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WELCOME
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author retains copyright and responsibility for content written in response to the early stopping of the E+P arm of the WHI trial |
| "The placebo effect makes people who are not taking any medicine feel perfectly fine. It's all in their heads, however. They are in fact ill....." | Alice was puzzled.
The doctor removed his spectacles, peered closely at her, put the spectacles
back on upside down, and beamed delightedly. "It's quite simple,
my dear," he continued, "The tests we are about to perform will be perfectly
ambiguous. They will show quite clearly that you're about to suffer
from a serious iatrogenic disorder, or perhaps not. The point is,
it could be very serious. In everyday language, it's a question of
balancing risks, weather forecasts, and so on. You wouldn't want
to be without an umbrella, for example."
"But I feel all right," said Alice. The upside down spectacles fell off the doctor's nose onto his buttered toast. "That's the placebo effect," he said, picking up his glasses and squinting obscurely at her through the buttered lenses. They just think they're well. You, my dear, may feel fine, but you are at risk of breast cancer and heart attacks, to mention only two of the serious risks we have discovered. And as we continue our research, we're sure to find many more things you may suffer from, some of them very unpleasant indeed. How ill have you been?" "But I haven't been ill at all!" said Alice. "I've been well for years!" "Oh dear," said the doctor, "By the law of averages that means an illness is long overdue. If we don't hurry up and make you ill soon you might die. Fortunately you're at the right age to start suffering from menopause." He thoughtfully poured some tea from his tea cup into the saucer. "How awful!", Alice said, not quite sure how seriously to take this doctor. She decided to humour him, just in case. "Can you give me something to stop this happening?" she asked politely. "Foolish child!" snorted the Red Queen. "Here in Menopause Land we don't take something to get better, we stop taking it! Any fool knows that!" Alice was even more puzzled. "But if people stop taking medicine to get better, how do doctors earn money?" she asked. "Here in Menopause Land," the doctor explained, rinsing the buttered lenses of his spectacles in the saucer of tea, "we doctors are paid to make people ill." "Quite so!" said the Red Queen, "And they get paid nothing at all when people are well! What do you suppose would happen if you paid doctors to make you well? Nobody would be ill and doctors would starve! How could you run a medical industry like that? It's a contradiction before breakfast!" Alice tried to ignore the doctor, who was now drying the tea off his greasy spectacles with his tie, and addressed her question to the Red Queen. "But if doctors are only paid when people are ill, surely that means the iller people are the richer the doctors will get?" "Of course it does!" snorted the Red Queen, "And they get very rich indeed, because they have developed the most marvelous medicines which make you so ill you would hardly know the difference between tomorrow and toast! Or yesterday and hollyhocks! Or --" "Every Day In Every Way I Get Richer And Richer As My Patients Get Sicker!" sang the doctor quietly, beaming at the ceiling. "BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE SICK!" shouted Alice. "I WANT TO BE WELL!" The doctor handed her a very large expensive pill bottle with two very small pills inside. She read the label. It said "One pill (dark) not to be taken every other day. The other pill (light) not to be taken when dark. Side effects. Take as prescribed. Not to be disposed of. Be careful with heavy machinery. Warning. Have a nice day." Alice took the two pills out and looked at them. One was red and the other green. "So when do I take these pills?" she asked crossly. The doctor laughed uproariously and fell out of his consulting chair into his wicker waste paper basket. "You stupid girl!" cried the Red Queen."Have you learned nothing about Menopause Land! You said you wanted to get better, so you don't take the pills! Any fool knows that!" "She wants to know when to take the pills!" giggled the doctor, struggling out of the basket. "Oh my goodness, if I don't stop laughing soon you'll have to tickle my stethoscope!" The Red Queen tipped her crown saucily to one side. "Does the doctor want his stethoscope tickled?" she asked archly. The doctor opened his mouth in a huge grin. Alice popped the pills in. The doctor closed his mouth in surprise, gulped, swallowed, and went very pale. "You shouldn't have done that!" whispered the Red Queen, aghast. "And why not?" enquired Alice brusquely, now quite out of temper with the pair of them. "They're iatrogenic pills!" whispered the Red Queen. "Giving those pills to you is what makes the doctor exist! If you give them to him you'll unravel everything! Humpty Dumpty will fall off Wall Street! Wall Street will fall!" The doctor began to shrink. The walls started to shimmer. "Run!" shouted the Red Queen, "Take my hand and run! Run!" "Aaargh! The Hot Flash!" screamed the doctor, and disappeared in a puff of steam. by Chris Malcolm ([email protected]) |