Bill Mahr's crusade against modern medicine

[Jon Miller]

Clean living can help against infection.

JM

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Clean living can help against infection.

JM

Of course it does.

I does not provide absolute immunity to infection. It did not elminate polio or smallpox. It cannot prevent malaria (if you say just don't travel to an endemic area, my head may explode). It cannot treat tuberculosis. I could provide a multitude of other examples, but I've tried to pick those that are least open to debate based on overly literal arguments.

[Jon Miller]

Well, I think that there is evidence that lot sof vitamens and other stuf f(like the stuff in green tea) fights infection or disease taht gets into your body. By this, I mean, if you are close to someone with the flu/etc.

I don't know about all diseases (and I would guess not), but being healthy at least rediduces your chance to have catch the disease or have cancer (cells mutate all the time, it is just most of the time our body kills them or makes them not harmful before they go overboard and take over our body).

JM

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I don't know about all diseases (and I would guess not), but being healthy at least rediduces your chance to have catch the disease or have cancer (cells mutate all the time, it is just most of the time our body kills them or makes them not harmful before they go overboard and take over our body).

JM

There is evidence to support this. Like I've said. If I could be granted one wish in order to improve overall health in the US and Canada and decrease health care spending at the same time, that wish would be that each and every person eat healthy, exercise and maintain a normal weight. Likely the incidence of most diseases (cardiovascular, cancer, infectious included) would decrease.

Imagine that you cut your hand while preparing your organically grown brussel sprouts to refresh you after your 20 mile bike ride to protest at the tobacco farm. You wash your hand with soap -- a non medical and very effective antimicrobial measure, yet, in several days your wound is puffy and red. Good old stapholococcus aureus has set up shop. After a week of clean livin' your arm is red, the wound is draining foul-smelling pus and you're running a fever. The infection is creeping up your arm in angry red streaks and your body is wracked with uncontrollable shaking and chills. You begin to hallucinate and it is difficult to breath. Do you take the freaking antibiotic?

That's all I'm saying. Nice trolling though.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini


There is evidence to support this. Like I've said. If I could be granted one wish in order to improve overall health in the US and Canada and decrease health care spending at the same time, that wish would be that each and every person eat healthy, exercise and maintain a normal weight.

So you'll leave the good stuff alone?

[DirtyMartini]

I don't think eliminating that would have far-reaching health benefits. I guess Dorito eating and couch potato-ism might decline.

[Wezil]

I looked for the Mahar bit on YouTube but couldn't find it. I'm curious to hear how this message was delivered b/c it sounds just entirely too nutty.

[DirtyMartini]

Utterly deadpan and sincere. Guests were uncomfortable. I didn't see the entire thing.

Maybe you can find the Letterman bit -- he was a little less nutty, but IIRC was telling Dave he should get off all his cardiac meds. The dude had bypass surgery for goodness sake -- the healthy living ship has already sailed.

[Wezil]

I checked for the Letterman as well.

Dates they aired may help (or somebody like LS ).

[DirtyMartini]

Comedian Bill Maher is an avowed atheist, so why did viewers of his HBO talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher” hear him proclaim during a live broadcast on February eighth that he had “got religion?”



Fans of the controversial host can relax; the “religion” in question is not the organized type that Maher rails against so often, but a belief in the power of the body to keep itself healthy without the aid of ANY prescription drugs, especially antibiotics. Call me crazy but that sounds a lot closer to Tom Cruise’s Scientology beliefs than Mr. Maher may have been aware of.



Back in 2005 when Tom Cruise was promoting “War of the Worlds,” he went on a now infamous rant against psychopharmacology on the “Today” show that left more than one viewer believing that Cruise needed a little Ritalin of his own.



“There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance in a body,” Cruise stated, going on to inform host Matt Lauer that he was “glib” for suggesting that some people could actually be helped by psychiatric drugs. It was a weird moment that has helped cement the image of Tom Cruise as a wacko zealot to this day.



Tom Cruise we knew about, but et tu Bill Maher? Fans of his “politically incorrect” observations have gotten used to his impassioned views on subjects ranging from the war in Iraq to the correlation between corn consumption and obesity in Americans, but a closet Scientologist we never took him for.



In the latter half of the latest “Real Time,” Maher moved the discussion with panelists Bob Costas, Matthew Dowd and PJ O’Rourke from the topic of Roger Clemens’ alleged steroid use to the toxicology report of actor Heath Ledger. Reading from USA Today Maher quoted the paper as saying Ledger’s death was a warning to everyone on “the danger of mixing prescription drugs.” Looking up, the talk show host emphatically stated “No, the danger is that all prescription drugs are poison. Everything in the pharmacy is poison.”



When challenged by conservative panelist Jonah Goldberg that antibiotics in the correct dosage could save lives, Maher’s response was a loud “You’re wrong.”



“Most of us who are leading normal lives should never get to the point where we need antibiotics,” Maher stated after suggesting that people who take the medication may need it because they have already “run their body down with all of this ****.”



Asked by Costas if he was aligned with Christian Scientists and others on this topic, Maher said “God, no” then went on to claim that he “would never get the flu.” Faith, grandiosity… it sure sounds like Bill has gotten some sort of religion to me.



It took the charms of PJ O’Rourke to talk Maher back off of the ledge of crazy town by informing the host calmly that “Bill, this show is taking a REALLY strange turn.”


This approach, coupled with the fact that the hour long show was nearly out of time, appeared to work; but before Maher would give up the topic he repeated the mantra of all obsessed mad men throughout history: “You all look at me like I’m crazy, but I’m right and some day…” Yes, yes, shhh…. Some day Bill, some day…


I am not saying that Bill Maher is right or wrong; I am just saying that he is starting to sound a lot less like Matt Lauer and a lot more like Tom Cruise with this anti prescription bull****. And what’s even worse? He has lost all sense of humor on the topic of prescription drugs. Fans of “Real Time” and “Politically Incorrect” before it have long known that there were some subjects to which Bill Maher could never bring the funny; but for a man who started in stand-up, getting upstaged comedically by Bob Costas should be taken as a dire warning to lighten the **** up.

Google of Maher and antibiotic yields this on a website with which I am not familiar.

[DirtyMartini]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpcSePrIwbA

that should be the link based on the comments below the youtube entry.

It's Maher, Feb 8, part 6

sorry, don't know how to post the actual clickable video thing.

[Wezil]

Yeah, I found it. He starts at about the 7:00 mark



Nutty. Not jumping up and down on a couch nutty but still

[DirtyMartini]

I think that's why I found it so scary. It's easy to dismiss rampant couch-jumpers as silly loons. Comedic talk show hosts who go out of their way to bring up such a topic and discuss it with such seriousness are scary.

[Wezil]

They're both entertainers. I don't really care what any entertainer has to say on serious topics. I will consult an expert for these matters and let the entertainers do what they do best.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini


There is evidence to support this. Like I've said. If I could be granted one wish in order to improve overall health in the US and Canada and decrease health care spending at the same time, that wish would be that each and every person eat healthy, exercise and maintain a normal weight. Likely the incidence of most diseases (cardiovascular, cancer, infectious included) would decrease.

Imagine that you cut your hand while preparing your organically grown brussel sprouts to refresh you after your 20 mile bike ride to protest at the tobacco farm. You wash your hand with soap -- a non medical and very effective antimicrobial measure, yet, in several days your wound is puffy and red. Good old stapholococcus aureus has set up shop. After a week of clean livin' your arm is red, the wound is draining foul-smelling pus and you're running a fever. The infection is creeping up your arm in angry red streaks and your body is wracked with uncontrollable shaking and chills. You begin to hallucinate and it is difficult to breath. Do you take the freaking antibiotic?

That's all I'm saying. Nice trolling though.

Oh, I use drugs. I am jus tsaying that people don't appreciate how great healthy living can be.

JM