The Day lead story, “Pfizer tells scientists’ stories in new campaign,” (June 19), gives insight into problems of profit-based health care. Pfizer announced changing advertising focus to honor their brilliant scientists on the frontiers of medical innovation. Great, they deserve that but why does Pfizer spend so much on advertising?

The article says Pfizer spends over $3 billion on advertising and only $7.7 billion on research. Big Pharma tells us they need to extend patent protection and keep drug prices high for research. They could easily cut the costs by using the advertising budget for research and support their pioneering scientists. And why do hospitals advertise? We do not go to hospitals for vacation, and should not use drugs for recreation.

When I see L+M's slick “look at us” magazine I feel I need to take a Pfizer pill. The latest “cutesy” Backus ad on Pandora, mimicking a game show, is simply degrading. A bit further down the same front page of The Day is the article on Eugene O'Neill's “Long Day's Journey,” a play about how the rampant prescription of drugs led to the morphine addiction of the lead character.

Enough! Perhaps it is time we recognized the profit-based medical system is killing us slowly.

Richard Dixon

Old Mystic