We already discussed how pandemic planning was cast aside for the pursuit of profit. But there’s also been a health care crisis that’s been eating away at people. COVID-19 crisis forced the media to fess up and identify what real killers are. It’s the healthcare crisis. Heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases - these are the real killers of Americans. It’s not terrorism, immigrants or Russia.

“COVID-19 is rapidly becoming America's leading cause of death”; Source.

If sugar exacerbates cancer, what does it do to COVID-19?

How should we think about the real killers of society? If we had a functioning media system, this would be the focus of the publications and society by extension.

Dr. Lustig has done research linking our ill-health to the massive volumes of sugar that we eat. Also, consider CBC's, The Fifth Estate documentary, The Secrets of Sugar, also linked sugar to chronic diseases:

“Emerging science is connecting the high consumption of sugar in North American diets with the rapid spread of chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.”

Insiders at processed food companies knew the link between processed food and poor health. But company executives didn't want to hear this truth:

“Michael Mudd, at the time the VP of communications at Kraft, made the presentation. He warned the food executives that if they didn’t do something to curb obesity, they would be facing lawsuits down the road… As he spoke, slides demonstrating the link between processed food and diseases such as cancer and heart disease are presented overhead… the CEO of General Mills, Stephen Sanger, was livid with Mudd and refused to participate in his proposal for food companies to pool money to tackle the rise in obesity.” [emphasis added]

So they ignored it, and now we are all paying the price. Those who are obese are most susceptible to being hospitalized or worse.

In a recent post, Dr. Robert Lustig noted the following about the risks of being impacted by COVID-19 and its link to obesity:

“Drawing on UK data Dr. Malhotra notes that 72.7% of patients admitted to ICU are overweight or obese and that those with the related metabolic syndrome have a tenfold increase in mortality from the virus. Referring to US data where obesity levels are similar to the UK, Dr. Malhotra notes that only 1 in 8 people are metabolically healthy including less than 1 in 3 of “normal” weight.”

Why doesn’t the Fake News care about the Healthcare crisis?

As I noted earlier, Dr. Lustig makes a good case that it's sugar. Naturally, others disagree. A functioning society will have strong disagreements about these types of things. But that's the point. We are NOT concerned about these things.

But will the media cover health after the COVID-19 crisis?

Probably, not. Matt Taibbi explains why in his latest Hate Inc.:

“So neither channel [MSNBC and Fox] will gross you out with stories about the maquiladora where Mexican workers are earning 70 pesos a day making your kids’ toys. They won’t scare you about the forests we’re clearing around the globe to feed the cattle we turn into cheap hamburgers advertised in between segments... We addict people to conflict stories so that our advertisers can remind them to indulge other addictions, like McDonald’s.” [emphasis]

Taibbi explains that the “first deception of commercial media” is the “notion that you are reading the truth." So, it's unrealistic to think that the media will ever change to cover health or other things that will really matter to us.

But we should also keep in mind what we discussed in the previous post about fantasyland. Capitalism sedates society with the 24-7 circus show. It pushes us away from reality. Sports, entertainment and the distorted news fill our minds with nonsense. In the US, there is the added dimension of the left-right tribal rivalry.

Taibbi writes: "If we once manufactured the consent…we’re now manufacturing discontent. It’s the only way to prevent a popular uprising." [Italics his, emphasis mine]

He suggests that the first step is turn of the media. That may abate the Democrat-Republican civil war he talks about. But it won’t help humanity move forward. It’s only when society realizes that it’s not “all good." The truth is not the same as falsehood. It's only when we build a society on reality will things change, if Allah wills.