I’ve publised this little mess before. Holiday weekends are hell on bloggers and new material, so you’ll just have to deal with a repeat that you will hate from start to finish.
One of the ideas that has been floating around for a few years now is that if universal health care is ever established in the United States it will be due to pressure from big business rather than the efforts of liberal do-gooders. I’m not an economist so forgive me if I’m completely mistaken here, but my general understanding is that American business faces a competitive disadvantage when going head to head against businesses based in developed nations with subsidized health care. This is due to the huge cost of insuring employees. Quite a bit of that burden has been shifted to the employees over the last few decades, but even with those concessions the cost of health insurance makes American workers very expensive. This is exemplified in the current dire financial plight of both General Motors and Ford. Needless to say, the self proclaimed libertarians of the world will fight any effort to establish universal healthcare tooth and nail. Most would say that this is because they are morons, but I’d also add that they are likely immoral, spiteful and hateful.
That brings me to a bit of personal history and a strategy for recouping some money I never thought I’d see again. This is a bit embarrassing, so forgive me if I’m not totally forthcoming. You see, I have an entire warehouse of these things rotting away in Shanghai.
That, my friends, is the ProjectGastro Self Surgery Kit. The plan was to sell them for $299 to those with no access to affordable healthcare and to companies looking to cancel their employees’ healthcare coverage. It was the late 90’s and do-it-yourself was all the rage. Why not self surgery? Here’s the original marketing pitch:
The ProjectGastro Self Surgery Kit marks a Major Breakthrough in over the counter consumer health care. Utilizing cutting edge surgical techniques, devices and pharmaceuticals the ProjectGastro Self Surgery Kit allows anyone to perform major surgery on themselves, their loved ones and their neighbors. This remarkable product is designed with the average consumer in mind and is so easy to use that even children and the feeble-minded will be performing major surgery on themselves in days.
Sounds perfect doesn’t it? I bet you’d love to get your hands on one. The thing is, you can’t. Not a chance. The damn things are illegal. My initial mistake was in approaching the Food and Drug Administration for approval during the Clinton administration. Clinton had packed the FDA with goody two shoes pencil necks with degrees from accredited universities and a serious grudge against the kind of innovation I was bringing to the table. Wimps.
Along comes January of 2001; a new administration in office and a fresh chance. These people didn’t care about delusional notions of public safety – surely not where money was involved. At the time I wrote these hopeful words.
Unfortunately, if you live in the United States you can’t get the Self Surgery Kit. This is due to the extreme left wing, anti-capitalist leanings of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Our hope is that the incoming Bush administration will significantly weaken consumer protections and allow the approval of the Self Surgery Kit. At present, the only area of the world where one can legally obtain a ProjectGastro Self Surgery Kit is in Southeast Asia, where consumer protections are very nearly nonexistent. ProjectGastro encourages interested consumers to call their Senators and Congresspersons to protest the communist, anti-corporate leaning of the FDA.
Alas, it was not to be. As it turns out, when you elect people into government who hate government, they aren’t so effective at the whole governance thing. Last I heard, my application to the FDA was being used as a paper hat in an interdepartmental game of cops and robbers. Such is life.
I listened in on a discussion a few months ago about establishing a futures market for vaccines. Sort of an Enron of pandemic prevention, and it seemed a brilliant strategy, though I must admit to having been a shade north of too intoxicated to really participate in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, it reminded me of that little warehouse in China and dreams I thought long dead. If we can have an Enron of vaccine, surely we can have self surgery. Perhaps now is the time? Perhaps now we have sunk just this low.
Addendum, clarification and a little madness after the jump
Addendum: My friend Brian wrote a funny story that involved the Self Surgery Kit back in 1999 or 2000, I’m not sure which. The ProjectGastro name was Brian’s, though I was the one who ran the website and provided most of the content. The name was in honor of Mark Leyner’s book My Cousin My Gastroenterologist. Another of Leyner’s books, Et Tu Babe, was where I got the self surgery idea. In that book he discusses self surgery suits rented out by Hilton Hotels.
Anyway, for whatever reason, the Self Surgery Kit was a big hit with cubicle dwellers about six years ago and was even featured in a brief segment on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. I never actually got to see the show – the producer promised to email me with the air date but she never did. I never did order the tape either. Not that it matters.
Shit, this is a ramble.
Anyway, I’ve republished Brian’s piece because it’s really very funny in a very strange way and was always my favorite part of that old site. It deals with removing mind control microchip implants using the kit. While reading it, keep in mind that Brian and myself both have a certain fascination with paranoia and conspiracy theories. The grand constructs of people who see conspiracy in everything from the number of letters in a word to the tides are often as complex and varied as the reality most of us have agreed on. Obviously schizophrenia and dissociative personality disorders play a large role in this way of perceiving the world. That said, many people who are sane and productive members of society indulge in some type of magical thinking.
The pages look nothing like they did when we originally published them because I’m way too lazy to try to recreate that site’s template. In other words, the whole thing looks like total crap.
So here’s the big warning. The third and last page of the story has a gory picture, which is unsuitable for children or people who react poorly to gore. No dead bodies or beheadings or anything like that, but unpleasant nevertheless. Please don’t click over if you have any trouble at all with graphic images. If you understand this and wish to proceed, here you go. Enjoy!
