Science -- Scmience

Usually I am slamming the liberal media and the lunatic left in Calif, but have you noticed how politicized the NIH and CDC have become. Ironically these organizations have been stuffed with left leaning, Harvard educated, progressives who now seem to be in bed with "big business" in the form of the drug companies. These progressives are so intent on running everyone's life that they have sacrificed their principles regarding the evils of profit and are working hand-in-glove with the drug companies. What on Earth am I talking about - you ask? Well I am speaking of the "epidemic" of diabetes and obesity, cholesterol, and finally that supreme evil -- tobacco.

Why has diabetes suddenly become an epidemic? I'll bet everyone reading this has recently had his doctor tell him/her that they are diabetic and need medication to "control" it. Well the reason for this epidemic is that the NIH has LOWERED the threshold for diabetes. So suddenly thousands more people now have to take medications cleverly sold by those evil drug companies. It also gives the progressives another reason to police our food and insist we stop eating anything THEY deem is bad for us. How about obesity? Everyday we see pictures of overweight people on the (liberal) news as they lecture us on how our children are all overweight and we need to take everything kids like to eat out of the schools and replace it with carrot sticks. What goes unsaid is that the measure for obesity has been changed by the government (NIH, CDC). Now virtually all of the NFL and NBA athletes are overweight -- obese by definition --plus the majority of Americans are obese and need to stop eating fattening (fast) foods. The solution in the view of the progressives is that we need to immediately ban McDonalds, all fast food, soda, and anything the food police feel is bad for us. HOWEVER, this doesn't include wine which the progressive left has managed to declare HEALTHY. Of course the only difference between wine and grape juice is the alcohol so technically grape juice should do the trick but then grape juice is too sugary and therefore, bad for all of you diabetics. It is OK to be an alcoholic but not to be a FAT alcoholic.

Then we have cholesterol. Not too many years ago the count was 220 as normal but this was the average for most Americans so the drug companies needed more sales. The government accommodated by lowering the threshold and sales went up. They lowered the threshold again and sales went up even more. They have justified this on the basis of a statistical study showing the "relationship" between diet, cholesterol, and heart disease. Of course anything can be proven statistically, the studies actually show that diet has only a minimal impact on cholesterol, and that cholesterol levels below 200 show a strong correlation to colon cancer. A small fact that generally goes unmentioned but then sales are up. Besides there is no drug available to cure colon cancer so why bother with statistics?

And finally tobacco and all of those "tobacco related deaths", which of course are all statistical. The actual report on side smoke written by the EPA is over 1000 pages ( I have read every single page and it was pure torture) and states that the studies DO NOT REACH STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE. This is actually stated in the report and discussions with the author (conducted by my wife with the author of the report) elicited the comment that there is no science behind the conclusions because it is just a SOCIAL PROGRAM. One of the studies used to justify the correlation between tobacco smoke and cancer was the "Hamster Study". In this study the Hamsters were exposed to smoke over an extended period but those hamsters DIDN'T develop cancer as they should have. However, the "scientists" conducting the study decided that "had the hamsters breathed properly they WOULD have developed cancer". Therefore, this study was used to support the (obviously prior) conclusion even though the hamsters didn't actually develop cancer. There were other studies similar to this one that were flawed even to the most untrained eye, but then how many people have actually read the EPA study? We were unable to find anyone in the press or in the government who actually read the report even though they were quick to cite it in support of their right to strip smokers of their rights.

Now I am not a smoker, but it seems to me that a lot of rights of smokers have been taken away because a few wine sipping progressives don't like smokers. To belabor this report further, notice that the number of smokers has declined dramatically but the incidence of cancer and heart disease has not changed. Furthermore, there has never been a death certificate written that says a person died from tobacco smoke.

Everything is "related" and now that "cause - effect" relationship is being applied to food as the progressives launch their attack on McDonalds and make no mistake that is their target -- not you or your health. The time has come for everyone to demand that science be returned to the decision making process and that the voodoo "science" called "Epidemiology" be eliminated.