Last night I happened to catch a few minutes of a PBS “Independent
Lens” program called “A Lion in the House,” Part 1 of 2. Here is the
description given in the public TV-radio magazine: “This inspiring,
harrowing and intimate series follows five children as they fight
against cancer with the help of their families, nurses and doctors
over a span of six years.”
As you can well imagine, watching the suffering of these children and
the desperation of their families was heartbreaking. It is bad enough
when adults suffer, but children are totally at the mercy of these
adults whom they trust to do whatever is necessary to help them. Add to
that my frustration with knowing that nothing was mentioned about the
role nutrition may play in the search for causes or treatments of
diseases such as cancer.
Isn’t it cruel to take a chance giving a child a new, unproven
pharmaceutical and to try all sorts of technological innovations, but to
ignore the possibility of something as simple as a healthful, whole food
(unprocessed) vegan diet? Why give patients expensive pharmaceuticals
that have all sorts of side effects while feeding them notoriously poor
hospital food and never discussing a healthful lifestyle? And what about
the possibility that diseases may be triggered by all the hotdogs,
baloney, bacon, milk, cheese, ad nauseam (with all the additives,
hormones, etc.) that the typical growing child eats?
Is it fair for doctors to assume that “patients would never change
their eating habits anyway, so why bother to even suggest such a thing?”
We reap what we sow: but is it fair to drag innocent children into toxic
lifestyles because the adults are addicted to being lazy, passive, and
self-indulgent?
How long will it take before people wake up and start taking
responsibility for their health and the health of their families? Maybe
we ought to take more seriously those ancient bits of advice from
Hippocrates, the father of medicine: “First, do no harm.” and “Let food
be your medicine.”
For more on health,
see:
http://www.all-creatures.org/health.html
