Thursday, January 30, 2014

Health

Health is a complex issue.  I’m not talking about healthcare, which is a whole other can of worms, but just your own health.  Or mine.  Mostly mine.

We Americans are so hung up on our own health.  If it isn’t our physical health, it’s our mental health.  If it isn’t either of those, it’s emotional health.  If it isn’t any of those, then it is spiritual health.  There is always something wrong with us health-wise.

But at the same time, we trust the government and our doctors to give us accurate health advice.  But what if all this advice is wrong?

Let me provide an example: the CDC had given American children a vigorous vaccine schedule.  It is actually very insane if you break it down.  By the time they are six years old, they will have 38 immunizations.  When I was six, I only had 10.  I still managed to grow up without getting horribly sick.

So when my wife and I looked into the vaccine schedule, we both decided that it would be better to not over-vaccinate our son.  And you cannot believe the shit we have to put up with as a result of our decision.  Doctors have constantly tried to remind us of the danger we are putting our son in.  Many times they assume that my son is in day care, which is also equally insulting.  My parents are uneasy about not vaccinating my son.

Because I don’t believe that the government, which is in cahoots with the vaccine manufacturers in a big way, is looking out for the best interests of my child or any children for that matter.  They are interested in getting vaccines sold.

Did you know, for instance, that vaccine companies and doctors are not liable for any vaccine-related illness or death (and those happen).  You have to file a complaint with HHS and they will determine if your case merits a settlement, at taxpayer expense.  When I confronted my father about this, he claimed that a) there is a fund for the settlements, which is stupid since there is no Social Security fund either, and b) that they have the best of intentions.

And he’s a conservative Republican.

How could a government, who has lied about nearly everything they have told me, be right about this one thing?

Doctors are no better in many cases.  My experience has been that they are nothing more than professional pharmaceutical salespeople dressed in lab coats and carrying funny instruments.  They sell drugs and charge you for the time they’ve spent selling them.

And so our health-conscious nation trusts people who may very well be snake oil salesmen instead of doing our damn research into the various diseases and seeking out alternative treatments.  Instead we take pills.

There’s pills for our physical conditions like high cholesterol or blood pressure.  There are pills to stabilize our moods.  There are pills to help us sleep.  There are pills to treat us when we chronically feel bad.

The problem with these pills is that we substitute them for real treatments.  Chronic depression is a problem, no denying it, but have you ever considered just going out and working at a homeless shelter?  Despair is merely your selfish sadness taking root.  Going out and seeing how really downtrodden people are might snap you out of your funk and teach to appreciate your life as it is.

Changing your diet and exercising eliminates the need for most pills.  And let’s be honest, if you need Viagra, maybe you should seek out other activities to pursue in life in order to ignite your passions.

And more people die from the cancer treatments than the cancer itself.  Chemotherapy isn’t exactly a safe process.  I’ve resolved to forgo such treatments if I’m over 70, especially if there is a low chance of surviving.

It is just odd that our entire nation is focused on solving the problems with the wrong treatments.  Perhaps we all need to step back and analyze what we are doing wrong in our lives.  In most cases, we know what we need to do.  We just refuse to follow through with it.