Finding answers in "the little purple pill"

My doctor seemed somewhat surprised when I asked him for a prescription based entirely on the color of the pills. Though he's a progressive thinker, my physician, like many in his profession, tends to prescribe medicine based on its healing powers not its aesthetic qualities.

Perhaps that's why he cautioned me against mixing Dimetapp into my ginger ale and why he warned me against eating cereal and Maalox. He even got upset over my attempts at sprinkling Advil on ice cream, because apparently tasting like candy and actually being candy are medically very different.

Undaunted by his warnings and encouraged by a very happy-looking woman standing in a floating cloud of purple pills, I pulled out the heavy ammunition. "It's Prilosec time," I declared, quite convinced that this mantra I picked up on a subway ad would have some meaning to a practicing doctor-someone likely well informed on the latest color-based medicines. Fortunately for me, physicians do not get a commission for pushing pills to their patients, and he declined to write the prescription. I'm sure even a bad doctor with a degree from a college that also turns out barbers and clowns would frown upon the idea of asking about a medicine merely because its ads caught your attention.

Not really a new phenomenon, the Prilosec ad merely represents the worst of a growing trend. Rather than pushing the benefits of their products, which aren't nearly as glamorous as the commercials would have you believe, pharmaceutical companies give their pills an image. Instead of selling health in a specific sense, these pill-pushers show the fabulous lifestyle you will soon lead if only your doctor writes that prescription. Claritin offers blue skies, Propecia offers a reprieve from old age and Meridia won't make you thin, but it will make you a happier fat person.

The lifestyle proposition offered in the Prilosec ads, at least the ones on trains and subways, seems less obvious. These poster-size commercials have a shockingly small amount of information on them. Other than the aforementioned "woman with pills" image and a giant clock meant to reinforce the "It's Prilosec time" tagline, the posters tell you nothing about the drug.

Maybe I'd asked my doctor for pills aimed at easing the strain of menopause, or perhaps they cured insomnia, lessened bloating or spurred on toenail growth. Judging by what I knew about Prilosec--that it came in a purple pill--my only guess was that taking them might make me a little funkier and perhaps convince me to drop my name in favor of an unpronounceable symbol. A visit to Prilosec's Purplepill.com Web site brought neither Vanity nor Sheila E, no Revolution and certainly no New Power Generation. Instead, it showed a man standing on a clock flinging his hat into the air. He seemed like a happy man, especially for a man perched so precariously on a giant timepiece, but that hardly seemed like a valid reason for medication.

Going a little deeper on Purplepill.com led me to the reason for his happiness-Prilosec has apparently lessened his heartburn. While I'm genuinely happy for Clock Man and the woman in the raincoat, I'm pretty sure that since I don't suffer from heartburn, it's not quite "Prilosec time" for me.

Last Updated: 06/01/00
WebMistress: Cathie Walker
Author, Author!: Daniel Kline
© copyright 1995- 2000 Centre for the Easily Amused