12 ms·

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonde

by moksly 5y ago

“If you’re a drug manufacturer looking for patients”. Maybe I’m just too Scandinavian to understand, but wouldn’t it be the other way around? Now I also wonder if I should see a doctor. I’ve been getting a lot of “is your will in order” commercials from law firms on Facebook recently. I sure hope big tech advertising doesn’t know something I don’t.

smcl 5y ago
Did you fill your date of birth on any age-protected content (websites for distilleries or breweries, for example) as 1st January 1940 or something? They could just mistakenly believe you're 81 based on that :)
- designium 5y ago
  But it could be similar to the case where Target was able to targets ads to women who did not even know they were pregnant. In this case, the above commenter could be doing things signaling that he may need a will soon due to diseases or life situation that he is not aware of. Or he/she has looked into content similar to those people in need. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - kalleboo 5y ago
    > But it could be similar to the case where Target was able to targets ads to women who did not even know they were pregnant In this case, she knew she was pregnant. Her family didn't.
  - mbg721 5y ago
    For every "Big Tech figured out my diagnosis before I did" there are a thousand instances of "You just bought a fridge--I bet you love buying fridges, here, let me show you some".
    - Retric 5y ago
      People do take products back they don’t like. So statistically it’s not as unlikely as you might think.
      - ipython 5y ago
        More realistically you should tag the users profile to show them fridges in about 3 years when it first starts to either experience minor mechanical issues or starts to look “dated”. Just tag with refrigerator_2025 or something.
    - LorenPechtel 5y ago
      The really nutty one I've seen--Amazon apparently only looks at correlation without regard for causation. Buy ink, it starts showing you printers that use that ink.
  - ju-st 5y ago
    The target story is nice anecdote but it's unlikely that they figured out that the daughter is pregnant: https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did-a6be13b973a5 https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-t...
    - Accacin 5y ago
      Yeah I can't believe people are still parroting this at all.
- moksly 5y ago
  Well I’ve had a friendly hemorrhoid for a few years that I frequently see a lovely anal surgeon for and I probably have some “this might be cancer” search entries from a few years back, but it’s been so long that I should’ve died by now if it was actually cancer down there. Other than that I have no idea heh.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- nkozyra 5y ago
  I'm in my early 40s and just got shingles. Based on my googling the past few weeks I expect AARP and mechanical stair chair ads any time I'm not using adblock from here on out.
  - sildur 5y ago
    I guess you will also start getting more "shingles in your area" ads.
    - zo1 5y ago
      Only if Sean Connery is the ad manager.
gerdesj 5y ago
Replace the word patient with customer or "money".
- anjel 5y ago
  I work in a (California) medical facility. "Patient" is now a deprecated if not archaic term, no longer used. Patients are now properly referred to as "clients" for at least 5 years now.
  - Arrath 5y ago
    While it's all semantics in the world of business speak and HR, this feels to me like it orients the relationship as any other business transaction. I want to be a patient, in to see a doctor for diagnosis and/or treatment. I don't want to be a client, I'm not here to iron out a SEO contract.
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      See also "passenger" vs "customer" on transit systems.
  - gerdesj 5y ago
    I understand that we all have to keep up but how on earth is patient an "archaic term" when compared to client? Both words are derived from Latin and have seen some service. Patiens - "sufferer" seems appropriate for someone who is suffering - they tend to gravitate towards Doctors. A client "cliens" is more of a legal term - it was used to denote someone who had a lawyer or was "protected" by a patron. I think that patient is the more appropriate term for your customers (originates from Latin - "tax gatherer.") 8)
CapriciousCptl 5y ago
In the US, it's legal to advertise drugs directly to patients. There's not a lot of places in the world where it happens, I'm assuming Scandinavia is one of them.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  One particularly funny side effect is that the narrator needs to read out a comprehensive disclaimer. I was once on holiday and with US TV, and saw a few times an ad for performance enhancement for older gentlemen. The ad showed an older couple, who first are not very happy, then much happier with each other, frollicking in the long grass and disappearing off shot etc. While that was happening, the narrator was reading in an impassioned, but also somewhat undulated voice: "side effects include headaches, blurred vision, hypertension, liver failure, paralysis and death" [I can't quite remember the list, basically it went from minor to death, as most drugs do]. For someone not at all used to serious drugs being advertised on prime-time TV, this was quite a thing to see.
  - drdec 5y ago
    My favorite part is when they tell you "Don't take Oprexmia* if you are allergic to Oprexmia". * My first attempt at a made up drug name was Xaljenzia (my thought process was they seem to love the letters X, J and Z) but apparently there is a Xaljenz so I ended up with this.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I guess these would be considered as proper nouns thereby making them invalid Scrabble words?? Otherwise, hit a tripple word score, and essentially do a mic drop with these when played.
  - nkrisc 5y ago
    It’s bizarre even as an American who is used to it. The most amusing thing is they’re clearly running out of good ideas for names. The names are getting stranger every year. They’re basically just gibberish now.
ximeng 5y ago
Interesting article on a Uber for cremations company: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/may/07/funeral-grace-cremation-startup-alex-kruger https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/may/07/funeral-grace...
_jal 5y ago
If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Depending on what you personally get up to, opsec is increasingly vital for normal people. I'm not talking about serious stuff - everyone has secrets. Well, had.
naturalauction 5y ago
Patients and doctors need to know about a medicine to prescribe it. In order to increase brand awareness, drug companies can either advertise to or incentivize (free trips to conferences, consulting gigs) doctors to prescribe a drug or get patients to directly ask their doctor for a drug.
- Retric 5y ago
  Few new drugs get invented each year and most are either slight modifications to existing drugs or highly specialized. Doctors can easily keep up with zero advertising needed. Drug companies advertise to convince doctors that drug X is better than it actually is. Which is obviously bad for patients who are better served by an objective approach to prescription drugs.
  - naturalauction 5y ago
    Oh I agree that it's a complete racket that hurts patients, I just wanted to provide some rationale from the drug company's perspective.
  - Anarch157a 5y ago
    I wouldn't like to be severed by a drug. I prefer my body to stay in one piece, thank you. But I agree that doctors don't need advertisement. Just publish a technical magazine 2 to 4 times a year with a technical description of the drugs available and let the doctors make the call.
  - refurb 5y ago
    I’ve interacted with a lot of doctors in my job and no, most doctors aren’t that aware. You’ll get the doctors involved in research who know all about the drugs years before they are approved, but those are a handful. Like most people who have jobs you focus on the here-and-now and while “yeah I’d love to read up on that new drug, but I don’t have time”. I worked on one drug where we had to go to and tell them to stop buying it (they were still buying lots and if they return it a year later it would mess up our accounting) because there were far superior drugs available. We’re talking malpractice not to use the new drug. They thanked us for letting them know.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by moksly 5y ago

smcl 5y ago

Did you fill your date of birth on any age-protected content (websites for distilleries or breweries, for example) as 1st January 1940 or something? They could just mistakenly believe you're 81 based on that :)

designium 5y ago
But it could be similar to the case where Target was able to targets ads to women who did not even know they were pregnant. In this case, the above commenter could be doing things signaling that he may need a will soon due to diseases or life situation that he is not aware of. Or he/she has looked into content similar to those people in need. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- kalleboo 5y ago
  > But it could be similar to the case where Target was able to targets ads to women who did not even know they were pregnant In this case, she knew she was pregnant. Her family didn't.
- mbg721 5y ago
  For every "Big Tech figured out my diagnosis before I did" there are a thousand instances of "You just bought a fridge--I bet you love buying fridges, here, let me show you some".
  - Retric 5y ago
    People do take products back they don’t like. So statistically it’s not as unlikely as you might think.
    - ipython 5y ago
      More realistically you should tag the users profile to show them fridges in about 3 years when it first starts to either experience minor mechanical issues or starts to look “dated”. Just tag with refrigerator_2025 or something.
  - LorenPechtel 5y ago
    The really nutty one I've seen--Amazon apparently only looks at correlation without regard for causation. Buy ink, it starts showing you printers that use that ink.
- ju-st 5y ago
  The target story is nice anecdote but it's unlikely that they figured out that the daughter is pregnant: https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did-a6be13b973a5 https://medium.com/@colin.fraser/target-didnt-figure-out-a-t...
  - Accacin 5y ago
    Yeah I can't believe people are still parroting this at all.
moksly 5y ago
Well I’ve had a friendly hemorrhoid for a few years that I frequently see a lovely anal surgeon for and I probably have some “this might be cancer” search entries from a few years back, but it’s been so long that I should’ve died by now if it was actually cancer down there. Other than that I have no idea heh.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nkozyra 5y ago
I'm in my early 40s and just got shingles. Based on my googling the past few weeks I expect AARP and mechanical stair chair ads any time I'm not using adblock from here on out.
- sildur 5y ago
  I guess you will also start getting more "shingles in your area" ads.
  - zo1 5y ago
    Only if Sean Connery is the ad manager.

gerdesj 5y ago

Replace the word patient with customer or "money".

anjel 5y ago
I work in a (California) medical facility. "Patient" is now a deprecated if not archaic term, no longer used. Patients are now properly referred to as "clients" for at least 5 years now.
- Arrath 5y ago
  While it's all semantics in the world of business speak and HR, this feels to me like it orients the relationship as any other business transaction. I want to be a patient, in to see a doctor for diagnosis and/or treatment. I don't want to be a client, I'm not here to iron out a SEO contract.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    See also "passenger" vs "customer" on transit systems.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  I understand that we all have to keep up but how on earth is patient an "archaic term" when compared to client? Both words are derived from Latin and have seen some service. Patiens - "sufferer" seems appropriate for someone who is suffering - they tend to gravitate towards Doctors. A client "cliens" is more of a legal term - it was used to denote someone who had a lawyer or was "protected" by a patron. I think that patient is the more appropriate term for your customers (originates from Latin - "tax gatherer.") 8)

CapriciousCptl 5y ago

In the US, it's legal to advertise drugs directly to patients. There's not a lot of places in the world where it happens, I'm assuming Scandinavia is one of them.

rich_sasha 5y ago
One particularly funny side effect is that the narrator needs to read out a comprehensive disclaimer. I was once on holiday and with US TV, and saw a few times an ad for performance enhancement for older gentlemen. The ad showed an older couple, who first are not very happy, then much happier with each other, frollicking in the long grass and disappearing off shot etc. While that was happening, the narrator was reading in an impassioned, but also somewhat undulated voice: "side effects include headaches, blurred vision, hypertension, liver failure, paralysis and death" [I can't quite remember the list, basically it went from minor to death, as most drugs do]. For someone not at all used to serious drugs being advertised on prime-time TV, this was quite a thing to see.
- drdec 5y ago
  My favorite part is when they tell you "Don't take Oprexmia* if you are allergic to Oprexmia". * My first attempt at a made up drug name was Xaljenzia (my thought process was they seem to love the letters X, J and Z) but apparently there is a Xaljenz so I ended up with this.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I guess these would be considered as proper nouns thereby making them invalid Scrabble words?? Otherwise, hit a tripple word score, and essentially do a mic drop with these when played.
- nkrisc 5y ago
  It’s bizarre even as an American who is used to it. The most amusing thing is they’re clearly running out of good ideas for names. The names are getting stranger every year. They’re basically just gibberish now.

ximeng 5y ago

Interesting article on a Uber for cremations company: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/may/07/funeral-grace-cremation-startup-alex-kruger https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/may/07/funeral-grace...

_jal 5y ago

If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Depending on what you personally get up to, opsec is increasingly vital for normal people. I'm not talking about serious stuff - everyone has secrets. Well, had.

naturalauction 5y ago

Patients and doctors need to know about a medicine to prescribe it. In order to increase brand awareness, drug companies can either advertise to or incentivize (free trips to conferences, consulting gigs) doctors to prescribe a drug or get patients to directly ask their doctor for a drug.

Retric 5y ago
Few new drugs get invented each year and most are either slight modifications to existing drugs or highly specialized. Doctors can easily keep up with zero advertising needed. Drug companies advertise to convince doctors that drug X is better than it actually is. Which is obviously bad for patients who are better served by an objective approach to prescription drugs.
- naturalauction 5y ago
  Oh I agree that it's a complete racket that hurts patients, I just wanted to provide some rationale from the drug company's perspective.
- Anarch157a 5y ago
  I wouldn't like to be severed by a drug. I prefer my body to stay in one piece, thank you. But I agree that doctors don't need advertisement. Just publish a technical magazine 2 to 4 times a year with a technical description of the drugs available and let the doctors make the call.
- refurb 5y ago
  I’ve interacted with a lot of doctors in my job and no, most doctors aren’t that aware. You’ll get the doctors involved in research who know all about the drugs years before they are approved, but those are a handful. Like most people who have jobs you focus on the here-and-now and while “yeah I’d love to read up on that new drug, but I don’t have time”. I worked on one drug where we had to go to and tell them to stop buying it (they were still buying lots and if they return it a year later it would mess up our accounting) because there were far superior drugs available. We’re talking malpractice not to use the new drug. They thanked us for letting them know.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]