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BlindersBack
in the nineteenth century, the horse and buggy era, people would place
a
special device on the head of a cart horse to prevent it from looking
to the
left or the right. This device was to assure that the horse only looked
at the
road. It was called a blinder. The
blinders that a horse wore are easy to see. Unfortunately we all seem
to wear
blinders. These come from our background, our genetics and our
environment. These
cause us to ignore or not to be aware of or to be unable to process
information
we encounter. Some
of the most insidious blinders are cultural. We often refer to these as
bigotry. None of us are free from these cultural biases. For example,
if a team
of PhD scientists cannot find a reasonable answer to a problem, then
the problem
is unsolvable. During
the early days of the space age a rocket assembly was being transported
to There
was a car in the traffic jam caused missile’s predicament. A
little boy leaned
out the window, turned to his father and said “why
don’t they just let the air
out of the tires?” The
scientists and engineers were stunned. It was too simple and none of
them had
thought of it. When the air was let out of the tires of the truck the
missile
passed easily under the viaduct. The
chemical companies have blinded us to any none medical cure. Physical
Therapy,
massage, nutrition and other complementary practices have always had a
following. They are being employed more and more often by hospitals and
other
cost conscious health organizations. At the same time they are under
attack by
the designer chemical companies, as is anything that endangers their
profits. The
blinders being installed are ever more subtle, as are the methods of
deploying
them. One of the techniques we have seen for years is the misuse of
statistics.
If a competitor is successful 25% of the time and the drug is
successful 25% of
the time then the drug company reports that the competition has no
effect 75%
of the time while their product improves the situation 25% of the time. One
company came out with a new version of their product. The main reason
for the
new version was that the old version had been out so long that it could
now be
sold as a generic drug. The new version is, according to them, 20% more
effective for one group of users. What they do not mention is that that
group
is less than 2% of the people who use the product. That means that
99.6% of the
users will receive no benefit from the new version. Yet most of the
doctors
continue to recommend the name brand, at more than ten times the cost
of the
generic drugs. Doctor
recommended, that is another of the blinders they love to use. Have you
ever
wondered how they know that 90% of the doctors recommend their product,
or why
the doctors recommend their product? One method that they use is to
send
clients to the doctors with a symptom. When the doctor gives the client
a free
sample they record that as a recommendation. To make sure it goes their
way
they send their representatives to the doctors’ offices the
day before they
send the clients. The representatives leave boxes of free samples. The
most insidious blinders are the knowledge gained from
“they” or “everyone”. If
you have had children you have heard this a number of times. The
children
justify what they want to do the child says “well everyone is
doing it” or that
“they say that this is right.” Of course when asked
who “they” are or to name some
of “everyone” the children go blank. Remember, they said that the world was flat. Everyone knows that cheese left in a cupboard turns into a mouse. Blinders cause all of us to limit what we do and what we accomplish. We will always have blinders. If we are aware that blinders exist we can compensate for them. If we know about our blinders we can see those in others and understand how they process information. |
