Fortunately, I don’t spend much time thinking about Restless Legs Syndrome, except when I see ads for its prescription cure, Requip, during the NBC Nightly News. So, I was intrigued last night when the show actually did a segment on Restless Legs Syndrome and, more specifically, why Glaxo advertises Requip so heavily on said news program. “Motivated by a commercial by one of our sponsors, we asked our correspondent Josh Mankieweicz to do some checking,” Brian Williams intoned before running the segment. (Click here and scroll down to the links under “Nightly News Video.”) Of course, I was hoping they’d do a piece proving this was a cure in search of a condition, thus ridding NBC of Requip ads forever. And while the segment certainly touches on that angle, with Mankieweicz pointing out that the ads made some people identify “a problem many didn’t realize they had,” he dances around the issue delicately enough that I’m afraid Requip won’t be going anywhere.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor