Health care, or sickness care?

When I glanced at the cover of “The Medical Issue: To Your Health” [Jan. 17] with the attractive young babe in the surgical garb, I thought to myself: Here we go again, the local medical establishment is out campaigning again to sell their wares, useless drugs, surgery—out to sell some more diseases. And I was right, as I saw ads for hormone therapy, vein surgery, laser hair removal etc. Nowhere in the issue did I see anything about real prevention. Oh, excuse me, I did see a sentence or two on eating your vegetables. Big deal, even the government says that. A lot was devoted to alternative treatment modalities, [but] although they are very useful, they need to be used together with prevention—not instead of it.

The Mountain Xpress made big bucks with all those ads for “health.” But it wasn’t like the paper didn’t know about preventive health; I did try a few times, sending in articles about health and prevention by the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine, only to be ignored. They also know about two local groups that advocate a plant-based diet, and they have published countless letters to the editor by vegans. But this paper calls [itself] an alternative to the Asheville Citizen-Times, [which has] printed articles by the Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine. I challenge this “alternative” paper to do another series on preventive health, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for their call.

The point here is, dear reader, you need to read between the lines. If you’re interested in becoming healthier, do your own research, become your own doctor. You have to make the lifestyle changes yourself. You can’t rely on doctors or the media.