Every time I go to CVS, the cashier hands me a 3-foot long receipt consisting mostly of coupons specially generated to tintillate the raging thrifty consumer within, based on a profile that CVS has compiled from my purchases while using the CVS discount card. Since I chiefly go to CVS to buy Altoids, deodorant, shaving ravors, and other personal hygeine products that have no adequate organic substitutes, the CVS coupons that I am issued indicate that I’ve been pegged as a candy addict with a keen interest in an wide array of depilatories.
Then, about nine months ago, all my CVS receipts began to include a coupon for alli, an FDA-approved over-the-counter weight loss drug from Glaxosmithkline. Great, some CVS database pegged me the perfect candidate for a diet drug that is upfront about causing “gas with oily spotting, loose stools, and more frequent stools that may be hard to control”. As alli’s literature makes painfully clear, that’s not a side effect, that’s a “treatment effect,” meaning that is what is supposed to happen when you take alli. Think about it! A respected pharmaceutical company, staking millions of dollars in R&D, marketing, and advertising on a diet drug that causes the user to shit out excess dietary fat before they can digest it, in an unpredictable, leaky, frequent and oily sort of way!
As has been recently reported, Glaxo has sold about 4 million alli kits in the first year, and hopes to grow the diet drug’s sales to 5 or 6 million a year, a goal that is dependent on repeat buyers. So maybe that explains the permanent presence of the alli coupon on my CVS receipt. A classic marketing ploy to get consumers hooked… on a pill that makes them shit undigested fat.
I imagine that when the fine folks at Glaxo were crafting the horrific verbiage that describes how the drug works, someone sensed what a catastrophically ill-conceived idea alli was. I mean, how you could advise your prospective customers “Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work” and think, “We got a blockbuster diet drug here!”
I do admire how the alli product literature says that these unpleasant “treatment effects” will help to reinforce healthy eating habits. I guess it only takes one alli-managed pizza and ice cream binge to sear an avoidance of fatty foods into one’s consciousness.
