An Allegorical Application Essay

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An Allegorical Application Essay

• Mr. Cleon M. McLean
• Department of English
• Ontario High School

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A modern-day allegorical example

• The cave pharmaceutical industry
• The fire researched findings
• The puppeteers pharmaceutical industry marketing
  firms
• The shadows media-marketing of wonder drugs
  (E.g., Phen-Phen weight-losing drug)
• The prisoners the American public

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Allegorical essay Big Pharma.

• The cave pharmaceutical industry
• Americans have come to give much credibility
  and credence to pharmaceutical companies and
  their drugs to better our health. This modern-day
  boom in demand for such drugs has spawn a
  multi-billion-dollar industry that seems to be
  more driven to make profits than to make people
  healthier. In fact, there has been no major cures
  discovered in the last fifty years. Rather, we
  have only had drugs that maintained the status
  quoi.e., how we currently are. This gives the
  pharmaceutical companies a constant cash flow,
  rather than a one-time cash flow from selling
  drugs that cure.

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Allegorical essay Big Pharma.

• The fire researched findings
• Although pharmaceutical companies may design
  their own research to suit their purposes, they
  are still mandated by law to produce credible and
  methodical clinical research before selling any
  drug to the American people. This research
  normally takes many years, and the results are
  submitted to the FDA (US Food and Drug
  Administration) for approval. So, more often than
  not, this information is truthful information,
  with FDA approval.

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Allegorical essay Big Pharma.

• The puppeteers pharmaceutical industrys
  marketing and consulting firms
• Most pharmaceutical companies hire marketing or
  consulting firms such as the Anderson Consulting
  Group, or CoActive Marketing Group to launch
  multi-million-dollar media campaigns to niche
  (specific) markets. These firms often take the
  researched findings and make them into memorable
  and digestible information for the public.

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Allegorical essay Big Pharma.

• The shadowsmedia marketing of wonder drugs
  (E.g., Phen-Phen weight-losing drug)
• The marketing or consulting firms hired by the
  pharmaceutical industry are often the best in
  their business. In fact, they are very skillful
  and strategic in marketing their brand-name
  drugs sometimes even making the drugs seem like
  panaceai.e., a cure-all. The aim here is
  oftentimes to hook in long-term customers.

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Allegorical essay Big Pharma.

• The prisoners the American public
• In her article The Truth about the Drug
  Companies, Marcia Angell says, Every day
  Americans are subjected to a barrage of
  advertising by the pharmaceutical industry. Mixed
  in with the pitches for a particular drugusually
  featuring beautiful people enjoying themselves in
  the great outdoorsis a more general message.
  Boiled down to its essentials, it is this You
  are the beneficiaries of this ongoing achievement
  of the American free enterprise system, so be
  grateful, quit whining, and pay up.
  (www.nybooks.com/articles/17244).
• Americans now spend a staggering 200 billion a
  year on prescription drugs, and that figure is
  growing at a rate of about 12 percent a year
  (down from a high of 18 percent in 1999)
  (www.imshealth.com).

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Hook

1. Why is it important to know the truth?
2. What is the danger of losing (or never having)
   truth in our lives?
3. Should the truth ever be relative, meaning that
   it can change based on situation?
4. Why is it important that the knowledge we have be
   truthful?
5. What is the danger of losing (or never having)
   knowledge in our lives?