Monday, September 01, 2014

12031: Pharmaceutical Bull Shift.

Pharmaceutical companies are so crafty at creating paranoia around symptoms and even semi-fabricating conditions. Ever heard of SWD—Shift Work Disorder—which can lead to excessive sleepiness (ES) on the job for people toiling outside the standard 9-to-5 daytime hours? According to the website:

SWD is a medical condition where your work schedule is out of sync with your body’s internal sleep-wake cycle. Your sleep-wake cycle is affected by your body’s circadian rhythm, which works by environmental cues, such as light.

• Daylight promotes wakefulness

• Darkness signals the body to sleep

Maybe it would be easier to take this all more seriously if the campaign theme had a more straightforward and sincere tone versus Get Your Shift Together. And why is it damn near impossible to intuitively figure out the proposed treatment—NUVIGIL® (armodafinil)—which can only be accessed via a separate website? A shift worker suffering from SWD and ES would probably have an extra tough time finding the information they need.

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