I don’t want to defend AbbVie, the evil corporation that makes Humira, but that drug is a miracle of modern medicine. It’s not “your back pain could be better,” it’s for severe autoimmune inflammatory diseases, mostly arthritis, psoriasis, and Chron’s. You can actually die from Chron’s if it’s untreated. Anyway, I started developing pretty severe arthritis at the age of 10 and the medications at the time didn’t work and had horrible side effects- the main one at the time was a drug called methotrexate which is literally a chemotherapy drug at higher doses and it has chemo-like side effects. Eventually I got prescribed Humira and it was so much better. The worst side effect was pain during injection and it basically cured my symptoms completely. I’ve been on it ever since (well now I’m on the generic version that came out a few years ago) and I would legitimately not be able to walk or live a normal life without it.
The side effects listed on the commercial are far more severe than what is normal for most medications, because they have to report anything that showed up in the clinical trials even if it is very rare or could have been caused by another factor. A lot of these overlap with symptoms of diseases that are treated with the drug or are symptoms that are often comorbid with the diseases treated by the drug. The ones associated with infectious diseases are very real in the case of Humira, but that is because it’s designed to treat diseases caused by an overactive immune system and it’s basically impossible to intentionally reduce the autoimmune response without also reducing the regular immune response as well. The drugs that Humira replaced were even worse in this regard, and basically just supressed the entire immune system without specificity.
I know pharma ads are obnoxious and indicative of an extremely awful system that preys upon sick people, but if you’re seeing an ad for a new drug these days that drug is probably life changing for anyone who gets prescribed it and that’s why they can charge thousands of dollars for it. Humira is one of the most profitable drugs of all time because it’s basically a miracle in a vial compared to anything that came before it, and it’s ridiculously expensive, over $6000 for a month’s supply. The crazy thing is, I’d probably actually pay that if I didn’t have insurance and there weren’t alternatives available like there are today. I’d have to take less of it to afford it, but that’s how necessary it is for me.
Oh I wasn’t saying the drugs don’t have success. But the commercials make hardly any sense to me. If a new drug comes out that will help with someone’s specific conditions, your doctor should be telling you about it I feel. At most, asking your doctor, hey I have been seeing these symptoms occuring latelyis there something that may help better than what I’m currently using.
Edit: also glad to hear that is helping you by the by
The reason is because they make so much money off every single patient that even if only a few extra people use their drug it pays for the ad. Most people do just get prescribed what they need
I don’t want to defend AbbVie, the evil corporation that makes Humira, but that drug is a miracle of modern medicine. It’s not “your back pain could be better,” it’s for severe autoimmune inflammatory diseases, mostly arthritis, psoriasis, and Chron’s. You can actually die from Chron’s if it’s untreated. Anyway, I started developing pretty severe arthritis at the age of 10 and the medications at the time didn’t work and had horrible side effects- the main one at the time was a drug called methotrexate which is literally a chemotherapy drug at higher doses and it has chemo-like side effects. Eventually I got prescribed Humira and it was so much better. The worst side effect was pain during injection and it basically cured my symptoms completely. I’ve been on it ever since (well now I’m on the generic version that came out a few years ago) and I would legitimately not be able to walk or live a normal life without it.
The side effects listed on the commercial are far more severe than what is normal for most medications, because they have to report anything that showed up in the clinical trials even if it is very rare or could have been caused by another factor. A lot of these overlap with symptoms of diseases that are treated with the drug or are symptoms that are often comorbid with the diseases treated by the drug. The ones associated with infectious diseases are very real in the case of Humira, but that is because it’s designed to treat diseases caused by an overactive immune system and it’s basically impossible to intentionally reduce the autoimmune response without also reducing the regular immune response as well. The drugs that Humira replaced were even worse in this regard, and basically just supressed the entire immune system without specificity.
I know pharma ads are obnoxious and indicative of an extremely awful system that preys upon sick people, but if you’re seeing an ad for a new drug these days that drug is probably life changing for anyone who gets prescribed it and that’s why they can charge thousands of dollars for it. Humira is one of the most profitable drugs of all time because it’s basically a miracle in a vial compared to anything that came before it, and it’s ridiculously expensive, over $6000 for a month’s supply. The crazy thing is, I’d probably actually pay that if I didn’t have insurance and there weren’t alternatives available like there are today. I’d have to take less of it to afford it, but that’s how necessary it is for me.
Oh I wasn’t saying the drugs don’t have success. But the commercials make hardly any sense to me. If a new drug comes out that will help with someone’s specific conditions, your doctor should be telling you about it I feel. At most, asking your doctor, hey I have been seeing these symptoms occuring latelyis there something that may help better than what I’m currently using.
Edit: also glad to hear that is helping you by the by
The reason is because they make so much money off every single patient that even if only a few extra people use their drug it pays for the ad. Most people do just get prescribed what they need