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WAKE UP CALL—-January 2007
Happy New Year one and all. We sincerely hope that 2007 finds you in good health and spirit. A few months back our Wake Up Call began by asking you if you knew of anyone with diabetes. With diabetes rapidly increasing in all levels of the population the probability of an affirmative answer to that question would be a given. A recent issue of Time magazine contained an ad stating the 33% of the men and 36% of the women are diabetic. Another third are wandering around with it and don’t know it=as the Mariner radio announcer says-“My O MY”!
As an opener for the New Year we would like to have you focus on the following as taken from John Robbins book: Reclaiming Our Health—Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing. Enjoy…
Once upon a time there was a large and rich country where people kept falling over a steep cliff. They’d fall to the bottom and be injured, sometimes quite seriously, and many of them died. The nation’s medical establishment responded to the situation by positioning, at the base of the cliff, the most sophisticated and expensive ambulance fleet ever developed, which would immediately rush those who had fallen to modern hospitals that were equipped with the latest technological wizardry. No expense was too great, they said, when people’s health was at stake.
Now it happened that it occurred to certain people that another possibility would be to erect a fence at the top of the cliff. When they voiced the idea, however, they found themselves ignored. The ambulance drivers were not particularly keen on the idea, nor were the people who manufactured the ambulances, nor those who made their living and enjoyed prestige in the hospital industry. The medical authorities explained patiently that the problem was far more complex than people realized, that while building a fence might seem like an interesting idea it was actually far from practical, and that health was too important to be left in the hands of people who were not experts. Leave it to us, they said, for with enough money we will soon be able to genetically engineer people who do not bruise or become injured from such falls.
So no fences were built, and as time passed this nation found it was spending an ever-increasing amount of its financial resources on hospitals and high-tech medical equipment. In fact, it came to spend far more money on medical services than any nation had ever done in the history of the world. Money that could have gone to community services, decent housing, education, and good food was not available to the people, for it was being spent on ambulances and hospitals. As the costs of treating people kept rising, growing numbers of people could not afford medical care. There were increasing numbers of homeless and ever hungrier people and families torn apart by the stress. As a result of these and similar mis allocations of national energy and resources, violence, gangs, and inner city riots welled up as outlets for the frustration and despair people felt.
The more people kept falling off the cliff, the more a sense of urgency and tension developed, and the more of the country’s money was poured into the heroic search for a drug that could be given to those who had fallen to cure their injuries. When some people pointed out how fruitless the search had been thus far, and questioned whether a cure would ever be found, the research industry answered with massive public relations campaigns showing men in white coats holding the broken bodies of children who had fallen, pleading, “Don’t quit on us now, we’re almost there.”
When a few families who had lost loved ones tried to erect warning signs at the top of the cliff, they were arrested for trespassing. When some of the more enlightened physicians began to say that the medical authorities should publicly warn people that falling off the cliff was dangerous, representatives from powerful industries denounced them as “health police.” A fierce battle ensued, and finally, after many compromises, the medical establishment did issue warnings. Anyone, they said, who had already broken both arms and both legs in previous falls should exercise utmost caution when falling.
Of course, this is just a fable. BUT the question is…is there a parallel with what is going on today with our medical care? To be continued:
