Get Real, get a prescription

The Pfizer Rat advertisement which we reported on a couple of months ago at Ukmedix News has been upsetting a lot of people who find it too disconcerting and disgusting to watch. The advertisement which features a man removing a dead rat from his mouth has been earmarked for investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority after over 50 members of the public complained.

The hard hitting advertisement which was produced by the healthcare advertising agency Langland was designed to shock people into understanding the dangers of buying fake medication online. Langland specifically used a rat for the shock value and also because a number of fake medications have been found to contain rat poison.

The brilliantly worded strapline for the advertisement ‘Get Real, get a prescription’, sends an extremely clear message that if you buy a prescription medication on the internet without a prescription you really cannot be sure that what you are purchasing is safe or effective.

The complaints (54 in all) received by the ASA included the words ‘offensive’ and ‘distressing’ and some of them pointed out that this advert could upset people who take legal prescription medication which has potentially dangerous ingredients. 

At Ukmedix News we feel that the number of complaints is particularly small when the scale of the situation of fake erectile dysfunction medication being sold on the internet is taken into account. People have died in different parts of the world after taking fake erectile dysfunction medication yet it is unlikely that anybody will be seriously harmed from watching this advertisement.

This advertisement is about trying to save lives and to protect the health of the public, most of whom unfortunately are extremely naïve about the risk that they are taking when they order something on the internet from an illegal pharmacy.

Those websites not requiring a prescription and offering unbranded versions of the erectile dysfunction meds Viagra, Cialis and Levitra are almost certainly selling you the sort of impotence drugs that this advert is attempting to warn you about.

The advertisement was backed by a number of professional medical organisations including the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, The Patients Association and H.E.A.R.T UK.

At Ukmedix it is possible to check the authenticity of the ordered erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra by using the Pharmacheck system and also from the fact that every order comes with manufacturer batch numbers to verify it is the real thing.