An Interactional Perspective of Pharmaceutical Commercials There are many arguments within academic articles, pharmaceutical companies, medical institutions, and the media regarding the effects of prescription drug advertising on consumers. If you Google “Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising (DTCPA) of Prescription Drugs,” over a million results, including petitions to ban and regulate ads, will flood your screen (Donohue 2006:659). DTCPA is defined as “any promotional effort by a pharmaceutical company to present prescription drug information to the general public through the lay media” (Ventola 2011:669). Despite the controversy over the DTCPA, American consumers are increasingly bombarded with advertisements about depression, insomnia, diabetes, and copious amounts of other advertising aimed at providing concoctions for serious illnesses and everyday ailments. Who are these ads aimed at and what do they imply about society's perception of what it means to be a healthy person in America? This article will analyze three prescription advertisements, Cymbalta, Boniva and Cialis from a sociological interactional perspective and highlight relevant gender aspects in the realm of the pharmaceutical industry. The United States is one of two countries where the DTCPA is legal. Those who support the DTCPA argue that advertising informs consumers and makes patients aware of a variety of treatment options. Those who oppose it argue that it is harmful to the public, taking into account that it increases additional healthcare costs, affects relationships between doctors and patients, and has the ability to manipulate consumers by providing misleading information (Blose and Mack 2009:315). Also, why stu...... half of the document ......is across different age groups and genders and shows the extraordinary ways in which the industry constructs ideas of health, gender roles and tells us what it means to be a healthy person in this society. The implications the DTCPA has on consumers can be harmful due to the manipulation of information, increased inappropriate healthcare costs, and the influence it can have on the relationship between a doctor and their patients. With women as their target audience, these companies have the ability to create a market for diseases and shape our assumptions about genders further perpetuating inequities and limiting studies conducted by focusing on men as the primary subjects for research. To make research and health issues more representative, it is imperative that these issues are addressed in order to effectively treat the entire society.