Daniel Schorr, Journalist, Dies At 93

According to The New York Times obituary, Daniel Schorr was denied readmission into the Soviet Union because of his disregard for the Soviet censors, and he was #17 on Nixon's "enemies list" because of his reporting of the Watergate scandal.

Schorr discovered that "Follow the money," was never uttered by Deep Throat; it was actually written by the script writer for the movie! Alicia Sheppard recounts Schorr's efforts to find that infamous phrase in Woodward and Bernstein's book.

A former research assistant of Schorr talks about the invaluable lessons that he took from working with him. Guy Raz, now the host of NPR's Weekend All Things Considered, said that it is because of Schorr that he now believes that to practice journalism, there must be that "demand for excellence and accuracy and fairness and nuance and [the] kind of unwillingness to just take things for face value."

Good friends with Frank Zappa, Schorr was invited onstage to sing at his concert in 1988. He was, frankly, terrible.

Schorr would also sing German opera and Marx Brothers nonsense songs and Edith Piaf before going on air. Please read NPR's Scott Simon's tribute to the end.

(Photo: Schorr works at a press table during the Watergate hearings on June 1, 1973, while on assignment for CBS News. CREDIT: Gjon Mili//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

The Runaway General

Since its publication last week, this Rolling Stone's article by Michael Hastings has been met with a lot of controversy. Not surprisingly, the 24-hour news cycle and blogosphere (hey y'all!) immediately jumped on the most gossip-y aspect of the article: the beginning that featured the General and his aides criticizing President Obama and generally maintaining a tone of derision for much of the senior administration. The Biden/Bite-Me comment was repeated throughout the interwebs and the cable news networks, followed by speculation of what the president would say to McChrystal when he was summoned back to D.C. from Afghanistan because of this article (Spoiler alert!: McChrystal was dismissed; Petraeus replaces him in the sequel.) After the dust from that settled, all of these cable news networks and websites turned their attentions back to the war in Afghanistan.

Nah, I'm only playing. Why should we focus on the true subject of Hastings' article, the international war crisis? Journalists, being an inherently narcissistic bunch, decided to turn their attentions back to themselves. For the past week, Michael Hastings' integrity has been judged by a panel of flacks sitting against green screens in their cozy offices, and his article has been dissected, exulted and assaulted by the public and press.

As a journalism student, I truly am interested in the consequences this article would have on the future quality of war reporting. I very nerdily devour blogs about off-the-record/on-the-record nuances when embedded 24/7 with a platoon and I love seeing what other war reporters have to say about this (Hi Lara, good to see you again! Even if you are dead wrong). But when the amount of articles/blogs/cable news time devoted to this "introspection" far, far outnumber the articles that actually look at the subject of Hastings' piece, I can't help but feel like we have somehow missed the point. *

Yes, Hastings has written a profile of McChrystal, but it was not to showcase the General's insubordination. The article is about how our military is coping in what is now the longest-running war since Vietnam with a controversial strategy that Obama has supported with the 30,000 troop surge last fall. This military strategy is known as counterinsurgency, or COIN, and it is not something that will solve the war's problems with one fell swoop. Hastings describes it:

COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation's government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps

One of the biggest problems with COIN is that its success is hard to gauge. Dexter Filkins, an amazing war reporter for The New York Times, took part in a Q&A session over at the Times' At War blog and he said:

I think the best evidence of COIN working, at least marginally, is Iraq in 2007 and 2008. Remember how the Iraq war unfolded: In the first three and a half years, American troops concentrated mostly on killing insurgents. They did that, but they profoundly alienated the Iraqi population. The result was the apocalyptic levels of violence that we saw in 2005 and 2007. In 2007, with the surge, the strategy was fundamentally changed. The overriding goal became the protection of the population.

What is immediately alarming is Filkins reached for the Iraq war as the clear example of COIN working (according to Filkins, who said "best evidence" not "only evidence"), meaning that there are still really no successful long-term results that we can confidently point to.

Another thing that is disturbing in Hastings' article is how there is a disconnect between what the soldiers understand their role to be and how they wish to carry their roles out. Hastings gave several anecdotes of how soldiers are angered by the stringent directives from McChrystal to avoid civilian casualties. These young men believe that these edicts – that are probably distorted from having been passed down the ranks – put them in greater danger in an already-deadly war zone. Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks said:

"I get COIN. I get all that. McChrystal comes here, explains it, it makes sense. But then he goes away on his bird, and by the time his directives get passed down to us through Big Army, they're all fucked up – either because somebody is trying to cover their ass, or because they just don't understand it themselves. But we're fucking losing this thing."

I may have to spend a little more time reading up on COIN but there seem to be an almost contradictory quality of a military invasion coupled with the COIN beliefs. By holding back the pressure because of McChrystal's understandable worries of civilian casualties, the soldiers believe that they are also allowing the insurgency flourish. Yet if they were to open fire on insurgents and kill a single civilian by accident, there will be ten more insurgents created because of the outrage over the civilian's death. This tug-of-war for the hearts of the Afghan people is really confusing to me, a reader. I can only imagine how it must feel having to try and fathom this while carrying out the duties of a soldier.

Finally, there is the problem of the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai's presidency in Afghanistan. Last year, Karzai won the presidential election, an event that has been accused of electoral fraud rife with government corruption. He is also not a reliable ally to the U.S., and is without the support of the Afghan people. Unfortunately, in order for the U.S. military to help rebuild a government in Afghanistan, they will need the support of a strong leader who holds the faith of his people and shares the values of Americans. Hastings said:

This is one of the central flaws with McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy: The need to build a credible government puts us at the mercy of whatever tin-pot leader we've backed.

It angers me, looking at these three main problems outlined in Hastings' article, that we can spend such a significant amount of time going back and forth about whether or not Hastings had betrayed an "element of trust." President Obama may or may not have dismissed McChrystal because of his Bite-Me jokes – but my guess is that the sloppy handling of this war showcased so clearly in Hastings' article is probably what convinced him that there needed to be a change in the commander executing a strategy that will very likely keep American soldiers in Afghanistan for an indefinite amount of time.

I'll leave you with the passage that broke my heart. It is about a visit that McChrystal made to the White House in mid-May with Hamid Karzai. Exultant praises are made to each leader and at one point, President Obama said, "There is no denying the progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years – in education, in health care and economic development," he said. "As I saw in the lights across Kabul when I landed – lights that would not have been visible just a few years earlier." Hastings follows the president's quote this:

It is a disconcerting observation for Obama to make. During the worst years in Iraq, when the Bush administration had no real progress to point to, officials used to offer up the exact same evidence of success. "It was one of our first impressions," one GOP official said in 2006, after landing in Baghdad at the height of the sectarian violence. "So many lights shining brightly." So it is to the language of the Iraq War that the Obama administration has turned – talk of progress, of city lights, of metrics like health care and education. Rhetoric that just a few years ago they would have mocked.

(*And yes, I have not missed the irony in starting this post with some media criticism.)

Pulitzer Highlight: Sheri Fink

I just wanted to take some time to acknowledge that the Pulitzer Prize winners for journalism were announced today, and one piece really stands out to me: Sheri Fink won the Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting for her story of a New Orleans hospital and the staff who had to make difficult life-and-death decisions during Hurricane Katrina.

I remember reading "The Deadly Choices at Memorial" last year and being completely floored by how well-researched, well-written, and heart-wrenching it was. It appeared in the weekly New York Times Magazine, and the photos that accompanied it, shot by Paolo Pellegrin, compounded the sense of dreadful desperation faced by the stranded hospital staff during Katrina, when the hospital was cut off from help.

If you have a couple minutes, do take a look at it. I should have written about it when it was first published because it truly is a one-of-a-kind piece. The subject matter is gripping, and the amount of work that Ms. Fink had put into it really shows - she reportedly interviewed 140 people for this story.

Anyway, if you have more than a couple minutes, look through the other winners. I'm currently combing through them to see what I have missed, or had seen the first time around.

Vigor Quest

Articles on the use of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) have been fairly popular lately, brought on (I believe) by the misdeeds of Tiger Woods. A couple days after Woods' affair(s) were splashed across the tabloids and blogosphere, The New York Times took a different tack with Woods' culpability. This time, Woods was not the story; he simply served as its hook.

I remember this story standing out to me because it was featured on the front page; at that time, I wondered if this would really be front page news if it weren't for the Tiger Woods mention. The story is about the F.B.I. investigation of Dr. Anthony Galea, who is suspected of providing performance-enhancing drugs to the athletes he treats, one of which is HGH. NYT did a good job following up on the story here and here.

For a while, because of the way HGH is presented in the media, I believed that anyone who injects himself with a hormone is probably a cheating top-tier athlete. For Tom Dunkel, the author of "Vigor Quest," this top-tier athlete is not even worth a mention in his article. His article focuses on older, well-to-do men who wish to curb the aging process using "age-management medicine."



The anchor of the story is John Bellizzi, a 51-year-old who plays soccer every week. To keep himself in the best possible shape, Bellizzi has approached Dr. Florence Comite, whose relationship with Bellizzi is like that of an ace mechanic to a classice car:

Her job is to keep him finely tuned despite worn parts. "I consider what I do aggressive prevention, the basis of which is metabolism modulation," Comite says. "Twenty years from now, this will be the standard of care."

Overall, Dunkel does a really good job balancing the skepticism that "mainstream medicine" has towards anti-aging medicine with the visible results from injections of testosterone and human chorionic gondatropin (H.C.G.), a hormone that is distilled from the urine of pregnant women. He is also careful to state that some of the patients who take these anti-aging treatments are instructed to revamp their lifestyle, so it is sometimes difficult to see whether if the physical and mental change comes from the good eating and exercise, or from the injections of H.C.G.

If the subject of an article is controversial and not generally agreed upon by the public, it is important to show both sides without making it seem like you are writing, "A is good. B is good. A is bad. B is bad." That was a rather pidgin way to illustrate it, but I do believe melding two opposing opinions can take skill, and Dunkel is a pro at putting his two ideas in opposition without seeming too "list-y."

An example would be his initial description of Dr. Florence Comite. He begins the paragraph by showing off her impressive medical credentials and her commitment to medicine; then Dunkel ends the paragraph by listing that a search of her name would get you to her entry on Quackwatch.com.

The merits of this article is that Dunkel is willing to show you more about each person he mentions. He could have easily dismissed Bellizzi as a youth-hungry, vanity-stroking dolt – but he takes us through Bellizzi's life before he met Comite and makes us believe that Bellizzi is doing this for empowerment over his own body and fate. And why shouldn't he? If we, as human beings, are able to fight for something we want, like our job or our apartment or our spouse, why should we not be able to exert some control over our aging process?

Dunkel also refuses to leave Comite as a question mark; he did his homework for this aritcle, and it shows. Dunkel goes through Comite's childhood, tells us her favorite book as a child ("Stranger in a Strange Land," by Robert Heinlein), and shows us how this tiny, miniscule fact connects to the way she works as a doctor. Dunkel wants to show that though Comite's current area of expertise is considered troublesome by mainstream media, she is, in fact, no hack. In 1985, after a tenure at N.I.H. does research in gynecology and precocious puberty (what?), Comite founded Women's Health at Yale University, "arguably the first clinic in the country to treat women's health issues as a special discipline." By listing her achievements and the obstacles she has faced, Comite is presented as a purveyor of independent thinking. 20 years ago, it would be impossible for a male-dominated profession to treat female health problems as conditions of the female body. Today, it would be appalling if a health insurance plan did not cover gynecology visits. What if – and Dunkel sets up his entire scene just so we can wonder – today's perspective on anti-aging medicine makes a 180 in 20 years?

With all that good aside, I do have two little quibbles with this article. The first is that Dunkel is quite a scathing writer. There are some things that seem like almost a dig to the anti-aging movements, and I personally enjoy it. However, my second read-through had me wondering if some of it was necessary. An example is when Dunkel is describing the two founders of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, both of whom are doctors and amateur body-builders: (emphasis mine)

[Alan Mintz] and her exercise partner, John Adams, owned a radiology-diagnostics company. They sold the business in 1994, pocketing millions. Rather than retire and work full-time on their pecs, they started Cenegenics Medical Institute...

Here's another about Alan Mintz:

That June, Alan Mintz invited [Comite] to Las Vegas, and she ultimately joined Cenegenics' medical advisory board. (Two years later, Mintz, while doing an overhead press in the gym, lost control of the weighted bar, which struck him in the back of his head. He died while undergoing brain biopsy.)

Now was that necessary? It's certainly quite the visual and there is an irony to it, but it does nothing to further the focus on anti-aging medicine. Poor Dr. Mintz - reduced to a punchline.

My second quibble is barely a quibble. It's just a nitpick, and it might not even bother you when you read the article (Please read the article) but it jumped out at me.

About 80 percent of Comite's patients are men. It's a good match. She finds male menopause an area ripe for exploration, and men are generally more receptive to the notion of age management than women, who have been bombarded for years with conflicting information about hormone therapy.

Bob Fitzmaurice, a 48-year-old ...

No, Dunkel, please go back and explain that previous sentence. I believe, as evidenced by face lifts and boob jobs and the rise of the popularity of "Cougar Town" (sorry, it's an awful show, no matter what you say), that women are very receptive to age-management. It is incredibly careless of Dunkel to write that (because it's not true) and not back it up with some quote from Comite. How does being bombarded by information of hormone therapy make women less receptive to age management? Personally, I have never been talked to death about hormone therapy - it's simply not mentioned. And Comite, being the person who set up the first Women's Health clinic (arguably) in America, would definitely have an answer if Dunkel had posed a follow-up question.

All in all, this article was really fantastic. I would never expect myself to go nuts over a health piece, but Dunkel did a great job fine-tuning all the medical jargon into something that is accessible and effective.

"Held By The Taliban" series

The New York Times is currently running a series that is a cross between a journal entry and narrative reporting by David Rohde, a journalist who was captured by the Taliban in November 2008 and was released over 7 months later. There are five parts to it, and (right at this moment that I'm looking at it now) there are only three parts up.

What's interesting to me is that his account is being showcased on page A1, just right before the fold (at least for the installment in Monday's paper.) The formatting of his article is distinctively different from the other stories, with the words spaced more apart and each line is half a double space. I mention this only because this immediately drew my attention, and it was like the editors were announcing that this is not an ordinary article, certainly not one that follows the vein of objectivity. From the very first sentence, I felt like I was reading this on a computer, on a blog of some sort – and not on the front page of the paper.

You can see the difference between Rohde's piece and the other articles below.

This is not a criticism – more like an observation. I really enjoyed the article, and I am really glad that I managed to read it in the paper instead of online. For some reason, even though online news can easily reach new readers, I like the finality behind having something printed on a page. It makes it seem more official and much more important.

And this is important. The column/article (I'm really not sure what word to use for it) allows us an insight to the Taliban and the terrain of Afghanistan. I don't consider myself an expert at all in war news (or any news for that matter... hence, this blog) but I know that reading Rohde's account is going to stay with me more than reading a run-of-a-mill article about the current situation in Afghanistan. That's because instead of making use of numbers and statistics to convey how horrible and desperate the situation is in this "forgotten war," Rohde's personal account is able to transfer that statistical horror into images and voices and people.

In the first installment of this series, titled "7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity," Rohde seems to issue a disclaimer by saying that everything he has written is from his memory, and therefore from his point of view.

What follows is the story of our captivity. I took no notes while I was a prisoner. All descriptions stem from my memory and, where possible, records kept by my family and colleagues. Direct quotations from our captors are based on Tahir’s translations. Undoubtedly, my recollections are incomplete and the passage of time may have affected them. For safety reasons, certain details and names have been withheld.

I thought that Rohde's was brave to admit this, and also in turn, to cover his ass. There are some insane readers of the Times (Have you read any of the letters sent in by readers? There are some close, close readers who really seem to have a vendetta against reporters) and if Rohde's haven't admitted that all that is written is in a first-person view, he would have gotten some pretty scathing emails about how flawed his "reporting" is.

However, his admission did not allay some readers' criticism. Rohde's answered some readers' questions over at the At War blog and the first (like, eight) questions addressed how Rohde was naive about the Taliban, how his depictions show how ignorant he was of them, and how he was stupid and selfish to have gotten captured, along with the Afghan journalist and driver who accompanied him.

Actually, the blog has been updated since I checked it earlier today, and the first questions now seem to actually be from readers who are concerned that Rohde's account does not belong in the hard news section of the paper and website since it does not really broadcast larger issues in terms of policy/decision making in Afghanistan. It is really interesting to see that put in words since I touched upon it earlier except did not really go into the significance of it beyond "Wow, it looks really different." But I do stand by what I said earlier, which is that I like it. Reading Bill Keller's answer to the readers, I think he summed it up pretty well why I do not think it is a "travesty on journalism" that Rohde's account is front page and in installments:

As I hope the series makes clear, this is not a story about David Rohde, it is a story about the character, strength and organization of the people the U.S. is fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It provides detailed insights into the minds and motives of the Taliban’s footsoldiers. It also reveals the extent to which the Taliban has, with impunity, colonized a swath of Pakistan. Yes, it is a hell of a story, but it also adds rich detail to our understanding of the Taliban.

Why, thank you, Mr. Keller, for explaining it so succinctly. Whenever something like this happens, there is always a fear of the reporter becoming the story, and thus hindering the actual importance of the story. However, in this particular instance, I really think that Rohde's first-hand experience has enhanced the image we have of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Anyway, I really recommend reading this series, and following through to Part 5. This reminded me a little of Kate Webb, a journalist who was captured by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War for 23 days, and how the short time with her captors made her later reportingof the Vietnam War much more nuanced.

The Last Abortion Doctor

This post is admittedly long overdue. In the August issue of Esquire magazine, John Richardson wrote an article about Warren Hern, the last doctor in America who performs late abortions. The entire piece (it's really long) flows so easily and reads like a movie being played out on the big screen. The theatrical manner that Richardson chose to take with this piece works, mostly because the subject is just so dramatic. In some cases, I think Richardson's style actually enhanced the story, making each "scene" seem like there is more than one side to the story. And as it is in real life, people are always multi-dimensional.

I can say truthfully that this was one of the best articles I have read in a long time. If you get the time, give it a read, and don't be intimidated by how many pages there are because it really just flies. Richardson gets down to the nitty-gritty details but it's always relevant to the story – like how Hern's windows are bullet proof and the window shades must always be drawn. There is a careful amount of time spent on Hern's receptionist and nurses, but his detail to attention really conveys how incredibly unique this abortion clinic is. Like by allowing us to listen in to the receptionist's side of the conversation with the patients who call in asking for an appointment for an abortion. At one point during a particular phone conversation, the receptionist says I also want you to know, we don't care what your reasons are. We're not going to judge you.

And that's another thing: Richardson does not use quote marks to show quotes. Instead, he employs italics for quotes, which adds a sense of urgency to everything that is said. It makes it seem like everything that is quoted in this article is important, even if it is something simple like I'm Dr. Hern. Where are you from? Lie down now. Put your hand on your chest. This gave me the sense that every single quote was carefully ruminated over by the author before adding it into the piece. In a way, sensitivity to how Hern is conveyed is extremely important because of his controversial work.

With most profiles (especially in magazines), writers often take a side of the subject, and they stick to it. They find a quirk, and they make that quirk translate into his entire being. Like how President Obama is both African and American, so a profiler might highlight his worldliness and his ability to reach out past party barriers, and the words "born of two worlds" will probably be used a lot. I think this is actually a pretty effective way of showcasing a point, but Richardson does not do that in this article. I initially thought that the article was going to be like a manifesto for liberals and people who are pro-choice. I thought it was going to solidify my opinion on the abortion battle and this man's story is the answer. Something like that.

But Richardson neither lionizes nor demonizes Hern. What we have here is just the tip of the iceberg, a little glimpse into a very complicated, troubled man who believes, above all, that a woman should have the freedom to choose what to do with her own body. The key word here is "believe" because he does so fervently and almost angrily - but Richardson never writes any sort of opinion about it. I know the point in journalism is to be objective, but in a magazine such as Esquire – which famously painted John Walker Lindh, an American who converted to Islam and is allegedly a terrorist, as "a better person than you or I" in an amazing article by Tom Junod titled "Innocent" – I expected some side-taking to happen. It didn't, and the result is that Hern is just as much of a mystery as any normal person is. We are not one-dimensional talking boxes; we have opinions and thoughts and sometimes these two do not mesh together into a picture that makes sense. Richardson successfully paints Hern as not just an abortion doctor, a performer of disappearing acts (I'm sorry, was that too crude?); Hern is a person who believes so hard that it's almost difficult for us to empathize with him. At some points, his rants about how the people who are pro-life (Richardson writes that every time he uses that word, he employs air quotes) can seem almost vigilante-like and hateful.

And then Richardson will completely change it up by interviewing his wife, who is 27 years his junior and describes him as the most passionate and caring man she has ever met. To say the man is an onion is just so cliché, but I just ate everything up because it was so unexpected and yet so realistic. At one point, Hern says about his work you can never get used to this.

You can't, he says. I think we're hardwired, biologically, to protect small, vulnerable creatures, especially babies. The fetuses may not be babies, but some of them are pretty close.

I really could go on forever about how nuanced and amazing this profile of Hern was, but it seems kinda funny (funny strange, not funny ha ha) to me for that to be said, because what Richardson did was actually show the man as he is, with no verbal badges of honor and no condemnation. I do wish most profiles can be true to a person, but at the same time, most people aren't as interesting and complicated as Hern is. So it probably wouldn't work as well.

I should probably add that Hern disagreed with this article, mostly because he is not the last abortion doctor (Richardson probably did that for punch) and he hated being called an abortionist. I think the irony is that Richardson's repeated use of "abortionist" actually humanized Hern because this technical term, paired with all those effective stories from those close to him, painted a complete picture of the man.

Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory

This science article was brought to my attention by Gothamist, and I was intrigued by all the ethical issues it raised, which I always feel is lacking in many science articles.

Benedict Carey of the New York Times reports that scientists in Brooklyn have recently discovered that a drug they have been experimenting with- ZIP- could potentially erase or edit our memories. Currently, they have only experimented with animals, but the neuroscientists are confident that it could be used in humans. They think it would be groundbreaking because ZIP could help with trauma patients, or even alter addiction patterns.

However, there are some ethical concerns raised in the article, like how the drug could be misused to forget crimes, bad behavior, or even traumatic experiences that form a person's moral compass.

And the first thing I thought when I read this article was of Dollhouse. The new Fox show created by Joss Whedon is about a secret government entity, Dollhouse, that basically rents out mind-wiped individuals that have been replaced with new memories and personality so that they can meet their clients' needs. After an engagement with a client is over, the Doll's brain is wiped again and they resume their tabula rasa state.

Dollhouse has great potential for complexity, but I am just going to stick to the above very-bare-bones description of the show. One of the reasons why I am so thoroughly alarmed by the prospect of this new ZIP drug is because I remember in one of the episodes of Dollhouse, a character says something that might be accurate of our future, outside of sci-fi TV. He said that if such a technology– such as wiping a human's brain and implementing new memories– exists, then people will surely take that technology and use it for greedy purposes. He reasoned that according to history, humans have never been able to just let things alone. An example would be how we learned how to harness hydrogen energy, and then created the atomic bomb.

Can you imagine if this drug were possible? Even if we don't get to the creepy euphemism-for-prostitution scenario in Dollhouse, the uses that doctors have planned for ZIP can still raise some epic self-awareness issues. If we are talking about a traumatic experience, such as being raped, and the rape victim got that particular memory erased, he/she will also risk losing whatever new awareness that comes with this terrible burden- like avoiding situations that could lead to rape; or if the rapist was a close friend or family, learning about people and whether or not they are trustworthy.

How about for the case of addiction? The scientist in the article proposes that using ZIP could erase addiction tendencies in the brain. But then that brings up serious questions about the choices we make and how responsible we are for them. If we, as individuals, are aware of our personhood, we should try our best to overcome our demons. Why should something as debilitating and as life-changing as a drug addiction be erased by a simple injection? As we have learned, the reason why some drug addicts refuse to go back is because of the immense will power it took for them to get over their addiction (and on the other hand, a lot of drug addicts do relapse, so who knows.) If we can get rid of our addictive desires with a simple medical procedure, it might persuade drug addicts that being a drug addict might not be as much of a burden as it previously was, and they could be more easily persuaded to try the drug again (because they would never addicted) or even try other drugs.