Health Authorities Continue to Fail Us

conversationstarters
opinion
authority
(Mark Bousquet) #1

Found the following opinion piece at the Observer (via Diet Doctor) while eating my keto lunch. Good read! Feel free to discuss. I get high off this kind of wakefulness (or is it the ketones?). :smiley:

(Mark Bousquet) #2

The article states:

Of course, no one in the USDA, the AHA, the AMA, or other such authority
can admit they got it all wrong, can they? The backlash would be
enormous—we’d have class action lawsuits and an entire body of
professionals would lose their credibility instantly and completely.

The question I have is that if the data is in, why can’t we just sue them now?

(Marc) #3

I enjoyed that article. Some of my favorite parts:

Fats are apparently okay now, but only monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Saturated fat should still be limited—for what reason is unclear. The National Heart Foundation of Australia, on their own website no less, states that they “maintain there is a clear link between saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease, despite ABC media reports questioning the vast evidence base.” So despite all credible research and meta analysis—which they admit is “vast”—showing that there is no evidence to suggest that saturated fat is linked with heart disease, the National Heart Foundation has done the equivalent of stick its head in the sand and act as though nothing has changed.

Considering the above, no one in their right mind would take any kind of dietary advice provided by the authorities at face value. It’s little wonder then that so many are taking matters into their own hands.

Now more than ever the message is clear: if you want to truly be healthy, it’s up to the individual to do their own research and come to their own conclusions.

(Crow T. Robot) #4

I think I heard Gary Taubes in a talk say that he had actually consulted with some lawyers about the feasibility of that and no dice. He didn’t explain why it wouldn’t work, but I imagine you would not only have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the data conclusively showed their advice was harmful, but also that they knew it was harmful and did it anyway. The former would be hard enough on its own because of the lack of good RCT’s, but the latter would be nigh impossible unless you found smoking gun emails from people who were currently in charge.

(Zack F) #5

I think the overarching narrative is the problem for a relentless craving for “authorities” and authority. Taubes’ GCBC book illustrates this well though I don’t think it was his intention. The chronicling of abuse of power was more eye opening than the scientific stuff in that book. I even have some differences with that latter. I say down with the health czars. I certainly wouldn’t want reigning LFHC authorities replaced with HFLC people who see their calling to sue and persecute vegans. People need to re-frame the relationship with the experts they hire. A doctor, dietitian, nutritionist , dentist, lawyer, accountant or contractor is a counselor and not a Zoltar machine. He is a person with knowledge (we hope) who is there to advise but not make the decisions. Despite a lot noise out there, I think web is slowly eroding this official hold on power. In pre-internet days Noakes wouldn’t have stood a chance.