[civilian_number_two]

Civ: I must admit that I'm a little dissapointed at the lack of you actually debating.

Well, I pretty much agree that people should reduce their intake of chemicals. Yes yes I know everything is chemicals, but you all know what I mean. Natural diets work more or less fine, whole prescription medication also has its uses. I did completely disagree with Sailor Abbey on the issue of socialised medicine. I like that government money, tax money, is spent researching things that completely privatised healthcare and pharmaceutical industries wouldn't bother with. There are issues to be worked out, and I think there is corruption and waste, but there would be corruption and waste in the private sector as well. I don't agree with everything the military does, but I don't want to privatise that either.

Barend: interesting snippet on sugar. Pretty much says that sugary orange drinks are no good for fighting a cold, and we should stick to the natural orange. Can't say I'm surprised (in fact I'm more surprised that Slade is surprised), but it's nice to see it in writing.

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 24 February 2006 - 06:27 PM

[Madam Corvax]

Yesterday in a supermarket I saw a perfect killer offer - cola with a free packer of crisps. When I was doing my stint as a trainee teacher, I noticed that this is what most children get for lunch in schools here. I never ate crisps, I stopped drinking fizzy drinks some time ago, it is the least I could do.

However, this does not stop me from consuming an enormous amount of chemicals in normal foods. Chicken and other livestocks are pumped with hormones to make them grow like crazy - cows are given antibiotics that ends up in their milk, vegetables are sprayed with pesticides - all this I have to eat, unless I convert to an organic farmer and produce all my food myslef. (The organic food craze has not yet reached my country, and anyway it is very expensive).

So, whether I want it or not I consume harmful chemicals. Most of us do. You can't change it. But I can consciously elimitate at least those most harmful.

I was also grateful for painkillers when I had operation for my ankle - I am grateful for aspirine and cholesterol level lowering drugs that my husband has to take for the rest of his life. If it hand't been for the progress of medicine, I would be dead now.

What frightens me, though, is the ads, which, as was already mentioned, flood TV. The most stupid of these are painkillers - like showing old people with pain from rheumatism and pain in joints, and telling them, that after taking painkillers you would be able to do anything - when you take painkiller, you remove the effect not the cause and it can only make you worse.

Also - I was positively terrified when I learnt that people in America relay so much on pills. You take one pill to get you to sleep. Those pills invarianby make you more dumb, so consequently you have to take amphetamine derivative drugs to take you through the day, and then you cannot sleep... and so it goes again.

[Slade]

The worst part is that you cannot choose your own medication, only your doctor can, so these advertisments are trying to sell a product indirectly. The only way they even work is if a patient annoys a doctor enough to sell that product to the patient over another one. I don't understand the point of those commercials at all.

And I have a few friends who are severe insomniacs and end up being awake but zombielike for days at a time due to lack of sleep. Most people don't take more medications to counter a sleeping aid - that's going a little too far.