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What Makes Me Mad, As a Scientist
by
L. E. Leguire Ph.D., MBA
You
know what really makes me made?
Well,
first I have to digress and tell you what I do for a living.
I’m
a special kind of doctor who works at
The
current topic was brought-up when I saw a child who happened to have a serious, blinding
eye disease. The mother and I were talking
about something, I’m not really sure what, but she raised the idea that there was
actually a cure for her child’s eye disease but that drug companies and scientists
were withholding the cure because “they” would end-up losing money if the cure
was made available! I wish I could say that
this was the first time that I’ve heard such a thing but, in reality, I hear it too
often. And this is what makes me mad.
Imagine
dedicating your whole life to searching for treatments and cures and to increase knowledge
about eye disease. Late nights and weekends
blur into one as you and your dedicated staff of students, doctors, technicians and
patients work through research for a cure. Because you’re on a salary, you don’t
make more by staying late. You don’t make
a penny more by working weekends. It actually
costs you money to work long hours and to work weekends.
Now imagine a person saying to you that all you’re doing is a big, fat
lie…and you do it all for the money!
Imagine
that you’re an Ophthalmologist or Optometrist and you have to break the news to
parents that their child has an eye disease that leads to blindness. You answer questions and more questions from the
unset parents and then they ask about treatment? There
is no treatment, the eye doctor explains. There
is no cure. There is nothing we can do. How long does “Sara” have before she goes
blind, the parents ask? And the questions
continue … and no one likes the answers. Crying
is a big part of breaking bad news, so there are plenty of tissues in the eye
doctor’s office to go around. Sometimes
the eye doctor and nurses need tissues, too.
If
there was a cure for any of the nontreatable and blinding eye disease that I see every
day, I would shout it from the highest mountain. I
would type it into cyber space and be on the internet until my fingers were callused and
numb. And, if I ever had the honor and
distinction of finding a cure for a blinding eye disease…I would cry with delite.
But
one thing is certain: Nothing in this whole wide World could ever prevent me, or any of
the thousands of other dedicated scientists and eye doctors, from telling the truth about
the cure.
That’s
why it makes me so mad and sad.
There
are no conspiracies. There are no lies or
secret cures. No one is holding back a cure so
us scientists and the drug companies can make lots of money.
It just doesn’t work that way.
There
are, however, many very difficult problems. We
know so little about so much. This is why
research is so important. Cures don’t
just happen! It takes hard work and long hours
to make microscopic progress. We can’t do
it alone. We need your help and the help of
every lions member and LIONS club. Get
involved and get informed!
Remember
the motto of the
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