Briefing -  February '02

More Updike:  The Centaur

Though I probably should be embarrassed to admit this, it wasn’t until last month that I got ‘round to reading John Updike’s The Centaur.  Originally copyrighted in 1962, the book received critical acclaim but I don’t know how its popularity has fared in comparison to more famous Updike titles — e.g., Rabbit, Run; The Witches of Eastwick, etc.

I’ve been very slowly muscling my way through Updike’s oeuvre, spurned by my learning some years ago that he is a psoriatic.  Many flakers have read Updike’s account of his P in his book of essays titled Self-Consciousness (specifically, his essay titled, “At War With My Skin”).

I was quite surprised to learn that the protagonist and first person narrator of The Centaur is a high school student with P.

My edition of this book is a Fawcett Columbine soft cover, LCCCN 96-96690, ISBN 0-449091216-1.  Click here for Amazon.com’s listing of this edition.  My references are to page numbers in this edition.

The first description of P is on pages 52-54:  

I had come to this conclusion about my psoriasis: it was a curse…. It was not a disease, because I generated it out of myself.  As an allergy, it was sensitive to almost everything: chocolate, potato chips, starch, sugar, frying grease, nervous excitement, dryness, darkness, pressure, enclosure, the temperate climate — allergic, in fact, to life itself.  My mother, from whom I had inherited it, sometimes called it a ‘handicap.’  I found this insulting.  After all, it was her fault; only females transmitted it to their children.

In this, the book’s first passage about the main character’s affliction, he goes on to discuss where his lesions appear and how they wax and wane with the seasons. 

It is important to point out that the action in this novel takes place in the late 1940s.  I can assume, since so much of what we now know about P has been discovered recently, that everything written here about P is, in fact, what they believed at that time.  Today we do, when it is convenient, classify psoriasis as a disease.  (I found the implied definition of disease in this passage — something that must be introduced to our bodies by an outside agent — interesting.  Someday I’ll dig into the derivation of the term to discover the underpinnings of this definition.  One thing John Updike does not do is use words carelessly!)  We do not believe it is an allergy in the strict sense of that term; we do not believe it is only passed along by inheritance from women.  About the only incontrovertible truth spoken in this passage — according to today’s prevalent beliefs about P — is that it is a curse.  Do any of you think it isn’t a curse?

This first description of the teenage narrator’s P ends with this line, which all of us can appreciate: 

The delight of feeling a large flake yield and part from the body under the insistence of a fingernail must be experienced to be forgiven.  

Amen.

On page 187 is a marvelous scene in which the narrator’s gym mates see his P in the locker room.  It rings so true.  A peer leader, the student council president, concludes this scene this way: 

Frankly … I’m surprised they let you bring a thing like that into the school.  If it’s syphilis, you know, the toilet seats—

Another dead-on scene begins on page 245.  Here the protagonist confesses, and shows some of his lesions to his hoped-for girlfriend.  As this is a novel, graciously the young lady behaves like a heroine: 

“You can’t help it.  It’s part of you.” 

“Is that really how you feel?” 

“If you new what love was, you wouldn’t even ask.”

The Centaur is not about an adolescent’s P — this is a character device that happens to be autobiographical and rings with authenticity.  For me, of course, it made my reading all the more compelling.

This novel won a National Book Award and most certainly deserves a more satisfying exposition than my focus here presents.  While the book isn’t difficult to read, it’s not pulp fiction, either.  Its pace is slow, its conflict lacks sensation, it is a bildungsroman of sorts — a novel-of-becoming.  It uses Greek Mythology as an allegorical device which is fascinating to readers who enjoy such play but potentially confusing to others.  And of course, Updike’s prose is poetry.  Readers who enjoy language for its own sake will find the book rewarding for this reason. 

I’ve done this much because, if you are a reader who happens to flake, and haven’t yet read The Centaur, here’s just another reason for you to read it now.

*****

Beware of Drug Study Recruiters

A number of us who maintain web sites for people with psoriasis have received emails from a healthcare public relations company asking for our help to recruit flakers for a drug study.  Their methods are all wrong, which makes the study itself suspect.  I’m not mentioning any names here because I don’t wish to provide any promotion of the PR firm who just might be ruining a good thing for everybody.

Point is, they won’t disclose any information about their client (the company behind the drug study), the nature of the substance to be studied, and they won’t say if the FDA has sanctioned the study.  In other words, they won’t provide enough information for us to determine if the drug study itself is “legit.” 

In an email exchange with NPF on this subject, I learned that NPF requires this information before they will consider publicizing a drug study: 

(a) Identification of the company studying the drug;

(b) identification of the drug; and

(c) a copy of their IRB (Institutional Review Board), which sanctions the study.

None of us asked to promote drug studies, and especially none of us considering participating in one, should require any less than this information.

The really aggravating thing about this PR company’s unscrupulous approach to participant recruitment is we have no way of knowing if the study itself is bogus.  We don’t even have enough information to contact the company that might be attempting a legitimate drug study to tell them their PR firm is the pits.

Ed Anderson — keeper of “The Skin Page,” “Psoriasis Hall of PShame,” and master of ceremonies at alt.support.skin-diseases.psoriasis and its archives — has also been approached by this PR firm.  Upon my inquiry he wrote back to me:

“I believe the company operates similar to a ‘headhunter,’ taking a commission for finding study participants. The company PR goes on about ‘direct to consumer’ marketing. Their client is the pharmaceutical companies. I would guess that these are open clinical trials, but that [this PR company] would lose their commission if the patient were to go directly to the company by discovery of the study through any of the many public lists of ongoing clinical trials.”

I abhor business people who bank on gullibility.  (I know, this must mean I shop nowhere and buy nothing.)  But gullibility comes in many degrees and I am aware that, were I an uninformed flaker, the obfuscating message put out by this PR form would have been compelling.  I have the National Psoriasis Foundation to thank for the fact that my senses are tuned to be wary of this kind of recruiting. 

I think back on the thousands of words I have read, printed by the NPF in their publications and on line, on the subject of drug research for psoriasis.  Other than a flaker’s natural curiosity about such things, I never thought much about the whole value of this information.  I now know much more about the whole value of this information.  It has sensitized me to the right way drug companies go about their research.  This PR company’s participant recruitment strategy is completely wrong.

*****

Roche's Psoria-Sense(sm) Update 

Imagine my excitement when, on January 23rd, I opened an email from the Psoria-Sense(sm) people that began, "Everything you always wanted to know about psoriasis but were afraid to ask."  I was excited.  I looked forward to a document that would answer all my questions.  Even before I scrolled past that opening promise I was dreaming about how I would handle this epiphany at FlakeHQ.  Just devote a whole month to re-posting their epistle?  The bubble burst soon enough. 

What a boondoggle.  What a flam-floodle!  The magical document gave me a short list of questions to ask my dermatologist.  That's right.  ASK MY DERMATOLOGIST.  

Dear Psori-Sense:  Thanks so much for the info and advice.

And then, the ultimate cop out, the biggest oh-we-just-had-to-put-something-in-this-email sniggle poopie:  "To learn more about psoriasis, click here to go to the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) site."

Folks, this is Psoria-NON-Sense.  This is what  happens when the PR folks at Roche who thought up this web-something-or-other to build a mailing list and pitch Soriatane ... this is what happens when the launch is over and suddenly they're at the wheel of a boat without a destination.

Heaven help us.  Our drugs are being sold by idiots.

I'm not going to filter out future incoming mail from Psoria-Sense(sm), though I admit the thought ran through my mind.  No, I'll keep looking at it.  I'm curious to see just how bad it can get.

*****

The Flaking Life

Read "The Flaking Life" new in Flaker Creativity this month.  In language cast like pigment on canvas, Sherry S. paints a picture you will recognize.  And she does it with wit ... so nicely.  -Ed

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