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From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: coffee causes heart attacks?
Message-ID: <2040@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Thu, 23-Oct-86 19:09:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.2040
Posted: Thu Oct 23 19:09:41 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Oct-86 00:52:49 EDT
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 29


I have for years felt that it was strange that there was this
repetitive hypothesis that if it feels good, it must be bad.

We seem to be constantly deluged with 'stories' that sex, drugs
and rock + roll are bad for us, proven by one study or another.

There is no doubt some of it is true but the correlation seems
amazing: if it feels good someone will do a study and report to a
major periodical (and thus picked up by every 6PM/11PM news program on
TV) that -it- is harmful.

I guess just it never occurs to anyone to study the correlation
between eating spinach or paying all your bills on time and cancer. It
wouldn't sound very good in the NIH proposal anyhow. On the other hand
Disco and finger injuries (too much finger snapping), THAT'S
interesting (true study, reported a few years back in JAMA.)

I dunno, but think about it, would -you- write up a proposal to study
the correlation of fresh air and pancreatic cancer and expect it to
get funded? But fishing expeditions in our nether activities seems
perfectly acceptable.

Just cynical I guess. It may not be the medical folks so much as the
press tho having worked in medical research I think its a little bit
of both, maybe a lot of both. We love to punish ourselves for our
pleasures (see! I really AM suffering!)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University