A prescription for insanity

What we can learn about society from a pharmaceutical commercial

Lately, I’ve regularly been seeing commercials for a new product pfrom - who else? - pfarmaceutical pfat cat, Pfizer. This new noxious nostrum named Orgovyx is, according to Pfizer’s Orgovyx marketing website, “a prescription medicine used in adults for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.” I’m not singling out the medication, however; the issue is the advertising. The information presented reveals the prevalent depth of the public divide between reality and irrationality.

Everyone is aware of the litany of harmful effects caused by most modern medications, so I will not belabor those particulars with regard to Orgovyx. I will say that the willingness of people to partake of these pharmaceuticals despite their potential detriments is mind-boggling. The phenomenon does, however, reveal a propensity that underlies the ease with which so many were induced to accept the cure-is-worse-than-the-disease nature of the Covid interventions imposed by government. The similarity is unambiguous - the average person will readily and unthinkingly accept a dubious remedy to a problem he or she is unwilling to endure, then in an impressive display of mental gymnastics, attempt to reason away the fact that the adverse impact of the intervention is far greater than the vexation which it was intended to eliminate.

There are other issues in current cognition laid bare by the Orgovyx commercial that raise cause for concern. The ad puts forth as a benefit that “97% of men lowered their testosterone to goal and kept it there.” Assuming the statistic is accurate, why are we to believe this is something positive? Search the internet and you will find ample evidence that testosterone does not cause prostate cancer. While testosterone may fuel the growth of prostate cancer, there is evidence that it can actually be used to reverse it. What’s more, studies have shown that low testosterone may be a factor in causing prostate cancer. Therein lies part of the problem.

There is study upon study showing that testosterone levels in the male population have been decreasing for decades. For instance, one 2007 study cited in a 2017 Forbes magazine article states that “a 60-year-old man in 2004 had testosterone levels 17% lower than a 60-year-old in 1987.” In a 2022 article, USA Today fact-checked a claim that testosterone levels had dropped by 50% over “the past two decades” (from 1999 - 2016). The correction? Actual figures put the decrease at 25%. Many papers discuss obesity and a sedentary lifestyle as causes of low testosterone, but that is a double-edged sword. Low testosterone can lead to obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. Some do bring up the idea that medications can lower testosterone, but (without spending too much time searching) few (if any) mention all the chemicals to which we are now exposed that didn’t exist or weren’t common in decades past.

There are so many endocrine disruptors present in our environment and even our food supply, a negative impact on sex hormones is to be expected. Unfortunately, most are ignorant of these facts. Instead, people blindly accept the safety claims of chemical companies and then inflict upon themselves the problems that lead them to also unwittingly accept the efficacy claims of the pharmaceutical giants. How many people do you know who use RoundUp to keep their lawns weed-free? Do you know that the main component in RoundUp, glyphosate, is an endocrine disruptor? Do you know that glyphosate is used in abundance on virtually all GMO crops? Even on non-GMO wheat, it may be used as a desiccant prior to harvest. How much is absorbed through the skin of someone treating a yard for dandelions? How much is ingested because it remains on the foods that are eaten? While it is not easy to do all the research necessary to find all of the potential endocrine disruptors or harmful chemicals to which one might be exposed, there is a simple predilection that can be developed, and in the right amounts, it is quite healthy: skepticism.

Too many people trust the authorities to be looking out for their best interest. We saw this with the mantra heard so often during Covid: “trust the experts.” No! Don’t trust the “experts.” Anymore, most of the so-called experts have a financial or political incentive to support a particular position rather than simply tell the truth. Develop a healthy dose of skepticism, and do what you can to be informed. This leads to the next statement of concern in the commercial: “fact: it lowered PSA levels on average 92 percent after the first three months.”

There are a couple of issues with the ad’s claim regarding PSA, also known as Prostate-Specific Antigen. First, lowering PSA is not necessarily a benefit. This is somewhat of another chicken-and-egg issue. While an enlarged prostate may cause elevated PSA levels, the contrapositive, lowering PSA will diminish the prostate, is not necessarily true. This is similar to another issue of which people, due to exaggerated trust in the medical establishment, are misinformed: cholesterol. Just like elevated cholesterol, elevated PSA is a symptom, not the cause of a problem. This may sound overly-cynical, but most doctors no longer search for root causes, but instead treat symptoms - some out of ignorance, others out of greed. There is more money in continuing illness than there is in cures. I have been on the inside and seen this first-hand. Just as elevated cholesterol is a symptom indicating something causing inflammation in the body (among other things, cholesterol serves as an anti-inflammatory in the body - dietary cholesterol intake has little to no impact on blood cholesterol levels), PSA is an indication of inflammation. Thus, seeking to lower PSA levels (just like taking dangerous statin drugs to lower cholesterol) does not address the real issue - that which is causing the inflammation.

Second, PSA testing is too non-specific to be trusted as an indicator of cancer. Prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate) can cause elevated PSA. Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH), a condition where the prostate is enlarged but not cancerous, can cause elevated PSA. But people’s unwarranted trust in the medical establishment leads them to treatments (often unnecessary, some extreme) because of tests like the PSA test. Again I will mention Covid. People trusted the testing for Covid to determine whether they were infected; but the tests were not specific enough, there were an inordinate amount of false positives, and even a legitimate positive could not determine whether an active infection was present. Yet people twisted themselves into pretzels at the first sign of a positive Covid test. There are women who undergo double mastectomies because of a test the positive result of which implies a predisposition to (not even affliction with) breast cancer. How many of these are unnecessary? Likewise, many men have prostatectomies because of an elevated PSA. While these tests may be helpful when used properly (except the Covid tests - but that’s a separate issue), they need to be kept in perspective. Again, this is where some healthy skepticism is better than all the medicine in the world.

We now come to the part of the commercial that is of greatest concern. While the first three points I’ve made are all relevant and exhibit either an inability or refusal of people to educate themselves, this last bit exposes the level of lunacy to which we are sinking as a society. One of the cautions with regard to Orgovyx is stated verbatim in the commercial as follows: “Orgovyx can cause harm to an unborn baby or miscarriage.” Follow me here, because now we’re down the rabbit hole - men are being warned that a medication for prostate cancer may be dangerous during gestation. The point the advertising company, and Pfizer seem to miss is, PEOPLE WITH PROSTATES DON’T GET PREGNANT. A prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system - it produces some of the fluid of which semen is comprised. Women don’t produce semen; men don’t get pregnant.

The absurdity of having such a warning in a commercial about prostate cancer cannot be overstated. It reveals a complete disconnect from reality that has become quite pervasive in society. This goes beyond the preposterous belief that a boy can be/become a girl or a girl can be/become a boy. Yes, that belief is beyond bizarre, and that so many have bought into it itself is revelatory. People are rejecting reality and embracing fantasy, and I can only see two possible reasons for it: acceptance - they want to be part of the “in crowd” or to please their peers, or mental incapacity - they no longer are capable of independent, logical thought but instead are suffering a form of dementia. The same people who all through Covid screamed “follow the science” reject science when it comes to sex and gender (well, and Covid - but again, another story). That a corporation would include such a nonsensical warning in a product pitch discloses the depth of derangement that has gripped the country.

Critical thought is all but extinct. The ability to reason has become rare. Common sense, as they say, is rather uncommon. Pfizer can’t pfix you or your thinking, nor do they want to - cures are bad for business. Instead of new pharmaceuticals, we need a prescription for intelligent life. We need a return to logic. We need a return to sanity. Because this commercial is telling us all that we’ve gone insane.