‘Under the Influence’
In answer to a flippant response I received by a die-hard carnivore (and good friend), that we all die of something, after sending an email that a meat-based diet increases the chances of colorectal cancer by 300%, I sent this response on 3/27:
So, maybe it doesn’t matter what we’ll die of. But I just got a copy of “A New Perspective: The State of Pharmacy in America” which is either a new magazine, or a new name for an old one. I saw a blurb on one page that caught my eye. And then a few others that I thought I’d share….
“In 2004, national health expenditures were $1.9 TRILLION
4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.
Source: National Coalition on Health Care”PRESCRIPTIONS GALORE
“At least 4.1 billion prescriptions will be dispensed at retail pharmacies in 2010.
Source: National Association of Chain Drug Stores”“In 2005, the number of per-capita prescriptions filled at U.S. retail pharmacies was 12.3.
Source: Prescription Drug Trends, Kaiser Family Foundation”“Importation of pharmaceutical products from Canada totaled about $700 million in 2003, versus U.S. Pharmaceutical sales of more than $210 billion. Prescription imports from the rest of the world totaled about $700 million as well.
Sources: Prescription Drug Trends, Kaiser Family Foundation, IMS Nationa Sales Perspectives.”There are other little factoids, too.
Thinking back to the email I sent over the weekend about colorectal cancer (2nd highest death rate among cancers, not all deaths, by the way) my general attitude is that there is something seriously wrong in our society, when the US population averages 12.3 prescriptions per year (not just the elderly, but a national average), and we spend 4.3 times our defense budget on healthcare, even while we’re in the middle of a war and probably have a higher defense budget than normal. (And people complain about how much our government spends on defense!)
One underlying point I was trying to make was that it is our “patriotic duty” to take some personal responsibility to prevent disease, instead of “maintaining” it, while researchers spend charitable donations testing on animals to “find a cure”. The Baby Boomers are going to bankrupt Medicare.
And since there are respected doctors out there who say we can prevent or reverse major diseases with simple lifestyle changes, why aren’t more people taking a serious look at that?
And this just adds a little fuel to my argument that poor countries can not afford to base a developing economy on animal agriculture, because, for one thing, they can not afford to “maintain” American diseases the way we can “maintain” ours with our pharmaceutical crutches.
4/1:
I just caught the tail end of this story on 60 Minutes:
“Under the Influence”I have no confidence in the drug industry, just as I have no confidence in the researchers who get paid the big bucks to torture animals to “find a cure”.
This story makes public an obscene misuse of power. And I can’t help but wonder if it is because the government is in bed with the drug industry, that people lose their Vioxx cases against Merck — to name just one example of what I wonder about.