Another few points on the Bhattacharya post

Dr Bhattacharya specifically made the point that any revaluation of the healthcare industry should not include finger pointing, inference being those in power who made what many would call egregious mistakes should not be punished in any formative way.

He said in the interview:

Stanford Review: Who is responsible for this decline in academic freedom?

Dr. Bhattacharya: I’m not sure who exactly is to blame, but I will say that it is the job of university leadership to stand up for the basic mission of a university, which is to let the winds of freedom blow. University leadership that does not do that has failed in its fundamental job. All it would take to reverse this culture of suppression is leadership within top institutions like Stanford to stand up and say that this is an incredibly important value — a fundamental value that we are ready to defend.

And:

Stanford Review: Today, in the waning days of the pandemic, what changes would you like to see in the public health establishment and in academic communities as a whole so as to foster more productive policy discussions, surrounding health and [more] generally?

Dr. Bhattacharya: The failure of public health to manage the pandemic properly has damaged the lives of an enormous number of people by failing to protect vulnerable populations and by the direct harms of lockdowns. This has led to a collapse in trust in public health, which is a critical problem that must be solved immediately. But, it will be very challenging because public health has made basic mistakes in policy and science. To repair the damage, public health will have to conduct an honest evaluation of its failure and take systemic action to prevent such failure from occurring ever again. It should not involve finger-pointing, but it should involve brutal honesty about what went wrong and prominently feature voices who were not in charge.

All things considered this is a wise choice, as the point is not to start a war, but to fix what is broken. And how many hundreds of times we have heard the "health care is broken" sentiment expressed?

So, not to point fingers at individuals, but rather to make perfectly clear how these mistakes could be made in the first place:

The pharma industry has become so profitable and politically powerful they have managed to "buy" congress, the executive branch, mass media, the major medical schools, the major scientific medical journals, hospitals, scientific medical researchers, and practicing MD physicians.

Did I leave anybody out?

Here are a few examples: Congress passed laws that indemnify the pharma industry against damages caused by their products. Mass media have become dependent on advertising revenues from pharma. Ditto the scientific medical journals. Ditto major hospitals, ditto major medical schools. Ditto your family doctor.

Not only does BigP grease the skids of every aspect of the health care industry, they also have "policing power" over researchers and family doctors. Raise a dissonant voice and your career may be over. The most glaring example of this is one of the three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, Dr Martin Kulldorff, a Swedish biostatistician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School since 2003, who was dismissed by Harvard in 2024.

How did the US, a theoretically free country, fall under the dictatorship of the most politically powerful industry? The answer is, first, the money to buy everyone and everything, but second (and also critically important) the "invisibility" of a broad based modern mythology. And what is this mythology specifically?

It is becoming more and more apparent to more and more people that "the cause of health" is a much more effective "roadmap" to the highest levels of health possible than "the cause of disease". Which is not to say the cause of disease roadmap, the sine qua non of big pharma, is completely invalid. But for those who follow the cause of health road map effectively, there is effectively no disease to deal with to begin with.

Imagine what would happen to pharma profits if the general population began to wake up to this. For elders well versed in and practising cause of health principles, there is no longer the "need" for eight different lifetime prescriptions.

Yes, consistently great health with no need of pharma medications into old age is a real possibility, but one that the vast majority is unaware of. Big P, the biggest voice, is not advertising this...there is no money to be made in it.

Yes, of course if one is involved in a serious car accident the first priority is to get thee quickly to the nearest emergency room. Modern medicine can be a miracle. But what is the likelihood of a car accident? 

Whereas consistent cause of health practices are everyday all day.

What are the results? Near perfect health all day everyday, high and consistent levels of energy until time to sleep (which performs the critical function of recharging the battery), and in addition to physical health, emotional health and happiness. 

Most psychiatric conditions are more effectively treated with cause of health practices than with psychiatric medications.

I've said cause of health a lot in a short time. Let define it in the quickest way possible. It boils down to the quality of substances entering your body. Clean air, clean water, clean foods, plenty of good rest, and substantial loving relationships (which enter the psychic body).

The most immediate thing to do is prevent substances that are "not food" from entering your body. How do we identify what is and what isn't food? A thought experiment: how long could we survive with energy on a single substance that we could have as much of as we desired? A week, a month? 

Those substances are food...they are whole, fresh, ripe, organic where possible...and pharma does not make them.

 They make stuff  that is purported to heal us from the dietary abuses we subject our bodies to, but these substances do not work, and are expensive in more ways than one.