2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [28]
One of the scientists during the question period thought he would be funny and asked Lincoln about John Wilkes Booth. But of course the creators knew that that question would come up, so what did Lincoln do? He looked puzzled, thought for a moment, and said, “I don’t know who that is. Remember, you’re talking to me while I’m still alive.” It got a great laugh and made the questioner feel like an ass.
At three o’clock the visiting dignitaries were led into a meeting room in the West Wing of the White House. They were told to make themselves comfortable, and that the President and the chief of staff would arrive in a few minutes.
Everyone there knew each other; several of them had either won or been nominated for a Nobel Prize. Besides Mueller there was Sidney Nash, the man who was credited with curing muscular dystrophy (with, of course, plenty of help from the late Jerry Lewis). There was Heather McMillan, who was given the most credit for curing Alzheimer’s, although a new kind of memory loss was starting to occur in the elderly that did not respond to medicine. Bennett Friedman, who headed the largest pharmaceutical drug company in the world, was there, as was Cynthia Lowenstein, secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and of course, Patricia Twain, the surgeon general. Several other people were at the table whom Sam did not know, but they knew him. Everybody knew the guy who cured cancer. They all made light conversation before the President arrived. “How’s business, Sam?” Bennett asked.
“You’ll have to talk to the accountants,” Mueller said. “I don’t get into the business end very much anymore.”
“I heard the growth spray was a bust.”
“Was it?” Sam smiled. “That’s not what I heard.”
This was a spray they were all working toward. A safe way to administer a small amount of human growth hormone to improve the overall well-being in older people, but with none of the previous side effects. The so-called “feel goods,” the drugs that served no purpose other than to make you feel younger, were the toughest to come up with. They always had a rebound effect. You couldn’t go up without coming down, which was always a problem, and many of the drugs that sailed through clinical trials showed side effects years later.
One in particular that didn’t show its dark side for almost a decade came to market in 2019, synthetic caffeine. It gave people the jolt they wanted with none of the irritating side effects. People had energy, their thinking was clearer, their moods were improved, they didn’t have jitteriness, and at the end of the day it wore off completely and actually assisted in sleep.
Clinical trials went perfectly. The drug was approved in 2022 and was marketed under the name Alert. It became the third-best-selling drug of all time, and then people’s kidneys started to fail. It was something that didn’t show up for years, but when it did, it affected almost twenty percent of the users. Global-Pharma, the company that manufactured the drug, paid out twenty billion dollars in damages.
But still, the companies continued their research. To have success with the “feel goods” was to own the goose that laid the golden egg. “Imagine if someone had the patent on coffee,” they used to say. Just to think of it made businessmen swoon.
They all stood up when the President entered. President Bernstein was not a hand shaker. Early on, he adopted an Indian-style nod with his hands clasped together. It was odd at first, but it became his trademark and many other politicians followed suit. The Chinese and Indians knew something about shaking hands. There was no reason to get a person’s cold just from greeting them. And Bernstein thought