Rhetorical Analysis Essay
My argument about direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is that, it should be changed to something better. My reasons for making this argument is that Elizabeth Almasi and Randall Staffords showed a lot pathos and logos but did not show any ethos. Peter Mansfield argues about replacing the DTCA with something new also showing a solution to the problem. Richard Kravitz uses a lot of all three pathos, logos, and ethos, in his argument about regulating it. Some background about the debate on whether the DTCA should be banned, regulated, or changed is which one is going to be beneficial for the public.
The first viewpoint, Elizabeth Almasi and Randall Staffords, shows that advertising prescription medicines could trigger a placebo effect. The effect is serious given that one-third of patients reported that the had relief from coughs, headaches, depressions while given a placebo. There are two models that explain the placebo phenomenon, the first model classical conditioning which is a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired. “According to this theory, prior experiences with effective medical treatments “condition” the patient to associate pills, syringes, and authoritative medical options with imminent pain relief, eliciting a response similar to the active agent” (Almasi 107). Second …show more content…
The overuse of a drug has been seen for children who are taking their medication for asthma everyday. In addition for the elderly overuses has been shown with antibiotics for viral upper respiratory tract infections. Kravitz says that the DTCA advertising lowers the “clinical threshold for prescribing” (Kravitz 110). DTCA is neither good or bad, it is both. Regulating the DTCA could make public services announcements the would improve the public's