CONAN AT HARVARD: โNo university in our nation has produced more Nobel laureates or white collar criminalsโฆ so whether you choose good or evil, know that you are among the very best.โ
Stop a statin and your LDL cholesterol rises 30% in four days. Nobody writes a WSJ feature about it. Stop certain blood pressure medications and your BP can spike within hours. Nobody calls it a design flaw.
Levothyroxine, antidepressants, insulin, metformin, antihistamines. Chronic treatments for chronic conditions, and all of them stop working when you stop taking them. None of them generate think-pieces questioning whether patients should have started.
The AMA classified obesity as a disease in 2013. Thirteen years later, itโs still the only chronic condition where โyou have to take it foreverโ is framed as an argument against treatment rather than a description of how medicine works.