EclecticsAnonymous has an article about how politics and the politics of money, decisions of ethics, media coverage, and the making of personal health decisions affect each other.  Needless to say, he hits enough triggerpoints to start an all-out flame-war if he just had a couple thousand readers.

Ben writes:

Do I think stem cell research is inherently unethical? No. The unethical part of the discussion is the disingenuous arguments coming from the anti-choice, religious right trying to claim that unused embryos created during in-vitro fertilization are the moral equivalent of a 5 year old child. These people leave a slime trail.

On the other hand, I have long since lost the ability to believe that scientific progress is either good or inevitable.

We have, on one hand, the morally mangled far right who believe that every embryo has the right to be born and then grow up starving, impoverished, uneducated, and surveyed closely by the government with no privacy at all until it dies from lack of healthcare (but was hopefully a productive worker who generates shareholder value for most of the time it was alive, and certainly, we hope it didn’t have sex unless it managed to get married).

On the other hand, there are the people promising imminent miracles from stem cells, listened to by desperately sick people who want to believe anything (Many of whom, frankly, HAVE to believe that an answer is coming soon.  Look Michael J. Fox in the eyes and shoot his puppy, I dare you.), and a public who believes that scientific progress is like flipping a switch to get light.  You put in money, and useful results flow out.  If useful results don’t flow, then the science is “broken” and the money and time spent is “wasted”.

It’s clear from history that science has lead down many dead ends.  Most of those dead ends didn’t look like dead ends at the time we studied them.  Generally, the study of science history emphasizes how each success lead to the next.  So if we are not careful, we have this distorted perspective that leads us to think science “succeeded” when it produces something we can see and hear and touch and feel, and “failed” when it only produces information about what NOT to do in the future.

Ben also talks about a story where Pfizer pulled a heart medication from clinical trials, costing them truckloads of money.  The news story declares it a loss for heart patients as well as the company.  Ben points out that maybe heart patients would do well to pin their hopes on lifestyle changes rather than medications, and that money is the root of what drives the medical industry…not health.  So people should look to themselves first, and stop counting on a pill to come along that will solve their problems.  Implied is the point that we should never forget that we live in a society where the purpose of big money is to make bigger money.

I agree.

1) The purpose of corporations is to make money.  When they do something that costs them truckloads of money over an ethical issue (even one that is enforced upon them that they would have to cheat to avoid) it is going to cause commentary from the media.  We really expect (as a society) for corporations to do anything to make money.

I was just at a dinner where a man was listening to someone describe the draconian and ethically questionable changes made to his place of employment by a company that acquired them in a hostile take-over.  The guy listening said “I just have one question, how soon can I buy the stock?”

2) A LOT of people abuse medication to avoid doing the hard work of living a healthy life.  I remember this delightful child that I used to babysit when I was a kid.  I would pick up groceries on the way to his house and cook him good food while I was there.  Luckily, I babysat him a lot.  He as a very picky eater but I was able to find some healthy options he would eat, and managed to get him to expand his repertoire a little.  I was sad to hear, about ten years ago, that he was in my cousin’s boy scout troop.  Apparently, he was a fat, hyperactive kid with bad skin whose mom sent him to boy scout camp with a bottle of Ritalin pills, and a suitcase full of Ding-Dongs and cans of Mountain Dew.

3) Many people need medications to help them augment their already healthy life.  I have a friend whose diet and exercise regimen is excellent.  Per his doctor’s orders.  He follows it pretty religiously.  He’s in pretty good shape most of the time.  If he is not very strict with himself, he becomes over-weight very quickly.  But no matter what his weight, his cholesterol is up around three hundred.  Sometimes even higher.  With medication, he is able to get that last piece of his fitness puzzle to fit into place.  Without it, he would be in serious trouble.

Sociologically and personally, prevention and modification of lifestyle for harm reduction is cheaper than medication.  Practically, medication is desirable and necessary where those things are inadequate. 

But while sick people are more costly for society, they are more profitable for big Pharma (and it's investors).

And Big Pharma doesn’t have to do ANYTHING to make it happen, beyond providing the product.  People just being people is enough.  And hey, some people would like to stop it, but at least as many are looking at their portfolios and thinking of their retirement.

So what can you do about it?  Big-picture?  Alone?  Nothing.  Not a damned thing.  This isn’t a marching-in-the-street issue.  This isn’t something that will fit in a slogan or on a bumper sticker…or even allows for a lucid, well-structured blog post (at least not one written in  construction zone while trying to get the kids off to school and make sure the puppy doesn’t piddle on the carpet).

This is the sort of issue where the steps one through five are becoming informed, which is much, much harder than it should be, but it gets easier over time.  Step six is making personal choices based on that information.  Choices about lifestyle, investment, advocacy of public policy, voting, etc.) step seven is informing others and eight through ten are repeat steps one through seven.