There was Dr. Haun, and then there was Marni with a pill in her hand. It was a yellowish gel cap in a small plastic bag.
“Welcome back, friends,” Marni said, all smiles. “We’re here with Dr. Huan-”
“Brittany,” Dr. Huan corrected.
“Brittany, and she’s about to explain to me what this pill is, and what makes it so revolutionary?”
That last bit came out as a question, a rare moment of uncertainty for the experienced TV host. Clearly she hadn’t known what Dr. Huan was planning to spring on her before inviting her guest out on stage. Alice realized Dr. Huan must be a big deal if Marni would rush to bring her out like that so readily.
“Marni, what you are holding in your hand is the next leap forward in human medicine. This is bigger than penicillin or the polio vaccine, possibly bigger than mapping the human genome. Or perhaps I should say it’s on the same level, as this creation came out of the explosion of knowledge that project provided for us.
“So a few months ago you,” she said this to Marni directly, “had agreed to have your genes examined, yes?” When Marni didn’t reply right away Dr. Huan prompted “It was part of your physical earlier this year. Your doctor took a swab of your mouth to get a DNA sample.”
“Oh yeah! I forgot all about that.”
“Yes, well that swab was passed along to Yeng-Huan’s laboratories, where we broke down your DNA to the chromosomal level, finding out all about Ms. Marni Blake and what makes her tick. Not only could we see how your ancestors have influenced your development, but we were also able to look ahead and project the path of health and well-being you were going down.”
She turned to the audience for this next bit.
“We’ve always been told that health is a simple equation of keeping your weight down and getting a little exercise now and then. But human physiology is so much more complicated than that. I wouldn’t be wrong to say that there are as many paths to health as there are people alive. Each person’s body is unique – with the possible exception of twins, triplets, etc. – and to find the best possible system of diet and activity for each person we need to start at the foundation: your genes.
“Or so we thought, when we started this project. Years ago, as I was finishing up in university, I published a paper on the importance of examining every patient at the genetic level, that the next revolution of medicine would not come from the macro level but the micro. But even I didn’t realize the full potential that cracking the genome would open up for us.
“When we mapped your genes,” she turned back to Marni, “we found you have a propensity for gaining weight-”
“I could have told you that,” Marni joked.
“-but that you also have a natural defense against many of the issues that come with obesity. There’s no record of diabetes or heart conditions in your family’s history, and your blood pressure is well within normal range. The only potential red flags we found were high cholesterol and a less-than-healthy gall bladder.”
Marni blushed a little, but Dr. Huan rushed to get to the next point.
“But both of these are easily treatable through modern medicine. There are prescription drugs for those problems, but they are mass-produced and bring with them a host of their own risks and issues. A year ago the best we could do would be to say ‘Take these and hope things don’t go wrong.’”
“That’s comforting!” Marni said, letting out a hoarse laugh.
“But this is today. Now. And Yeng-Huan has an evolutionary leap for medicine: a pill personally tailored to your genetic disposition, to treat your problems – current and future. That pill you are holding is the Marni Blake wonder drug, created for you and you alone.”
“Just one pill?” Marni said, sensing Dr. Huan was getting carried away with her spiel.
“Just one. Your genes will never change over the course of your life – barring any nuclear warfare, I should say – and so your needs won’t either. That one pill will handle every issue you might have or acquire going forward, providing you a healthy future for the rest of your life despite your size now or where it might go in the future.”
“Where it might go...?”
Dr. Huan chuckled, her belly bouncing up and down in her lap.
“Maybe I should attest to the drug’s efficacy before I ask you to take it.” She turned back to the audience, playing directly to the camera. “I have never been a thin woman. You probably won’t be surprised if you’re looking at me right now. But I’ve never been this big. When I first signed on to do research for the Yeng Corporation, I was close to 400 pounds. Morbidly obese by any standards, and months of long nights and take-out food and no time to hit the gym sent my weight climbing up and up. When we made our breakthrough with the project – we’re calling it the GS-217, but I’m sure marketing will come up with a better name – I was closer to 500 pounds than 400.
“After enough testing and trials we determined the drug was safe for human consumption, and though some might question the ethics of the decision I volunteered myself to be the first human test subject. I took my pill over a year ago, close to a year and a half, and in that time my stats have all entered the range of perfect health. Blood pressure, cholesterol, my immune system, musculature, kidneys, liver, everything! All perfect. Even the issues that had been bothering me like the joint pain in my knees and ankles is gone. I can walk up a couple flights of stairs and only get mildly winded.
“Though I’m not exactly racing up the stairs, as you can imagine!”
Laughter from the audience, but it was obvious there was a lot of shock and disbelief among them.
“And since taking the drug my weight had continued to go up. Today I am here before you weighing over 630 pounds. 638 to be precise. And yet when I received a physical for my insurance last month my doctor, despite all logic and preconceptions about health, gave me a clean bill. He said I was the healthiest patient he had examined all week.”
A smattering of applause. The audience was coming around to her side.
“Any problem I might have had down the road has now been taken care of today, now. It’s almost as if my own genes have been rewritten to give me perfect health regardless of how much more I grow.
“So Marni,” she turned back to the host. “I want to ask you a question, just one fat girl to another: when you no longer have to struggle to walk half a mile, when getting yourself out of bed is not the Herculean task it once was, when your doctor isn’t tsk-tsking or lecturing you about your life choices, don’t you think you might expect a few more pounds to find their way to that plump little body of yours?”
Marni smiled mischievously.
“It’s not like I’ve been getting by on salads and rice cakes until now. But I see your point.”
She held up the pill again, looking at it.
“So there have been successful human trials? I’m not going to be some lab monkey who might grow another head or a third arm?”
“The FDA approved it for human testing last year, so if you’re interested,” Dr. Huan reached into her lab coat and pulled out a small stack of papers, “all you have to do is sign on the last page, and you can take the pill right now.”
Unprompted, a few people in the audience cheered and clapped, urging Marni on. At home in her living room, Alice was getting excited herself. She wasn’t fat anymore, but the memories of her mother’s judgment and society’s scorn in general put her on the side of Dr. Huan. How great would it be if fat people didn’t have to tolerate being chided or ridiculed anymore? How great would it be for people like her sister Mel to not have others criticize them for their lifestyle (not that Mel had any sense of shame or remorse for who she was)?
Marni turned to the audience. She didn’t look hesitant, but she looked like she wanted the encouragement of others before taking the plunge.
“Should I do it?”
Audience-wide applause now, with a few cries of ‘Do it!’
“OK!”
Marni took the papers from Dr. Huan, found the last page, and signed it. Then, with a little flourish for the cameras, she took out the yellow gel cap, held it up to her mouth, and swallowed it.
Applause. Even Alice felt like whooping.
“How long until it works?”
“The changes will be gradual at first, and then snowball. Within a month you should feel completely remade head to toe. And we’ll do some check-ups on you at the Yeng-Huan facilities to chart your progress, so you can see how things are going. Congratulations! This is the start of a new life for you!”
“I already feel wonderful. Let’s hope this drug is everything you say it is, doc.”
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