What if the cure is worse than the disease?
“When scientists underestimate complexity, they fall prey to the perils of unintended consequences.” — Siddhartha Mukherjee. The Gene: An Intimate History.
“The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.” — Steven Wright.
“Let me through! My brother is a doctor!” — Dev Patel. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
We live in an age when, it seems, pharmaceutical companies are busy concocting and marketing drugs almost as fast as we can put a name to an ailment. Irritable Bowel Syndrome? No problem. We have a pill for that. Restless Leg syndrome? Ditto. Acid Reflux? Right this way.
The FDA just approved a new drug, Pluvicto, to treat “patients with prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who have been treated with androgen receptor (AR) pathway inhibition and taxane-based chemotherapy.” Pretty darn specific. Also… Castration-resistant? Yikes!
I have no doubt that all these conditions are real and that people are actually suffering from them. What I’m having trouble with is the extremes to which some folks are apparently willing to go to in order to “cure” their ailments.
Sure, this will cure your irritable bowel syndrome… but it’s also known to cause thyroid cancer and jaundice. This one helps with your restless leg syndrome but is also known to cause internal bleeding and strokes.
Really? Is that the choice? Apparently it is, according to the pharmaceutical companies happily spending billions of dollars inventing these drugs and more billions marketing them.
One of my favorites is Abilify. The manufacturer informs us blithely that it can cause “headache, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, vomiting, constipation, dizziness, restlessness, high blood sugar, seizures, uncontrollable facial movements and suicidal thoughts.”
Mind you, this is a medication for depression, bipolar disorder, and Tourette syndrome; yet it causes uncontrollable facial movements and suicidal thoughts! Another ad actually lists death as an unlikely but possible side effect.
“Talk to your doctor,” they always remind us at the end, as if the choices are sensible.
Which brings me to my point… I just had a scary vision of myself as a centenarian, forty years hence, still hanging on and being a pain in the ass not just to my daughter but also to her children and grandchildren. Given advances in medicine and genetics, I have no doubt that they’ll find a cure for most chronic diseases in the next few decades, including the ones my parents happily passed onto me as part of their genetic heritage.
But I’ll probably still be suffering from male pattern baldness on the day I die. I like hair as much as the next guy but at what cost?
The Mayo Clinic lists the following side effects for Rogaine, a popular medication for hair loss: Itching or skin rash, acne, facial hair growth, inflammation or soreness, reddened skin, swelling, blurred vision, dizziness, fainting, fast or irregular heartbeat, flushing, headache, lightheadedness, numbness or tingling of hands, feet, or face, swelling of face, hands, feet, or lower legs, rapid weight gain…
And my favorite side effect? Drum roll, please… increased hair loss!!!
As Joan Osborne laments in Dracula Moon, “What if the cure is worse than the disease?”
No, thanks! I think I’ll stay bald.
Author’s note: I’ve deleted all my social media accounts (except for Medium) and now depend exclusively on the kindness of strangers to pass the word around about my blog posts. Please share this post with others if you liked it. Thank you.
