Editorial: Red Pill, Blue Pill
In the movie The Matrix, characters are presented with a stark choice related to self-imposed ignorance. They can choose to swallow a red pill, after which they will become immersed in the real world, with all its hopelessness and despair and desolation. Or they can swallow a blue pill, which will cause them to forget everything they know about the real world and continue living their lives in a dream.
I was reminded of this as we ploughed through the research for this month’s cover features on the myriad ways our drug use – prescription, over-the-counter and leisure -impacts on the environment and as, ironically, news of the new ‘polypill’ hit the headlines.
There is no love lost between the pharmaceutical industry and me. Big Pharma is a cynical business. The medicalisation of our minds our bodies and our souls – indeed our daily lives – is deeply damaging and is as relevant to our seeming acquiescence to eco-geddon as is our unremitting reliance on pesticides, fossil fuels and economic growth.
With the polypill we are looking at one of the ugly faces of the ‘science will save us’ dream. It contains aspirin to thin the blood, a statin drug to lower cholesterol levels and three blood-pressure-lowering medications – an ACE inhibitor, a beta-blocker and a diuretic. It also includes folic acid to reduce the level of homocysteine in the blood, which is another risk factor for heart disease.
In a chilling 1984-like statement, the manufacturers say that combining all of the drugs into one easy-to-take tablet should improve ‘compliance’ – that is, make sure people pop their pills regularly. Nowhere in this scenario is there a mention of the lifestyle that causes heart disease in the first place; not just the poor diet and lack of exercise but also the overwhelming evidence of the part that loneliness and social isolation play in the development of the disease. Ofttimes if a person has heart trouble they are literally ‘broken-hearted’.
And never mind that each of these medications carries substantial risk of adverse effects singly and in combination. The polypill also ignores the importance of individual, differential diagnosis. It is a lazy, scattergun approach to ‘healthcare’ that ignores the fact that people who do well on a single medication -a diuretic, say – may not need a beta-blocker and may actually fare worse when one is added to the regime.
In the same way that we can’t shop our way out of trouble, we can’t medicate our way out of it either. We are going to need much clearer heads, and stronger bodies, and a lot less consumer baggage if we are to face the future with any degree of confidence.
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- This article first appeared in the May 2009 edition of the Ecologist
