Foreskin's Lament

I am reading an absolutely entertaining insightful book, "Foreskin's Lament, A Memoir" by, Shalom Auslander. I'm happy to have found these videos that contain excepts of the book & illustrate much better then I can to you the gist of the book and the wit of the author. Enjoy!

It struck me how close I could relate to this Jewish perspective of God. I was raised to be a fundamentalist Christian & fear of God (who for all his omnipotence, was as vindictive & petty as any dictator) played a large part in keeping us pentecostally raised christian children in line. In fact, I thank my bizarre religious upbringing for many things just as Mr. Auslander does. Enjoy part 2.

Quit Beating a Dead HorsePainting by Sue Marracci here

I've been beating the religious subject like a dead horse.
Consequently, I've also been casting around looking for a new subject to blog about.



Low and behold my inspiration and indignation came from another bloggers site I frequent, where a remark was made about one person having 20-30 drug prescriptions.
YIKES!
Of course 20-30 drug prescriptions for one person is bizarre & not normal, but I've watched quite a few people blithely taking 5-6-7 different prescription drugs at a time, without even considering what kind of drug cocktail they were putting into their bodies, merely because some doctor gave them a prescription.

When I actually had a health insurance plan, I found out myself that health care has risks & can be detrimental to your health. In other words it is possible to get too much health care.

In this post I'm going to concentrate on picking on pharmaceutical companies because the greed & obvious appeals to pure consumerism is evident.

According to this article:
The pharmaceutical industry served up more than $250 billion worth of sales last year, the vast majority in prescriptions, according to industry consultants.
That roughly equaled sales at all the country's gasoline stations put together, or an $850 pharmaceutical fill-up for every American.

You would think that with all this money being spent on pills & health care, America would be leading the world in healthiness...

In a survey of 13 industrialized nations, the US was found to be LAST in many health-related measures, and overall was 2^nd to the last.

Of course, there are many factors involved in these statistics.
The point is all these drugs we are consuming aren't living up to the hype.

This article printed here in 2008 states:
Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, especially on TV (a legal practice for about a decade now), has convinced many Americans that they need medications to lead better lives. A 2007 UCLA study published in the Annals of Family Medicine, which analyzed how 38 direct-to-consumer TV ads for prescription drugs attempted to influence viewers, found that 85% of the ads portrayed taking medication as a way for people to regain control of their lives.

I don't have a TV anymore because of crap like the above...

The website Children and Adults Against Over Medicating America has really harsh words for drug companies:

"Direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs is one of the greatest medical frauds ever perpetrated on the American public. The drug companies love it, because it allows them to convince people that they need certain brand name prescriptions even when they don't. After seeing enough advertising of a prescription drug that is mentioned along with images of happy, healthy people, many consumers go straight to their doctors and ask for the drug by name, even as they are oblivious to the facts of what the drug is for.

It's a massive propaganda campaign, of course. But the drug companies and the FDA in both insist it is nothing more than a "public Education" campaign -- as if they are doing everybody in favor by spending all these hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising that seeks to do nothing more than help people understand prescription drugs. It's nonsense: the entire purpose of prescription drug advertising is simply to sell more drugs, and any individual, company, or federal agency that suggests otherwise is lying through their teeth.

I asked my Doctor (when I had one & could pay for his advice) what he thought about drug companies advertising prescription drugs on television. He basically said it was a big pain in the ass & a waste of his & his patients valuable time. I remember occasionally seeing reps from drug companies at my doctors office. My doctor also gave me drug samples to try.

My old doctor is a good guy. I know him personally. We don't have a Doctor/ patient relationship because I don't have health insurance, but we say Hi! on the street & in the Coffee Shop. I suppose the test would be if I keeled over in front of him, LOL, but I suspect he's in the dark, too... How we got here

My Question is;

What is your position?

Are you fat & sassy & able to indulge in your aches & pains?

Or do you suck it up & deal with it?