Drugs that won’t make you vomit enough to stop using them?

I have a neighbour with really terrible taste in music. If they have any at all. Does that sound snotty? Forgive me if it does, but I’m being tortured by some kind of prog-rock trauma machine.

Fun with advertising! Australians, the US has no law – as we do – forbidding Direct-to-Consumer advertising. Don’t, by the by, ever let that change (I mean, don’t allow it in Australia – by all means try to get it banned in the US too).

So every now and then I’m exposed to this. Today for example, cleaning while appreciating tbs taking a break from Law and Order re-runs (Australians: forget it. That’s a joke for the Americans) and showing those Noah Wyle Librarian movies, cleaning the apartment. Avoiding work, basically.

Ooh, the bad guy just died. This is such a poor man’s Indian Jones, but I’ll take it until the real one rises again.

Anyway. An advertisement for the drug Requip, a pharmaceutical treatment for Restless Leg Syndrome (it has it’s own foundation, though I’d like to see who stumps up the money for it). As the nice lady on the telly ran through in her most cheerful voice, the side-effects of Requip (potentially) include:

• Nausea (40 percent)
• Excessive tiredness, which is known as somnolence (12 percent)
• Vomiting (11 percent)
• Dizziness (11 percent; also fainting when you stand up for some people)
• Fatigue (8 percent)
• Diarrhea (5 percent)
• Sore throat (9 percent)

For between 2% and 5% of people:

• Spinning sensation (vertigo)
• Indigestion (dyspepsia)
• Diarrhea
• Dry mouth
• Abdominal pain
• Swelling
• Influenza
• Pain in the joints (arthralgia)
• Muscle cramps
• Pain in the legs or arms
• Numbness or tingling
• Cough
• Nasal congestion
• Back pain
• Inflammation of the sinuses (sinusitis).

This is for restless legs. There are even more, believe it or not – but less than 1%, and not required by law to be mentioned in the advertisement.

What I loved – loved – about all this was one line in particular (although a woman running through this list as though it was groceries was entertaining enough): that people vomited, but not enough to stop using the treatment. Eh? So you may become nauseated, you may vomit, but manufacturer GSK is betting you won’t vomit enough to stop taking their pills. Alternatively they’re telling you that although may vomit, everyone else can handle it so don’t be such a sook.