there has never been much concerted public outcry. I guess it’s a case of learned helplessness, like laboratory dogs who continue, passively, to submit to electric shocks without trying to escape.
Not me, I’m still scurrying to find the remote control, still trying to keep certain information away from my younger kids. There are some conversations, I think, that children should be excluded from.
But what can you do? These corporate bullies– Pfizer and Eli Lilly, the cable and satellite television broadcasters Comcast, Dish, as well as the television networks like ESPN, Fox News, CNN, etc. are making a fortune from these recreational medicines and advertising revenue. Our children’s innocence is mere collateral damage – sorry, folks but business is business.
I am a physician and I have been asking Pfizer drug reps to have these ads removed from television for many years. I think the ads are embarrassing and offensive. I remember hearing one of my children singing Pfizer’s Viagra jingle adaptation of Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas”. She was 7 years old at the time and already a devoted fan of the New England Patriots; it appears the NFL serves up both an adult and pediatric form of TBI.
In Fall River, Massachusetts the parent of another 7-year-old girl last year received a visit from the state child protection agency after his child apparently explained the physiological effects of these pills to her young classmates.
Two years ago a patient complained to me that a Viagra commercial prompted her 14-year-old son to explain the situation to her 6 and 8-year-old children. Thanks, Pfizer and Eli Lilly!
The State of Rhode Island Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Guide, in its discussion of sexual abuse states: “Included among the behavioral and emotional indicators of sexual abuse is inappropriate knowledge of sexual matters inconsistent with (the child’s) developmental level.” Must the Guide be re-written?
The State of Delaware has on its various government websites some of the most specific information about child abuse and neglect. They include a detailed list of who is considered to be a mandated reporter. The list includes parents, guardians, teachers, healthcare professionals, coaches, baby sitters, clergy—just about all of us are on it.
Last spring I made a call to Delaware’s child abuse hotline to file a complaint against Pfizer. The young woman I spoke with took my report and empathized with my argument that these ads are illegal. I was contacted by the Delaware child protection services about one week later and was told that they had reviewed my complaint but were not going to open an investigation. I reported, they decided.
Among the diagnostic elements in child abuse is the exposure of children to “developmentally inappropriate information”. These ads have been doing this for years.
In these ads both Pfizer and Eli Lilly use sexually explicit terminology, a vocabulary that evokes specific sexual imagery. By using this language in the context of “patient education” the pharmaceutical companies skirt obscenity laws. In terms of patient safety is it necessary for Pfizer and Eli Lilly to glaringly pronounce a particular non-life-threatening side-effect while avoiding mention of accidental falls and diarrhea? Would accidental falls and diarrhea pique as much interest and conversation in their products? Probably not. But I guess the risk of loose bowels explains the separate bathtubs in Eli Lilly’s Cialis ads!
I am well acquainted with the consequences of childhood sexual trauma; I’ve heard hundreds if not thousands of stories. The consequences of this type of trauma can be catastrophic. Very frequently those who should have been protectors remained silent. I am also familiar with harassment, bullying, and intimidation. These “men’s pills” ads are a pernicious mixture of all four elements.
Several years ago US Congressman Jim Moran introduced legislation to limit the airing of these commercials between 10pm and 6am. He obviously understood that the drug companies would not police themselves. Pfizer would not budge, adamantly defending their right and the urgency of running their ads when children may be watching. At least Moran tried.
Recent California “Paparazzi” laws aim to protect the privacy of the children of celebrities. Shouldn’t both privacy and innocence of children be protected?
Through an internet effort at www.SafeTvAds.com, @SafeTvAds and #Nobitussin on Twitter, airing ads on Christian radio network, and reaching out to religious-based organizations and media, we have tried to organize a boycott of Pfizer and Eli Lilly products. We have also sent a letter of complaint to the Food and Drug Administration Office of Prescription Drug Promotion.
This issue, one would think, is a perfect opportunity for the US Catholic hierarchy to restore a bit of pastoral relevance following recent decades of bad press. Yet one clergyman warned me that Pfizer employs a lot of people and any boycott of their products would hurt those families….
To read the entire story, click here.
Get rid of the TV and filter the Internet with “Convenant Eyes”…..Parents need to protect their children. It can be done. I speak from experience.
My brother purchased an old TV set which needs a separate “digital box” in order to receive televised programing. Instead of the “box” he subscribes to NetFlex and controls what his children watch through the computer feed. It seems to work quite well for them.
I think we should all help this psychiatrist in his campaign to rid the airwaves of these types of ads, not to mention those day time sensational programs where angry girls shout at their boyfriends for getting another girl pregnant. I was sitting in the doctors office the other day when this type of programing was on and there were two young boys watching it.
While it is true that we can and must protect our own children by banning the TV in our homes, we still need to show concern for all children in our country. This is ruining innocent lives and our culture as a whole.
This situation is just horrible! I, too, have made many similar, big complaints, over the years, with no results! Since the late 1960’s, I and my entire family, have lived “a life apart,” segregated basically, away from the “hippie, liberal filth,” which America ignorantly accepted, and then became!! “GARBAGE HIPPIE NATION,” groveling in FILTH!! Anyway– I and my family are also “segregated” from the world of the “media” and electronics– computers, TV, movies, garbage rock “music,” and all the rest. Nobody wants it! That is not our world! Period!! We all simply tune it out, and dress tastefully and well, go to church, have classical music, ballet, older, Broadway-style pop songs, and occasional old, “classic” movies and tv shows for entertainment (don’t need much, though!) and plenty of good books, good foreign cuisine and culture, and love of animals and nature, and many other good things, in our lives!! Well, poor, pitiful, ignorant, filthy, sinful, “Hippie America”– you go your way, and we go ours!! God help America!
“Included among the behavioral and emotional indicators of sexual abuse is inappropriate knowledge of sexual matters inconsistent with (the child’s) developmental level.”
TV programming, language, and advertising before 11pm is used by those in power to promote sexual activity, and sodomy.
Even some “apparently harmless” cartoon shows are sending sexual and political messages to your children.
This is an invasion into the home.
When a child is mature enough to learn about sex, he/she is old enough to be taught ABSTINENCE.
Parents have the obligation to teach their children, not the public media.
” Get rid of the TV and filter the Internet with “Convenant Eyes”…..Parents need to protect their children.”
Here is a link to EWTN’s programming for children.
https://www.ewtn.com/tv/kids/index.asp
You can trust Eternal Word Television Network.
https://www.ewtn.com/tv/kids/index.asp
Remember, a family that prays together, stays together.
Orson Wells once said that filth was always found in the sewers, but now with television, it is present in the homes. Many parents do not care what their young children watch on television. Morality is NOT taught at Mass, nor in the schools, nor in the home, so is it no wonder that we are quickly become barbarians, with no scruples or guilt to keep us civilized. Without God, we are finished, and we are almost at that point right now.
Yes. Cut the cord. Remove the tv from the house. Put the filth in the trash where it belongs.
Saddest of all are the Carl Jr ads. When Carl Karcher was alive and owned his business, he prided himself on being a strong, outspoken Catholic. He even gave prayer cards to customers. Now that Carls Jr is a public corporation,, they run the most offensive, sexually provocative ads without apology or regret from the existing Karcher Family.. Karl and his wife, Margaret, would be so ashamed—-and they would fight back!
Dear Catholic Friends,
All of these corporations pay enormous money to ad agencies which purport to enhance sales by almost any means. If they want to mock Catholicism or Christians in general, they will—as long as it gets attention for their client’s product.
You have the power —-to turn off the tv or even toss it out the door, or not buy the advertized product or even send a letter of protest to the company. You might be surprised how effective all of these responses can be.
Easier, just pull the plug (of the television set and/or monitor) and toss them. With the money you save, go to an occasional baseball game or golf tournament or, good grief, sit down and read at home or at your nearest Peet’s. I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s nothing more pathetic than people–children, mature adults, or invalids in nursing homes–sitting or lying down in front of a television set on a Sunday afternoon or, for that matter, at any time during the week, even for EWTN. Aren’t we better than that?
Yes, exposing these ads to small children is inappropriate. Men who soldiered their way though feminine hygiene ads for decades so now it’s time for women and children to do the same for erectile dysfunction ads. Drug companies used to do their marketing through physicians, now a lot of the marketing is directly to the consumer.
……and here I thought I was a lone in my hatred of these commercials as there has been little or no complaints from the TV viewing public. As our children are now all adults with their own children my concerns are now for the grandchildren. It appears that those in control of banning such things no longer have morals – if they ever did have any. My solution is to tape EVERYTHING and skip over all that offensive garbage……don’t watch anything that hasn’t been taped!
You can toss out the tv but kids see the garbage at friends homes and mall and don’t forget the poison they are swallowing about sex in schools.
Don’t you have a mute button on your remote control?
We don’t watch sports or TV very much but sometimes the radio ads in the car needed to be turned off.
As older teens, my kids now turn them off themselves.
The last television program I watched, which was over 10 years ago was LAW AND ORDER, and I ceased watching it when the police inspector saw a priest and asked him how many boys he molested. After that, I only watched the local news. Now that the place where I live has cable, I once in a while watch EWTN, or Fox News, but the latter has these filthy embarrassing commercials, that I presently seldom watch anything. I enjoy seeing old (pre-1964) films and family friendly (pre-1970) television programs on DVD. Because we have all become used to the filth, sometimes we almost do not recognize it when it shows its ugly and sinful face, A priest wrote a book AIRWAVES FROM HELL, and practically all the programs on national television fit this description. Even the Discovery and History channels are bad because they are so anti-Catholic.