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From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: The Perils of Nutrasweet (actually, sugar)
Message-ID: <240@bbncc5.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Jul-85 16:11:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncc5.240
Posted: Sat Jul 27 16:11:12 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Jul-85 06:46:11 EDT
References: <771@burl.UUCP> <394@petrus.UUCP> <192@omen.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 47

> Smoking has been around since Sir Walter Raleigh (17th century), and the
> medical community hasn't come down hard on it until now.
> If it takes as long for the medical community to react to the wholesale
> suarar loading of our diet, we still have a few hundred years to wait
> for the word to propagate.
> If the "defenders" of sugar would take the bother to acknowledge the
> references I've given, their debating style wouldn't sound so much like
> the Tobacco Institute.

Ahem, I would be reluctant to cast aspersions on the "debating style" of
others with ad-hominem slurs given the yawning holes in your reasoning.  If
you wish to be taken seriously, and I believe you do, then you must rely
on facts, and not rhetorical flourishes.  A couple of points:

Medicine as it is practiced today is a late 19th-20th century phenomenon
and bears little resemblence to the surgeons/barbers of the 17th century.
It is patently ridiculous to assert that medicine has failed because the
dangers of smoking weren't discovered until the 20th century.  The branch
of medical science known as epidemiology and one of its tools, multivariate
statistics, have only matured in the last 70-odd years.  Indeed, it is
quite reassuring to note the unified position of the medical community
against the dangers of smoking, even in the face of powerful political and
economic pressures.  It may come as a disappointment to the Truly Paranoid,
but the "medical community" is not a monolithic entity subject to manipulation
by "special interests."  Medicine may be judged as inherently conservative,
relying as it does on prudence, rationality and the application of the
scientific method, but I tend to think of that as a virtue.

On your comments about sugar, for every crackpot book that enumerates the
dangers of sugar, there are studies which fail to demonstrate ANY
exceptional deleterious effects other than dental caries and providing
"empty" calories.  This, of course, is consonant with the empirical
findings of clinicians.  Yeah, I know, all funded by the "sugar industry"
and therefore suspect.  It is interesting to reflect on what a charge like
this says about the state of scientific research in our universities, where
most of these studies are performed.  It is also worth noting the reports
of the Framingham study on diet and heart disease which clearly link
saturated fat intake and cholesterol levels with heart disease.  Where
were the beef and dairy industries then?  Probably not as "organized" as
the sugar industry?  Of course not.  It is simply that the facts became
self-evident, and no amount of "influence" real or imagined would have
any effect on the results.

-- 
/Steve Dyer
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