Almost anywhere you look, your vision is corrupted by advertisements. Billboards blemish our landscapes and jingles rape our eardrums. Logos brand our children and slogans mock our intelligence.

Psychologists work with advertisers to make sure you get the message. Even if you think you’re beyond the influence of ads, you’re not. Ads are designed to get under your skin and to tap into your subconscious mind.

The problem is that ads promote half-truths and vague assertions. An advertiser’s aim is not to serve the public, but to make a profit. Ads are made to manipulate your desires and fears. Images with clever catch phrases sell you stuff you don’t need, show you happiness through consumerism and reshape the definition of words like beauty.

Yes, ads do give us important information. Ads tell us about new products and interesting events. Advertisements fund this very newspaper and nearly every other newspaper or magazine. Ads are a necessary evil. But when advertisements bend the truth and misinform the public, they are then just evil.

The drug company Pfizer is being charged with marketing its cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor without properly informing doctors or consumers of the negative side effects. Lawfuel.com reports on Friday patients using the drug filed class action lawsuits after experiencing muscle pain, nerve damage, nightmares and memory loss.

The FDA needs to set higher standards for the way drugs are marketed. The FDA must hold drug companies accountable for disseminating misleading information.

But what is perhaps more pervasive than advertising is the advertisers’ attempts to censor the media. The article “The Squeeze,” by Russ Baker, in the Columbia Journalism Review said that in 1997, PentaCom, Chrysler’s ad agency, asked in a letter to at least 50 magazines they advertised in to alert them to “any and all editorial content that encompasses sexual, political, social issues or any editorial that might be construed as provocative or offensive.” PentaCom also asked to be given an advance summary of all major themes or articles in upcoming issues.

The danger of advertisements is their ability to persuade and to become embedded in one’s subconscious. When you hear someone say, “I’m lovin’ it,” you think of those golden arches.

The average person sees over 3,000 advertisements in one day, according to the book “Culture Jam” by Kalle Lasn. That’s a startling number, but think about it: You wake up, turn on the TV to commercials. Open the paper and up to 60 percent of it is ads. Your mailbox contains direct-mail ads. Surf the Web, you’ll see pop-up ads. Walk to class, and ads appear on the sides of buses, embroidered on clothing and posted in the hallway. Even while pumping gas, ads command your attention. And in the most private places, such as a restroom, ads stare you in the face. There’s almost no escaping the massive mind-pollution of advertising.

The line must be drawn somewhere. If not, then 70 percent of the newspaper will be ads. Media companies will sell products instead of report news. Drug companies will sell placebos. We’re set on a dangerous track of overselling, and clear thinking will be the first casualty of the expansive mind pollution that is advertising.

What can we do? We can support independent media. We can get involved with grassroots organizations like the magazine Adbusters, and we can research advertisement claims. We can demand accountability from the ad agencies that poison our mental environment.

Steve Bartholomew is an opinion columnist for the Northern Star.