Those TV commercials for prescription drugs always strike me as a "good news/bad news" comedy routine.

The good news is:  this medication will take away your problem acne.

The bad news is:  it causes diarrhea, constipation (really?  Both of those at once?  How does that happen?), rapid heartbeat, common cold, ear infections, baldness, heart failure, sleeplessness and back pain.

I think I'd have to be pretty bad off to consider taking a medicine that might cause heart failure.  Isn't it better to be alive and sick than...dead?

I realize that they have to list the side effects--consider it the "small print" in an ad, but some of them make absolutely no sense at all.  For example, there's an ad for an antidepressant that lists "changes in mood" as a possible side effect.  Upon seeing that commercial, my daughter wondered, "Wouldn't you expect changes in mood if you're taking an antidepressant?"

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