There is a US law stipulating that whenever you’re having a good day a pharmaceutical commercial must appear.

It will be a frightening one, too. Sometimes the same startling commercial will be replayed three, four, maybe five times. That’s the law.

You will see this commercial so many times, you will be able to recite the list of fatal side effects by heart:

“Zombacore may cause drowsiness, upper respiratory infections, headache, fatigue, injection site reactions (redness, swelling, brain death), fungal skin infections, paralyzation, organ failure, and lightheadedness in men who are nursing or pregnant.”

These advertisements are seldom pleasant. They are intentionally disturbing sometimes. It is, however, the shingles vaccine ad that takes the cake.

You see big, nasty, red, goopy infected lesions of shingles. The fluid-blisters are shown up close, as though you are watching TLC and it’s Shingles Week.

The music for these commercials is even better. Pharmaceutical commercials often select a knock-off version of a 1970s top-40 hit that nobody ever liked in the first place.

Such as Ozempic’s theme song, which is a ripoff of “Magic” by Pilot. Which goes: “Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic!” Also, there is the nonsensical song for Skyrizi which features existentially confusing lyrics which say: “Nothing is everything.”

I don’t want my dogs watching this.

These songs are usually paired with scenes of normal people, losing weight, wearing sleeveless tanks, barbecuing, smiling about it, or playing pickleball, which is America’s fastest-growing sport.

At least this is what everyone tells me about pickleball. We have pickleball courts near our house. People are always waiting in line to use occupied courts.

You can see them there, waiting, spinning their paddles, doing violent stretches, talking about pickleball. If you ever engage them in conversation, someone is bound to say, “Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America.”

I don’t know why they all say this verbatim. It is the mantra for pickleballers. Even when you do an internet search for pickleball, Google says pickleball is one of “the fastest-growing sports in the US.”

My question is: Why is this important? How do researchers KNOW it’s the fastest-growing sport in the United States? Are there national pickleball researchers dispatched to pickleball courts? Are graduate students paid to conduct highly controlled studies on how fast, exactly, hybrid paddle sports are developing in the US specifically? And if this is a real job, how can I apply?

But getting back to drug commercials. Did you know that such commercials are outlawed in every country except New Zealand and the US?

It’s true. In Europe, for example, there ARE no pharmaceutical commercials. As a result, whenever you watch TV in Europe, you just get plain-old TV.

It’s kind of nice. At first, it reminds you of when you were a kid, watching TV, cross-legged on the floor, long before commercials warned of medications that cause drowsiness, redness, involuntary neural seizures, loss of sphincter elasticity, suicidal thoughts…

Back then, we only had commercials featuring kindly older men warning you not to squeeze the Charmin. Or commercials depicting a bunch of long-haired young people gathering on a hillside as though awaiting the Second Coming, singing about how they wish they could buy the whole world a Coke.

There were no commercials depicting oozing viral skin lesions. No spontaneous Broadway dance numbers in the middle of some generic American small town, led by a middle-aged guy who is seriously jacked about lowering his A1C.

Last summer, some friends from Europe visited us. Our young friends from Switzerland brought their friends from Italy. They were all watching TV one afternoon when a barrage of pharmaceutical ads appeared.

One of the young people said, “Wow, why do I feel so suddenly afraid?”

“Me, too,” said another. “I am a little scared whenever I see these strange commercials.”

To which I replied, “Fear. It’s the fastest-growing sport in America.”