Tag Archives: brian williams

As a healthcare venture capitalist, I see a lot of, shall we say, interesting ideas for how to treat patients. But today I really hit the jackpot in the “you’ve got to be kidding me” department. Unfortunately I didn’t see this in person, but on-line in a story that ran in the “Bad Ideas” (who knew?) portion of the Time Magazine Internet newsfeed entitled, “New Line of German Stuffed Animals with Mental Issues“.  So many things wrong with that sentence I hardly know where to begin.  It’s a short article so I am going to include it in its entirety below:

For your gift giving consideration: Dub the severely depressed turtle? German toymaker Paraplush has designed a controversial new line of toys with an assortment of psychiatric disorders. The company advertises stuffed animals who suffer from a range of mental illnesses (bipolar disorder, depression, multiple personality disorder) and even come packaged with a personalized medical history and treatment plan. ”‘Patients’ from the Paraplush toy company include Dub the turtle with severe depression, Sly the snake who suffers from terrifying hallucinations, Dolly the sheep with a multiple personality disorder and a … (read the rest)