https://prescriptiondrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005631

For this blog post, I chose the prescription drug Ritalin. I chose this drug because of the common abuse of it across college campuses and in society in general (along with Adderall). I chose this specific advertisement picture because it was one of the most common advertisements that came up when I searched for one on this drug.

The main American company that sells Ritalin is Novartis. This company has many locations around the world, including 68 in the United States. Although I found that they are the main company that distributes Ritalin, their main focuses in disease areas are cancer, cardio-metabolic, immunology and dermatology, ophthalmology, neuroscience, and respiratory. When I was going through their website and looking at each focus group, not one had a subcategory for ADD or ADHD (the common disorders Ritalin is used for). I went to subtitle for “Our Strategy” on their website. There they shared their mission for their company, “Our strategy is to use science-based innovation to deliver better patient outcomes in growing areas of healthcare.” They also had a subtitle for “Our Values.” The list of their values included: innovation, quality, collaboration, performance, courage, and integrity, I decided to look up this company in the news to see if they lived up to their own values in real life. I found that the company has recently been sued in Australia for “false or misleading marketing of their pain relief gels.” This isn’t directly tied to their distribution of Ritalin but misleading the consumers doesn’t fall into the categories of any of their values. Since that is a very recent story, I looked at Novartis’s website where they had a tab for “Media.” This tab took me to a list of news articles that praised what they are doing and how beneficial it is (this was expected considering I found it on their own website). I am not claiming that the company is bad in any way; from the looks of it, I do believe they are doing very beneficial research. I was mostly concerned that they didn’t have a direct tab to their product of Ritalin. When I searched the name Ritalin in their search bar, my result was “There are no results for your search.” I am assuming they just generate the product within their company but it is not one of their focuses.

The advertisement that I am using is specifically targeted at children. The main headline on the advertisement says, “Let the ADD child leave his medicine home.” I can easily deduce that this advertisement is intended for parents to see for their children. In a finer print under the picture of a young boy doing school work, it states “greater convenience,” “no medicating at school,” and “teacher and school nurse not involved.” This is intended for parents to see that this drug is designed to make their lives easier in the long run. Since this advertisement is from 1988, I assume that this advertisement was found in newspapers and magazines mostly; exactly where a parent or guardian would be looking.

Ritalin’s active ingredient is methylphenidate hydrochloride and is a mild CNS stimulant meant to help with attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and narcolepsy by affecting “chemicals in the brain and nerves that contribute to hyperactivity and impulse control.” The active ingredient in Ritalin is an addictive ingredient and is a drug of abuse. It is stated to “tell your doctor if you have had problems with drug or alcohol abuse” because of this habit-forming ingredient. The drug can cause psychosis to increase or appear when used and can cause blood circulation problems. When looking at the advertisement I am using, a lot of this information can be found on it. They have contradictions, warnings, interactions, precautions, adverse reactions, dosage, and overdose sections that cover all that information. The only problem: it is in TINY print. I had to zoom in on my computer to read it and I do not believe it would be very legible if it was in a newspaper or magazine. When I searched online for information about Ritalin, I found the same type of information plus a list of side effects. The website I used (drugs.com) had much more information on the drug than the advertisement and it was all easier to read and understand. The biggest concerns I found about this drug are the high possibility of forming an addiction and the stress it can have on the heart. If a person is a long-time user of Ritalin, they can collapse one day doing anything from a heart attack and die (this is obviously not a common situation but it is still a possibility). The advertisement provides a list of side effects (adverse reactions) that come along with the use of the drug; the most common ones being nervousness and insomnia. I am happy to say that this advertisement does box out the section called “Drug Dependence” so those who are reading know it is an important section for the reader to focus on. My biggest issue with this advertisement is that all of the important information is written in such fine print that I am unsure if a reader would be able to actually read it if it were printed out.

This advertisement has a couple advertising techniques. The biggest ones being an attention-grabbing phrase at the top and a picture. The picture is of a younger boy who is working on school work. I am assuming this photo was chosen to show parents what their child ‘could be like’ if they gave him/her this once-a-day drug. The attention-grabbing phrase at the top reads “Let the ADD child leave his medicine at home.” This will grab the parents’ attention because they will not have to worry about the young child getting his medication to school, the parents will not have to deal with the school nurse/teachers, and their life will be made easier. This advertisement does not use celebrities or statistics in it. I think they should considering they make the section of Drug Dependence stand out and that could easily turn away people from the product. If they make that section so known, they should also have statistics to go with it so customers know they are really taking based off what other people say and feel.

All in all, I am in support of this drug BUT not for children and only if it taken responsibly. Once a person is mature enough to decide for him or herself to take it, I believe it could be extremely beneficial if they have any of the conditions it is prescribed for. For children though, I do not believe it should be the ‘go-to’ option. By looking at the effects of the drug and what it can do to your body, I do not believe a high habit-forming drug should be given to young children without their knowledge of what it will do to their body. I believe other methods should be approached first and if absolutely nothing else works, this drug could be considered an option. I have personal experiences with this type of drug and I have seen it being abused by a close friend. I have also seen it help friends who take it responsibly and the way it is supposed to be taken. When I searched Ritalin in the news section of google, all the articles that came up were about people abusing the drug, or doctors getting arrested for writing fraudulent prescriptions for it. The way society is abusing this type of drug is not acceptable and needs to be handled but if it is taken responsibly and for the right reasons, I believe it could be very effective and beneficial.