Corbie et al,

I tend to agree with Troy.  I'd rather think like you, but it gets more and
more difficult to do so.  Especially with pharmaceutical companies like
Roche releasing new drugs like Xenicol.  To kick off the release of the
drug, they sent their entire sales force to Disneyworld for a week.  That's
got to be pretty expensive.  They are banking on serious profit.  (Do you
know that once someone starts using Xenicol for weight loss, to maintain
that loss they must continue taking Xenicol for life?)

I find it impossible to believe that pharmaceutical companies are ignorant
enough of the workings of the human body to still think that low-fat is
correct.  Doctors, perhaps; mostly they probably just read the studies
funded by the groups who stand to profit from maintaining the status quo,
to use Troy's term.  Drug companies, no way.  But there is no profit in
low-carb.  And after some of the stories I've heard in recent years about
lobbyists and government, I have no trouble at all picturing a scenario
that just 8 months ago (before I heard of low-carb and paleolithic
nutrition) would have sounded like a nutty conspiracy theory to me.  (A few
months ago, the FDA recommended adding another serving of grains to the
daily intake.  The study upon which they based this decision was funded by
the Denver Wheat Growers' Council.)

If you think that it's nuts that a pharmaceutical company would be involved
in such things, think about the tobacco companies.  How long have they
known they were killing Americans?  (and everyone else they could get, for
that matter?)  How long has the government known they were killing people?
 Why did it continue unabated for so long.  Pressure and re-election
campaign money from tobacco company lobbyists.  I truly believe that in 5,
10, or 20 years, there will be a similar debacle with the government, the
AMA, and the pharmaceutical companies all being involved in lawsuits, etc.,
because of holding back on this information.

Take care,
John Pavao

----------
At 11:49 AM 7/14/97 -0500, you wrote:
>The media make money from advertisers. Nearly half of television
>advertising, for example, is paid for by producers of low-fat,
>carbohydrate-rich foodstuffs.
>
>And what would pharmaceutical companies and doctors do if autoimmune
>disease was drastically reduced through a massive shift to
>low-carbohydrate/Paleolithic eating?
>
>A lot of people have a lot to gain from maintaining the status-quo
>common wisdom of the low-fat diet.
>
>Troy Gilchrist <[log in to unmask]>
>Co-author, NEANDERTHIN: A CAVEMAN'S GUIDE TO NUTRITION

I doubt the media is influenced by low-fat diet via advertising dollars;
it's more likely that they're just as brainwashed as the rest of society by
the prevailing medical orthodoxy.  Maybe more so, since many media
personalities are obsessed by personal appearance (a job hazard).

The low-fat regime is a self-perpetuating problem.  I doubt that there's a
vast conspiracy by pharmaceuticals to perpetuate disease by promoting
high-carb diets.  It's most likely that they're also caught up in the same
paradigm, and it's only as low-carb succeeds as a grass-roots movement that
things will change.

Corbie