Last night, TV news carried yet another story about the benefits of alcohol. This one concerned the new Dutch report of a correlation between moderate alcohol consumption and reduced risk of several types of arthritis.
After the teaser for that news item, I said to Leonore, “I bet they’ll quote doctors warning people solemnly about the dangers of alcohol.” Of course I was right. Doctors caution against blah blah blah. Because of course if they didn’t give us those warnings, we’d all rush out and drink ourselves into the gutter and divorce and bank robbery and liver failure.
I’ve seen articles about the benefits of tea and coffee, and those lacked solemn warnings against taking up tea and coffee drinking. Yet historically tea and coffee houses have led to far more revolution than alcohol ever did. Possibly to more social unrest and planning of bank robberies, too, but I lack solid data regarding those.
Only when it concerns alcohol does the medical establishment – or maybe it’s the medical journalism establishment – feel the need to moralize, the conviction that without their stewardship we’d all go to Hell. Twits.
5 comments:
I see the merits of your argument, but I propose a conclusion opposite of the one you seem to be advocating. I think "But doctors urge caution..." should be used as a tagline for EVERY story. "A skydiver's chute failed to open, and he miraculously survived -- but doctors urge caution..." or "Look: this cat is nursing puppies! But doctors urge caution..."
Good idea! That hadn't occurred to me.
The Prohibitionists have never really gone away. They've mostly given up on legal means to enforce their aims (although MADD comes close) but they're still hoping to shame all of us who drink Demon Liquor.
As a raging alcoholic, I must say that these doctor cautions always went in one ear and out the other. As well as the whole "say no to drugs thing"... the one I hate though, now that i'm clean of drugs and alcohol, is the little disclaimer on every pack of cigarettes I smoke insisting that I will die early, ugly, and that any children i bear will be born premature and of low weight....
Do they think i don't know that? Come on now....
Stupid doctors think they can tell me what to do? I'll show them. I'm smoking twice as much from now on.
http://arealgoodblog.blogspot.com
I appreciate warnings that I otherwise couldn't reasonably be expected to know about. I'd like to see more of them on products that contain poisonous substances that the manufacturers would rather we not know are in there.
But that's entirely different. And those warnings aren't likely to ever show up on such products.
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