The faces of the people in the studio audience are positively worshipful. Television cameras focus on them frequently as the smooth dermatologist tells them how to beat aging. They seem to believe everything he says, no matter how far-reaching his claims.
Dr. Nicholas Perricone has become a public television star in cities across the country. His programs, “The Wrinkle Cure” and “Healthy Aging: the Perricone Prescription” have probably been watched by millions, especially during fund-raising periods.
During its recent drive for money, KQED, the San Francisco PBS channel, reportedly devoted four hours of prime time to Perricone programming. No wonder another writer has called his tapes “the best fund-raising gambit these stations have ever had.”
WGBH, Channel 2, our public television station in Boston, has featured this same medical performer as recently as last month. Presumably he helped this station; I am sure he also helped himself at the same time.
If my words here seem negative, you’ve got it right. What we see operating here is a conflict of interest being sponsored by a public entity. To say the least, one must distrust doctors who have a vested financial interest in their practice.
Yet Dr. Perricone unabashedly hawks his skin care products as remedies for the “disease” of aging. Many beauty shops around the country, notably the 80 stores in the Sephora chain, with outlets in Boston’s Prudential Center, the Burlington Mall, and the Chesnut Hill Mall, carry his creams, lotions, and other products in which he has a major financial interest.
Sephora’s web site lists Dr. Perricone’s Prescription Starter Kit, a $210 value available online for $150, as one of its top sellers. The high priest of skin is not growing poor while he doubles as a physician/television star.
He is doubtless not the first physician to assume an ethically awkward posture. What is surprising, though, is that public television should choose to abet him.
In response to this criticism, John Abbott, Vice President of WGBH for TV Stations, defends the choice of the Perricone programming. His purpose was “to bring in a range of viewer interests.” Deftly finessing the issue, he says: “I tried to watch it like Joe Everybody.” Listening to Abbott, one would never have guessed that fundraising had any role whatsoever in the decision to air Perricone’s programs.
Apart from ethical issues, however, I distrust anyone who peddles simplistic remedies for human well-being and happiness. Or anyone who says, as does Perricone at the beginning: “Aging is a disease” and “Aging is optional.”
Our lives are too marvelously complicated for a person of any wisdom to say, as Perricone does, that his approach will guarantee positive results: “If you do that, you will have a long healthy life. More important, you will have a good quality of life.” The length of our life and its quality depend on a lot more than health care.
And Perricone’s pedagogy stirs serious objections in me. His explanations are long and complicated, replete with pharmacological terms that are obscure to educated lay people. Does this qualify as good adult education? Is it acceptable practice to tell the general public that they should all take certain treatments?
At his web site this doctor presents himself as a “pioneer in the field of appearance.” Such a field is new to me and, I suggest, bears an instructive double meaning. Magicians, too, are experts in “appearance.”
Another coinage favored by Perricone is “Cosmeceuticals” a designation he puts after his M. D. He counts himself among the “world’s foremost anti-aging specialists,” a claim that, in my opinion, does him little credit.
In explaining his formulas for the war against aging, this much-hyped physician favors simplicity. “If the program isn’t simple,” he pronounces, “there’s something wrong with that program.”
Admittedly, Perricone does prescribe some good practices. For instance, he urges careful control of what we eat and proposes diets that control intake of fat and carbohydrates. He also recommends physical exercise, especially because it boosts the immune system.
However, another Perricone promise is of more dubious value: “You will never be a burden on anyone,” he assures those who follow his plan. Can you imagine this being a human good?
As must be obvious by now, I do not believe in fighting against aging as such. For me, it serves greater happiness and fulfillment in life to accept aging gracefully. Science and technology, though they bring us marvelous benefits of many kinds, cannot assure us of happiness and fulfillment. Fortunately, human life is much more intricate than that.
I also find repugnant some ideals of Perricone and his tribe of anti-aging crusaders. Again, the promise of never being a burden on anyone else seems to me not only unrealistic but humanly abhorrent. Sharing one another’s burdens, after all, goes far to build relationships that enrich our lives.
Richard Griffin