A Pill for Every Ill

If you're fat, take Xenical.

And if this fatness is due to excess cheeseburger consumption, you might wanna watch your cholesterol, so take some Lipitor or Zocor to be safe.

And If you're bald, well, take some Propecia

And if you're having, ahem, trouble in the sack, take Viagra

And if all the above is bumming you out about life, take Prozac or Zoloft or Paxil

And, to make matters worse, if your ungrateful kid is a spaz at school, give him Ritalin.

Also, if you have Restless Leg Syndrome  (is this when your legs fall asleep on the bus?), you might wanna take some propoxyphene otherwise known as Darvon.

Moreover, if the drugs start to wear off and you express some Intermittent Explosive Disorder, otherwise known as road rage, well, ya might wanna take a walk in the meadow. Don't know if there's a drug for you yet. Just wait, though.

If you test positive for antibodies to a mystical, magical retrovirus that may or may not kill sufficient numbers of white blood cells, leading to 1 of 29 diseases, you're in good luck! You got a choice of 29 different pills to take! You can mix and match these bad boys, too -- all sorts of different combinations. Hell, the newest Atripla, is the mother of all AIDS drugs -- 1 pill combines all the good ones!

Reminds me of that old  Huey Lewis song -- I Want a New Drug. (Click Song No. 4):

I want a new drug
One that wont make me sick
One that wont make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick

Comments

[noreen martin]

For the older crowd we remember:
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

[Dan]

Hank,
I don't think we've reached critical mass with this yet, unfortunately.

A number of things at work...

First, the power of the pharmaceutical companies.

Second, an intellectually lazy populace that hands over power and responsibility for their own well-being into the hands of others.

Third, we seem to have some strange need to look for something "wrong" with ourselves, to be victims of *something*.

They probably won't come up with a pill to treat victim-mentality, otherwise they'd put themselves out of business.

[David Crowe]

Restless or Shaky Leg Syndrome is interesting. One reason is that it's so ridiculous that most people think this is a joke.
For the foundation you link to, there is only one large donor, that's GlaxoSmithKline, with a donation of over US$250,000!
And I know that this will come as a big surprise to everyone, but they have a drug for the condition!!!!
It's called Requip, it looks like a Parkinson's disease drug (dopamine agaonist):
http://www.gsk.com/ControllerServlet?appId=4&pageId=402&newsid=714

[Johnny B.]

Doctor Please
Some more of these
Outside the door
She took 4 more

What a drag
It is
Gettin' old.

And if you take
More of those
You will get
An overdose
No more runnin'
For the shelter
Of her mother's
little helper.

---------------------------

"And if all the above is bumming you out about life, take Prozac or Zoloft or Paxil"

Can I just plug Lexapro here?