Tuesday, November 17, 2009

HA!. . . HAAAaa-ha-ha-ha!!

Ok, you'll like this. According to the American Institute of Cancer Research, obviously in an effort to make adipose tissue 'truly' deadly, fat now causes 100,000 types of cancer. . . .Well, it's just about time we got to the really big, truly, terroriffic numbers! No more piddling around with one or two monthly, breathlessly shrieked, breaking news headlines. The AIC has decided to go the whole hog and shoot for 100K! Death Fatz has officially arrived!!

It's funny if you think about it, well it's still pretty funny even if you don't think about it, but I suppose this was inevitable. We see at least one announcement a month in the news declaring 'Obesity is now shown to cause 'X' Cancer  / Condition / Disease / Whathaveyou'. So many in fact that it begins to make one wonder; If being fat is so, unavoidably lethal, how come there are so many fat people still walking around on the planet? I mean, isn't that how evolution works? (All you 'Obesity Can't Be Genetic' people; I could use a hand here) If being fat is so deadly, why hasn't it been deselected by evolution as an undesirable trait? 100,000 cancers? How is it possible for ANY fat person to live past, hell, thirty? Or maybe there's another, simpler, explanation. Lets see. How about this; as my Grandaddy used to say 'Follow the Money'.

At somewhere over 40 billion dollars in revenue it really can't be argued that the diet industry is not a force to be reckoned with. 'Specially where getting people to buy their 'product' is concerned. That kind of money gets attention. It changes minds, encourages cooperation, and can even set political policy. Is it so much to imagine that it can also influence the, supposedly unbiased, world of science and research? Research often involves experimentation in a vacuum but the process itself doesn't occur in a vacuum. It takes money. Usually in the form of Grants, to fund research and it has been observed that, where that money comes from, can often influence the conclusions science and research ultimately come to. Thing is, money doesn't always influence JUST the conclusions.

Are you a researcher? Need a lab? Need top-of-the-line computers, specialized equipment, supplies, data (it's not always free), or just need to pay your staff ? Well, you could apply to a grant for the obscure research closest to your heart and maybe get less money than you need. Or you can apply for something popular. Something that's already got LOTS of money being poured into it by, well. . . . Does it really matter who's paying? Everybody knows who they are. Everybody knows what they want. Apply for the grant, tell them what they want to hear, and your set. Nobody gets 'hurt', you get money for resources you can use in more important work, and your credibility doesn't take too much of a hit. After all, with so much OTHER questionable research being done on the subject, who can say who's right, who's wrong, and who's just getting paid. Such is the state of Science these days.

Fat causes 100K types of cancer? Right. Smoking causes cancer. Exposure to radiation, dioxins, asbestos, various and sundry other toxins causes cancer. Random hits to the DNA by cosmic rays causes cancer. Now, what their trying to sell me is that a natural, fundamental, PART of  human anatomy, something that has been evolved into every species of mammal on the planet since we crawled out of the primordial soup, is suddenly so lethally toxic that we need to do everything short of kill ourselves to get rid of it. Sorry, already got my quota of Bullshite this week, tell your story walking.

What's REALLY funny about all this? Only thinking creatures could come up with something so ridiculously devoid of logic and then be stupid enough to actually believe it.    
    
Muzak Therapy:
Paul McCartney & Wings / Live and Let Die

4 comments:

  1. Smoking is a contributing factor that CAN lead to cancer in some individuals.

    No, I do not believe that smoking is healthy, but if smoking CAUSED cancer... everyone who's ever smoked would have it.

    I merely point this out to reinforce your basic tenet here that "science" will tell us all a lot of things that we shouldn't necessarily swallow whole.

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  2. Actually, you've got a point there. I remember reading an article recently in regards to how false / incorrect information gets promulgated. How most people, upon initially receiving bad info without immediate reference to opposing insights or information, have to actively convince themselves that new information might be better. No matter how obviously correct that new info is. And don't refer back to the bad data in your new expenation. It only serves to re-inforce resistance to the new.

    Not to put too fine a point on it but, as long as we're talking about smoking, if one were to look at the tactics used by the recent Anti-smoking Crusade in comparison to the current War on Obesity one might find all kinds of disturbing similarities. Leaving out the 'Second-hand smoke' argument for just a second or two, I'd argue that smokers place lower on the morally repugnant totem pole than heroin addicts. Running about neck-a-neck to drunk drivers and with fat people dropping in fast for the race to the bottom. I mean, when was the last time you saw someone march up to a drunk stranger on the street and demand that they hand over their keys / not drive? And how long before we have people snatching food out of a fat strangers hand all in the name of saving them from themselves.

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  3. I have been seeing rumblings around the sphere on how a publicly funded healthcare system can lead to gov't controll and regulation of what I eat as a fat man. As what anyone who is fat eats. Not fun to think about, yet, should we as a activist based movement be concerned about this likely being a hot button anti-fat issue?

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  4. Healthcare? Definitely. The system as it is now isn't just broken, it's disintegrating under our feet. Anybody arguing for business as usual is standing on the tracks in front of a 3 mile long freight train yelling 'Don't worry, it'll stop!' over the screaming breaks. Um, No. I've got my problems with Universal Health Care that are completely separate from any issue of Fat, but we need to try SOMETHING.

    In regards to FAT and the healthcare debate? BOTH include elements of scapegoating, blame, and excluding or punishing fat people. BOTH camps have, pretty much, already been convinced that fat people are a 'Problem that needs to be solved'. Funny no? How we seem to unite Dem & Rep, Private Care & Universal. None of them can be left alone in a room with the others unsupervised, yet throw in 'obesity' and they all start pointing, Po-poing or yelling 'Just lose weight Fatty!'. Usually Every. Single. One of them knows just what needs to be done about us fat folks but, since NONE of them have any clue what their talking about, everything generally goes straight back to hell from there.

    If you meant the 100K cancer thing; No. This is FAR too ridiculous to even pay attention to beyond filing it with 'Obesity is Contagious' and 'Obesity Causes Global Warming' under the heading; Stupid FatHater Tricks, and ticking it off on the list. That way, when some moron claims fat people AREN'T being persecuted, we can always point to the MOUNTAINS of, expensive, officially sanctioned Bullshite perpetrated in the name of getting fat people to stop being fat at them and ask 'Yeah? So what's all that, then?'

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