From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Andrew Weil's "throw out the food"
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <19971014201000.QAA03116@ladder02.news.aol.com> jetsilverx@aol.com
(JetsilverX) writes:
>
>>Just finished Andrew Weil's book "Spontaneous Healing".
>
>When he spontaneously heals that bald spot on his head, I'll begin to
>think he is onto something.
>
>Same with Mr. "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind". He is 50 and looks, like an
>out-of-shape 50 year old. If he had the face and body of Brad Pitt it
>would be a different story.
>
>
>
>Jet Silverman



    Not every health writer gets to be Linus Pauling and make it to 93.
Steward Berger of the Immune Power Diet made it to 41 and died of an
MI.  He shoulda paid more attention to other systems than his immune
system.  Likewise Jim Fixx dead while running at age 52.  And Robert
Mendelsohn who confessed to be medical heretic and laughed at how
doctors treat heart disease.  Dead of heart disease at 61.  And Euell
Gibbons out there grazing on the lawn died of a heart attack at 64.
Not enough dandelions there, Euell.  And Adelle Davis dead of cancer at
70.  And J.I. Rodale and his MI in 1971 practically on camera during a
show on health.  Age 72.   George Ohsawa of Zen Macrobiotics fame had
his fatal MI at the same age.  Not very impressive.  All these guys
with The Answer, and most of them didn't even make it to three score
and ten.  Dead doctors do not lie, and I suppose dead health gurus
don't either.


                                         Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Andrew Weil's "throw out the food"
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <3444b676.45094393@news.glink.net.hk> baran@glink.net.hkNOSPAM (Paul
Baran) writes:

>On 15 Oct 1997 05:19:37 GMT, sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
>wrote:
>>  George Ohsawa of Zen Macrobiotics fame had
>>his fatal MI at the same age.  Not very impressive.
>
>The way I heard it, George Osawah died while attending a macrobiotic
>banquet in his honour. So the story goes, he collapsed  face first
>into his miso and died. If true, at least he made a splash with his
>exit.



ROFL.  That's the universe--- it just loves to tweek humans for their
vanity.

                                  Steve Harris, M.D.


"How to make God laugh: tell Him your plans."

                   --- Old Saying

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Andrew Weil's "throw out the food"
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <625e0e$2j8@clam.Hi.COM> wright@nospam.clam (David Wright) writes:

>In article <621jp9$jbk@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>,
>Steven B. Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>    Not every health writer gets to be Linus Pauling and make it to 93.
>>Steward Berger of the Immune Power Diet made it to 41 and died of an
>>MI.  He shoulda paid more attention to other systems than his immune
>>system.  Likewise Jim Fixx dead while running at age 52.
>
>In fairness, though, didn't Fixx's father die of an MI at a much
>earlier age than 52?  (I also seem to recall that an autopsy showed
>that Fixx had suffered at least one previous MI, possibly "silent"
>ones, before the one that killed him.)


Oh, the guy probably lengthened his life by running-- I admit it.  But
the route he chose was not the most effective way, by far.   To the
exercise add a good vegetarian diet, some cholesterol drugs, wine,
vitamin E and aspirin, and he's probably still be running today.

                                  Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Andrew Weil's "throw out the food"
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <1668.7227T984T2742@escape.ca> sgb@escape.ca (Syd Baumel) writes:

>Sad, but true. Irving Stone (do I have his name right? -- the champion of
>vitamin C, not the novelist) also died in his seventies, I believe of a
>heart attack. But let's not forget Albert Szent-Gyorgi [sic?], Roger
>Williams, and another megavitamin C guru MD whose name escapes me -- all
>of whom made it past 90. I wonder what the average age of death would be
>if you collected the stats on all these natural health gurus and compared
>them to others of their generation and demographics. Then maybe it's the
>health-food eating, supplement-popping orchestral conductors who have it
>best ;-) (Menuhin still seems to be ticking along very fine at -- what?
>-- 80 or so).
>
>Syd




Roger Williams, Linus Pauling, and Szent-Gyorgyi might indeed have been
on to something.  I certainly take a handful of vitamins every day
myself, in hopes that they were.

And yes, there have been a lot of really old conductors who did pretty
well-- I think of Toscanini.  And indeed, performers of all kinds like
Artur Rubenstein and Vladimir Horowitz.   I wonder what the connection
is?

                     Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Alternative lies about Rx drugs (was: NEJM)
Date: 10 Oct 1998 11:10:23 GMT

In <Pine.GSO.3.95qL.981009102418.25031B-100000@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu>
Aaron Andrew Fox <aaf19@columbia.edu> writes:

>(and on another note, usually y'all say that the AMA is a leading agent
>in the pharmaceutical conspiracy, so do tell us why they published this
>sloppy science article?). Would you rather that everyone who experiences
>an MI or runs their car into the back of a truck was just left to die a
>nice, "natural" death in peace, like they do in the third world where the
>statistics are much more natural -- parasitic/infectious disease,
>respiratory disease, etc. lead the list?


   No, there are better ways, though somehow the prevention gurus fail
to profit by them.  I'm thinking of the elder Rhodale, founder of
Prevention Magazine, who fulminated on a TV show in the late 60's about
how modern medicine was ignorant of the true nature of disease--- right
up till he dropped dead practically on camera in the studio of a heart
attack.  He was about 70.  His son took over and ran Prevention into
the 90's, writing occasionally about the shortcomings of Western
medicine.  Then he took a tour of Russia, a country with TRUELY bad
medicine (and bad drivers), and had an auto accident which was the end
of HIM.  Stuff like this is why some people believe there is no god,
and why other people believe there is.