On Dec 31, 2005, at 6:54 am, Ken Stuart wrote:

> I'd be willing to be that at least 98% of "people who have ever  
> been chronically
> ill" believe that modern medicine works.   (Probably, more like  
> 99.98%)

It'd be interesting to do some research into faith in the beast of  
medicine.  I've spoke to a lot of people who have give up all hope in  
doctors (one is 24 too).  But there are also people who seem resigned  
that the beast is their only choice, and if they continue to get sick  
it's because nobody could help them anyway.


> And, in fact it does work !    The medical industry is expanding  
> rapidly, and
> consumes an ever greater amount of the world economy - a tremendous  
> success
> story - as long as you don't gauge it's success by the health of  
> its patients,
> of course.

No of course not, success is determined by share prices :D


> This is because - like all industries - the main product being sold is
> propaganda.
>
> Notice how they now have an illegal monopoly - on health advice.    
> If you don't
> qualify any health advice with "but be sure to see your doctor  
> first", you are
> likely to get sued.

Have you ever read Illich's Medical Nemesis?  He puts across the  
exact same point, except he does it in words of no less than 14  
letters.  He says we have handed the right to decide who is ill and  
who is not away to the hospitals, which have become a sort of  
cathedral to disease.  I was fobbed off with the same "there's  
nothing wrong with you" BS.  I mean come on- OF COURSE THERE'S  
SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME OR I WOULDN'T HAVE COME TO YOUR SURGERY,  
IDIOT!  Makes me so angry some times...

> Suppose you have two products.   One is fabulously great, but has  
> no marketing
> and sales effort whatsoever.
>
> The other product is complete crap, but has millions of people  
> working to
> promote and market it, including statements throughout society  
> extolling how
> wonderful it is.
>
> One might reluctantly conclude at that point that the second  
> product is going to
> be far more successful than the first product, BUT I am not done.
>
> Included in the vast worldwide promotion for the second product are  
> seductive
> commercials promoting the ingestion of small round objects, the  
> effect of which
> is to dull people's minds, and make most of the populace even less  
> capable of
> making a rational decision.
>
> And, in addition, in all aspects of society, consumption of foods  
> that make the
> brain foggy and incapable of making rational decisions, is  
> constantly promoted.

I wouldn't go as far to say as the pills they advertise dull people's  
minds - at least not permanently - but they do condition us to think  
in terms of "I am ill, therefore I must find the right pill to  
take".  When we walk into a doctor's, we don't expect him to tell us  
that our lifestyle is making us ill.  In fact we don't WANT him to do  
that; we would rather be plied with drugs instead.  After all  
something that costs a lot of money is better than something free.  I  
work with a guy that just spent over £200 on a food allergy test for  
his wife when I've been telling him for months how he can do it more  
accurately for free.  (Incidentally, in the UK the NHS's standard  
advice on food intolerance appears to be to restrict your diet to  
lamb and cauliflower for 3 months, then introduce a new food every 3  
months after that!!!  Ok - I'm exaggerating the food list but not the  
time scale.)


> Given all that, I'm surprised there are more than 3 or 4 people  
> reading this
> list.

Since my boss started paleo, one of the things he's brought up most  
was his disbelief that things that are so wrong (eg sat fat = heart  
disease) could be peddled to so many people.  Personally, I think  
it's not the fact that these food dull our minds that is the problem,  
it's the fact they're highly addictive.  Somewhere in Not All in the  
Mind, Richard Mackarness describes how he radically improved the  
health of a schizophrenic woman by eliminating certain foods.  He did  
a double blind test to prove to the other doctors at the mental  
health institute that it was indeed foods that were causing the issue  
but they apparently just dismissed it as a freak case- he doesn't  
mention any of them changing their attitudes to food.  The only thing  
I can think is that because the other doctors are also addicted to  
these foods, they dismiss the thought that they could be causing  
disease to save themselves from emotional distress.  I can't think of  
*any* other reason how such enormous misinformation about food has  
been indoctrinated into otherwise intelligent people.  If that's not  
the reason, I'd do anything to know what is.


Ashley