Take the Power Back: Taking back your health
As the saying goes, "An ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure." And as anybody
who's ever been sick can attest, a onetime
cure is worth well over a lifetime of
treating the symptoms.
So how many tons of symptom treatments would an ounce of prevention get us? Prevention is clearly the most efficient way of staying healthy, so why does the medical establishment focus all of its efforts and resources developing treatment-based strategies? Profit. This is why our health care system is falling apart.
Contrary to popular belief, Canada's health system is very much a for-profit operation. We pay with our health and taxes so that corporations get rich. Some get rich by causing our physical and mental sicknesses through the pollution of our minds, ecosystems and food supply, while others make billions treating our symptoms - a loop that keeps them richer and us sicker. Since profit is the motive, prevention is avoided at all costs. The more people are made sick, the more money flows in.
The problem is that we can't afford to keep paying the rising costs of this scheme. And instead of addressing the root issue, which is corporate greed, we instead begin debating whether or not to allow these same corporations to take over the healthcare system itself, or how many nurses and doctors we should lay off. For those of us not dumb enough to think the American model - of millions of poor people dying and not being treated for lack of insurance - is the right way to go, we need to radically change how our system functions before its too late.
Our healthcare system is broken in a number of ways. First of all, we invest little to nothing of our healthcare budget on preventative measures. The money is used up in treatments. There are thousands of products on our shelves that contain known carcinogens. We can stop the future cancers they'll cause right now, before we have to start paying for hundreds of people's chemo. It is also known that highly processed industrial food is a major source of all types of health problems and that organic foods are better for both your body and the environment. It should therefore be clear that it is more costefficient to eradicate industrial food from our society and replace it with affordable, healthy, local organics than it is to pay for the future medical treatment of millions of people who can't afford to eat healthy in the present.
The largest growth sector in the health industry is mental and behavioural illnesses and conditions. Not content to simply treat the symptoms of our physical illnesses, corporations are now aggressively marketing drugs and trying to convince us we have psychological illnesses. Granted, the explosion of the advertising industry has had an incredibly negative effect on society these last few decades, causing people to be depressed, self-conscious, have mood swings and feel anti-social. This has led to us having the shortest attention span of any generation. This does not mean there's something wrong with our minds. It means there's something wrong with subjecting the human mind to thousands of advertisements daily. Instead of forcing pills down our throats to be able to cope with this nightmare, just stop polluting our brains.
It is both stupid and inefficient that the government heavily subsidizes oil and mining operations that cause thousands of Canadians to develop terminal diseases, and then pays for these people's symptoms to be treated by other corporations that they heavily subsidize. Why not stop paying for both the problem and the "solution"? Why not identify and eliminate the root causes of illness?
Sure, we can blame the government, but we need to look in the mirror, too. Are we involved in learning traditional medicines and healing practices, or do we go to the hospital when we have a cold? Do we boycott carcinogenic products and fight for environmental justice, or do we run marathons once a year to raise millions for pharmaceutical companies to keep looking for cures and better treatments? Do we bike to stay in shape or drive to poison the Earth and ourselves?
As a society we need to reclaim autonomy over our bodies and health instead of always relying on this flawed treatment-based corporate enterprise. We need to cleanse our bodies and minds, eat healthy, exercise, learn home remedies, care for each other when we're sick and use the hospital as a last resort instead of a first.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
So how many tons of symptom treatments would an ounce of prevention get us? Prevention is clearly the most efficient way of staying healthy, so why does the medical establishment focus all of its efforts and resources developing treatment-based strategies? Profit. This is why our health care system is falling apart.
Contrary to popular belief, Canada's health system is very much a for-profit operation. We pay with our health and taxes so that corporations get rich. Some get rich by causing our physical and mental sicknesses through the pollution of our minds, ecosystems and food supply, while others make billions treating our symptoms - a loop that keeps them richer and us sicker. Since profit is the motive, prevention is avoided at all costs. The more people are made sick, the more money flows in.
The problem is that we can't afford to keep paying the rising costs of this scheme. And instead of addressing the root issue, which is corporate greed, we instead begin debating whether or not to allow these same corporations to take over the healthcare system itself, or how many nurses and doctors we should lay off. For those of us not dumb enough to think the American model - of millions of poor people dying and not being treated for lack of insurance - is the right way to go, we need to radically change how our system functions before its too late.
Our healthcare system is broken in a number of ways. First of all, we invest little to nothing of our healthcare budget on preventative measures. The money is used up in treatments. There are thousands of products on our shelves that contain known carcinogens. We can stop the future cancers they'll cause right now, before we have to start paying for hundreds of people's chemo. It is also known that highly processed industrial food is a major source of all types of health problems and that organic foods are better for both your body and the environment. It should therefore be clear that it is more costefficient to eradicate industrial food from our society and replace it with affordable, healthy, local organics than it is to pay for the future medical treatment of millions of people who can't afford to eat healthy in the present.
The largest growth sector in the health industry is mental and behavioural illnesses and conditions. Not content to simply treat the symptoms of our physical illnesses, corporations are now aggressively marketing drugs and trying to convince us we have psychological illnesses. Granted, the explosion of the advertising industry has had an incredibly negative effect on society these last few decades, causing people to be depressed, self-conscious, have mood swings and feel anti-social. This has led to us having the shortest attention span of any generation. This does not mean there's something wrong with our minds. It means there's something wrong with subjecting the human mind to thousands of advertisements daily. Instead of forcing pills down our throats to be able to cope with this nightmare, just stop polluting our brains.
It is both stupid and inefficient that the government heavily subsidizes oil and mining operations that cause thousands of Canadians to develop terminal diseases, and then pays for these people's symptoms to be treated by other corporations that they heavily subsidize. Why not stop paying for both the problem and the "solution"? Why not identify and eliminate the root causes of illness?
Sure, we can blame the government, but we need to look in the mirror, too. Are we involved in learning traditional medicines and healing practices, or do we go to the hospital when we have a cold? Do we boycott carcinogenic products and fight for environmental justice, or do we run marathons once a year to raise millions for pharmaceutical companies to keep looking for cures and better treatments? Do we bike to stay in shape or drive to poison the Earth and ourselves?
As a society we need to reclaim autonomy over our bodies and health instead of always relying on this flawed treatment-based corporate enterprise. We need to cleanse our bodies and minds, eat healthy, exercise, learn home remedies, care for each other when we're sick and use the hospital as a last resort instead of a first.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
