The AARP Guide to Pills

If you'll excuse a brief rant that has absoutely nothing to do with religion or seminary life, I would like to recount to you the tale of a young seminarian who once ventured on a quest to Barnes and Noble, the Wal-Mart of the book sales industry (and I mean that with all that it could possibly imply). On said quest, it was the duty of the young seminarian to acquire for his prefect a legendary work by Edward Gilmartin on priesthood and the Eucharist, with an unknown title.

Behold, having sojourned stealthily into the heart of the black realm of Mordor--I mean, Barnes and Noble--the young seminarian was told by the evil sorceress at the "help desk" that no such title was currently in print. Then, at that exact moment, the seminarian caught sight of something truly grotesque:

There, on a bookshelf, surrounded by other books, sat, seemingly harmless, a book which bore the title, The AARP Guide to Pills. As if gazing upon the cursed Egyption Book of the Dead, the seminarian cringed and felt a chill shoot through him all the way down to the bone....

Silly narratives aside, I was indeed appalled at the prospect that there could even be such a book. Immediately, I wondered how many distinct drugs such a book might discuss. The answer? Over 1,200. Twelve hundred. That's absurd. First of all, it seems to me that this is just the kind of book that enables certain do-it-yourself-minded people to believe that they will have to ability to contradict their physicians and pharmacists when it comes to medication. That's about as useful, in my opinion, as having stayed at a Holiday Inn Express...

My second gripe is that this, to me, is just a sign of a tremendously over-medicated, pill-popping culture in which 250 miligrams of the newest unpronounceable and side-effect-ridden chemical is sure to solve all of your problems. When my grandfathers were alive, they had exactly that mindset about hooch, and it didn't do either of them much good. I can't imagine that just because a doctor told you that it will cure what ails ya' makes it a good thing to put into your body. Doctors. Let's not forget that they're the same group of people, that upper eschelon of American society, that used to make recommendations about which brand of cigarettes was the best.

It just really burns me that the AARP, in its profound charity and compassion for the elderly among us, would exploit (and that's exactly what I think it is) them to the tune of $17.95 for a book about 1,200 medications, the information about which will lead to--what, exactly?

"No, doc. I don't need Fosamax, because it interferes with the Soylent Green I'm taking." You know, for as much as I may not place infallibility in the hands of doctors, I place a lot more of it in their hands than in those of their patients. No, I'm not saying that a patient should be uninformed about the chemicals they're putting into their bodies at a physician's direction. However, I am saying that having knowledge about that kind of thing, which could only be a cursory and barely-informed knowledge, isn't necessarily going to help you. Don't buy a book that gives you the "ability" to contradict your prescription-happy MD. Instead, talk to him, discuss your treatment, and understand the whole picture.