NO FREE LUNCH

The CBC was recently reporting on the increasing concern about the level of influence the drug industry has on doctors' medical decisions. Adam Hoffman, founder of the McGill University chapter of the U.S. not-for-profit group No Free Lunch, estimates that as much as 70 per cent of continuing medical education activities in Canada are sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry.

There is no denying that the medical profession is greatly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry that has infiltrated our universities, our health agencies, our bureaucrats, our hospitals and even as far as into our homes through television and the internet. When brand names such as Viagra, Valium, Prozak have become part of our casual conversations as if they were a common household name like Kleenex, we know that we are living in a dangerously over- medicated society. Believing that our young doctors, who were educated by our heavily pharma funded universities and work day in and day out in medicalized environments are not influenced consciously or subconsciously by them, is like believing that someone who works in fashion is not influenced by the latest designer trends. As one doctor put it to the writer of this comment when questioned why he was prescribing the expensive drug Avandia over less expensive older drugs that are as, if not more, effective in lowering sugar levels : ‘’Errrm, I guess it’s a trend to prescribe Avandia now’’! It speaks volumes of the reasons certain drugs - usually newer drugs with patent rights still in effect - are favored over others by many doctors! Incidentally, Avandia is no longer ‘’trendy’’ because it has been linked with increased risks for heart attacks.

The bigger tragedy in all this however is that our healthcare system is woven so tightly that we cannot escape it unless we want to live in the margins of society and resort to strictly alternative medicine. Sadly, we can no longer pick and choose which drug treatment we want to receive from our doctor and which we would rather not because it goes against our better judgment. For example, if a person refuses to be medicated for his heart condition by a certain drug or drugs that his cardiologist is adamant in prescribing, he may be labeled as a rebel against all conventional medicine and may even be refused further follow-ups and treatment by his specialist who has more ‘’deserving’’ patients to look after. Good luck trying to find another specialist or a GP to replace him. This can even result in the ‘’rebel’’ losing his driver’s license since, depending on his condition, he is obligated by law to have regular check-ups by a government approved practitioner who will give the green light for its renewal.

We are thankful that there are some watchdogs looking over the activities of the medical profession but unfortunately we are still very far from making meaningful differences and this as long as the majority of individuals will not have awaken (and started loudly denouncing) to the fact that health is a humongous industry and like every other industry it is subject to dishonesty and corruption. Unfortunately, even those professionals who have chosen the medical profession out of love and compassion towards their fellow humans can be subjected to insidious manipulations by the pharmaceutical industry that is increasingly proving to be no more ethical or moral than the next robber baron.

Drug firms' influence raises concerns

NO TO STATE FUNDING OF PHARMACEUTICAL QUIT SMOKING PRODUCTS!

Smoking cessation drugs never have been more aggressively marketed than in the last 5 years in Canada, yet smoking rates have remained stagnant in that same period. Are our health authorities and so called experts suffering from a severe case of attention deficit disorder to keep repeating the same errors over and over and over, or just over-influenced (euphemism for corrupted) to keep pushing the same medication down people’s throats and now even asking taxpayers to foot the bill for ‘’remedies’’ that have a documented 98,4% failure rate?

For those who read French, please read our previous article on the extensive enquiry one unbiased French media recently did on the cessation drug market and the lies being served to us left right and center about the remedies peddled from the pharmaceutical giants. Read how instrumental Big Pharma was in implementing smoking bans and heavy artillery anti-smoking campaigns to serve their bottom line. Read how the old inexpensive cold turkey method is the only one that has shown successful long term results in kicking the habit. Do we really want the taxpayers, non-smokers and smokers, alike to subsidize this fraudulent market? Do we really want to raise the already prohibitive tobacco taxes to help make Big Pharma richer all the while creating an even bigger underground tobacco market in Canada? What other medication with a 98,4% failure rate that we know of would be endorsed by the Canadian Medical Association?

Please say a resounding NO to any plans to fund pharmaceutical quit smoking aids. Enough with this incestuous relationship between Big Pharma and a prestigious association that is shamelessly abusing our trust!

Medical journal calls on provinces to fund quit-smoking drugs

STRONG DOSE OF CLEANSING CURE NEEDED

Did we tell you that the ‘’healthscare’’ industry is slowly but surely losing all credibility? Of course we did and when we read op-eds such as the one in the StarPhoenix today, we are both happy and sad to see reporters and citizens cautioning journalists and epidemiologists to get serious already! Happy because the day can’t be too far when real science will regain the place politicized science has stolen from it, sad because until then, people have no idea who and what to trust anymore when it comes to their personal well-being. The present public health system is sick and it needs a strong dose of cleansing to cure it from the parasite epidemic it has been afflicted with in the past couple of decades.

Excerpts from : Dose of healthy skepticism needed

Bronwyn Eyre, The StarPhoenix

Call me a micro-mother, but I already have a future science fair project lined up for my three-year-old son. What I propose is a direct cross-cultural comparison of medical statistics that might put some of our health fixations into perspective.

The project would examine if Italians, for example, who lie for hours in the sun covered in tan-enhancing oil are succumbing to skin cancer at a comparatively higher rate. Or if Germans, many of whom refer to smoking as a "civil right," are in the throes of a lung cancer epidemic.

I suspect the answer is no. But I doubt such perspectives would moderate our national tunnel vision when it comes to health-related issues. Canadian health reporting is given wide journalistic latitude and alarmism is totally acceptable. That is, if we can figure out what we're supposed to be alarmed about.

…………..

Too often, we're hit with the horror headlines, only to discover that the full story is much less frightening. Before they call wolf, health journalists should exercise more caution, particularly when entire industries (such as canola, dairy and beef) are at stake. As for researchers, a bit of cultural compare-and-contrast might occasionally put things in perspective.
Which brings me back to my science fair project. Does enjoying life and moderately partaking in some "unhealthy" habits have no benefits at all? Let's research that.

Please read full article by clicking on its title above.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY

Dr. Michael Siegel was once again the guest of a FORCES round table interview. This time the discussion evolved around the unfair discrimination of smokers.

Indeed smokers have not only been de-normalized socially, they are increasingly discriminated against for employment and healthcare. Although we believe that private employers should have the right to make their own rules when it comes to ‘’on the job’’ smoking and they should have the privilege to decide who they feel is the ‘’best’’ man or woman for the job, we are unfortunately very much against the developing trend where employers are relying on political correctness and public support to discriminate a group of people that they believe is costing them more money. As we see it, if obese people, alcoholics, the handicapped and other groups of people, had public opinion against them the way smokers do, employers would not hesitate to also refuse employment to these groups of people. What is even more repulsive is that public opinion against smokers is the result of government approved insistent propaganda that encourages hostility towards smokers. This resembles a modern form of eugenics whereby only the flawless and the healthiest are deserving citizens.

Even more scandalous is the trend of the medical community who are now starting to refuse to treat smokers for ailments completely unrelated to smoking. This trend is quite spread in the UK where the health system is public and in a financial crisis. This refusal to operate has even been extended to obese people. Many have opined that it simply has to do with saving money. Much like employers, the public healthcare system relies mostly on a complaisant public who remain silent and untouched by such practices because they were conditioned to believe that smokers and the obese brought it upon themselves.

One important point that all should pay close attention when listening to this interview, is the groupthink mentality of tobacco control. Dr. Siegel believes that change towards more ethical and fair policies will not happen from within because the careers and livelihoods of tobacco control professionals would be destroyed if they dared express dissent. There are less than a handful of very wealthy groups that set the agenda for the whole movement and distribute the funds to all the smaller ones who must obey to the dogmatic tobacco control philosophy or see any future grants denied. After having unsuccessfully attempted for seven years to reason with his tobacco control colleagues, Dr. Siegel decided to take it to the public because he felt that the only way to hold the tobacco control movement accountable, is to reveal the truth publicly.

You will have heard it from someone from within: Spread the truth.


Listen to the interview at: How ‘’They’’ Are Treated

THE FAT PHOBIA

We have been trying to bring this phenomenon to the attention of the media and the health authorities, for some time. Naturally, because we don’t hold any fancy medical degrees, our worries were simply ignored.

Any campaign that goes overboard, no matter how noble the end, is bound to bring perverse side effects that can often be worse than the problem it tries to solve. Public health has to go back to the days when they were looking after infectious diseases. Lifestyle choices are not something that public health should meddle with. There are competent and qualified medical authorities that can deal with the problems on a one to one basis with patients and those who seek their advice, according to the individuals’ specific needs and ways to effectively help them.

There isn’t a ‘’one fit all’’ miracle solution. We and our children, are not automatons that can be programmed to act and react uniformly to public health’s theoretical solutions.

Obesity worries show signs of backfiring

Weight becoming an unhealthy obsession for some kids, parents

Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service
Fears about obesity are feeding "fat phobia," experts warn.

They're worried more healthy kids are obsessing about weight -- and more parents are projecting irrational fears about fat on their children.

Some question whether the obesity "epidemic" is even real, and whether schools have any business trying to fight obesity.

"It seems like whenever we decide there is an epidemic people run around helter skelter trying to solve the problem without really thinking about it in an organized fashion," says Dr. Leora Pinhas, a child psychiatrist and psychiatric director of the eating disorders program at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

"I'm not convinced that telling kids that they're fat, or that they might get fat, is a way of solving the problem."

The hospital has seen preteens and teens who attended obesity-prevention programs at school.
They then "decide they're going to be the best kid at not getting fat, (and) then end up losing so much weight that they put themselves medically at risk," Pinhas says.

"They're little kids. They don't have to lose a lot of weight to get sick.

"We have had kids who have been weighed in the gym and then had to deal with how they felt about their weight, and these may have been kids who never weighed themselves before and it hadn't been a concern before," Pinhas says.

Children are being taught in nutrition classes how to cut all fat from their diet.

But, "who buys food, who makes the meals? It's not the eight-year-old," Pinhas says.
"All we seem to do is keep placing more unreasonable expectations on children that can be confusing for them."

Children are hearing that fat is bad. Period. And where anorexia and bulimia before adolescence was once unheard of, hospitals are now seeing eating disorders in children as young as seven.
Children are social sponges, Pinhas says.

" How many times does a kid have to overhear a conversation like, 'Wow, you look great, you lost weight,' or 'Look at my butt, it's really fat, I should cut down on what I'm eating,' or 'All that fat is going to give you a heart attack?'"

Susan Willard says a lot of the pressure to be thin now comes from home.

"It's not infrequent that we see patients who have families who are over-invested in body shape and weight," says Willard, clinical director of the eating disorders treatment centre at River Oaks Hospital in New Orleans, where many patients come from Canada.

In these families, calorie counting, fat-gram counting and exercise "become a primary focus in the home and at the table.

"Kids who grow up in families of that sort believe that it is of very primary importance that they 'eat right' and stay fit and healthy, and that ultimately can turn out to be extremely unhealthy," says Willard, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Tulane University School of Medicine and co-author of the book, When Dieting Becomes Dangerous.

But parents also live in a culture that says what matters most is to be thin. "They're being told over and over again that if their kid is fat, it's like a death sentence. They're being told they're not good parents," Pinhas says.

"I think we should stop worrying about whether someone is fat or not because it's not necessarily an indicator of poor lifestyle or imminent mortality or morbidity."

Dr. Ahmed Boachie says many teens whose weight is healthy believe wrongly that they're overweight. Even campaigns to rid schools of snacks can lead to negative messages and neurosis about food.

"And when they feel that way they're more likely to be dieting," says Boachie, clinical director of the eating disorders program at Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket, Ont.
But a study of nearly 15,000 girls and boys aged nine to 14 showed that dieting not only doesn't work, it actually leads to weight gain. Kids severely restrict their diet, then lose control and binge or overeat, and the cycle continues.

What's more, dieting is considered a risk factor for eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa -- "very chronic and difficult illnesses with often fatal outcomes," Boachie says. Most people who develop eating disorders were never overweight or obese to begin with, he says.

"Eating disorders are illnesses. If any parent has any weight concerns, instead of listening to the street definition of obesity, contact the experts," Boachie says.
A recent study found that girls who eat at least five meals a week with their family are less likely to be preoccupied with dieting.

Signs that a child or teen might be engaged in extreme dieting or have an eating disorder include coming home from school and saying they have already eaten, separating themselves from family at meal times, and complaining of being cold and tired all the time.

Younger children often don't stop eating completely, but they eat less, complain their stomach hurts or say they're not hungry.

"Don't forget, they're small to start with. Losing a few kilos is enough to lose a significant proportion of their body weight," Pinhas says.

"What we end up seeing, sometimes, are kids who just stop growing."

IT IS TIME EPIDEMIOLOGY TAKES A FEW STEPS BACK

The ink of the latest report from the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research urging us that in order to stay healthy we should maintain a body mass index as close to 18 as possible isn’t even dry yet, that a new study is now telling us that actually cancers are not associated with being somewhat overweight and higher weights are associated with better survivals when we get sick. How can we possibly trust any of the advice these so called scientists give us about our personal health? How can governments continue to rely on epidemiological studies to legislate? Isn’t it time epidemiology takes a few steps back and performs what it was meant to perform – studies of infectious diseases?

Clean your plate: a few extra pounds won't kill you

Weight helps to beat some illnesses, study finds
SHARON KIRKEY, CanWest News Service
Deaths studied were grouped into three major categories: cardiovascular disease, cancer and all other causes.
For each cause, the team estimated excess deaths in each category of body mass index, or BMI. A BMI of 25 to less than 30 is considered overweight; a BMI of 30 and over is obese.
Someone who is 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs 174 to 208 pounds would be considered overweight, according to their BMI. More than that, and they're obese.
Obesity - but not overweight - was strongly associated with an increased risk of dying from coronary heart disease, stroke or other forms of cardiovascular disease, accounting for 112,159 excess deaths in the United States in 2004.
The team estimates that obesity is associated "with somewhere between nine and 13 per cent of all cardiovascular mortality," said lead author Katherine Flegal, senior research scientist at the Centres for Disease Control in Hyattsville, Md.
Overall, the team found no association between obesity and cancer deaths when all cancers, including lung cancer, were grouped together.
"We're not trying to say overweight is protective," Flegal said, but there is some evidence higher weights are associated with better survival when you get sick.


We have in the past referred you to Sandy Szwarc’s , BSN, RN, CCP blog, who in her own words performs ‘’ Critical examinations of studies and news on food, weight, health and healthcare that mainstream media misses. ‘’ . She has analyzed the latest report from the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research that appeared this week in the news everywhere. Chances are you won’t read her analysis anywhere in the mainstream media so we invite you to read it at: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/11/jfs-exclusive-whats-evidence-cancers.html