probably one of the Left Behind books..

Or those blasted Harry Potters.

>> ^quantumushroom:

What was he up to? Trying to check out a Bible?

>> ^quantumushroom:

What was he up to? Trying to check out a Bible?


There was another one out there that had a church congregating into a basement with the same undertones

I understand what both of you are saying. I think you are speaking a bit at cross purposes.

Fearmongering means selling via fear. That's it, and I am pretty sure we all agree that this PSA does that. What there is disagreement about is if the fear is factual, justified, and benevolent. I think Blankfist is saying two things: it is selling via fear, and it is alarmist. I think what the other people are saying is that whether or not it is selling via fear, it is realistic.

I don't know the answer to whether or not it is realistic, but I suspect the British Ad Council equivalent wouldn't waste money on it if it weren't a problem.

(I didn't' wear a safety belt until I was in my twenties, and I was never hurt in an auto accident, but that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. Hell, I've never been hurt by a drunk driver, but statistics say it is still an important social problem.)

Hello, secondary cause of death?!! They most likely had terminal illness (thus the word "patients")! Most likely chemotherapy or cancer was the first cause. If they were killed as you say (as opposed to dieing), it was the feds going against state laws and busting them with bullets flying everywhere, secondary cause would then fit. As far as the mental diseases you listed, yes people with these problems tend to self medicate, not always a wise course but maybe better than some of "their" drugs! In regard to delusions, they are still less frequent and less dangerous than with alcohol. No, not a perfect test, but still a good bit of fun you would never see in the states on t.v.! Proven time and again? Sure, if you believe the ad council, this is your brain on drugs etc...Yes there's a time and place for everything but let's be adults...are your best sources really fda and wikipediea?

wow something fake and useless, thanks again, ad council!

that advert is shit on so many levels. and yes, it actually stopped me visiting the sift so much. gah. not since the Dove ad got a million upvotes have I been so annoyed with an advert.

Oh, there's that ad council one on myspace: "We worry about our children's health and environment, we're Childsafe Advocates." ...that's fucking annoying, i am in lithuania so myspace delivers me only the "not for profit" ads, and they are SHIT.

no i will not pay for either VS or myspace. why not? not worth it. that's why.

Bush Administration Favored Baby Formula Companies Over Babies
By Brandon Keim August 31, 2007 | 6:08:56 PMCategories: Government, Health
Back in 2004, federal health officials figured that an advertising campaign could help increase rates of breast-feeding in the United States.

Breast milk, as doctors universally recognize and the FDA makes very clear, is healthier than formula. It's full of ingredients developed by a few million years of evolution to do a baby's body good. Breast-fed kids are less likely to get sick as they grow up, the milk is always sterile, and there's probably a psychological benefit, too.

But the baby formula industry -- a subdivision of the high-powered pharmaceutical industry -- didn't like this, reports the Washington Post, so they put pressure on the Department of Health and Human Services to tone down the ads.

The industry roped in ex-Republican National Committee chairman Clayton Yeutter and ex-FDA official Joseph Levitt to meet with HHS officials. They told then-surgeon general Richard Carmona to stay out of the process, which he did.

In a Feb. 17, 2004, letter to [then-HHS secretary Tommy Thompson], Yeutter began "Dear Tommy" and explained that the council wished to meet with him because the draft ad campaign was inappropriately "implying that mothers who use infant formula are placing their babies at risk," and could give rise to class-action lawsuits.

Yeutter acknowledged that the ad agency "may well be correct" in asserting that a softer approach would garner less attention, but he said many women cannot breast-feed or choose not to for legitimate reasons, which may give them "guilty feelings." He asked, "Does the U.S. government really want to engage in an ad campaign that will magnify that guilt?"

Rather than starkly laying out the risks of not breast feeding -- as focus group testing showed would be most effective -- the resulting ads instead made awkward visual references (dandelions! ice cream scoops!) to breasts and soft-peddle the benefits of breast-feeding. As predicted by the Ad Council, this had no impact on breast feeding rates.

And if this wasn't bad enough, an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality study released two months later April found that breast-feeding

... was associated with fewer ear and gastrointestinal infections, as well as lower rates of diabetes, leukemia, obesity, asthma and sudden infant death syndrome. [...]

A top HHS official said that at the time, Suzanne Haynes, an epidemiologist and senior science adviser for the department's Office on Women's Health, argued strongly in favor of promoting the new conclusions in the media and among medical professionals. But her office, which commissioned the report, was specifically instructed by political appointees not to disseminate a news release.