On Autogenic Diseases: Most Popular
On Autogenic Diseases: Most Popular
On Autogenic Diseases: Most Popular
szasz0504
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On December 16, 2003, the New York Times reported that the Food
and Drug Administration has approved Xenical “for the treatment of
obese teenagers.” A spokesman for Hoffman La Roche, the
manufacturer, is quoted as having said that this was “good news for
children who battle obesity” and that “we’re thrilled with the
approval.” That this development is good news for the manufacturer
of the drug is self-evident. That it is catastrophic for children who
battle obesity and our society in general is less obvious but more
ominous.
Is the individual who is obese or has lung cancer responsible for his
illness? (Ignore, for the sake of the argument, that some nonsmokers
also get lung cancer.) Eating and smoking are behaviors under our
conscious control. Either we assume responsibility for our behaviors
and their consequences or we assign responsibility for them to others
—the manufacturers and merchants who provide us with a high a
standard of living and comfort and amusement—and blame them.
Thus do the food companies, tobacco companies, pharmaceutical
companies, and so forth, become the causes of our diseases.
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None of this has anything to do with medicine or science. All of this
is the consequence of post-World War II political-economic
developments: obfuscating the differences between the interests of
the self and the interests of others and destroying the cash nexus in
the delivery of medical services.
Formerly, Jones paid for the treatment of his lung cancer, just as he
paid for his cigarettes. Today, he still pays for his cigarettes, but
others (the insurance pool or taxpayers) pay for his medical care. If
Jones’s illness is an economic burden on others, then others have a
rational interest in Jones’s not making himself sick.
Thomas S. Szasz
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