Shaking my head and getting madder

I AM SKINNY...there it is on the internet and it must be true.  I am an average person who understands that is kind of silly but it seems that this kind of thinking is becoming more prevalent.  It is also part of what I see as a really scary move away from facts and science and into the realm of junk that once I put it out there it must be true. The other part of this that is actually more frightening is the fact that we expect People, the STAR and other tabloids to be just that...entertainment, with a wink and a nod that says if you put two people who are famous in the same zip code you can say they were abducted by aliens and are now having a love child.  I do not expect that from the NY Times and other newspapers.  If I did than I would expect those newspapers to change their tag lines to I AM BIASED TOWARD XXX PARTY and will blindly advance their agenda so this is not a newspaper but a giant OP ED page.  If they are not willing to do that well then they should do something called journalism which is more than writing a story it is actually looking at facts and presenting both sides of the story as much as possible.


Since this is my blog and I write about everything from being blonde, to being a Mom, to loves lost, and Christian Grey well then I will follow my own request stated above.  I AM BIASED TOWARD BEING TREATED AS A PERSON WHO CAN THINK AND WHO DOES NOT BLINDLY FOLLOW ANY PARTY and this is a giant op ed page that has no research behind it that would qualify as journalism.


I started, erased and restarted this blog a few times. This is because I am so annoyed that I start to get all over the place (the whole vaccine scam for something that has been thoroughly disproved, the holistic "holier than thou" but do not test it nonsense - basically people looking at facts and because they do not like the facts well then they cannot be true). Reminds of that Bugs Bunny cartoon with Columbus "She's a round...she's a flat".  There is also the historical "don't tell the public because they will not understand the science" fault of the healthcare industry to balance what has become a tornado of misinformation.   The latest in this is an article about physicals.  Now all of the outcome data (there go those pesky facts again) that I have ever seen says that routine care of anything from your car (oil changes, tuneups), to your house (fixing and checking a leak is sure a lot better than waiting for your roof to cave in) to cleaning your coffeemaker once in a while shows that these routine check ups improve the life of the things mentioned. Yet along come the insurance companies (and there is such short sightedness in everything they do) who do not really want to pay for this for people(and as that ever efficient structure called government gets more involved in this they will hire and pay for a lot of people to tell you how not to pay for the people who actually take care of your health).  The same insurance industry that I know most of us give money to and avoid using for things like our car (cheaper often to fix it after a fender bender and not report it because they will make you pay more next time even when not your fault) instead of using them (brilliant how they pulled that one off) for the reason we pay them for.  There I go I ranted for a paragraph and still did not stick to my main point (if I was a cartoon - of course I would be Jessica Rabbit - I would have those steam things coming out of my ears).


How can a "respectable" paper print an article that discourages people from going for physicals and advising them to wait until their "bodies" tell them to go (what happens if my body tells me to get a physical every month will that be the diagnosis that gets paid since I followed their advice?).  It is more costly to the system and emotionally as well as physically debilitating to treat illness long term rather than by diagnosing and offering options as early as possible.  I am not a conspiracy theorist but articles like that really make me shake my head and wonder what is the driving force behind them.  The healthcare system itself would have benefited from an annual physical because by the time they started looking at it the prognosis looks pretty dim.  If they had looked at it they may have been able with some lifestyle modifications (tort reform, a government insurance plan like the one the government has made available on a sliding scale) it would not have devolved to the place it is now - think diet controlled diabetes, with maybe a pill vs insulin shots and hope that you do not wind up in a diabetic coma.  We are not statistics, so that 1 in a 100 could be me, or you, or someone you love who could have lived better or just lived - how's that for a fact that the articles seem to forget to mention.  


Early intervention and the trust we built (between the people I choose - not some unknown entity dictated to me) between my son's pediatricians and I was vital in helping my son with his treatment and incredibly successful outcome for his fine motor skill problems.  I did not get annual physicals for years (though I am so good at the ob check up) and no I did not have any problems, I am glad for that.  I am older now though and I hope that my check ups remain boring and uneventful but because I have children I feel the added responsibility of ensuring that I remain that way and that my doctor and I never deal with anything more than a lively discussion on the books we are both reading.  I will continue to rely on my mechanic (again the person I chose) for the health of my car, the contractor (who I chose) to ensure my house stays at it's optimum and on my doctors (and those of my family - who yep you got it I chose) to maintain the health of my family.  If you choose people you trust you will find they are partners who provide knowledge and if needed potentially harm saving procedures (my car stalling, my roof caving, my health).  I will not believe it just because it is on the internet but rather work toward a solution for what ails the parts of my life by discussing them with the people who were trained to take care of them....and to the best of my knowledge that is not the journalist for any of those.  I would like to go to the journalist for what they were trained for and often are not practicing ...not fiction writing...not tabloid writing ...but reporting of what they have looked at many angles for or put it on the Op Ed page where at least I know what I am getting. 


Many of you know where I work , no need to plug them here or in comments, but these opinions are solely my own (love this independant thinking stuff) and not those of the company I work for - yes this is the disclaimer.