Author: R J Adams

In simple terms it boils down to whether we can still trust them. It’s not just the doctors, but the whole health industry. Have you noticed how they say one thing, then ten years later decide the opposite is true?

The real problem comes down to money, or rather, the importance of cash. It’s become more crucial than alleviating illness, at least so far as the major health professionals are concerned.

Take my doctor, as an example. He’s always trying to push either the latest drug to come on the market, or whatever Merck is giving the best backhanders on at the time. Last month it must have been the anti-reflux drug, Nexium.

Now, I know all about Nexium as I happen to have an esophageal reflux problem and have been taking proton pump inhibitors (Nexium is a PPI) of one sort or another since before I left Britain. This guy has been prescribing me another PPI, Prevacid, for the last four years.

After Christmas, I had a bit of a cough that wouldn’t clear up, and made a couple of clinic visits without success. Last month I made another appointment, and after some deliberation he disappeared, returning a few minutes later with a sample pack of Nexium.

“I think it may be a reflux problem causing your cough, ” he said, “I want you to try some of these and let me know how you get on.”

Fortunately, I recognized what they were and suggested it may not be such a good idea to add another 30mg of PPI daily to the 60mg I was already taking. Needless to say, he went rather red and muttered something about, “Oh, you’d better not take these then,” before rapidly disappearing out the door with the offending pills.

It seems my good family doctor was so keen to flog the drug company’s wares that he failed to check my medical records before dishing out the profitable pills. Profitable for him, that is. God knows what damage it may have caused to my health.

It begs the question: are doctors so keen to push drug company wares that they are putting patients’ welfare at risk?

How many vitamin supplements do you take each day? Most of us swallow, if not a multi, then at least a couple of different vitamin pills each day. After all, they’re an insurance premium against the rubbish passing for nourishment that we shove down our throats on a regular basis. It’s what the medical profession have told us for years: take your vitamins and you’ll live to be healthy, wealthy and wise.

Well, it seems they may be changing their tune. Vitamins are no longer a good idea – unless you listen to the manufacturers, of course. In fact, vitamin supplements may be doing you a great deal of harm, according to researchers at Copenhagen University. Not to put it too succinctly, they may be killing you.

To quote the conclusion of the researchers, as published in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

“Treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase mortality. The potential roles of vitamin C and selenium on mortality need further study.”

Of course, an “expert” from the vitamin supplements industry has leapt in to proclaim the research “fatally flawed”.

But then he would, wouldn’t he?

Filed under: Fashion statements

We should all respect our politicians more. After all, it takes talent to make it in government these days. Successful politicians need high levels of arrogance; a masters degree in contempt for those they represent; the ability to purloin large quantities of money and favors for doing very little, and above all the knack of making everyone else feel inferior.

Take Britain’s future prime minister, Gordon Brown, as an example.

Incidentally, never before has a candidate for the UK’s top job known in advance he/she is going to be elected. It says much for the quality of today’s British politicians that the democratic process has been upgraded to allow the outgoing prime minister to pick who will succeed him.

The present incumbent, Tony Blair, certainly possesses all the characteristics outlined above, in abundance, but in addition he displays a well-honed degree of deviousness others in the British parliament struggle to emulate. It is, perhaps, that special, extraordinary ability that has placed him head and shoulders above the rest during his last three terms in office, and allowed him to so purify the party electoral process that he was able to declare nine years ago – albeit tactfully – that the new leader would be Gordon Brown.

For his part, Brown is himself honing the skills he learned from watching Blair at work. His latest pronouncement will go down well with the traditional ‘roast-beef-and-two-veg-on-a-Sunday’ brigade – that gallant but ever-dwindling band of ethnically-cleansed, pure-bred, Englishmen who still believe the nation belongs to them and the “damned wogs” can “bloody well go home to Pakistan where they belong”. Any attempt to explain that most “wogs” are at least second generation British citizens, results in a glaze over the eyes and a look of “Dah! This does not compute”.

Never fear, Gordon is here, spurring his mighty charger to the rescue of these fair, white, Englishmen in distress.

Gordon Brown wants all immigrants to sweep the streets, clean public toilets, and trim fair, white, Englishmen’s hedges and lawns. This, he says, will “help them to settle” before becoming British citizens. He would truly like them to volunteer for these awe-inspiring tasks, but just in case they feel insufficiently qualified for such positions, Gordon is prepared to use the full force of law to persuade them otherwise.

Here, then, is a perfect example of Gordon Brown using all those qualifications a politician needs to succeed. His arrogance and contempt are only matched by an ability to instill in immigrants the sense of inferiority necessary for successful British citizenship.

Alas for Gordon, he’s still not quite devious enough for the position he expects to soon occupy. Announcing his intentions in advance allows his enemies to block them. They’ve already suggested his plans are “ill thought out” and “unworkable”.

Gordan needs to pay more attention to his mentor, Tony Blair.

Tony would have said nothing, silvered a few palms to ensure the legislation passed, and then announced it as a “fait accompli” at the next prime minister’s question time.

Pay more attention, Gordon!

Filed under: Special qualifications

Film director James Cameron must have been thrilled to discover the gullibility of Christian cinema audiences, following the huge success of such epics as “Passion of the Christ” and “The Da Vinci Code”.

While the former was specifically designed to ratchet an abundance of pious anguish from its audience, the latter was never hyped as more than a novel set to celluloid, but that didn’t stop the devoted from taking it to heart and behaving as though it was a faithful reproduction of historical fact.

Given the eagerness with which they leap upon any morsel however tasteless, to bolster this thing called “faith”, it leaves one wondering how much of it they really have, despite all the moaning, speaking-in-tongues, grabbing at low flying clouds, and other weirdo doings that regularly occur in and around churches every Sunday.

When Cameron was presented with the scenario of a recently discovered tomb in east Jerusalem in which reposed old limestone ossuaries containing not only the bones of Jesus, but a whole host of relatives, it must have seemed to the film maker like a dream come true.

Now, admittedly the photograph displayed by the BBC looks more like the polystyrene box used to protect my newly-arrived bread-making machine –

– but if archaeologists say its two thousand years old I’m happy to believe them.

No-one in their right mind, however, will accept Cameron’s claims as to the contents, which leaves around 100,000,000 Christians who will. Or, at least, they won’t be able to resist seeing the film, then arguing about it till the cows come home.

It’s ironic that Cameron should have directed the highly successful film, “Titanic”. Jesus had a lot in common with the old ship. Each had a short life, and then sank without trace until resurrected much later as artifacts for making tons of money.

Unlike the “Titanic”, however, we can be sure that the final resting place of Jesus will forever remain undiscovered.

A fact that won’t stop James Cameron from being the next to pocket the proceeds from the ongoing tale of the Nazarene carpenter.

Filed under: Gullible god lovers