Side Effects

The big story lately (if you ignore the cops downing twelve year-old and six year-old kids with tasers, or the death that continues to pile up in Iraq, or the woman who stole a baby from another woman's womb)... where was I? Oh yeah - the big story has been the report that Celebrex, a popular anti-arthritis drug, more than doubles your risk of having a heart attack if you take it.



Now, every drug has side effects (hear Steve Martin read his version of a side effects label at NPR); granted, the increased risk of heart attack is worse than the usual dizziness or flatulence, but medicine isn't perfect yet. The problem we are facing is that people remember the Jetsons, and expect that science should be able to provide a pill that provides for all our needs, solves our problems, and gives us the RDA of all vitamins and minerals. One day, perhaps, science will do that - but these things take time, and the public tends toward impatience. The tendency is bolstered by the unsubstantiated claims that some drug manufacturers make, wherein a little pill can help you get that football right through the middle of that tire swing every time, if you know what they mean, heh heh heh ("Dude! I'm feeling tumescent already!").

Let's all calm down a little with the prescription drugs, then. No more wonder cures that cause more problems than they treat. No more letting drugs fall into the hands of the wrong people, so kids are using them to get high instead of get well. Let's have no more "quick fixes" for childhood ailments that used to be solved with a little discipline and a lot of love. Stop treating hyperactivity and attention deficit with pills, and get those kids some exercise. There are cases where these drugs can do a lot of good, but we are overprescribing them, and the side effects to our population are as of yet still unknown.

One day, when we can cure disease without side effects, and when we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the medicine we prescribe is necessary and beneficial, then I'll join the party and celebrate Celebrex. Until then, we need to show a little restraint... and there's no drug yet on the market that can help us to do that; we have to to do it ourselves.

[For a well thought-out, well-researched news story on kids and pills, check this out.]