If You Could Take A Pill...

So recently I got into a conversation about the upcoming Summer Olympics. One of the guys mentioned that he had read an article that said 50% of aspiring Olympians said that if offered, they would take a pill that could absolutely guarantee them a gold medal in their event, even if they KNEW it would kill them five years later.  Of course that turned into a “what would you do?” conversation, with various redistributions of the risk/reward equation thrown out to the gods of speculation and ultimately ending, as these conversations always seem to, in mandatory sexual connotation (“so if you had a pill that would guarantee you could have any woman in the world but after five years your hoo doo would fall off…”)

Fantasy scenarios like that are fine for water cooler conversations, but the reality is we are faced with real life versions every day, albeit for the most part not as extreme.  You can take the train to work and have a pleasant twenty minute commute or you can drive the car and have the freedom to come and go as you please. You can take the high stress job with the probability you’ll die sooner or the low stress job that means a longer life but less money or recognition. The fact is we make these kinds of deals with the universe all the time and in the past we’ve always known all the risks and all the rewards.

More and more in this world we aren't told what the price is we have to pay. At best we get half a story, usually the one associated with the reward side of the equation. Buy this real estate with little money down and low mortgage payments and you’ll make a fortune renting it out (but nothing about the balloon payments and the packaging of your loan with others to be sold as a bet against your success in this exact venture). Vote for this politician because he’s a guy you’d want to have a beer with, the kind who will bring back the good old days (never mind that his economic policies will result in you losing your job, won’t train you for a new one, and likely will decimate your community).

But let’s get back to that pill for a moment.  What if I told you that there was a pill you could take that would prevent you from getting 90% of the major diseases. No cancer, no diabetes, no AIDS, you’d be able to skate through life without having to worry about anything more than the occasional cold or flu. Really? Sign me up! Oh, but here’s the other half of the equation. While you won’t get cancer or diabetes or AIDS, there is a 20% chance taking this pill will leave you with debilitating nerve damage; damage so severe you’d have to be on pain medication the rest of your life. Now there’s an 80% chance you could take the pill, have no ill effects, and go through your life immune to those diseases, but that 20% chance exists, it’s real and it’s going to happen. Do you take the pill?

Now let’s take it one step further. I have another pill. This magic pill has a 95% chance of working on you, but now the diseases aren’t cancer or diabetes or AIDS. Now they are the measles, the mumps, whooping cough, all diseases that could potentially cause severe problems, but ones that in this day and age are treatable.  The catch is there is a five percent chance that you will end up brain damaged, unable to hold a simple conversation or fully function in society. You’ll be dependent on others to take care of you pretty much the rest of your life. Oh and let’s not forget that in the immediate aftermath of taking the pill you’ll be spewing out something called acidic diarrhea which I’ll let you imagine what that is.

The fact is, put that way most people would never take that pill. “No thanks, I’ll put up with a couple of weeks of puffy cheeks or red spots or persistent hacking if it means I don’t have to find out what acidic diarrhea is”.  I know I wouldn’t take it and I doubt many of you would. So if some company actually produced this pill they’d have a tough sell. Now I know something about selling, I’ve been doing it all my life. When you’ve got a dog product, one that you just know is going to be a tough sell; the way to sell it is to only talk about its upsides and never about its downsides. “Look at this refrigerator, it’s so inexpensive. Automatic ice maker? Who needs that, besides they always break.  Energy efficiency? You’d have to own that other model for thirty years to make up the price difference!” You get the picture. The company would only talk about the upsides to the pill and never about the downsides. But with down sides that severe you’d probably have to take it a step further. You’d have to say that those downsides don’t really exist, that it’s all made up, that it’s all just a coincidence.

And that friends is why vaccine makers deny that their products cause autism. As a matter of fact they deny that their products ever do any harm. Nobody ever gets hurt from a vaccine. There is no downside according to those who make money from selling vaccines. If some baby is perfectly fine one day, goes into the pediatrician for her well baby check up (including her dTP shot) and the next day starts a downward spiral into the “autism spectrum” well that’s just a total coincidence. If a 50 year old woman gets a Hepatitis B vaccine shot and three weeks later is in pain so severe she can’t get out of bed, well that’s just a total coincidence. Vaccines couldn’t possibly be the cause of any problems, they only do good. Keep repeating that mantra till you are blue in the face, or at least can say it with a straight face.  Tell doctors only half the story on your research so they’ll tell patients the official abbreviated version. Don’t forget to discredit any doctor who might suggest otherwise. Jump on that “herd immunity” theory, that it’s in the public interest for everyone to be vaccinated (honestly if it was, then why don’t they give the vaccines away for free?). And for god’s sake, financially incentivize doctors to be on your side against their own patients. Give them the free dinners and the free trips and the free dollars and fund their pet projects and most of all make sure they know that it all comes from those tiny vials sitting in the office refrigerator -- the energy inefficient one without an ice maker.