Suicide By Fork, Death By Pills - Is There A Better Way?
By www.menhealthonline.biz
Americans spend more money on fast food than higher education, personal computers, software, or new cars.
90% of America's food money is used to buy factory-fresh, processed foods.
90% of American kids ages 3 to 9 eat at fast food places at least once per month.
61% of Americans are obese. Only 20% exercise. There are 167,993 diet book titles. They're all useless since diets don't work long term.
14% of Americans eat mostly fast food. For the 18 to 24 age segment, that's 22% eating mostly fast food.
All of this results in an epidemic of lethal obesity, ushering in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and arthritis prematurely.
But it gets worse. Not only do Americans have a huge appetite for poor food choices, many believe the big lie of allopathic medicine and Big Pharma--namely, there's a safe, effective pill and/or operation for every ill (real or imaginary).
There are supersized pharmaceutical firms in the US, affectionally called "Big Pharma."
Like many other old line American giant companies, they are starting to suffer from "icon toppling," being dethroned gradually in the marketplace.
During the last three years, these firms have cut 70,000 jobs. Six of 10 of their top selling drugs are experiencing stagnant or declining sales.
Equities markets have been unkind to Big Pharma. Five firms-Pfizer, Merck, Bristol Myers, Squibb, and Schering-Plough--have lost $34 billion in market value, down 54% in only three years.
Is Big Pharma following in the footsteps of Ford and General Motors?
For the health and safety of the public, let's hope so.
Drugs are dangerous and over-prescribed, often given as the patient obeys TV commercials to "ask your doctor" and demand this or that drug. 70% of the time doctors approve these requests, often very reluctantly.
Big Pharma has had a number of embarrassing recalls and some costly lawsuits claiming huge damages from use of its products.
Most of top-selling Big Pharma brands will experience patent expiration by 2011, with few new blockbuster drugs coming along to keep the cash flowing.
But all is not negative in Big Pharma land. The Food and Drug Administration, created during the Depression to make sure that our foods and drugs are safe, coddles Big Pharma and the large agribusiness firms, making sure above all that company profits are safe and sure.
Here's one crazy example of an FDA run amuck. The FDA has warned cherry growers not to make health claims even though a study funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture determined that cherries have a low glycemic index, are fat free, sodium free, and high in vitamins C, B6, E and folic acid-and rate
high on the ORAC antioxidant scale.
The FDA position was that if such health claims are to be made, then the cherry growers must
