Pill Taking

There are commercials on TV that tell people how difficult it is to remember to take pills. But, honestly, how hard is it?

First example: a new birth-control product called NuvaRing [http://www.nuvaring.com/]. The commercial tells us that birth control pills are great, but that having to take the pill every day just ties women down! Is daily pill-taking that much of a chore?

Second example: Sally Field appears on a commercial for Boniva [http://www.boniva.com/], a medication for post-menopausal osteoporosis. She tells viewers that some people she knows have to "set aside time" once a week to take their osteoporosis medicine. Apparently, you do have to take osteoporosis medicines under certain conditions; but still, it does seem funny to think that taking a pill once a week is too much of an imposition.

Obviously, these must be new medical advances, but the marketing rests on the idea that swallowing once a day is too much work, or taking a pill once a week is too difficult. Americans are just far too busy for all this pill-taking....