The Complete Train Wreck of Industrialized Medicine

[nightrain]

Alison Rose Levy.
Posted: August 16, 2009 08:50 AM


Robert Thurman: The Sacred Cows in the Health Care Debate


Studies show that over half of all Americans are interested in promoting wellness and preventing disease. But some people are terrified that the food Nazis will come running after them and force feed them spinach.

In a series of upcoming blogs I'll be speaking with thought leaders in integrative medicine and allied fields about the cultural divide on health care. For this blog, I spoke with Columbia University, Professor Robert Thurman, the leading U.S. scholar of Buddhism with a background in Tibetan Medicine.

Alison Rose Levy: Americans have poorer health outcomes than any other developed nation. That must be coming from how we approach health care. What are the blindspots that prevent us from recognizing and getting the health care we need?

Robert Thurman: It's not a matter of fixing this or that institution or changing how we pay for health insurance. It requires a social movement. In Tibetan medicine and most other world medicines, when someone is unwell, they first look at lifestyle and diet because those two things are the major poisoning and major healing of people.

ARL: What is poisoning people ?

RT: When people eat food filled with artificial chemicals, addictive substances, hormones, preservatives, and antibiotics, these substances destroy the flora and fauna of their internal immune system.

ARL: Making them less able to fight off diseases? So are you saying that many of the causes of an individual health problem are societal?

RT: Yes, we have these sacred cows, like the food industry which controls the FDA and produces these horrible meats and milks, and chemicalizes the soil with chemical fertilizer, generally poisoning both the food and the environment in which the whole population lives.

ARL: Well, why is this overlooked?

RT: In medical school, doctors aren't taught about nutrition. They're taught to scorn the idea that food is important.

In high tech, high research, big hospital activity, they are completely removed from the daily life of people. The general practitioners in our system mostly come from abroad because our people are trained and conditioned to go into industrialized medicine and reductionist science, which is almost a distraction from the real health needs of people.

It's an overall corruption that arises from being captured by an industrial mindset that ruins medical practices by making medicine an industry rather than an art.

ARL: Why do people tune out or go into denial about the impact of these forces on their health? Why is this so hard to face up to? Because it's so pervasive?

BT: The whole system is corrupt-- starting with the politicians. They're paid for by the big industries, and they promulgate rules and regulations that don't support the well-being of the population.

Academic institutions are similarly corrupted because the people in the science departments are funded by government and corporate grants given by the very corporations that want to distract people from the real cause of their difficulties.

The problem is also with our rigidified scientific way of approaching health -- we're not being thorough enough in our science.

If we were being scientific, doctors would have to look at how people are afflicted by this poisoned lifestyle. Doctors would really have to go after the food industry, the medical industry, and the pharmaceutical industry and we'd all have to admit to the complete train wreck of what I call industrialized medicine.

ARL With all of the health debate going on right now, there's not a lot of clarity on these points. People tend to believe what they believe about health care without realizing that their beliefs are formed and shaped by media and marketing messages.

RT: People are mis-educated by the media. The final straw was when Reagan allowed monopolies in the media and canceled the Fairness Doctrine. This turns the media into a propaganda machine for the current system-- so people are just totally confused.

You can see this in the debate on insurance reform. Insurance companies put out propaganda that a public option will end up denying and rationing people health care, where the HMOs are denying people and rationing health care right now.

ARL: How can we change this?

RT: It requires a mental and scientific revolution in which the U.S. decides to bracket commercial concerns, and actually analyze the soil, the food and lifestyle of the people--and then go after those who are giving people poisoned substances to consume. That is the cause of all the diseases people experience, and those are the causes of the disruption of the health of people living in an abundant society, like ours.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/robert-thurman-the-sacred_b_257651.html

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Wow. I thought Bob Thurman was a legitimate scholar.

I had no idea he was so full of horseshit.

[nightrain]

2. something substantive please...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Let me know when Thurman starts with something substantive.

As opposed to "chemicals bad, woo woo good," baloney.

[nightrain]

4. I see you have nothing substantive to say then, okay. or try again to refute

an issue Thurman raised.

It's just far too easy to say "horseshit" without anything more. It weakens your position.

Just one issue. Try again.

[Greyhound]

7. When has he ever? n/t

[nightrain]

8. do you mean HiFructose?

[Greyhound]

20. Yep. n/t

:kick:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. You want me to go through the whole thing for you? Fine.

"It's not a matter of fixing this or that institution or changing how we pay for health insurance."

It's not a matter of fixing health insurance? But that's the only reason we lag behind the other industrialized nations. The actual treatments are the same.

"It requires a social movement. In Tibetan medicine and most other world medicines, when someone is unwell, they first look at lifestyle and diet because those two things are the major poisoning and major healing of people. "

1. Tibetan medicine is well behind the U.S. Unless he's talking about woo woo medicine, which isn't real medicine, and has never cured anybody of anything.

And it's probably woo woo that he's talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Tibetan_medicine

"When people eat food filled with artificial chemicals, addictive substances, hormones, preservatives, and antibiotics, these substances destroy the flora and fauna of their internal immune system."

Yet these aren't poisoning anybody, and they aren't making anybody sick.

The leading causes of death in the United States are:


1) Heart disease 27.2 - caused by high fat diet (Tibetans also have a high fat diet) but also genetics. Have heart disease? See western medicine.

2) Cancer 24.3 - almost entirely genetic, except for smoking and radon and sun exposure. Again, only hope for cancer is western medicine. Realigning the chakras ain't going to do it.

3) Unintentional injuries 6.1 - I don't artificial preservatives are going to explain that one.

4) Stroke 5.0 - same as heart disease

5) Chronic lower respiratory diseases 5.0 - smoking

6) Diabetes 3.0 - diet, which western medicine is well aware of.

7) Influenza and pneumonia 2.3 - viruses and bacteria. Treatable with pills.

8) Suicide 2.2 - Obviously it's the bovine growth hormones they're putting in milk these days. And the microchips the aliens implant in our rectums when we get abducted.

9) Kidney disease 1.7 - mostly complications of diabetes, high blood pressure. Again, doctors have figured it out without reading and chicken intestines.

10) Alzheimer's disease - the fact that so many people are living long enough to get Alzheimers is a testiment to the effectiveness of western medicine.

ARL: Making them less able to fight off diseases? So are you saying that many of the causes of an individual health problem are societal?

RT: Yes, we have these sacred cows, like the food industry which controls the FDA and produces these horrible meats and milks, and chemicalizes the soil with chemical fertilizer, generally poisoning both the food and the environment in which the whole population lives.

ARL: Well, why is this overlooked?



Academic institutions are similarly corrupted because the people in the science departments are funded by government and corporate grants given by the very corporations that want to distract peop"le from the real cause of their difficulties. "

This is the very common line with global warming deniers. Scientists just make it up to get that lucrative global warming grant money.

"The problem is also with our rigidified scientific way of approaching health -- we're not being thorough enough in our science."

This is both a contradiction, and a direct appeal to ignorance.

[abumbyanyothername]

12. Yes.

If people start buying into this kind of thinking, Monsanto will be out of business.

[truedelphi]

15. Monsanto and Obama

Two forces of nature supported by death-inducing capitalists and masochists all over this nation.

[HamdenRice]

5. The tide is turning, hopefully. Most medical people I know embrace ideas like this

You've also got the slow food and "fresh-local-sustainable" movements, the new gardening movement, and even in health care reform, Obama has talked extensively about how ending the chronic disease epidemic will require us eating differently.

[nightrain]

6. yes, and we need the structural support of organizations that will

help, no?

[Warpy]

10. A pious diet won't save you from the diseases you're

genetically programmed to get. A lousy diet combined with smoking will cause them to pop up years, possibly decades early. However, they'll pop up eventually if you live long enough.

Fresh and sustainable won't get you through a northern winter, either. You're going to end up on canned produce, carrots, winter squash, and cabbage soon after that first frost unless you have a greenhouse in the back yard.

While the new gardening movement is a great thing, providing people with exercise, entertainment and cheaper produce, it's not for everyone and it's not going to solve many ills.

Even though a diet high in plant foods and low in meat combined with moderate exercise and no smoking will likely delay the onset of chronic illness, too many people will fall into the twin traps of thinking they'll escape them and everybody else has chosen them.

No one chooses to be sick. The only control we have over many chronic diseases is their timing, and that's imperfect control.

[Mopar151]

16. And simply not eating the "icky" stuff don't work.

You need a balanced diet to have anywhere near decent health, and that diet has to suit your needs. Avoiding whole classes of necessacery foods is simply not an option - economics, location, and lifestyle may limit access to "safer" foods, so you need to read labels and pay attention to some basic stuff - like not eating spoiled/tainted food, avoiding binging or starvation, staying hydrated. Eat for taste, not bulk - If you gotta eat a f'n Oreo, eat 3 and feed the craving - and move on. Don't wig out and eat a pound of LoFat Choklits instead - that's what will make you sick!
Really, eating for taste gets you by the worst stuff as well - If you need a potato chip or 7, potatos fried in oil with sea salt tastes a f*^% of a lot better than a uniform extruded chip made with some potato by-products and 14 chemicals.
Don't ignore them fixin's! Turns out Nate showed up to hillclimb with us on a weekend the crew roasted a pig, and nobody knew he was a vegaterian. "Don't apologize, man - I ate a ton and I can barely get in the car today I'm so stuffed".
My crazy old friend Radical Rick told me once "I got all baked with Johnny and went over to Ma's for Boiled Dinner. Ate for 2 hours and passed out on the couch - never even got to the ham!"

[LeftishBrit]

9. Most of this is rubbish

'when someone is unwell, they first look at lifestyle and diet .'

So do most doctors. Promoting healthy diet and lifestyle (e.g. exercise and giving up smoking) is an important part of medical advice. However, FIRST looking at these factors is not the same as ONLY looking at these factors. There are many illnesses that cannot be cured by diet changes - will changing your diet cure a broken leg, for example?

'RT: In medical school, doctors aren't taught about nutrition. They're taught to scorn the idea that food is important.'

Not true! Doctors consider nutrition as very important - there are all the anti-obesitiy, 'Five a Day' (i.e. five servings of fruit and veg), etc. campaigns. My doctor's surgery has several prominently-displayed posters about nutrition.


('Poisoned substances') is the cause of all the diseases people experience'

I strongly object to any statement that any single factor is the cause of ALL diseases. What about a broken leg? What about genetic disorders? What about diseases of old age?

By all means, we need healthier diet and less pollution - but this seems to be used here as a justification for denying people the right to access to modern medicine. I will not take any attack on the NHS and public health care from right-wingers; I will not take any attack on scientific medical research from religious fundies who think that stem cell research is a sin; and I will not take any attack on modern medicine from 'back to nature' ideologues. All part and parcel of the same thing: placing ideology ahead of patients' needs.

[nightrain]

13. thanks for responding... Actually, most American medical curricula do not include

nutrition as a topic in the program, or if they do, it is very cursory... Good for your doctor that there are nutrition posters. How about a real discussion with patients also? Perhaps the NHS appraoch is different than in the US? Perhaps there is more of a preventive approach in the NHS. Good. In the US, nutrition assessment and intervention (re dietary impliications for dis-ease) are rarely a priority. Most primary MDs don't have the training or education in it.

How is this article an attack from right-wingers?

[LeftishBrit]

17. Maybe the NHS is different; I don't have a basis for comparison

I did not say that it *was* an attack from right-wingers. My point is that it was implying that nutrition and lifestyle are not just important (which they are, of course) but the cause of *all* illnesss - with the implication that modern medicine is harmful or unnecessary ('industrialized' as he says). This seems to me to be an ideological attack on the right to modern medicine, just like other ideological attacks, including right-wing or religious ideology.

I would have agreed with him if he'd just said that important life-style and environmental factors are crucial to health and are often neglected. E.g. in London, the horrendous air pollution caused a lot of illness until the Clean Air Act was passed in the 1950s, with impressive results to health. But while necessary, such measures don't prevent or cure *all* illness; we still need what he calls 'industrialized' medicine - not instead of, but in addition to, environmental health measures.

ETA: yes, most British doctors will discuss diet and lifestyle with their patients.

[nightrain]

18. no, it's not an attack from the RW! There are plenty of critiques

of technological or "industrialized" medicine from all sides!

Oten, low tech, like diet and nutrition, can prevent. That's what I hear in his argument.

[LeftishBrit]

22. I was not saying that only the RW attack modern medicine...

I was saying that anyone who does attack it on *any* ideological grounds is placing ideology ahead of patients' needs and rights.

I doubt that it is *only* the RW who have religious objections to modern medicine, either. But I do not want to be deprived of any medical treatment that I need because it goes against someone's ideology, whether RW or not.

I fully agree that diet, nutrition, and other environmental factors - like hygiene and sanitation and regulations to prevent air pollution - are crucial in preventing disease. But disease can't *always* be prevented. There shouldn't be an assumption that high-tech medicine is *all* that's needed, or that prevention isn't crucial, but there also shouldn't be an assumption that people *never* need high-tech medicine, or that it is intrinsically harmful or immoral.

[Greyhound]

11. K&R, love the summation/solution offered as it is applicable to so many of the issues

we are faced with.

"It requires a mental and scientific revolution in which the U.S. decides to bracket commercial concerns". Commercial concerns are killing us, enslaving us, and crippling our intellect.

[mbee]

14. American's want a pill to cure everything. That is sort of what

has been the expectation for a long time. I think maybe what Obama wants is to change the system in terms of choices in treatment. I personally prefer prescription drugs to be reserved as a last resort, but I don't think I'm in the majority. Obviously, if people change their habits they will be healthier and require health care less thus they live longer and the country saves money, too!

[WeCanWorkItOut]

21. Thurman makes good points, but more education would be useful too

For example, some people are more likely than others
to develop atherosclerosis if they overindulge in
carbohydrates. It gets worse if they gain weight.
Others are better with carbs. It would be good if people
knew the basics here, so they could make better decisions.

Another societal issue is that our vacations
are so damned short. We haven't got that extra
two weeks to explore the mountains of Colorado, or the museums
of Greece, and take off a few pounds every year.
http://www.hrmguide.net/usa/worklife/unused_vacation.htm

(Actually, according to that source,
they take 15 more days vacations in Britain
24 more in France.)