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General News    H3'ed 3/5/25

If Obesity Is a Disease..So Is Smoking!

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Martha Rosenberg
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Many have heard the FDA is "captured" by Pharma and that the CDC Foundation boasts donors like Pfizer and Merck. The best example of this capture is the government elevation of obesity to a disease. Why? Because a "disease" requires a drug and the gold rush around GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic is unprecedented and making billions.

There is so much money in the new fat drugs that compounding pharmacies are suing drugmakers and vice verse while bariatric surgeons fume over lost business. Formerly fat celebrities are displaying their svelte figures--you can do to it too, people!--while trying to hide their faces that resemble disinterred corpses. (Are you watching plastic surgeons?)

Unless you were born with a cigarette in your mouth, you do not have the "disease" of smoking. But fat people are said to have the "disease" of obesity--that they are "living with obesity" like someone might "live with" type 1 diabetes.

But only in the US are expensive and addictive drugs--when you quit, the weight returns--billed as the answer to obesity. Of course, only in the US (and New Zealand) are direct-to-consumer drug ads allowed, possibly the biggest funder of TV. In the UK, obesity is addressed by bans on junk food advertising on TV and train lines. Think about that.

Whose Fault is Obesity?

Are fat people lazy, gullible gluttons? Absolutely not! But they are surrounded by junk food ads and junk food availability that push them in that direction--just look at the "food" that convenience stores, vending machines and fast-food outlets offer. Ubiquitous, genetically modified junk food is designed to be addictive and American fat people are Exhibit A.

Yes, some people are what used to be termed endomorphs; some have a fat retaining metabolism widely seen as an atavism from human famine days. But, fat people do not suffer from a deficiency of GLP-1 agonists--drugs with so many known health risks, some call them the new Vioxx. (A hyped pain reliever that caused at least 50,000 heart attacks and was rescinded.) No, fat people suffer from a government that would rather sell junk food--it partners with junk food makers itself--than regulate harmful food.

According to family physician Dr. William Wilson, author of the book "Brain Drain," growing health conditions like major depressive disorder, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder are likely connected to obesity.

WE Are Paying for GLP-1 Agonists

Should people of normal size pay for others' non-ending prescription for a GLP-1 agonist--around $1,000 per month on average without insurance? Should they pay for the medical complication that may ensue from the drugs? Well, they already are if they use either private or government health insurance plans. After all--obesity is a "disease."

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Martha Rosenberg is an award-winning investigative public health reporter who covers the food, drug and gun industries. Her first book, Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, is distributed by (more...)
 

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