My Tribute to Jack LaLanne

Jack LaLanne, ‘the founder of the modern fitness movement,’ died at the age of 96. He was a showman and a salesman. He was passionate in his message, and his message was spot on correct. It was a message of health.

In 1936 Jack LaLanne “opened the prototype for the fitness spas to come — a gym, juice bar and health food store — in an old office building in Oakland. The Jack LaLanne Show made its debut in 1951 as a local program in the San Francisco area, and then went nationwide on daytime television in 1959.”

Had Americans heeded his advice back then, and ignored the advice of their doctors and the AMA, we would have been a much healthier nation and tens of millions of lives would have been spared the devastation and death of the chronic lifestyle degenerative diseases of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and more.

According to Jack LaLanne, “the doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.” Oops. What an amazing, glaring, costly (in terms of disease, death and money) and self-serving ignorance of health that turned out to be a financial bonanza for the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance industrial complex.

And this was far from the first, or last, time they have been so wrong. In fact, I refer to it as ‘creating the next generation of users’ (of medical/pharmaceutical care and insurance).

“Back in the 1930’s, the AMA played a role in establishing cigarettes as a popular product. The AMA helped develop, and then accepted in its journal, advertisements that made cigarettes appear to be a physician endorsed product.” In fact, in the 1940’s, cigarette makers regularly used ‘science’ and physicians in their ads to sell cigarettes. “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette,” “cool and soothing to the back of the throat”…fueling the rise of lung disease and death from emphysema and cancer. Oops.

The 1950’s brought the cholesterol scare. The combination of food industry and medical science and doctors began to scare people away from eating natural animal fats in favor of the synthetic trans fats vastly contributing to the rise of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and death over the subsequent decades. Oops.

And now, doctors are scaring people out of the sun in favor of the full-body application of chemical sunscreens for life, creating a pandemic of vitamin D deficiency. “Individuals with low levels of vitamin D appear to have a higher risk of death from all causes, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.” Oops.

Why is none of this surprising? What would you expect from an industry that focuses on, and profits from, disease and disease care; generating $2.6 trillion dollars in 2006 ($86,000/second), projected to be $4.3 trillion ($136,000/second) by 2017?

Jack LaLanne was a chiropractor. His message was/is the message of chiropractic health; that health is the innate set-point and possible throughout our lives if we safeguard and nurture it with proper exercise and nutrition…a simple, elegant, and irrefutable message. Why is it so hard for people to believe?

Worth watching. As they say, it harks back to a more innocent time.

One Skeptic to Another

Note: the following blog is in response to an article that appeared in my local newspapers

Health care is a sick business

Imagine an entity that is both amoral and soulless; its guiding precept is profit and growth. This is the foundation of the modern American conglomerate; including those of the health care, pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

Witness:

“Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.

In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010…Aetna actually made a profit in 2009 but not at levels that it anticipated.”

This is consistent with other insurers as well. In May of 2008, “Wellpoint (one of the nation’s largest private pay health plans) reported less-than-expected profits from the first three months of the year” Angela Braly, President and CEO reported, “We will not sacrifice profitability for membership.”

Cutting their rolls, increasing premiums and lowering physician re-imbursement to enhance profit margins…could it be any more obvious that the only insurance business they are in is ensuring profit?

Cutting their rolls and raising premiums will increase the numbers of uninsured, typically the sick and elderly, who in turn, will be added to government-run Medicare and Medicaid programs. If that isn’t socialized medicine, what is?

Witness:

“Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.”

Wow, what a concession: raising prices by more than $10 billion, conceding $8 billion, on their way to $300 billion annually, and growing!

In addition, David Brennan, head of pharma giant AstraZeneca, when asked if he would oppose reform said: “We said there were principles we didn’t want to see violated. And if those principles — price controls, Medicare rebates, moving dual eligibles back from Medicare and back into the Medicaid discount program — if those things happen, I can’t see how we could be supportive of the program.”

In short, if health care reform does not guarantee increasing profit margins and growth, BigPharma will oppose it.

By 2017, health care costs are projected to reach $4.3 trillion dollars; an astounding $138,890 per second!! Don’t forget; what you and I call health care costs, the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance industrial complex call profit, projected growth and earnings.

It is precisely this profit oriented approach to health care that has created and drives both, the disease crisis and its subsequent disease-care financial crisis in America.

“At the current rate of increase, the cost of family insurance will reach twenty-seven thousand dollars or more in a decade, taking more than a fifth of every dollar that people earn. Businesses will see their health-coverage expenses rise from ten per cent of total labor costs to seventeen per cent. Health-care spending will essentially devour all our future wage increases and economic growth. State budget costs for health care will more than double, and Medicare will run out of money in just eight years. The cost problem, people have come to realize, threatens not just our prosperity but our solvency.”

Without reform the only thing that will alter this course is its obvious and anticipated collapse, as happened on Wall Street.

Does anyone really still believe we don’t need reform? If so, what have you got to offer that can save us?

The Dark Side of $cience

Science: knowledge, as of facts or principles, gained by systematic study.

In the past century the miracles and wonders of science have helped us understand our world and tap into, channel and use its natural forces and resources. In every field, from physics to chemistry to medicine, etc., scientific discovery has contributed to benefit and advance humankind. It is no wonder that we look at science with awe and respect bordering on reverence.

However, as the saying goes, ‘power corrupts’ and, science is not exempt.

As I wrote in my last entry, Science Fiction, in today’s world $cience is abused to manipulate the masses for corporate profits. Just referencing ‘science’ enhances our beliefs and primes our acceptance. Combine that with knee-jerk responses to fear triggers (ie: high cholesterol, osteoporosis, swine flu,etc.), and a general respect and desire for an authoritative voice, and you have a marketing bonanza creating obscene profits.

The corruption of science comes in two basic forms: either the science itself (e.g.; the construct and bias of studies) has been corrupted, or the use of the science (e.g.; the intentional misuse of information) is corrupt. Both abound in medicine. The rigging of medical studies and misrepresentation of research results have become routine and the accepted norm.

Due to the conflict of interests that exist in the prevailing medical-pharmaceutical industrial complex, science and medical knowledge have been appropriated and are being ‘sold’ to an unsuspecting, trusting and increasingly unhealthy public.

But, to what extent?

In September of 2001 the editors of 12 of the world’s most prestigious medical journals issued an unprecedented and chilling alarm. In an article titled: Sponsorship, Authorship and Accountability, they wrote:

“We are concerned that the current intellectual environment in which clinical research is conceived, study subjects are recruited and the data analyzed and reported (or, not reported) may threaten (scientific) objectivity….In light of that truth, the use of clinical trials primarily for marketing makes a mockery of clinical investigation and is a misuse of a powerful tool.”

In no uncertain terms they are saying that the science has been corrupted to the extent that it is no longer reliable. And, even worse, it undermines all they do while putting all of us at tremendous risk: i.e: if the doctors cannot trust the science, the basis for all they do, then how can they (or we, as patients) trust the treatments based on that science?

This begs the question:

How come the editors continue to print commercially sponsored studies?

Answer:

The pharmaceutical companies that sponsor the research also sponsor the journals. They are their largest advertisers. But, more insidiously, to the tune of millions of dollars, they ‘buy back’ reprints of the published studies and use them as scientific evidence of efficacy to market their drugs to doctors and the public.

How are we to know the truth?

The truth, most often, is quite simple, and as such is often too difficult for people to believe.

The truth is: your body is genetically programmed for health. Health is your set-point, your body’s most basic survival mechanism. If that was not true, we would have died out, as a species, long ago.

The truth is: we need to reform our health. We need to change our focus away from the failed scientific, never-ending, profit-generating fight against disease to a model of personal responsibility that nurtures our own natural health.

It is often wiser to trust the wisdom of the body and let good sense prevail over corporate science.

Political InAction

Whether or not you are paying attention to, and engage in, the health care reform debate the outcome will be determined by the most vocal and influential voices in Washington.

Take heed, the vested interests of the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance industrial complex are geared up and out in full force.

“The big guns are out and they’re firing. All major lobbying firms in Washington – many of them brimming with ex-members of Congress – are now crawling all over the Hill. Lots of money is on the table. The AMA’s political action committee has contributed $9.8 million to congressional candidates since 2000, and its lobbying arm is one of the most formidable on the Hill. Meanwhile, Big Insurance and Big Pharma are increasing their firepower. The five largest private insurers and their trade group America‘s Health Insurance Plans spent a total of $6.4 million on lobbying in the first quarter of this year, up more than $1 million from the first quarter last year, and are spending even more now. United Health Group spent $1.5 million in the first quarter, up 34 percent from the $1.1 million it spent in the first quarter last year. Aetna spent $809,793 between January and the end of March, up 41 percent from last year. Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, spent more than $6.1 million on

lobbying between January and March,more than double what it spent last year. It also spent nearly $3.3 million lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2008. Every one of them is upping their spending.”

Theirs’ is a no-holds barred attack to secure their profits. They straight-out buy politicians, former ones like Dole and Daschle, to lobby the current ones, their former colleagues. They buy air-time and endlessly broadcast self-serving public media, news/propaganda, and advertising campaigns based on distortions and outright lies to propagate fear.

They fear-monger with buzzwords like socialized medicine, rationing of care, long waits, and compromised quality of care, as if they cared about any of that, or your health. As if we don’t already have rationing of care, long waits and compromised care. As if the current unfettered corporatocracy/plutocracy is better for the American people than socialized medicine, if it came to that.

President Obama is holding town-hall type meetings on the subject to drum up public support for the public option. He knows that as rich and powerful as the special interests are, in shear numbers, there are more of us than them. And, because we can vote we can speak with a unified voice to force the hands of our corporate-owned politicians. We can have our say, and we can win, but only if we participate en masse.

Everything in life is political, especially politics!

What have you done today to make your voice heard so that your interests are protected, over those of the corporate giants?

This issue is too critical for you to sit by and do nothing. It demands your attention and political action. You must call your Senators, Congressmen and the White House repeatedly to voice your support of a public option. If they are not hearing from YOU, they are most certainly hearing, and feeling the pressure, from special interest lobbyists and major corporate campaign contributors.

Ultimately, the future landscape of health care will be whatever we let happen during this debate.

Political inaction is an action. It is to allow the special interests to prevail.

Get involved.

Act as if your health, and the health of your loved ones, depends on it!

Call your Senators, Congressmen and The White House today, and get everyone you know to call as frequently as possible.