Wishing You Good Health January 17, 2020January 17, 2020 At the end of this post I offer — free — an amazing “stage play” to which you might want to devote an hour of your weekend. But first, as laughter is the best medicine, watch Larry David on the Today Show promoting Season 10 of Curb that airs Sunday. I laugh just thinking about it. Have you seen this telling graphic? We’re all immensely grateful for the breakthroughs that a profitable, properly incentivized bio-pharm industry provides. But things have gotten out of balance. The Health-Care Industry Is Letting Surgeons Behave Like Muggers. (Thanks, Sam!) Michael Myler: “In 2011, the Republican House passed a bill titled REPEALING THE JOB-KILLING HEALTH CARE LAW ACT. They even get a dig in naming their bills! Well, here we are with ObamaCare still in place and 3.5% unemployment.” → It almost makes you think Republican lawmakers are not being straightforward about their priorities. Was their goal to save jobs? Or to repeal Obamacare’s 3.8% surtax on wealthy donors’ dividends and capital gains? David: “I think you are harming people (not intentionally) by advocating plant-based diets. There is some pretty significant data that suggests that humans should eat meat and that plant based diets are not optimal for humans. First let me direct you to this TED talk about how important animals are to the environment.” → It is a stunningly important talk on “desertification” and climate change and planned grazing that I posted here seven years ago. Everyone should try to find the time to watch. But cows raised in pens achieve none of the benefits described from planned herd movements. Nor is it necessary to slaughter and eat them for those benefits to be achieved. Still: watch the talk. Read the comments. David is right: This is important! “Second, some info about plant toxins. A plant-based diet is not harmless. Watch. “Third, there is significant evidence to suggest that humans are evolved meat eaters. The industrialization of agriculture has not been a good thing for human health. In particular the last 30 years have created an enormous rise in diabetes, obesity, and other chronic conditions. See: Evidence for a meat-based diet. And How the Extinction of Ice Age Mammals May Have Forced Us To Invent Civilization. “Lastly, please take a few minutes to look over this page and this one. My wife and I are 57 years old. We switched to a 90% meat-based diet six months ago and the the improvement in our health has been dramatic.” → I’m grateful for the feedback, but not buying too much of it. I’m considerably older than David and his wife, eat very little meat — and feel terrific. So there may be ways to eat healthy that are dramatically more resource-efficient than sirloin. And now, David Mixner‘s one-night-only, one-man play, You Make Me Sick, performed with the help of some friends last month in New York . . . executive produced by, among others, former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman, as described here: . . . Mixner related his macabre health care tales — battles with sepsis, Dilaudid drips which caused him to hallucinate an attack on the hospital by North Korean soldiers; a gruesome “eyeball scraping” after which he was forced to lay face down for days — with ribald, jaw-dropping humor and a spiritual lucidity. He wove his stories into a condemnation of the health care system which has left him in the humiliating position of asking his friends for financial help, reminding his audience that there are many others less fortunate, without the privilege of the access he receives. “They die,” he whispered to the silent and riveted crowd. A farewell to friends and strangers from a man who’s given six decades to the fight for peace and justice. Have a great, healthy weekend. Season 10 of “Curb” airs Sunday!