Thursday 29 November 2012

an der nadel or designer-drugs

Earlier on the radio there was a refreshing discussion regarding the ethics and unseen efficacy of personalized medicines, which promise not just a tailored dosage and a better prescription but rather pharmaceuticals coded by the patient’s own genetics and potentially adaptive to all one’s ills. The hopes and claims of a particularized-panacea are probably as exaggerated or as under-appreciated as generic cure-alls, and furthermore enhancing an individual’s would likely be at the expense of the health of the community with preventative measures and personal awareness of one’s natural (and acquired) defense and offense becoming obsolete.

Of course there are breakthroughs in treatment and maybe science could really come to augment chemistries and dispositions that rebel but it seems unlikely to make an industry out of the practice without trade-offs. The caveats reminded me of the strange case of Doctor Theodore Morell, tinkerer, patron of the ailments of the elite, snake-oil salesman and personal physician (Leibartz) to Adolf Hitler. After studying at a few illustrious medical universities, serving as a cruise ship doctor, and a brief stint as a medical officer during WWI, Morell settled down in Berlin, catering to high-society and fawning over vaguely drawn diseases. Initially, with his reputation established, he resisted invitations to be the private doctors for royalty, comfortable with his position and wanting to remain near the pharmaceutical concerns that he was heavily invested in. Morrell, however, did answer Hitler’s call. Most of Hitler’s intimates regarded Morell as a quack too eager to indulge Der Fuhrer’s moods and grievances but did not dare object when they saw their leader taking a regiment of dozens of pills a day, which included vitamins and other accelerators, like preparations of amphetamines, hormones and cocaine, which the doctor also tested on soldiers to increase stamina. I am sure that these extra measures became more taxing than the original, undefined ailments. While ultimately, such liberal treatment probably contributed to Hitler’s sense of paranoia and impulsiveness, exacerbating an already terrible situation, the bad doctoring may have also (inadvertently) led to paralysis in decision-making and inability to think strategically. In some cases it may be more advisable to take the suffering as the language of coping rather than silencing or out-shouting it.