The No Stupid Questions Thread

[Cincydawg]

My dental cleaning involves a baking powder pressure wash.  Anyone else do that?

The other neat thing is no x ray films, it’s all digital now.  The doodad in your mouth is a bit wonky.

[FearlessF]

no baking powder here

same old x-rays

[FearlessF]

[MikeDeTiger]

Why are there concrete posts on the sides of pumps at gas stations?  It seems the main thing they serve to do is to be inconvenient to my preferred parking spot, and a couple of times I've dinged my door against them.  They're right in the way of opening the driver's door nice and wide to get out.  There must be a point to them, but I don't know what it is.  

[847badgerfan]

Why are there concrete posts on the sides of pumps at gas stations?  It seems the main thing they serve to do is to be inconvenient to my preferred parking spot, and a couple of times I've dinged my door against them.  They're right in the way of opening the driver's door nice and wide to get out.  There must be a point to them, but I don't know what it is. 

Lots of people used to run over the dispensers and cause huge gas leaks. These concrete posts (called bollards) prevent that from happening.

You'll also notice them in front of government buildings and other high traffic buildings (Sears Tower, WTC, etc.)

[betarhoalphadelta]

What's the legitimate ROI on all the advertising that we see for drugs I've never heard of that treat conditions that I know nobody (or almost nobody) suffering from?

I mean, my TV is absolutely overloaded with ads for medicine for psoriatic arthritis and age-related wet AMD... Are these actually common enough to justify all these ads? 

I heard one on the radio that I've been hearing a bunch for a medicine for Sjogren's Syndrome. That's something I'd never even heard of until I met my FIL, who actually has that one. At least radio advertising is cheap compared to TV... 

How many people do these reach that *can't* find out that these drugs exist? I mean, you'd think the people suffering from these conditions would be actively researching things, not just listening to the radio or watching TV and "ask their doctor about..." some drug...

[847badgerfan]

You think you're overloaded?

Move here, to God's waiting room.

[FearlessF]

I love the warning......... don't take this if you are allergic!

[betarhoalphadelta]

I love the warning......... don't take this if you are allergic!

Exactly. How the hell would I know I'm allergic if I've never taken it?!

[847badgerfan]

Don't take this if it has killed you in the past.

[FearlessF]

well, that way if you ARE allergic and die, the lawyers can blame you

[MikeDeTiger]

What's the legitimate ROI on all the advertising that we see for drugs I've never heard of that treat conditions that I know nobody (or almost nobody) suffering from?

I mean, my TV is absolutely overloaded with ads for medicine for psoriatic arthritis and age-related wet AMD... Are these actually common enough to justify all these ads?

I heard one on the radio that I've been hearing a bunch for a medicine for Sjogren's Syndrome. That's something I'd never even heard of until I met my FIL, who actually has that one. At least radio advertising is cheap compared to TV...

How many people do these reach that *can't* find out that these drugs exist? I mean, you'd think the people suffering from these conditions would be actively researching things, not just listening to the radio or watching TV and "ask their doctor about..." some drug...

 

Good question.  I assume there's data on it, but most of it is probably proprietary.  It costs an average of $1 billion to bring a drug to market (total cycle.....research, development, trials, approval, marketing, etc.) and I assume with that kind of money invested, they aren't shelling out more without some analytics behind it.  

I remember in marketing classes learning about the push vs. pull strategy.  "Push" being when products are pushed onto the customer, "pull" being where the goal is to get the customer to demand the product from a seller.  These ads are in the "pull" lane, trying to get patients to request drugs from their doctor.  It's interesting to me to think about how effective that is.  There are a lot of cases and drugs where it probably doesn't matter much, and doctors do whatever the patient wants to try.  I know a lot of doctors around here, though, who tell their patients what they will and will not prescribe and it's not going to matter how much the patient asks for whatever he saw on TV.  Though again, those are going to be the cases where it matters more in the first place.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Thanks Mike. 


I wonder how many doctors just get annoyed/angry every time a customer comes to them asking for some drug they saw on TV?

My wife told me about a patient at her practice that hadn't gotten a scan read by a radiologist yet, but the radiology office sent the actual imaging that he could download... So he asked Claude to read the scan and then asked the doctor about what Claude said 

Which is doubly stupid, because not only should you not trust AI (especially Ai that isn't very specialized and built to read diagnostic imaging) to be your doctor, but you also shouldn't go to your PCP and ask her to read a scan when she's not a radiologist and isn't qualified to read it anyway!

[Cincydawg]

My wife’s closest friend is named Claude, apparently a common female name in France.  Claude came to our wedding, which was nice, but she never really took to me, her English is rather sparse, but better than my Franch.

Claude lives in Brazil, we visited once to her fazenda.  She had a fancy birthday party in Rio at here apt there.  Our hotel was a block away, but she insisted we be driven there after, it was dangerous she said.   Not my favorite place.