Medical Industrial Complex, Societal Hypochondria, and Women

In previous posts, I've covered the Medical Industrial Complex that continually peddles "remedies" to the public, whether they need them or not. Big Pharma, the liberal vegetarian mafia, and big government have colluded, in both overt and subtle ways, to induce a societal level hypochondria. One notes this in helicopter moms and their War on Childhood, in which scratches require full-on bandages and coughs mean a visit to the emergency room. (I criticize helicopter moms a lot, but I'm mainly averse to their political meddling, not the genuine love from which much of their hysteria results.)

An AlterNet article wonderfully summarizes the strategies Big Pharma uses to scare the public.

That’s when the drug industry began debuting the concept of “treatment resistant depression.” It wasn’t that their drugs didn’t work (or you didn’t have depression in the first place), you had “treatment resistant depression.” Your first expensive and dangerous drug needed to be coupled with more expensive and dangerous drugs because monotherapy, one drug alone, wasn’t doing the trick!

Once upon a time, when depression was neither seasonal, atypical, bipolar or treatment resistant, it was considered to be a self-limiting disease. In fact, just about the only good thing you could say about depression was it wouldn’t last forever. But now, the drug industry is giving depression the don’t-wait scare treatment like coronary events (statins), asthma attacks (”controller” drugs) and thinning bones (Sally Field). If you don’t hurry and take medication, your depression will get worse!

Depression may masquerade as headaches, insomnia, fatigue, backache, dizziness, lightheadedness or appetite problems mongers the article. “You might feel queasy or nauseous. You might have diarrhea or become chronically constipated.” And here, you thought it was something you ate!

Essentially, Big Pharma casts almost everything as a potential problem. Every normal ailment a person experiences is listed as possibly leading to a more serious problem - for which a drug undoubtedly exists. So depression has evolved from an emotional problem legitimately affecting a small portion of the population to a one-size-fits-all explanation for laziness, mood swings, and, of course, back problems. Go to the doctor for back stiffness and you leave with some Cymbalta; makes sense, right.

But the hypochondria doesn't stop there, it permeates essentially every aspect of mainstream health and nutritional rhetoric. Ever heard of "toxins", a farcical medical chimera concocted by the "alternative" medical community, e.g. Gaiaist quacks. Apparently, toxins fill your entire body, as in the religious notion of sin applied to health. Going further with the analogy, it would appear society believes everyone is born physically impure, with each of us on the verge of catastrophic disaster unless we do every single thing "they" tell us to do. Good idea to go on one of those "cleanse" diets popular amongst celebrities; it will release those darn "toxins" from your body.

I would be remiss to ignore the gender issue here. We already know the liberal-based underpinnings of the vegetarian diet, with meat-eating in part viewed as a reflection of the patriarchy. Additionally, one notes the sensationalism of standard medical advice. The media and medical establishment bombard us with these problems, with the clear implication that disease is inevitable. Sure, we should know about the current health epidemic, but I don't need a reminder about statins and erectile dysfunction every time I turn on the TV, open up a magazine, or watch the news. Of course, this affects women more because they tend towards histrionics easier than men do. With modern feminism imbuing women with undue confidence, they feel compelled to aver this hysteria both individually and collectively. That means husbands must suffer nagging about going to the doctor and not eating meat (oh the irony!). It means you can't get a McDonald's hamburger in San Francisco and kids will grow up without Happy Meals.

Going further, women, the credulous beings they are, have a faith in expert advice without any ability to confirm their advice independently. Roissy once described arguing with a woman as follows:

I hurled facts and figures at her, the holy water to the emotionally vampiric female soul. She reacted as a startled vampiress would; shrieks and bared fangs, her pallor drained from her face in shock at my bombshell impudence. “Why is he not kowtowing to me?”, I could practically hear her hamster morse coding to the nether reaches of her brain.

It is rare to find a woman who has the ability to rationally consider statistics and facts. With the feel-good Gaism (another female phenomenon), exaggerated rhetoric, and expert authority that supports much of mainstream health advice, the task becomes that much more formidable for them. So we must listen to women who mindlessly regurgitate whatever misleading or downright false findings Big Pharma, liberal academia, and big government advertise this week.

And because I care, here's three studies I found recently:

Evidence of Human Adaptation to Increased Carnivory
Fiber Does not Prevent Cancer (H/T: Keoni Galt)
We Evolved to Eat Meat - Direct Evidence of Prehistoric Meal