Health Headlines

Health headlines I found on Google news today:

I found all these headlines somehow rather disturbing.

The idea of health checks (first headline) bothers me these days, because in the past you used to go and tell doctors that you were unwell, but now it seems that they tell you. That’s a major reversal of roles.

Furthermore, how do you “spot dementia early”? Are the signs visible? I very much doubt that they are.

And how can you “spot” any psychological disorder. Can they read people’s minds these days.

Also, the WHO seems to have been redefining the meaning of the word “epidemic”

The WHO FCTC was developed in response to the globalization of the tobacco epidemic. The spread of the tobacco epidemic is facilitated through a variety of complex factors with cross-border effects, including trade liberalization and direct foreign investment. Other factors such as global marketing, transnational tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and the international movement of contraband and counterfeit cigarettes have also contributed to the explosive increase in tobacco use.

There is, it would seem, a “tobacco epidemic” which has seen “the explosive increase in tobacco use.” Are we now to believe that when there is an explosive increase in anything, it’s an “epidemic.” For example, when the Beatles became globally popular back in the 1960s, was there a “Beatles epidemic”? Were Beatles fans treated with doses of Frank Sinatra to cure them of their malady? Is the current explosive growth in populism in Europe yet another epidemic?

Call me old-fashioned, but I think epidemics entail explosive increases in transmissible diseases like bubonic plague or measles. So I now wonder whether any of the “epidemics” that the medical profession is now fighting actually are genuine epidemics at all. I certainly don’t think the “tobacco epidemic” is a genuine epidemic.

Anyway, once you’ve gone for your health check and been told that you’re suffering from Alzheimer’s, it looks like there’ll soon be an injection to slow its development (third headline). So they’ll be able to sell you that for the rest of your life.

You can invent as many new diseases as you like, and the cures for them too. I could be suffering from “Frank’s disorder”, which includes, among other things, a disbelief in Global Warming. And I might be “treated” for the “disorder” with numerous books by Al Gore.

And then there’s the “cancer risk of bacon” (second headline). Which seems to apply also to ham. Somehow I’m not surprised that they’ve picked on bacon and ham, because they’re among the tastiest foods available, and they always go for what people like the most.

And finally there’s “seven steps to stopping drinking” (fourth headline). Here again something that many people like doing (having a few drinks and getting a bit merry) is something they’re being asked by these killjoys to stop doing for a month. Soon it’ll be two months, and then three months, and finally it will be stopping drinking completely, of course. And you won’t be being asked: you’ll be being told.

And why are there seven steps? Why not just one?

Will anyone be healthier as a result? Well, since the doctors have decided that they and they alone knows what’s healthy and who’s healthy, only they will be able to tell us.

All of which only strengthens me in my conviction that the medical profession is going to have to be completely dismantled and root-and-branch reformed. They’ve all got to be too arrogant. They think they know far more than they actually do know. The medical profession needs to be reduced to a similar status as that of motor mechanics or plumbers: people you call in when you’ve got a problem with your car or your home’s plumbing.

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Finally, hat tip to (Belgian) Kirk, Love Is Like A Cigarette, sung by Vera Lynn:

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Happy New Year.