It has been almost a year since my father penned his final column at the age of 101. To mark the occasion, I offer his own timeless words, this week edited from the forward to his book, 90+ How I Got There!
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George Bernard Shaw once remarked, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion it has taken place.” Today the biggest problem with communication in medicine is that it is the wrong communication, delivered to medical consumers with disastrous results. During the latter years of my surgical practice, I began to realize that big pharma had created a culture of consumer pillitis wherein every minor problem required a pill. But no mention was made of unintended consequences. This triggered my interest in natural remedies that had stood the test of time. They have not killed anyone. Prescription drugs, on the other hand, have removed 100,000 North Americans from this planet every year.
As a medical journalist I have enjoyed the privilege of interviewing international medical authorities. This had a profound influence on my approach to medical matters, and there is no doubt my two lengthy interviews with Dr. Linus Pauling are among the reasons for writing this book. Pauling’s views on vitamin C, and those of Dr. Sydney Bush, represent to me the greatest medical achievement since I graduated 65 years ago from the Harvard Medical School. It may have the potential to help mankind as much as, or more than, any other research, but is still collecting dust in the medical community. It is an appalling tragedy as their findings of C’s benefits could save countless lives.
Voltaire, who spent time in the French prison Bastille one wrote, “It is dangerous to be right, when the government is wrong.” During my lifetime as a surgeon and medical journalist I learned that Voltaire was right. When my newspaper column tackled controversial medical topics, my popularity with segments of society and the medical establishment was jeopardized. The written word is dangerous, but as a journalist one should never expect to win a popularity contest.
Reporting the facts of medicine is never easy. Multinational companies producing chemical therapies are making billions of dollars supposedly to reduce suffering, but they confuse the public about the cause of heart disease and other medical problems.
Eventually the truth does emerge. As Winston Churchill wrote, “The truth is inconvertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it, but there it is.” The truth is that we are getting older and living longer, but we all want to live longer well. In this age of degenerative disease, the Gifford-Jones Law states that one bad problem leads to another and another. It is best to avoid them a much as possible. Due to faulty lifestyle decisions, obesity may lead to Type 2 diabetes. Its complications may lead to loss of limbs, blindness and kidney failure. Atherosclerosis due to diabetes may lead to heart attack and sudden death. All may prevent a lengthy and active life.
I hope that this book will show how these disasters and other medical pitfalls do not have to happen. They will occur less often if North Americans learn that smart people do at the start of life what fools attempt at the end.
Enough said.
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Next week I will share one of the chapters from 90+. Readers interested in e-copies or one of the few available hard copies can order at www.docgiff.com or contact me.
This column offers opinions on health and wellness, not personal medical advice.
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