Never mind that hair on your tongue

We have been witnesses, over the past few decades, to incredible advances in medical science. Life-saving transplants. Huge gains in cancer treatment. Joint-replacement surgeries. Minimally invasive surgeries. The list could go on and on. But I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who would be highly reluctant to take some of the drugs that the pharmaceutical industry is pushing these days. I saw a TV ad the other day for the arthritis drug Celebrex, and it seemed like most of the ad was spent warning potential users of the risks associated with the drug. You've heard them run down the laundry list of potential complications: stomach pain, rectal leakage, headaches, nausea, heart attack, stroke, loss of vision, skin eruptions, swelling of extremities, etc., etc. Not to mention those four-hour erections and, oh yeah, death. I recently had a nasty case of poison ivy, and the side effects from the oral steroid I was given by a doctor were so horrific that I had to get off of it. We also recently learned about a study that found the two-drug, anti-cholesterol combo known as Vytorin - they have the ads comparing your Aunt Mabel to a ham on the table, or some such thing - was no more effective than one of its components, the older cholesterol drug marketed under the name Zocor. The study also found that Vytorin carried a slightly higher risk of heart attacks and cardiovascular death. That study was completed in 2006, but for some strange reason, it wasn't released until this year. I wonder how much money the pharmaceutical companies Merck and Schering-Plough make off Vytorin in the interim. And where in the hell was the FDA in all this? My cholesterol is not currently out of control, but if it gets much higher, my doctor is going to suggest that I go on one of these drugs. And I'm going to decline. From what I gather, pretty much all of these drugs pose some sort of threat to one's liver, and I need that liver to process the red wine I drink. It's supposed to be good for my heart. That's MY kind of medicine.