Pharmaceuticals irk me. Easy fixes for erectile dysfunction, toenail fungus, bladder control, restless legs, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, allergies, hair restoration, depression, arthritis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, premenstrual disphoric disorder, osteoporosis and more are spewed from our television sets in a plethora of ads that try to show us just how happy and better we can be if we ignore the side effects they talk about at the end.
Marcia Angell is a former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. She has an article on the New York Review of Books discussing the trustworthiness of pharmaceutical companies. A noteworthy excerpt:
The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
As for reading the article, you have a four hour time limit starting now.
Try Not to Sing Along
2 months ago
2 comments:
Not that I didn't appreciate the meat of your post, but Hank, where in the hell did you come up with the article at the end??? The comments alone go on for 4 hours and cover the entire spectrum from sophomoric idiot to dead serious "been there" guy. I have a new solemn (scared shitless) respect for the infamous 4 hour erection.
But what really caught my attention:
"Named for Priapus, the Greek god of fertility who sported an oversized, eternally-erect penis (so large, in fact, he used it to frighten away anyone who tried to plunder his gardens) . . . "
So many random thoughts. My mind is reeling:
-Does it work on birds? Or is it just a convenient place to land?
-A demo booth could put the attendance at next spring's home and garden show over the top.
-Yes, you could keep the neighborhood kids away from your garden for approximately 20 minutes (until the cops showed up) and then have them raiding the place for the next 40 years while you are locked up.
. . . and on and on . . .
Well, I always had a sophomoric response to the ED commercials when they warned to call a doctor if an erection lasted more than four hours. So I searched for "four hour erection" and I, too, learned more than I cared to know.
Ain't nobody stealin' out of my garden this year.
Post a Comment