Week of December 6, 2006, Issue #581
FRONT
Well, Well, Well
Connie Howard / health@vueweekly.com
What was I saying a couple of weeks ago about Tamiflu? Oh yeah, something about questionable safety, that was it. It was a story the other day that reminded me: Tamiflu reaction warning issued. Twenty-five people have died this year, and a bunch more have had other adverse reactions.Nothing major, though: just things like hallucinations and self-injury, respiratory failure and heart palpitations. So Health Canada didn’t trouble the public with a warning until just the other day.
But the weird thing is that Roche, the makers of Tamiflu, says there’s no causal relationship between the drug and the reactions, that it has a good safety profile and that there’s no reason to be concerned. Or maybe that’s not weird at all, given that Tamiflu costs about $73 for ten capsules.
Another headline this week asked if junk food marketing is making kids sick. Ummmm, yes? We, the alternative and fringe health nuts, knew that a long time ago, actually.
To call Dunkaroos, Froot Loops and Cocoa Puffs “suspect foods” makes me want to weep. Canada and the US have long been world-leaders in obesity and diabetes (we’re so proud), yet our governments have done little more than issue recommendations of moderation while allowing the advertising aimed at children to continue—and the billion dollar sugar industry to continue on its merry way to the bank.
And while I don’t believe that those who’ve made Krispy Kremes, Oreos and Orange Crush so appealing to kids will burn in hell, as some have suggested they will, I do believe many children and their parents already are in hell because of it.
Don’t get me wrong—I like chocolate too, but I get that it’s not meant to be breakfast or lunch. Kids don’t. Until they reach a certain age, they lack the ability to view ads with any kind of discernment and truly believe that consuming the advertised product will simply make them as gleeful as the children in the ads.
And please don’t remind me that it’s the parents’ responsibility to tell them not to gorge on McDonald’s and Froot Loops. It’s difficult enough to resist the innate desire to please our children, but unimaginably tiring to resist the manipulations: I’m the only one who never has anything fun in my lunch ... all the other kids have money for juice and pop, every day ... all I ever get is stupid brown bread and apples. If you’re a parent, you’ve heard them all and you know what I’m talking about. And, of course, it’s completely impossible to be there 24/7, to keep grandparents or friends or other well-meaning and generous but less-informed-about-health-issues people in their lives from offering your little ones far-too-regular treats.
We’ve known for decades about the things in our diet and environment that are killing us, but our democratic and free Western governments are in bed with million dollar Big Sugar, Big Ag, Big Oil, and Big Pharma—the first three making us sick, the latter, while providing relief and extending life, often also making us sick.
But surely science will come to the health rescue—it always does, right? Let’s see how well it’s done: we’ve developed drugs to counter disease caused by weak-muscled regulation, and more drugs to counter the side effects of the drugs. And those who created the problems and the pseudo-solutions—who are, incidentally, getting wealthier—talk about no proven causal relationship between anything. They talk about obesity being a sedentary lifestyle illness only, or about chemical sensitivity being psychosomatic, or about autism and cancer and myriad other things plaguing us having no known cause, or about drug and vaccine reactions being far, far less common than those prone to fear mongering are suggesting.
Following the health news can be fun, when it doesn’t break my heart.
One more thing that made news recently that isn’t even remotely new but that we now have scientific reason to claim with confidence in bold headlines: Eating a low-carb, high-fat diet doesn’t raise the risk of heart disease. Harvard says so now.
What does raise risk is high intake of refined simple carbs and processed low-fibre foods—foods most advertised, most available, most convenient. Those foods most appealing to growing bodies and young minds most susceptible to suggestion, and to tired and hurried (and unsuspecting) adults.
Finally, though, a respected voice saying so. V