While watching the network TV news last evening, I was jolted by a TV commercial for an artificial hip joint. The ad featured animation of very active people with very young-looking body forms – muscular young shapes playing soccer, skiing, running, cliff climbing, even surfing. Not the demographic we usually associate with hip joint surgery. Not that there aren’t younger people who choose to pursue hip joint replacement because of problems early in life. But it struck me that this younger demographic was the sole focus of the figures depicted in the commercial.
I remembered how former US Senator David Durenberger (R-MN) wrote two years ago pondering if joint replacement had become the new lasik surgery after he saw a freeway billboard.
I’m not the only one who’s noticed the new TV commercials.
It’s noteworthy that the big device maker which placed the ad just last week introduced a new hip joint product at an orthopedic surgery conference.
Somebody earlier today reminded of the phrase – a “carpet-bombing” campaign. I think we’re seeing one here.
These joint replacement ads are not new. They’ve been drawing attention for at least 4 years.
But as even a simple Google search shows, hip replacement is not and should not be an easy choice. It requires a detailed discussion of patient values and of the tradeoffs between benefits and harms that people should understand.
Not the kind of detail we get in TV commercials showing a muscular young guy on a surf board.
Addendum on Feb. 27:
See how Naomi Freundlich on the Health Beat Blog built on my post, putting in a lot of work to deepen the discussion.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Even when stories get the facts right, they often fail to provide crucial context and caveats that would help audiences make sense of the news — or lack thereof, says @garyschwitzer of @HealthNewsRevu https://t.co/b7YO2fYt0a
Why fact-checking is not enough to prevent the spread of misleading health care news...@HealthNewsRevu https://t.co/fzC2JbDYGV
Simply fact-checking an article "fails to capture questions of nuance and context that arise – or should arise – whenever evaluating medical evidence." https://t.co/HrYkGj12q1
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Gregory D. Pawelski
February 23, 2011 at 12:09 pmBingo! Gary
This commercial’s (and a lot of others) young demographic was the sole focus. The demographic usually associated with hip joint surgery IS the Medicare crowd.
Bacteria will find synthetic surfaces, such as orthopedic joints. Fighting implant infecton is far more complex than simply getting a prescription for antibiotics. Bacterial that grow in biofilm communities can be as much as 10,000 times more resistant to antibiolotics than the sol-called planktonic bacteria, which circulate around the body as individual cells.
Resolving an implant infection usually requires that the implant be entirely removed, the surrounding tissue cured of infection, and then a second prosthetic device is implanted. This can take months and many tens of thousands of dollars. Solving this problem requires a broad range of expertise from many different disciplines.
With a market valued at more than $16 billion and a projected value exceeding $23 billion by the year 2012, orthopedic implant procedures are becoming increasingly widespread. With this continued growth, however, comes an ever increasingly critical need to reduce the associated risks. Implant infection is emerging as an extremely important medical problem.
I’m not normally up on things like orthopedic joint implants, but I’ve had to deal with the consequences of them over the last ten years with my mom and dad. It was a rue awakening, the say the least. How naive we are when we don’t do the homework first.
Jared
March 3, 2011 at 12:39 pmThis article is featured in the March 3rd edition of the Health Wonk Review. Thanks for your submission!
http://lucidicus.org/editorials.php?nav=20110303a
Hip
May 31, 2011 at 3:22 pmI have seen the same hip replacement commercials. Now I see more lawyer commercials for defective implants than anything else. This article is also posted here – http://www.medpagetoday.com/Blogs/25024 .
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like