Drugs..who invents these things?

So, at the Y this morning I'm attempting to watch some news to catch up on current events. We don't have cable at home so I get to hit Fox News and CNN at the gym while I'm having some post-workout coffee. In between every segment there were advertisements for every kind of drug you can imagine. We had digestion problems, depression problems, natural male enhancement, viagra, cialis, you name it. Do I really need to see that when I watch the news? Can't we sell advertising slots that aren't targeted at hypochondriacs? Maybe I'm just being selfish but I don't suffer from those problems, and somehow or another I think those ads just make people think they have stuff and want to go get it. Furthermore, the side effects are worse than the symptoms! Why would I take something that would make me less depressed, but could cause severe bleeding out the eye sockets, deafness, numbness from the neck down or otherwise? I think I could live with being depressed.

So, I was watching all these ads and they said their results were compared to people who took a placebo. Can placebos cause side effects? If so, are the side effects real?