I think part of the trouble is something I heard a learned soul talk about on NPR one fine weekend when I was schlepping a trunkful of rifles to the range. This guy was talking about the Kaiser/Viagra policy and saying that during these past two yuppie decades, we've developed and paid for a host of "lifestyle" drugs. Discretionary prescriptions, if you will. Like: Zantac (he called it "yuppie Rolaids" and suggested far fewer folks need it than are taking it. As a fellow with bona-fide GERD I take issue with this. But hang onto yer seats - it gets better -) or Redux, the late great I-hate-weight pill, or (I forget the tradename) lovastatin, Merck's blockbuster cholesterol easer. He didn't come out and SAY it, but he was implying that we are a nation of hypochondriacs and a lot of these pills would be superfluous if we just lived cleaner.
Bottom line: There is a lot of DANGEROUS puritanism out there disguising itself as a fresh breath of common sense. It often takes a "second think" to tell the sheep from the goats, opinionwise.
Lifestyle drugs, my maiden aunt Fanny. Waht's next? Classifying antidepressants as crutches for the weak-headed? I tremble sometimes when I hear reasonable, soft-spoken people - self-proclaimed progressives, in the main - who on closer examination advocate a sort of retroactive eugenics.
I was so worked up, my accuracy on target suffered by a quarter-inch. Alas. |
