Junk Food

Forget Cujo. Never mind Nightmare on Elm Street. Say whatever
to Friday the 13th. I have just read a book that makes all the above
look like something you'd see on Sesame Street. The scariest thing
about it is it's on a non fiction shelf.
Eat meat or eggs? Got milk? Take a regimen of meds prescribed
by a doctor? If you answer yes to any of those questions (or drink
water or breathe air for that matter) it will be in your best
interests to read Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks,
Quacks, and Hacks Pimp the Public Health. Martha Rosenberg carefully
delineates the ways Big Pharma and Big Food are sacrificing our health
and lives in pursuit of big bucks. Even those who are supposed to
protect us are too often in cahoots. The Mafia, if there is such an
entity, would be green with envy.
Have you ever wondered why so many children (and now adults) are
being diagnosed with and medicated for ADHD, never mind the whole
alphabet soup of psychiatric maladies we never heard of back in the
day? Does it seem slightly bizarre that suicide can be a side effect
of anti depression meds? Does there appear to be any reason why
hormone replacement is still being pushed after ample documentation of
its lethat side effects? Why would anyone need a female Viagara?
There's lots of money to be had in those pill bottles. As you will
read in the first six chapters, drug companies, with a little help
from their friends, maximize profits by getting doctors to peddle
their products to as many people as possible, even if they are not
needed or safe.
I was especially interested in the bone chapter. I went through
menopause hormone free. I haven't had an antibiotic since a freebie
from a doctor proved far worse than the illness it cured. I think in
2004. I've been described, however, as the poster adult for
osteoporosis. I'm white, female, and small boned with a BMI of 20 and
a family history. I'd actually considered taking something. Can you
imagine my outrage when I read that stuff caused osteomecrosis,
cancers, fatal infections, and even the bone fractures it was taken to
prevent?I think I'll stick with calcium, vitamin D, weight bearing
exercises, and not smoking.
If these chapters don't upset you, read the rest of the book to
see what's being done to what passes for food these days.
Think hormones and antibiotics should be given to food and dairy
animals to speed up weight gain and enhance milk production when they
can lead to health hazards to consumers and increases in antibiotic
resistant bacteria? Think the above mentioned animals (and people who
tend to them) should have to live in conditions that can only be
described as barbaric? Think big companies should be able to sell
genetically engineered foods without labelling them as such, taking
away our right to be informed consumers? Those and other atrocities
fill the last seven chapters.
On a personal note, my family and I deserve safe food and medicine.
You and yours do too.
A great big shout out goes out to all people who are working to
protect us from the ills this book documents.
Julia Emily Hathaway


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