A. Mary, you ask a very good question. The short answer is, Are you out of your mind? These guys are a bunch of quacks who only want to steal your money, could care less about your health, and should be yanked off the air faster than you can say, Book em Danno! That would be less than professional for this column so let me fill in some of the details. In this era of patient-centered medical care, the patient has the right to make his or her own health decisions. The drug companies and the media in general , but particularly the broadcast media, have combined forces in order to make a lovely profit under the guise of educating the public. The TV white-coats have been selling antacids, anti-diarrheal, blood pressure medications, anti-cancer drugs, antibiotics, bladder dysfunction drugs, laxatives and of course erectile dysfunction drugs for the past decade. Finally, the government is looking into these matters. It is one thing for Dr. Mc Steamy and Dr. Mc Dreamy, and Dr House to profess to be physicians on fictional medical drama series. While some may become so attached to these guys love lives and medical care mysteries that they transiently forget it is all a fiction without a verb of truth, most see TV medical shows for what they are, namely pure entertainment. If you forget, repeat these words five times: Its only TV. The reality TV shows such as Dr Phil, Intervention and Dr Drews Celebrity Intervention, really tests our views of the real world. To be sure one or all parties are likely frauds. Dr. Phil is not a licensed medical doctor or a licensed psychologist. Dr Drew is licensed but his celebrity junkies must have additional motives, i.e. face time on TV. Therapy may be group oriented, but the group should not be measured in Neilson numbers! Thus for this group of TV shows I can only offer the following advice: repeat these words ten times: Its only TV. Midway between and after these shows and all others, the commercials come on. (The last three words should be read as commercial-come-on. While one may take a hint to buy Budweiser, Tide, Colgate, Ford, Honda, Taco Bell, the numbing and planned hypnotic trance created by Madison Avenue smoothies should not translate to making life and health-related decisions on the basis of the same information used to select a burger or a taco for lunch. The TV folks want you to lump all that stuff together.

Dont do it. Recently, our good Dr Robert Jarvik has stepped into Purina canine digestive products as a medical pitchman for the drug Lipitor. Dr Jarvik gained tremendous notoriety twenty  five years ago as a medical device engineer of a hopeful but failed artificial heart. Today on TV he presents himself as a cardiologist, a runner, a patient who takes Lipitor, and a guy with a great relationship with his son. He and junior may be best buds, but he is not a cardiologist; he has not even had a medical internship and has never (legally) written a prescription for a hemorrhoid medicine, not to mention the number one selling cholesterol-lowering drug on the planet. Since he is not a runner, body doubles were used for the scenes showing he and his son running down the street. There was corporate fear he would have a heart attack while running, I suggest. The point here is that these are commercials and congress wants to know if TV and Dr Jarvik have crossed an ethical line by the implications of the Lipitor ad. By definition, the sole purpose is to promote a purchase of the drug. See your doctor, get the drug, etc. I find it humorous that congress is concerned about lying on TV. Nearly every ad on TV, medical and otherwise, will have to be pulled if truth is the bar being set. The purpose of an ad is to sell, not to tell the truth. Since this is an election year, congress wants to look out for the little guy, you and me, and also give the impression that it has a real handle on medical care in America. That is real fiction. I suggest that all TV drug advertisements are at their core faulty because the goal is to sell the drug and not to practice medicine. That is true for every drug advertised on TV from Advil to Zyban. For all commercials, I suggest that if you have the urge to get any one of the advertised drugs, repeat the following: Its only TV for as long as it takes to sink in. I do think the medical community should take a lesson from TV. If we as doctors (oh yes, by the way , I am a licensed , practicing MD) did a better job communicating with patients, providing data and explanations for our recommendations, we would not have to remind patients that TV is not real in any way regarding medicine. That you and millions of TV viewers are unsure of the status of TV medical advice is the reality check of which the medical community should take note. I hope this answers your questions. I must go now. A good, honest movie with no stunts or tricks is about to start- Die Hard III. You cant fool me.