Monday, September 06, 2004

McBypass Nation: Too Many American Hearts are Diseased

By Mickey Z.

Read full article...

Posted 09/06 | Add a Comment

    Comments:

    You must register to comment.

    Login | Register

  1. Fantastic, fact packed article Mick.

    Do folks know Dr. Vernon Coleman’s book: How To Stop Your Doctor Killing You.

    The name says it all. Dr. Coleman calls the medical profession a bunch of whore’s to the pharmaceutical industry, and when they are not doling out dangerous meds the surgeons are hacking away at people with their blunt instruments, chasing the symptoms and not the causes of cancer (and heart disease) while causing a lot of pain to the patients (and costing a lot of money). The Cancer Industry is a huge failure (regarding curing or preventing cancer), and a huge success at making a few people rich. Thus, the med industry rejects alernative medicines and techniques because of their arrogance, stupidity and greed. The medical industry does not rely on sound science, this is an important fact.

    Dr.Coleman recommends a vegetarian/vegan diet to avoid or fight cancer if you get it. Instead, most people will be given the choice of three methods that will likely kill the patient: chemo/radiation “therapy” (is having a bunch of thugs beat the crap out of you “therapy”?) or surgery-- which will at least make money for the medical industry!

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  09/06  at  06:03 PM

  2. Don’t know that book...but I love the title. Thanks…

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  09/06  at  06:47 PM

  3. As a survivor of (a minor form of) cancer, I think any doctor that advises his patient against treatment (diets are something else...) then his license should be revoked.

    That is the problem with capitalist health care, it becomes as Rick says, “an industry.” Where I live, at least we still have public health care.  I do know that I got cancer from living in an area around the great lakes, tapwater, etc....but if I wasn’t treated, I’d be dead. 

    I think that it is highly highly irresponsible to lend a radical imprimateur (sp?) to the concept of being against medical science.  Against its capitalist abuses is fair and good, but veganism wouldn’t have cured me, thanks.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  09/06  at  09:29 PM

  4. I’m glad you’re healthy now...but I never claimed veganism “cures” anything.

    As for the efficacy of standard cancer treatments, well, that’s for another article.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  09/06  at  09:40 PM

  5. I didn’t mean to imply that this is what you were implying.  I was simply stating that as a rule, one should be circumspect about these things.  God knows how many people I know who have lost faith in medical science.

    I have a lot of issues, to be frank, with vegan and vegetarian fundamentalism, but that is also another story ;)...(When I hear “animal rights” people telling Natives that they can’t do what has been ritually theirs for centuries, I can’t help but wonder if that energy would be better expended on other things.)

    Posted by j cummings from  on  09/06  at  11:39 PM

  6. “(When I hear “animal rights” people telling Natives that they can’t do what has been ritually theirs for centuries, I can’t help but wonder if that energy would be better expended on other things.)”

    There ARE tribes in the world that have been sacrificing and or eating humans for centuries. Is this also ok with you? Hasn’t the world become civilized enough in the 21st century to stop old, barbaric rituals?

    Posted by boochips from FL  on  09/07  at  12:14 AM

  7. Boo…

    The ‘Civilized’, 21st century west has ZERO clout when it comes to telling indigenous ‘tribes’ as you call them, how to go about living thier lives - cannibals inluded. What is ‘barbaric’ and what is not is entirely relative. 

    And lest you may think otherwise, this has NOTHING to do with bashing Vegans, or being against the promotion of a vegan lifestyle. But ‘enlightened’ 21st century persons, vegan or otherwise, should not believe they are in any position to dictate what is culturally correct - this is cultural imperialism, plain and simple…

    Posted by CK from  on  09/07  at  12:58 AM

  8. CK writes: But ‘enlightened’ 21st century persons, vegan or otherwise, should not believe they are in any position to dictate what is culturally correct - this is cultural imperialism, plain and simple.

    The above comment (complete with quotation marks around the word “enlightened") is more than just a thinly veiled critique of those who take responsibiltiy for their own actions…

    It’s “culturally correct” in many countries to kill female babies at birth...throw acid in a woman’s face if she is not wearing a veil...keep humans as slaves...hold cock fights or dog fights...kill bulls for entertainment...execute humans with state-sanctioned lethal injections...and so on.

    Is it “cultural imperialism” to question such behavior?

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  09/07  at  05:34 AM

  9. I think there is a fine line.  It is certainly not cultural imperialism to imply that Americans eat too many cheeseburgers.  And I hate the concept when applied to human rights in the Third World.  But at the same time...running with the bulls, so to speak, is cruel, but there are far more cruel things in the world…

    Posted by j cummings from  on  09/07  at  09:24 AM

  10. >>The above comment (complete with quotation marks around the word “enlightened") is more than just a thinly veiled critique of those who take responsibiltiy for their own actions…<<

    Well that’s a bit of a stretch. Frankly Mickey your closing paragraph sounds a bit too ‘white-man’s-burden-like’ for my taste.

    What I was advocating was not a ‘blank check’ approach - an approval to partake in any sort of heinious, exploitative activity so long as it is under the guise of being ‘cultural.’ For instance something like foxhunting which fuctions as an exhibitionist leisure/social activity for upper crust individuals at great cost to the animal being ‘hunted’, while vaguely ‘cultural, has no ‘inherent’ meaning or value. Big difference between this and the indiginous persons that may sacrifice the odd goat of two, or the African tribes that roast baby pigs as a celebratory dinner, or the South American natives that engage in pummelling one other, without malice, (but sometimes at severe personal cost) to appease the gods of rain.

    Nature, contrary to whitewashed mythology, is infinately capable of utter waste, cruelty, pain and the grotesque (albeit nothing like the calculated practices of ‘civilized’ humans.) Yet it remains wonderful - It, nor the people closest to it, need be sanitized for our comfort (or its/their own). 

    Incidently, you may want to see what feminist Germaine Greer has written regaurding female genital mutilation, for a new perspective on some of these ideas…

    Posted by CK from  on  09/07  at  12:07 PM

  11. You’re being very selective with your evidence. Foxhunting has no meaning so it’s out. Roasting pigs does...so it’s in? Who’s doing the whitewashing here?

    The point of my article was that Clinton’s reaction to his bypass and the media coverage of his health issues ignored the role of prevention and, for all intents and purposes, absolved Americans of any responsibility or guilt when it comes to health.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  09/07  at  12:13 PM

  12. You honestly cannot make the distiction? You’re even more rigid than I first believed…

    Regaurding the Clinton thing… Tepid addmission as it was, I’m curious as to why you felt the need to COMPLETELY ommit the other half of his quotaion about the causes of his ailment -namely ‘lapses in his exercise routine’ and admitting he had ‘done...damage in those years when I was too careless about what I ate.’

    Posted by CK from  on  09/07  at  12:54 PM

  13. It is an endless source of fascination for me that I’m “rigid” when I adhere to a vegan lifestyle for scientific and ethical reasons...but I’m praised rather widely for my equally diligent efforts to challenge all aspects of our corporate culture, foreign policy, etc. Could it be that is much easier to be against bombing children than it is to change our own life?

    As for the Clinton quote, anyone paying attention understands why I focused on the “genetics” part. It was what he said first and it is what the media will play up to dismiss the role our lifestyle plays in making us sick.

    Gotta run now...Ox has been missing in action for a while but I am not campaigning to take his place.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  09/07  at  01:06 PM

  14. Some would say that it is “just deserts” for Americans to be fat, sick and have shorter lives.  Or to be more blunt, I don’t think that living longer more ascetic lives is the be all and end all.  We don’t save ourselves by choosing to live healthier.  We save our bodies.  It is a peculiarly American habit for the left to be so puritanical about food and booze and smokes. 

    Aside from being slightly facetious, I will say that promoting veganism and vegetarianism is one thing, but implying that it is “saving” someone is something else.  I was a vegetarian.  Now I’m not.  I think that a lot of starving people could use more, not less meat.  I think the larger notion that animates some people that “killing animals for food is wrong” is very simplistic. On the other hands, overuse, waste, and the particular concentration of agriculture towards beef is a real issue. 

    People who are concerned about this - maybe should not attempt to assert that the (very expensive) vegan diet is more moral, but work to lower the prices of healthy food by popularizing them, etc.

    Don’t mean to engage any further and am certainly not trying to take away from how anyone’s stance, except to say that it is not “better” to live according to dietary laws, simply healthier.  That was what Jewish and Muslim laws were about...and it certainly is healthier to be a vegan.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  09/07  at  02:21 PM

  15. Addressing Jordy’s earlier point, Dr. Vernon Coleman does NOT advocate NOT seeking a doctor’s advice or getting treatment, and is very careful to advocate that patients weigh all options. His main point is that doctors are schooled to only offer the big three: chemo/radiation or surgery, all of which are reductionist techniques that generally damage the patient more than they help. As for attacking medical science, that is precisely the point: medical science itself admits that most of its research is NOT scientifically rigorous.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  09/07  at  06:16 PM

  16. From: How to stop your doctor killing you, by Dr. Vernon Coleman, page36:

    “A few years ago the British Medical Journal reported that there are ‘perhaps 30,000 biomedical journals in the world, and that they have grown steadily by 7 percent a year since the 17th century.’ The editorial also reported that: ‘only about 15 percent of medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence’ and ‘only 1 percent of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound’.”

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  09/07  at  07:31 PM

  17. Couldn’t resist:

    There are 80 million gun owners in America and 1500 accidental gun deaths per year. There are 700,000 doctors in the U.S. who cause 120,000 accidental deaths per year. Statistically speaking, doctors are 9000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

    (from an old articleof mine. )

    Posted by Mickey Z from  on  09/07  at  07:37 PM

  18. Point taken Mic, but for the record, those numbers (I’ve seem them regurgitated before on numerous pro-gun sites) are certainly a bit skewed.

    For one...those figures fail to account for ‘non-accidental’ gun deaths (seeing how guns are designed to intentionally cause death.)

    Two, the ‘doctor deaths’ figure includes deaths caused by infection (nearly half the figure) in hospitals (which may or not be directly related to a given doctors actions.)

    Third, those figures fail to take into account the number the of patients that each doctor is treating...Considering perhaps 100 million American people are ‘patients’ withing the medical system, the 120,000 figure does not loom so overwhelmingly large. Gun owners are essentially not passing around their loaded weapons to hundreds of people on any given day…


    But the bottom line remains, regaurdless of whether doctors are ill-intentioned or not, careless or not...as long as the dollar controls things (via the industrial medical complex, in veiled collusion with the insurance industry) profit and bad science will continue to win out…

    Posted by RzG from  on  09/08  at  01:18 AM

  19. Since we have gotten onto the topic of causes of death here--may we all live long and prosper!--Dr. Coleman’s books, including The Story of Medicine, are written for the lay reader, are enjoyable and full of common sense suggestions. They are slightly polemical but by and large, incredibly informative and fair minded, well intentioned yet hard hitting.

    People living longer, healthier lives has had less to do with physicians (there have been some good ones) and more to do with other complex socio-economic reasons. The invention of decent sewers being the most obvious example. However, Florence Nightengale’s reputation is apparently well deserved.

    Let us liberate ourselves from the medical industrial death complex asap.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from Tokyo, Japan  on  09/08  at  04:33 AM
    20. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

    Next entry: Radical Double Blackmail

    Previous entry: Taking on Dangerous Lies: A Response to Zel Miller’s Speech

    [ads]

    Support Press Action