Vaccines. Diseases. Measles. Big Pharma. Anti-vaxxers. Medical Industrial Complex. Individual rights. Herd immunity. Selfishness. Stupidity. Toxins. Chemicals. Autism. Encephalitis. Mercury. Thimerosal. Febrile seizures. Science. Anti-science. Pseudo-science. Alternative. Natural. Money-grubbing. Lying. Evil.

My Facebook feed has been blowing up with posts and memes related to vaccination. The topic cycles through the news and social media regularly and is prominent at the moment in the wake of the recent/current measles outbreak originating at Disneyland in California. People are angry. People are defensive. People are offensive.

I’m pensive.

Over the past several decades, vaccines have prevented millions of deaths. They are effective. There is no question about this. Current vaccines are exceedingly safe. There is no question about this.

Vaccines are not 100% effective. We need a high communal vaccination rate (generally 95% or more) to ensure “herd immunity,” which stops widespread epidemics and protects those who cannot, for medical reasons, be vaccinated, and those for whom the vaccine did not generate adequate immunity. Vaccines are not 100% risk-free, although the risk of a serious reaction is extremely small (for example, about a one-in-a-million chance of an anaphylactic allergic reaction to the Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine). Many vaccines have minor side effects, such as soreness at the injection site or a mild fever (the fever actually is a sign that your body is mounting an immune response to the immunization). The diseases the vaccines protect against have significant rates of severe complications (encephalitis – an inflammation of the brain which frequently leads to permanent damage, pneumonia (the most common measles-related cause of death), paralysis, sterility, blindness, deafness, death, etc., depending on the specific disease).

The scientific and medical establishment is in overwhelming agreement that everyone who can be immunized should receive all recommended vaccinations. The benefits far outweigh the risks. The vast majority of people in this country follow these recommendations.

And yet.

And yet we have pockets of people loudly protesting vaccines.

And some people listening to these loud protests and quietly forgoing immunizations for their children.

And this is a problem.

From the community health and welfare standpoint, this is a problem because there are enough people forgoing immunizations to impair our herd immunity. Those who are most vulnerable (people undergoing chemotherapy, people on immunosuppressive medications, babies too young to be immunized, people with immune deficiencies, people who are too frail or ill for their bodies’ immune responses to function properly, etc.) are at risk. And because the vaccines are not 100% effective, even those healthy folks who are fully immunized are at higher risk because of the decrease in herd immunity. So clumps of folks refusing to immunize will affect other people, not just their own families.

And because we are human, even if the herd immunity issue were not in play (although it most definitely is), many who understand the science and the importance of immunizing and the benefits versus the risks to the individual (putting aside, for the moment, the community as a whole) would still be frustrated by the failure of groups of people to vaccinate their children. Because even if (again, ignoring the public health risk for the sake of this argument) we could say to ourselves, “if they don’t want to immunize themselves that’s their problem – they can suffer from and potentially die from preventable diseases if they so choose,” (which I personally have a hard time saying), we still care about the welfare of their children.

And there’s the rub.

Because that is also what motivates the vociferousness of some of the people who loudly oppose vaccines. Not all of them, but some of them.

And understanding motivation is essential to understanding and communicating with people.

What doesn’t motivate people is calling them stupid.

At this time, I will not speak to the few people within the official medical establishment (M.D.s and D.O.s) who speak against, discourage, or otherwise buck the positions of the American Medical Association, American Osteopathic Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, etc. My opinion and analysis of these people will be a topic for another day.

I will also not speak at this time to people who have not undergone the rigors of scientific medical training who hold themselves out to the public to be healthcare practitioners and give advice contrary to scientific medical consensus. This will also be a topic for another day.

What I will speak to right now is the vaccine resistance (and vigorous promotion of this resistance) that is found within small proportions of the general population.

The people I am speaking about certainly love their children. They are motivated to protect their children. They are motivated to protect other people’s children. They are motivated by fear. Deep fear.

I understand fear. And I understand fear of vaccines.

Most of our immunizations are done by injection. A needle is stuck into us (or our child) as the vaccine is injected into our muscle. It hurts.

We have evolved to resist being stuck and injected – we reflexively try to avoid bees and wasps. That resistance for most of us is easily overcome with our intellectual understanding of immunization, but we are definitely actively resisting a natural impulse when we allow ourselves to be injected. Sometimes fears can be too strong to overcome with our own intellectualizing and we need a little help.

Frequently, young children will cry when given injections. It’s awful to see your child in pain. Yes, that pain is to protect him from something that would cause much greater discomfort and could cause grave harm or even death, but the injection pain is right here, right now, and real, while that disease potential is not right in our face and we don’t frequently see the awful diseases that we once used to (due mainly to vaccination).

A child will frequently be fussy after vaccinations – her leg or arm hurts where she was poked. She may have a fever for a couple days. She may sleep poorly while she feels icky. And a parent feels awful, because the parent gave permission to someone to do this to her. This ickiness of vaccination is right in front of the parent, while the disease being inoculated against is not in front of the parent.

Although severe vaccine side effects are exceedingly rare, a parent may still worry about the potential.

We look for confirmation. We look for validation. We look for reassurance. We take it where we get it.

While most of us are able to intellectualize and rationalize the extreme benefit of vaccination, some of us have more difficulty overcoming the fears. When we’re having difficulty, the reactions of others can make all the difference in the world.

Who listens to our fears with empathy? Who rolls their eyes? Who sighs with exasperation? Who ridicules our fears? Who explains and educates? Who gives us time?

Although correlation does not imply causation, our tendency is to infer causation from correlation. We are suggestible. Although large scale data gives us significantly more information than a few anecdotes, we tend to remember and hang on to stories. When we are given some information we know to be correct, we are more inclined to believe accompanying information from the same source, whether or not that accompanying information is valid.

These tendencies, coupled with who is responding to a person’s fears (and how they are responding), will influence whether someone who is afraid will go in one direction or the other.

There was a recent study  that looked at information intervention to see how it affected parental attitudes on the MMR vaccine. For this study, parents were given a questionnaire which included questions on how likely they were to have their future children vaccinated with the MMR vaccine, whether they thought certain vaccines caused autism, and how likely they thought it was that someone would suffer serious side effects from the MMR vaccine. They were then randomly assigned to five groups. One group received information (from the CDC) explaining the lack of evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism. The second group received text from the official Vaccine Information Sheets explaining the dangers of the diseases against which the MMR vaccine protects. The third group received pictures of children with measles, mumps, or rubella. The fourth group received a dramatic story (from the CDC) about an infant who almost died from measles. The fifth group was the control group – they received no vaccine information intervention materials, but were instead given reading on the costs and benefits of bird feeding. The parents were then given a second questionnaire which included the three specific questions mentioned above.

The results of this study showed that none of the interventions increased a parent’s likelihood of having a future child immunized with the MMR vaccine. The autism-vaccine corrective information did decrease the respondents’ beliefs that there was a link between vaccines and autism, but it also decreased the respondents’ future likelihood to vaccinate (mostly in the group of parents who originally held the least favorable view of vaccines). The dramatic story of the infant with measles increased the perception that the MMR vaccine has serious side effects. The pictures of ill children increased the parents’ likelihood of saying that some vaccines cause autism.

I don’t find the above results surprising, nor do I find them particularly discouraging, although headlines in response to its publication were generally along the lines of “You Can’t Change an Anti-vaxxer’s Mind” (that one was from the Mother Jones blog). The above study looked at four different “spot” information interventions. It did not look at comprehensive education, communication techniques, nor empathy of information providers – it simply provided limited, unifocal written materials. It is not fair to say, from the results of this study, that people scared of immunization cannot be reached.

If I had been a parent in this study given a story to read of a sick child, or had been given alarming pictures of children with measles, mumps, and rubella, I might then go to my computer and do a quick search on those diseases. While doing so, I would very likely come across websites promulgating false information about dangers of the MMR vaccine or quoting the (fully discredited) study linking the MMR vaccine to autism. I also might have thought, “Why are they trying to scare me about these diseases? Maybe they think they need to scare me because the vaccine is dangerous.” I wasn’t given information on the safety of the vaccines. I wasn’t told details about potential side effects. I wasn’t given an opportunity to ask questions.

Communication is critical. Comprehensive communication is critical. Empathy is critical.

The costs would likely be prohibitive, but it would be nice to set up a study (with the same questions looked at in the above study) where people with negative attitudes towards immunization were identified, where they were randomized to an intervention group where a doctor listened to their fears, addressed their concerns, quantified the risks and benefits of vaccination versus the diseases themselves, provided trustworthy further sources, and explained which sources were not scientifically trustworthy and why, all while maintaining an empathetic demeanor; a group where the above was done in an arrogant/ridiculing manner; and a control group where a doctor discussed the benefits of wearing a bicycle helmet. How might people respond then?

The anti-immunization community (both physical and internet) provides empathy. They tend to be comprehensive in their information (albeit false). They define the enemy (enemies). They pull people into their fold, making them feel a part of a valued and cared-for community.

Calling people names will not pull people back from a group that’s making them feel welcome and supported.

Again, the majority in this country understands the science behind immunizations, trusts the medical and science establishments, and immunizes their children against dangerous communicable diseases. People who are wary of immunizations are not trusting the overwhelming consensus of physicians. If they are already pulling away in some thoughts from the medical world, why would anyone think that insulting them would help pull them back?

A piecemeal approach of a written form here, a scary story there, or some random disease photo is also not likely to pull anyone back, nor is an internet meme with a snarky comment or comparison.

Memes make points or sum up arguments with a picture and just a few words, frequently with an element of humor. I frequently appreciate the humor and the analogies made when the memes are pro-vaccine. But when I look at those of the anti-vaccination type, it hammers home just how lacking a meme is. It may pack punch, but it lacks depth. It lacks nuance. It lacks explanation that addresses questions or concerns.

This is not to say that the memes are useless. They generally serve to support/confirm/validate what people on one side or the other already understand or believe. They also, by serving as an indicator of what someone posting the meme thinks, contribute to defining norms. So it is helpful for Facebook to have a preponderance of pro-vaccine posts, since it helps cement immunization as the acceptable/preferable thing to do, and it is possible to do this with humor, with analogies, and with respect. It is helpful for people to respond to/refute anti-vaccine posts in a respectful, empathetic, honest, respectful, non-condescending manner.

Here is my official, as-a-doctor stance on vaccination:

Vaccines save lives. Vaccines are not perfect, but the ones that we have now have been proven overall safe and effective. We’ve come a long way since the first documented attempts to immunize. Variolation for smallpox – rubbing material from smallpox sores into people’s skin to induce a cutaneous case of the disease which was milder than the normal variant and conferred immunity to the more severe infection – has evidence of being performed in China 1000 (yes, one thousand) years ago, and was practiced in Asia, Africa and Europe from the 1600s through the 1700s (see historyofvaccines.org). Our vaccines and their manufacturing process have been refined and improved remarkably over the past two centuries. All of our present-day science overwhelmingly indicates that the benefits of our current vaccines vastly outweigh the risks. This does not mean that the risks of vaccination are zero, but they are ever so much lower than the risks of not vaccinating.

Choosing not to vaccinate has risks not only to those who refuse to vaccinate but to others in the community as well. Doctors and medical researchers read studies, discuss findings, analyze quality of research, and continually ask questions to direct further lines of inquiry. As new information becomes available and as better methods evolve, we update recommendations and practices accordingly. All of our best available current information leads me to recommend immunization.

Immunize yourselves. Immunize your kids. And if you still have concerns or questions about vaccines, ask them of your physician. If you feel you are not being answered respectfully by your doctor, calmly and respectfully point this out, and ask again.

If you are a doctor and there seem to be multiple patients in your practice with similar vaccine concerns, hold a few group talks to openly address the concerns and share your knowledge with multiple people at once. Make a video addressing common concerns, make it comprehensive, include analogies, show appreciation for concerns as you discuss them, and put it on your website. No matter how exasperated you may be with the whole anti-vaccination issue, show empathy, kindness, and compassion to those with fears. Teach your patients, and don’t chase them away with outward manifestations of your frustrations.

Let’s live beyond the memes.

 

Our family loves to hike. Traveling the trails is a deeply happy place for us. In fact, I don’t think there’s ever been a time when one of us suggested taking a hike and everyone didn’t unanimously and enthusiastically agree. A few weeks ago, my family took a lovely hike in a state park in Massachusetts. It was a gorgeous day – temperature in the upper 40s, blue skies, no wind. The hub of trails started at a large, beautiful pond. There were large hills in every direction (which we really miss in general since we live in a fairly flat region in the Midwest), and the trails were dry since we hadn’t had rain in a couple days.

We checked out the big map at the trail head and picked up a small folded guide to bring along with us, as there were so many choices and branchings of paths along the way. Both the large wooden and the small paper maps said, as pretty much all maps/guides in any hiking area say, to stay on designated trails both for personal safety and for protection of the land.

We started out along the perimeter of the pond, where most people were walking, and then headed away from the water on a path to see some cliffs. After a short while, we noticed that the path was not well-marked. It was easy enough to follow at the beginning as the cut through the trees was fairly obvious, but as the trees thinned it became more difficult to discern exactly where the trail was. A thick carpet of leaves was everywhere, and since it was early winter there were no ferns or other greenery growing where the trail wasn’t.

All five of us are good with maps and with judging relative distances. The guide we had showed various bodies of water as well as contour lines of changing elevation. With some work, we managed to figure out how to get to each subsequent destination along the trails on our afternoon’s journey in spite of the lack of trail markings. It was a lovely little adventure and a delight to be out in the woods.

But I couldn’t help but think about how disconcerting this could be to someone who wasn’t a seasoned hiker, who wasn’t familiar with topographical maps, and who was travelling alone or with young children. The signs said to say on the trails, but the sign-makers neglected to mark said trails. When you tell someone to stay on a trail, you can’t assume that someone will know where the trail is. You need to provide trail markers.

People frequently use the phrase “blaze a trail” metaphorically to indicate that someone is the first person to do something and that others will follow. However, the actual meaning of “blazing” a path is that someone is providing markers to be used by others to follow that path. It’s not just finding and knowing the way, but helping others find the way as well.

This is the case in medicine. Doctors can’t just tell their patients to do something without explaining in detail the hows, whys, whats, wheres, and whens. A doctor might know what a general piece of advice entails, but a patient could be figuratively lost in the woods without a mark in sight on any tree in any direction.

“Cut down on your sodium intake.” “Take this medication twice a day.” These concepts may be clear and precise to the doctor, but may be vague and unclear to the patient.

Doctors must describe the setting – the situation and what’s happening. They need to describe the different paths, landmarks along the way, and tips for getting through/over/around the difficult parts. They need to describe what to do if their patient wanders off the path – how they can find their way back if they can and how to reach help if they can’t do it themselves.

“Sodium is an element in salt that causes your body to hold onto more water than it needs, and because you have early heart failure it’s important for you to make sure that your body doesn’t have too much fluid. The medications you’re taking help, but your diet is important, too. For the next two weeks, try to prepare all your meals at home – I know you and your wife love to cook together! Don’t add salt to anything. Here’s an example of a nutrition label – see where it says “sodium”? Try to make sure that the total amount of sodium on anything packaged that you eat throughout an entire day doesn’t add up to more than 1500 mg. This is hard to do, and it will probably force you to avoid a lot of pre-packaged foods. If you have difficulty with this, I’ll help you set up an appointment with a medical nutritionist. Feel free to call me with any questions, and I’ll see you back here in two weeks.” Blaze the trail well.

Patients need to make sure they have detailed maps with them, an understanding of how to read those maps, knowledge of what the trail markers look like, hiking partners, and ways to reach help when needed. If their doctors have not been clear and comprehensive, they need to ask for clarity and comprehensiveness.

“When you say to take this medication two times each day, does that mean exactly 12 hours apart? If not, what is the rough window of time that’s ok? Should I take it with food or on an empty stomach? Are there any side effects I should watch for? Do I take the medication all the time, or only when I feel like I need it? Is there anything specific I should or should not do while taking this medication? Should I direct further questions to you or to my pharmacist?” When people point out that a trail is not well-marked, the park rangers will improve the trail blazing.

Maps. Markers. Trails. Skills. Partners. Guides. Communication. Enjoy your hiking!

 

 

The coolness of the crisp, clean air, the beauty of the blanket of fresh snow, the quiet of the early morning, and the satisfaction of having cleared my own family’s and my neighbors’ walks and driveways.

The soreness of my shoulders, the frozenness of my fingers and toes, and the overall tiredness of me.

The timing of our last two snowfalls were such that I was the only one around to shovel. I love to shovel snow, actually. I find it peaceful and satisfying. In fact, one of my very first posts was about shoveling snow (Zen Shoveling). But sometimes I get a little grumpy. Like when the plow pushes that heavy stuff over the end of the just-shoveled driveway. And when it’s really cold.

I’m a couple years older than when I wrote the first piece. I tolerate the uber-frigid temps a bit more grudgingly. I now follow a bit more the advice I’d give my patients – bending at the knees, not reaching/leaning when lifting, dumping rather than throwing the snow, taking frequent rests, just generally listening to my body.

It turns out that my body has plenty to say. Like, “Put your hood up, Dummy.” Amazing how much warmer a hood or a hat makes you.

And “You’d better start shoveling on the other side, or this arm is going to fall off.” Gotta remember the balance.

And “Yes, you’re in a groove, but it’s been over two hours and if you don’t stop soon you’ll regret it later.” Right. Later. I forgot about later.

A warm bowl of oatmeal post-shoveling. A hot shower. Some slow stretches.

Some mild soreness for a day or two – a reminder of the workout.

Beautiful views outside my windows of the white blanket of snow, marked with the footprints of rabbits, birds, squirrels, and some larger animals whose prints I can’t identify.

Enjoying, but wouldn’t complain if spring came on the early side this year…..

 

I received an email earlier this fall from someone very close to me – a psychiatrist, in her mid-60s, extremely intelligent, level-headed, non-reactionary, balanced, rational, and even. She tends to be somewhat progressive and mildly left-of-center on social issues. She sent me the link to Ezekiel Emanuel’s article in the Atlantic, “Why I Hope to Die at 75”, and she expressed significant concern.

I also tend to be somewhat progressive and left-of-center on social matters, reasonably level-headed, and non-reactionary. I found the article to be chilling.

I provide the brief background on our personalities and social-issue political leanings very deliberately. You need to know who is alarmed here, because my article is about to sound like it was written by a right-wing pundit with paranoid tendencies. It was not.

The piece in The Atlantic invokes fears far beyond those of death panels (which, as unacceptable as such a concept is, at least imply that there are some decisions to be made as far as who might merit the resources to have life-saving treatment). Dr. Emanuel’s article sets the stage for an expectation that people’s health is not something for which society should pay at all once they have reached a specified age (the specific age he chose is 75). No need for a death panel – you just need access to a person’s date of birth. He repeatedly uses the term, “American Immortal,” to imply that the idea of living healthily into old age is unrealistic, selfish, and greedy. He steps so far over the line with his stated “personal” preferences that the rest of us won’t be able to help but view the government as magnanimous when it generously allows Medicare to cover an antibiotic for a 76-year-old. I am afraid that Dr. Emanuel aims to be so outrageous in his arguments that a slight step back will be viewed as reasonable.

His points of persuasion reminded me of an Onion article from the late 1990s, when Dr. Kevorkian was frequently making headlines (“‘Vehicular Manslaughter Doctor’ Assists in 23rd Doctor-Assisted Vehicular Manslaughter”). The Onion writers are able to make anything funny – even a subject such as assisted suicide. Their satire in this particular article goes over the top in its farcical quotes depicting the suffering of people (for example, having to put on a special pair of glasses just to read) whom they are putting out of their misery by running over with a car. Dr. Emanuel’s depictions of the infirmities of those 75 and older are frequently as preposterous as those of The Onion (for example, one of his instances of something horrible to be enshrined in the memories of someone’s children or grandchildren is that person’s having to ask what someone else said – seriously, he implies that it’s better for a person not to have a memory of a grandparent who has some hearing loss). To be fair, Dr. Emanuel does not advocate direct homicide of those 75 and older, but he most certainly promotes shoving them out of the healthcare world onto a proverbial ice floe. And rather than being funny, the seriousness of his dissertation is simply horrifying.

His position is coldly utilitarian. He establishes any loss of functionality, productivity, or creativity as making the world smaller, of being no way to live or to be remembered. So he recommends that people die first, before losing any functionality, productivity, or creativity. I certainly would not want to be the in-any-way-less-than-perfect family member of this guy.

Dr. Emanuel puts forth that those 75 and older already have grandkids or even great-grandkids, and their continued existence overshadows the next generation down. I would put forth that a little therapy would go a long way towards resolving such psychological issues for someone who feels he is not able to achieve his rightful position as patriarch, and I would put forth that such therapy would be significantly preferable to killing off one’s parents.

Speaking of killing people off, it also shocked me that a physician would take the medically unsound (from a population/public health standpoint) stance that after a certain age he would refuse a flu vaccine. Is this so he can pass influenza along to infants, other elderly people, and those with weakened immune systems, so as to efficiently thin the herd and more quickly reduce their financial burden on society? There are creepy parallels to both The Giver and Children of the Corn.

On Ezekiel Emanuel’s website, there is a big quote screaming from the homepage (www.ezekielemanuel.com): “Zeke Emanuel is a force of nature. Author, ethicist, cook, medic, policymaker: he makes other over-achievers look lazy and inadequate. There are very few policy experts – in health care or any other field – with Zeke’s smarts, political antenna and persuasive powers.” This man is a member of the academic and political elite. One of the architects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”), he is in the healthcare policy inner circle. His words do not die on the page. People in positions of power are listening to this man.

He sets up a false choice of being a sickly immortal-wannabe or forgoing all medical care at a predetermined age. He puts forth what is either his own fear of not being at his peak or what is his politically calculated and expedient depiction of old age as a universal “succumbing to that slow constriction of activities and aspirations,” and thereby devalues any life that is not at his defined “peak.”

This man is an ethicist. His ethics are unnerving.

I asked my youngest son to read the article and tell me what he thought about it. He is still two months shy of turning 14. I’ll stipulate that he is a smart 13-year-old (he has two smart older brothers to learn from), but still – he’s 13. Here’s his response:

“There’s a lot of wrong stuff in that article. He makes it sound like getting old is bad and that life is less worth living when you’re old. He’s wrong. As you get older, you know more and more about life, so you live it more clearly. You’re wiser. So what if you slow down a little? And what’s wrong with listening to books and doing puzzles? He said it was bad for people to have memories of someone older or weaker. He sounds like he just wants to shove old people out on an ice floe.” So I wasn’t the only one who had that ice floe image. “And that thing he said about older people overshadowing younger ones – that’s just messed up.”

I then asked my son if it sounded like the author was just stating his own personal opinion. He answered, “Actually, it sounds like he’s trying to convince other people of what he’s saying under the guise of it’s being his own opinion.” Out of the mouths of babes. He’s a high school freshman and he wasn’t fooled.

My son asked who this author is. I told him that he’s a very influential doctor involved in healthcare policy. He replied, “that’s scary.”

Listen to the kid.

Because Ezekiel Emanuel is a member of the political elite, he will have the prerogative to “change his mind” and access healthcare when he’s older than 75. But when his words have been enacted into policy, the rest of us won’t have that option. This man’s words and his position of influence combine to seriously threaten our right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Do not let him force anyone to go gentle into that good night before they’re damn good and ready.

I cannot dismiss his article as the musings of a madman. His words appear to be the cold, calculated attempt at the social engineering required to decrease our country’s medical bills in a deeply disturbing manner. They are a set-up to “well, if Ezekiel Emanuel is totally healthy and strong and climbing mountains in his late 50’s and declares that he should be dead in less than 20 years and not using up money for healthcare, then who is someone with (arthritis, diabetes, any ailment of any kind) to demand care? Why should we give a new hip to a 70-year-old? Why should we treat cancer in someone in their 60s?” I hope every member of the AARP (and every one of their family members, and anyone who is in or someday plans to be in that demographic) reads Dr. Ezekiel’s article. And I hope they read mine.

Do not let this man have the last word. Do not let him smile sweetly and innocently as he sets the stage for a “there will be no coverage for chemotherapy (or dialysis, or ICU care, or hip-replacement surgery, or medications other than painkillers…) after age (whatever seems like a number likely not to cause a huge outcry)” policy enactment. Let the outcry be heard now. Let it be huge. Keep your eyes and ears open. Follow what policy makers and policy influencers are saying and know who your elected officials are listening to. Keep reading what Ezekiel Emanuel writes. Keep up the outcry as necessary and keep it loud. Do not underestimate the power and influence of his words, or the power and influence of your own.

 

I was invited to a “networking party.” I went. I was horrified by what transpired there. And disgusted. And felt blindsided. And angry. And blown away by the prevalence of what I couldn’t decide was greed, ignorance, or an unseemly combination of the two. And what magnified the intensity of my repulsion was the fact that a large proportion of the people involved have the title, “doctor” (although none of them were MDs, DOs, or PhDs). I felt mortified.

The evening began like any other business networking event. We walked around, munching on some hors d’oeuvres and shmoozing informally. Then we all gathered for the formal part of the evening, where we all took turns introducing ourselves to the group with a brief “elevator pitch” (quick spiel) of what we did for a living, and if we were a visitor we told the group whose guest we were that evening. And then, the presenter began. And I almost fell over.

This was not a networking thing. This was a pyramid scheme.

The presenter had a board with little velcro hearts and rainbow-colored umbrellas arranged in a triangle shape with the apex at the bottom. There were four layers, so above the one cute little velcro item on the bottom there were two on the layer on top of it, four in the next layer, and six (with two empty spaces) at the top. The presenter then explained how each little symbol represented a person in this wonderful system, and how each new member was added to the top layer when they paid a “gift” of $1,000 to the person at the bottom. She added two symbols to the top to complete the row of eight and to then demonstrate that when the person on the bottom had received her $8,000 in “gifts,” having originally only payed in a gift of $1,000, thereby netting $7,000, the pyramid above split into two, and each of the people who had been in that next layer above the recipient would now be the recipient of the $1,000 from each new member in the next layer of people who joined, with this pattern repeating so that each person would end up netting $7,000.

There were multiple assurances from the presenter and confirming enthusiastic shouts from people in the room that this was all perfectly legal, since it was all in the form of “gifts,” and that it was not at all a “pyramid scheme.” A pyramid scheme is a model in which members make money solely by recruiting new members to pay into a program, and new members pay in with the expectation that they will have a turn as a money recipient. This was absolutely a pyramid scheme.

Pyramid schemes are unsustainable. They implode. The people who start them and get in on them early will make money off the many people who will lose their money when they join later.

In the room that evening, people bragged that they were on their second time through. They spoke of how wonderful it was to be able to “help” the person on the bottom who only invested $1,000 but now was on her way to receiving many times that amount. And they spoke of how noble it was to help the people in this group, who each had reasons for needing to grow their money – tuition for their children’s college, seed money for starting their own businesses, etc.

What they neglected to discuss was the basic math involved. The concept of exponential or geometric growth. The one person who started the program needed to recruit 14 other people to fill in that first triangle cycle with the top layer of people each paying in $1,000. For each of those 8 payers to receive their $8,000 and split the triangle in two for the people in the next layer up, they needed to recruit one hundred and twelve people (sixteen to pay the two people in the original second layer, thirty-two to pay the four people in the original third layer, and sixty-four for those eight people in the original 4th layer). For those sixty-four who paid in to the original fourth layer of eight people to receive their own payout requires recruiting eight hundred and ninety-six more people. This is because each layer of people must double three times for the payout to be complete. Within about 9 of these complete cycles you’ve covered the population of the United States, and in less than two more full cycles after that you’ve covered the population of Earth.

Obviously this contrivance collapses fairly quickly. A lot of people will lose their money, since the number of people buying into the game plan is finite. The system is designed to have a lot of people lose their money. This particular scheme tries to make it ok by describing the buy-in as a “gift,” thereby trying to excuse themselves from being obligated to each person buying in.

How scuzzy. How unethical. Or, if giving some of the people involved the benefit of the doubt, how ignorant.

And as I mentioned above, several of the people who were a part of this scheme (not people who were brought in as guests to this “networking party”) were members of professions in which they have patients and people call them “doctor.” They are not MDs or DOs, but they refer to themselves as “primary care doctors.” They are practitioners of “alternative medicine.” And here at this event they were actively taking part in a scheme that showed they either lacked a basic understanding of high school math or they understood it quite well and were willing (and hoping) to exploit the ignorance of others for their own financial gain. Either possibility is frightening in members of professions that purport to care for the health and physical well-being of others.

Members of these particular professions frequently speak against conventional medicine. They speak of “toxins” in vaccines. They promote homeopathic “remedies” and “preventions.” Do practitioners in these fields not understand the math involved when each person with measles in an un-immunized population infects 12 to 18 others, how quickly that number explodes, and how 2 out of every thousand people infected will die (significantly more, up to 10%, in areas where people are malnourished and don’t have access to adequate medical care) and how many will suffer blindness, encephalitis, or pneumonia secondary to a measles infection? Do they not understand the comparison of those numbers to the one person in a million who will suffer a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine? Do they not understand that a homeopathic remedy, which is created when an herb or a poison (yes, a poison) is diluted multiple times (so that there is exponentially less of the substance with each step), leads to a solution in which there is no detectable active ingredient (which is actually a good thing in the case of the poisons) – the opposite of exponential growth? Or do they understand these concepts well enough but are willing to exploit the ignorance of others for their own financial gain, even if that exploitation is not just financial but is at the expense of the health and well-being of those whom they purport to “heal?”

I do not presume that every alternative medicine practitioner participates in predatory Ponzi schemes. But each of us, especially when we make a point of announcing our profession and describing what we do, is a representative of our profession. If there had been a group of financial planners taking part in that pyramid racket, what would you think of that profession? What if there had been a large contingent of lawyers? Or teachers? What would that do to your trust of that profession as a whole? I know that there are chiropractors who treat back pain and don’t talk their patients out of vaccinations or into useless remedies or out of appropriate medical care. But I have to try harder now to remind myself of that. And I find it easier to understand when the general public complains that “doctors” are just looking to make money when I find “naturopaths” who call themselves “doctor” trying to recruit people into a pyramid financial arrangement that will find their recruits each out a thousand dollars as their “gift system” collapses.

It’s been almost two months since the “networking party.” Rather than continuing to fume, I am stepping back, taking a deep breath, and trying to transform my indigestion and raised blood pressure into helpful words. Think about what you do. Think about what you promote. Think about the consequences of what you do and promote, both to yourself and to others. Ask yourself if you are acting out of greed only, with a disregard for the well-being of others, or out of a sincere desire to make the world a better place. When someone is handing you a line, figure out if they are doing it out of greed (and a disregard for the well-being of others). Go back to basic math, to basic science, and to basic ethics. And when you are making a decision about your health or the health of someone you love, work with a doctor who understands and respects these basics.