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 I have tried to share my knowledge of
>Celiac disease with nurses, doctors psychologists, and dietitians, who
>simply nod, and comment that "it is an interesting" comment.  So, there is a
>percentage of folks in this area as well.
>Jack and Connie O'Brien

I'm afraid this is a typical response of most health professionals.  When I
was diagnosed with CD, my GI doc arranged for me to have a nutritional
consultation with the hospital dietician.  Her first comment to me was that
she hoped that I never had to be admitted to a hospital because there was no
way a hospital could provide me with a gluten free meal!

She then told me that if I wanted to gain my weight back, I should eat foods
that contained large amounts of sugar ie.candy.  Since I had always been
interested in nutrition and have studied it for years, I was naturally
shocked.  I ignored the dietician's advice, followed my own diet, and
promptly gained 40 pounds.  In fact my recovery was so dramatic that  my
doctor asked me if I wouldn't mind advising some of his celiac patients on
proper nutrition.

I no longer trust health care professionals until they have proven
themselves.  A recent article in the New York Times reported that the
American Dieticians Association (might have the name wrong)has been
accepting large donations from major corporations like Coca Cola and
McDonalds in return for the association's endorsement of the corporate
product as being part of a balanced diet or some such BS.

And this is only the tip of the ice berg.  A couple of months ago I spent
two weeks on the island of Kauai.  (My wife and I to there  at least every
year and have many interesting friends on the island.)  An acquaintance of
mine introduced me to an ethnobiologist who told me how the department heads
of major universities (He mentioned  Harvard in particular) would sell their
professional credentials to the highest bidder. Corporate sponsers  would
approach the university with the  proposition that they fund a chair in
exchange for the university "proving" something to be true.  For example,
instead of the university studying how  eating  fast food burgers affected
health, they would set out to prove that fast food burgers did not adversely
affect health and indeed might even enhance it.  There is a profound
philisophical difference in the two approaches.  Anything can be proved as
long as one is will to ignore evidence.  My friend went on to say that if
you were a researcher and protested on ethical grounds, your career would be
finished.  If you persisted and threatened to go public, somebody would
synthesize a chemical in the lab and "slip it to you." You would then be
carted off to the funny farm never to be heard from again.

Although this guy had impressive credentials and his work has even been
written up in the popular press -- Time, Newsweek, People, etc. -- I was a
little sceptical about his claims until I got back home.  The next day I
noticed  an AP article in our local paper about a Chinese reasearcher who
worked for a major government lab who was charging that her department head
slipped a radioactive isotope in her coffee to kill her unborn child.
Apparrently she was doing some advanced genetic research and could not keep
up the 15 hour days because of her pregnancy.  Her department head told her
the research was too important (He wanted to patent the technique) and that
she would have to get an abortion.  She refused.  There is plenty of
evidence to back her claim and the  government is prosecuting the case.
Imagine how this woman must feel after escaping from Red China to come to
the United States to have a child and then having  a doctor try to kill her
baby?

I know this is an extreme case, but it is not uncommon at the highest
levels.  These are the levels where the information is controled. The moral
is to always research for yourself.

--

Cliff Kotchka
Riverside, Illinois

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