Conspiracy Theorists

[LHerman]

I offered a patient the H1N1 vaccine this week. The patient refused and then went on telling me that H1N1 is an artificial virus engineered by Baxter in their Mexico City plant and intentionally released last winter, and proof positive is the fact that the first case was only 3 miles away from the plant. He went on at great length to indict virtually every healthcare organization (WHO, CDC, ACS, etc) and company (Pfizer, Merck, etc) imaginable and link each to a vast healthcare/industrial complex conspiracy. He was lucid, being honest, and clearly not psychotic. Nothing that I said swayed his convictions.

Now this is perhaps one of the more extreme examples, but how often do you run into healthcare conspiracy theorists? You know the kind of statement I’m talking about: “The government knows how to cure cancer, but is withholding it because the pharmaceutical industry makes too much money on cancer treatments.” More importantly, how much time do you invest – if any – in trying to convince these same people of the error of their ways?