Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10072

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Iheanacho I.
Myths and realities.
BMJ 2007 Apr 28; 334:(7599):904
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7599/904-a

Abstract:

You must have heard the one about the man who woke up in a bath full of ice, with two incisions on his back. He’d been drugged the night before by a criminal gang, who then stole and sold his kidneys for illicit transplantations. It’s definitely true. The bloke down the pub says that his stepsister’s hairdresser swears blind that he knows someone who used to live in the same street as the poor guy it happened to.

There’s something for everyone in a good myth. The originator has the satisfaction of discovering or inventing the event or idea. Subsequent narrators can then embellish and spread the details-unburdened by conscience or the need for corroboration-to intrigue the gullible, who get a kick from being entertained or horrified. And sceptics get to feel superior by arguing how the whole thing could not possibly be true.

Big pharma has quite a record . . .

Keywords:
MeSH Terms: Anecdotes* Drug Industry/standards* Mythology