This morning's post will be short and maybe not so sweet.
The Observer reported today that the recession has led to an increase of 2.1 million prescriptions for anti-depressants!
Surprisingly some have voiced the concern that doctors are prescribing chemicals as a quick fix without considering the underlying cause or the potential for long term dependance. Fancy that?
The article even quotes some moron (sorry, gentleman) who shall be nameless ... who says he has "every sympathy" for doctors under pressure to succumb to needy patients because they want to "be liked" ... but what was really needed was "tough love".
Come on!!!
This is the most prolific industry human kind has ever spawned (with a longer shelf-life than petrochemicals), not a flipping popularity contest. Doctors prescribing medications "under pressure" that relieve in the short term and add stress in the long term are part of the problem.
The bigger picture is that, not only do we tolerate this absurdity, we actually hold this part of the machine in great esteem. Any donkey that knows his place will accept the wise counsel of a doctor blindly and without reservation. Doctors are, after all, on the cutting edge of civilized technology. We revere their judgement. And why not? When we are in trouble, they are there to magically make things better.
What makes me even sadder is that people like Oprah, who dare to suggest that prevention is better than cure, are attacked for their alleged ignorance. Why? Because it hurts business. There's less money in prevention than cure. And Oprah galvanises opinion by the million.
What would be nice is if we stopped pretending this wasn't actually the case and just accepted that that's how it is and people don't actually give two hoots about long term health. They just want relief in a painful, imperfect world.
For anybody who hasn't yet figured out the thrust of this post (and just about every other post on this blog) ... chemicals kill. They accumulate. They cause stress ... and you don't need a medical degree to correlate this with increases in disease. And everyone keeps pretending this isn't the case because it's what doctors do!
And, even worse, this is preventable with a simple reassessment of strategic direction. But there's just too much money in not fixing things!
What? Still don't get it? Medications are chemicals our bodies need precious energy to metabolise. This adds further burden to sick people. Even if these remedies come from someone with accepted credibility.
If you "need" Viagra, nature is telling you that your reproductive health sucks! If you "need" a laxative, nature is telling you that your digestion/elimination system is dysfunctional. If you "need" an anti-inflammatory, nature is telling you that something is out of whack. Something is causing these problems, so why just cover them up?
We don't need pills for diarrhoea ... or libido ... or weight loss ... or heartburn ... or any number of ailments. These are all symptoms of declining health. Doctors know this.
Neither do we need botox ... or plastic surgery ... or diets ... or HRT. These are all perceived magic bullets that fill holes in out own wretched lives. And any person that dares to call it like it is ... will be attacked as an under-qualified modern day heretic. We even have to qualify benign advice to drink clean water instead of synthetic garbage as "information", not intended to take the place of medical wah, wah, wah.
Just in case someone decided to take back responsibility for their own health and ceased to be dependant!
We have appointed custodians of our health who are caught up in a machine without even realising it. And if they do, why don't more of them speak up? God knows they have a keener appreciation of the issues at hand.
Why is this left to people without a real voice? There is surely something more sinister going on right under our noses.
And this my friends, is that we are being misinformed by industries that have a vested interest in keeping us in the dark.
Properly informed governments genuinely invested in reducing obesity, heart disease, premature aging, stroke, diabetes, depession, mental illness and the like will move far more aggressively towards education, prevention and enlightenment ... not mandated polypills and more regulations to muzzle outspoken people with brains, but limited recognised qualifications!
Of course, this is unlikely because there is too much money in the current system which creates patients that remain dependant for life.
But please ... can't someone stop all the meaningless drivel and just call it like it is?
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2 comments:
Of course they can't stop the meaningless drivel. That would require that people actually think, instead of blindly accepting whatever pap the popular media is spouting at the time. The cholesterol myth was debunked over 20 years ago, HRT causes cancer, margarine and other hydrogenated fats are not better for you than butter. Any thinking person is aware of these things. But if it's not in the tabloids or soap operas, people don't see or hear it. And who takes responsibility for their own health? Go to the doctor for the magic talisman or prescription and make the symptoms go away. It won't fix the problem, but you will feel better, or at least you won't care.
Hi Jan
Thanks for your comment. I agree with you that people know and simply can't be bothered.
My problem is when governments recruit highly qualified people to "solve" the obesity problem (for example) ... then do absolutely nothing to make an impact on the problem. Lip service is paid, resources are wasted. A few more people climb on the bandwagon.
But the supermarkets are still chock-a-block with poisons. We still feed kids chips, crisps, fried crap etc ... and we still regard yogurt and refined breakfast cereals as health foods.
So nobody learns anything ... even though (allegedly) we are all clear about what we should be doing. I don't think we do.
Then the people who point this out have to walk around on egg shells worried that someone will misconstrue what they say as medical counsel unless they make some generic qualifier pointing out what every adult should know already.
The stakes are serious, but we still all have to go through the dance.
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