No Coverage on Arguably the Biggest Crisis Faced by the United States
Imagine a highly regarded and credentialed doctor like Casey Mean giving an impassioned talk before Congress last week warning that we are being systematically poisoned by Big Pharma and Big Ag. And see my post on her talk.
Then imagine that there has been absolutely no coverage of this important talk by NYT, MSNBC, CNN, NPR or WaPo. How could that possibly be?
The Health State of the Nation
I'm currently reading Good Energy, a new excellent and horrifying book by Dr. Casey Means. Dr. Casey Means:
"I learned virtually nothing at Stanford Medical School about the tens of thousands of scientific papers that elucidate the root causes of why American health is plummeting.”
“I did not learn that for each additional serving of ultra-processed food we eat, early mortality increases by 18%.
This now makes up 67% of the foods our kids are eating. I took zero nutrition courses in medical school.
I didn’t learn that 82% of independently-funded studies show harm from processed food, while 93% of industry-sponsored studies reflect no harm.
I didn’t learn that 95% of the people who created the recent USDA food guidelines for America had significant conflicts of interest with the food industry.
I did not learn that one billion pounds of synthetic pesticides are being sprayed on our foods every single year. 99% of the farmland in the United States is sprayed with synthetic pesticides, many from China and Germany, and these invisible, tasteless chemicals are strongly linked to autism, ADHD, sex hormone disruption, thyroid disease, sperm dysfunction, Alzheimer’s, dementia, birth defects, cancer, obesity, liver dysfunction, female infertility and more.
I did not learn that the eight billion tons of plastic that have been produced just in the last 100 years … are being broken down into microplastics that are now filling our food, our water, and we are now even inhaling them in our air, and that very recent research … tells us that now about 0.5% of our brains by weight are plastic.
I didn’t learn that there are more than 80,000 toxins that have entered our food, water, air, and homes by industry, many of which are banned in Europe, and they are known to alter our gene expression, alter our microbiome composition and the lining of our gut, and disrupt our hormones.
I didn’t learn that heavy metals like aluminum and lead are present in our food, our baby formula, personal care products, our soil, and many of the mandated medications like vaccines, and that these metals are neurotoxic and inflammatory.
I didn’t learn that the average American walks a paltry 3,500 steps per day even though we know, based on science and top journals, that simply walking 7,000 steps a day slashes by 40-60% our risk of Alzheimer’s, dementia, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and obesity.
I certainly did not learn that medical error and medications are the third-leading cause of death in the US.
I didn’t learn that just five nights of sleep deprivation can induce full-blown pre-diabetes. I learned nothing about sleep, and we’re getting about 20% less sleep on average than we were 100 years ago.
I didn’t learn that American children are getting less time outdoors now than a maximum security prisoner, and on average, adults spend 93% of their time indoors, even though we know from the science that separation from sunlight destroys our circadian biology, and circadian biology dictated our cellular biology.
I didn’t learn that professional organizations that we get out practice guidelines from, like the American Diabetes Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have taken tens of millions of dollars from Coke, Cadbury, processed food companies and vaccine manufacturers like Moderna.
I didn’t learn that if you address these root causes that all lead to metabolic dysfunction and help patients change their food and lifestyle patterns … we could reverse the chronic disease crisis in America, save millions of lives and trillions of dollars in healthcare costs per year.
This is a spiritual crisis. We are choosing death over life, we are choosing darkness over light.
We need a return to courage. We need a return to common sense and intuition. We need a return to awe for the sheer miraculousness of our lives.
We need all hands on deck."
Source: Sen. Ron Johnson’s Roundtable on “American Health and Nutrition: A Second Opinion”
Japanese Obesity
It's almost an oxymoron to say "Japanese obesity." Johann Hari, who has written a new book, "Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs," discussed purported miracle drug Ozempic with Bari Weiss. His bottom line is that there are straightforward solutions to the out-of-control obesity of Americans. But there is so much more to this interview than Ozempic. Here is Hari's discussion of how obesity is seen in Japan:
Johann Hari: So Japan has 4 percent obesity. Americans have 42.5 percent obesity. But Japan shows us that is not inevitable, right?
I went to a Japanese school, a normal middle-class school, with a thousand kids. It was bizarre walking around this school. There were no overweight children in this school. Every school in Japan has to employ a professional nutritionist. Her job is to design the meals. All processed food is banned.
So I go to the school and I’m watching these kids eating these unbelievably healthy meals. And I said to them, “So what’s your favorite food?” And one of them goes, “My favorite food is broccoli.” Another one goes, “My favorite food is white fish.” And another one goes, “I like boiled white rice.”
And I turned to my translator and I said, “Are these kids fucking trolling me? Their favorite food is broccoli?” She said, “We teach our children to love healthy food, don’t you?” No Japanese person understood why I was shocked. One of the funniest experiences I ever had was trying to explain the concept of “fat pride” to Japanese people. They were just completely baffled.
They have a law; it was so bizarre witnessing. . . in 2008, in Japan, obesity went up by 0.4 percent, and there was a massive national freakout.
We Have Ended the War on Obesity. We Are Declaring Ourselves Healthy Fat and Moving On
Dr. Vinay Prasad reports on the insanity. Here is is in a nutshell (this is my mini-summary):
Mount Sinai School of Medicine: Striving for a healthy weight is racist. NYT: Stop worrying about losing weight. This is part of the new American ethos: This bad thing that is happening to you is not your fault. In fact, nothing is your fault. And there is no need to work hard to achieve anything.