It Branded Me With Science

Two opposing scenarios shed light on what ‘could be.’

By Anthony L. Almada, B.Sc., M. Sc.

Henry and Henrietta walk into the integrated medical clinic pharmacy, anxious and hesitant, both ob­livious to the other, products of intersecting timelines un­seen and yet seemingly orchestrated. Their im­munological atonement is predicated upon rev­elation of the transgression: a sexually trans­mitted disease. The prescription reveals all to those in the know, like a stripe on a military uniform, yet this one was for less than vigilant hygiene, or at least so each of them thought.

Henry is the first to approach the pharmacist, laying down his prescription like a child presents a less than stellar re­port card to an achieving parent. As the pharmacist lifts her eyes (it has to be a female pharmacist) to revisit her patient, Henry knows that she gazes at him differently, disparagingly. His visit with the M.D. on the second floor of the Center was intimate and yet sterile, over and done in 10 minutes. The doc­tor prescribed an antiviral drug, re­questing a follow up visit in a month. Henry has faith in prescription drugs as some had “cured” his mother’s psori­asis and ren­dered his aunt’s osteo­arthritis much less dis­ruptive to her weekly lawn bowling tournaments.

When the pharmacist returns, Henry’s an­xiety has ratcheted up. He asks, “M’am, does this drug really work?” She tentatively re­sponds, “I’ve had a number of patients re­port good success, but it apparently takes several weeks before you see changes.” Im­me­diately Henry begins per­forming statistical models in his head while searching the pack­age for any vestige of solace. “How many people have you given this to and how many reported positive changes?,” he asks. “Did you ask if they followed label di­rections to the ‘t’? What percentage had…”

“Give it a try,” she cordially inserts. “The manufacturer offers a moneyback guarantee if you’re dissatisfied with the 60 day supply.” Her attempt at reassuring him is in­effectual. As he walks out, each step re­trieves the memory of a different visit to countless nutritional doctors in the preceding eight months. His journey to this point has led him down a path of diffidence and suspicion about the entire nutritional care system in the country. Each offered a different “cure” and promise, as long as he promised to present his charge card at the end. He now exits the door with both hope and helplessness infecting him more than the virus at the axis of these emotions.

Next in line, Henrietta approaches the phar­macist’s “tower.” Although she shares the same anxiety as Henry, her spirit knows that redemption is close and certain. She is re­lieved by the sight of a female pharmacist, offsetting the embarrassment of an ex­am by a male nutritional doctor. As she lays down her prescription, she watches the pharma­cist’s eyebrows, awaiting a supercilious glare. She receives only an accepting smile before she departs into the denizens of the drugs and dietary supplements.

When the pharmacist returns with the filled prescription, Henrietta’s anxiety has left her body like the last breath one can see leave their mouth on a cold morning. She knows she will be cured, as each dietary supplement and functional food/beverage had to endure and emerge from the gauntlet of FDA before being crowned as an approved dietary supplement. Her only question to the pharmacist is, “What are the side effects?” The pharmacist directs her to the package insert for later review but offers, “The most common side effects are a local rash, feeling a little groggy in the morning and nausea. But if you take it with food you should be okay.” Eighty-five dollars later for a one week regimen hurts Henrietta’s checkbook but begins to heal her infection from within.

Avoiding Orwellian predictions intimated above, wouldn’t it be nice for consumers to have the same amount of efficacy-based confidence when buying a dietary supplement as when they buy (or copay for) a prescription drug today? What a boon to the consumer to purchase a product wherein the brand and manufacturer are imbued with clinical safety and efficacy data—product-specific science—a tacit bridge between marketing and metabolism. The state of the industry affords a turkey shoot for the me­dia and the skeptics alike. It’s time to think be­yond the next financial quarter and create intellectual capital and branded by science products. A daunting objective it is not, if one only abandons the eyeglasses of my­opia and the shackles of “tradition.”NW