Will Consumers Take the Red Pill?

I’ve been keeping up with the exciting new neuroscience developments on the cause (and hopefully treatment) of Alzheimer’s disease. One of the articles that I recently read was from CNET, “The Red Pill of Alzheimer's: Would You Take It?”  The most recent development is that scientists are now able to go beyond your genetic biomarkers for the genetic risks associated with developing Alzheimer's disease – they can now identify whether you will have a slow progression of the disease or a disease that will “spread like wildfire.” The scientific discussion in the article is interesting, but the part that I found most fascinating was the question that this research poses: If this genetic test was available, would you take it?  Would you take the “red pill” and see how far the rabbit hole goes?

If the “red pill” analogy is lost on you, a quick refresher: The red pill/blue pill concept was popularized in the 1999 movie The Matrix. The movie’s premise is that an artificial reality is advanced enough that it is indistinguishable from reality. And in the movie’s beginning, the protagonist (the always-contemplative Keanu Reeves) is presented with a choice—take the red pill, which will free him from “the matrix” and bring him into the real world, or the blue pill, which will allow him to stay contentedly unaware in the artificially constructed reality.  Borrowing from the movie, the terms “blue pill” and “red pill” have become a metaphor for the choice between facing the world’s difficult realities and maintain the blissful ignorance of illusion. 

So, back to Alzheimer’s disease; the real issue is whether or not consumers will avail themselves of these genetic tests. Alzheimer’s disease is really only the beginning—I’m sure that more advanced testing with genetic markers will soon be available for other conditions as well. The ramifications of these tests will take us far beyond medical decisions and treatment options; it is the individual psychological and larger societal implications that will have a monumental impact. Will consumers yearn to know so that they can better manipulate the outcome, choosing to live with the knowledge of their future demise? Or, will they trade in the time that they could gain to prepare for their fate for the bliss of temporary ignorance? 

I think the answer to that question lies in American’s unique “where there’s a will, there’s a way” attitude.  Consumers maintain a belief that, if they have early knowledge and they have access, there will be some treatment, some technology, some breakthrough that will enable them to change the outcome of the disease. And then the problem will become how consumers deal with the outcome once they have chosen to take the “red pill.”