Make that 2 questions: Why is the list of side effects longer than the commercial itself & two why are all these anti depressants, bp medication, smoking cessation drugs, etc on every law commercial I see on TV? Who wants to take these drugs with all these dangerous side effects: I think DEATH is a permanent side effect.
Suggestion:
It's a great reason why direct-to-consumer advertising is a BAD idea. We study years and years to understand this stuff, and drug companies try to sell consumers, who have no training, on products that may be completely wrong for them.
The disclaimers are what we call CYA. (Cover Your A**)
Every medication has potential side effects. As physicians, we weigh the risks against the benefits of the drug. It's not something that can be adequately conveyed to consumers in a 30 second commercial now, is it?
Lawyers try to take every bad outcome and turn it into cash for themselves. They don't give a crap about the patient, the original condition for which he/she sought treatment, whether or not the drug the used correctly, etc. They care only about the almighty dollar.
We can probably all agree that if a drug company is knowingly putting patients at risk, they deserve to be punished. However, the current legal system encourages secrecy instead of openness, and removes useful drugs from clinical practice because of side effects in some patient subgroups. (I still miss Vioxx, which was the only NSAID that didn't increase the risk of bleeding in the peri-operative period. Now we make arthritis patients suffer for a week or two, because we lost that drug. Thanks, lawyers!)
You may choose to use pharmaceuticals or not. Remember that most people tolerate most medications fairly well, and if not, there are often alternatives. Doctors understand this.
I am so glad I'm not in primary care, forced to deal with people demanding the latest drug they saw on TV. Nobody cares what I give them. 
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