No Need for Viagra Ads During the Final Four

It’s Saturday night, the Final Four is here, and it is the best night of the year for college basketball fans. All of those preseason games, non-conference games, grueling conference games, conference tournament games, and NCAA tournament games eliminated all but 4 out of 351 Division 1 basketball teams vying for the national championship.

Two of the teams in this year’s Final Four come from states where there is no professional basketball team: Connecticut and Kentucky. In these states in particular, basketball fans young and old rally around their team because it brings a sense of community. The players on these teams are treated almost like professional basketball players in their community by the fans. Florida and Wisconsin have their share of ardent young fans as well who follow their teams for state pride, because a relative went to one of the schools, or both. And then there are the children who are basketball fans of other college hoops teams who are staying up for the first game (6:09 pm EST start time) and all of part of the second game (8:49 pm EST start time).

With all of these young children watching these games, Pfizer (the maker of Viagra) and TBS (the station that airs the Final Four) should show more restraint and avoid placing advertisements for erectile dysfunction (ED) during these games. That goes for other ED medication manufacturers as well. There is no need for any parent or other adult to have to answer questions from their children about what the adult terms and themes mean in these commercials.

Sadly, this is nothing new. Democrat Congressman, Jim Moran, had complained in 2009 about these types of ads running in the daytime. He introduced a bill (H.R. 2175) to prevent the broadcasting of such ads between 6:00 am and 10:00 pm. I agree with him. The bill (known as the Families for ED Advertising Decency Act) advised the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to treat such ads as indecent.

The counter-argument is that Pfizer is targeting their ads during times when most men who suffer from ED would be watching. True, but they are also running the ads during a time when most men are probably watching the game with their children or grandchildren. There are many other times and venues (e.g., late night TV, adult-themed media) when men are watching and children should not be watching, where Pfizer can place such ads.

So what ever happened to H.R. 2175? It died in the 111th Congress, likely due to powerful lobbying interests by the pharmaceutical industry. If you care about this issue, you can share this article with the social media buttons below and send this article to your Congressman or Senator and ask that one of them consider reintroducing the bill. I will be doing so as soon as this blog entry is published.