"Ask Your Doctor if Getting Off Your Ass Is Right for You"

Because he's a way better writer than I can even dream to be, here's a post I'm taking from Lou Schuler and his terrific blog:

I nominate Bill Maher to head up the FDA under the next administration:

If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs.

Yes, it's that time in the campaign where all the candidates are presenting their health care proposals. Hillary's covers children's teeth. Edwards has one that includes maintaining gorgeous, shiny hair and Barack Obama's involves going on Oprah, and everyone gets a gastric bypass!

But, none of the plans address the real problem. We won't stop being sick until we stop making ourselves sick. Because -- because there is a point where even the most universal government health program can't help you. They can't outlaw unhealthy food or alcohol or cigarettes. Just pot, sadly.

Because, you see, the government isn't your nanny. They're your dealer. And they subsidize illness in America. They have to. There's too much money in it. You see, there's no money in healthy people. And there's no money in dead people. The money is in the middle. People who are alive, sort of -- but with one or more chronic conditions that puts them in need of Celebrex or Nasonex or Valtrex or Lunesta. Fifty years ago, children didn't even get Type 2 Diabetes. Now, it's an emerging epidemic. As are a long list of ailments which used to be rare, and have now been "mainstreamed."

Things like asthma and autism and acid reflux, and arthritis, allergies, adult acne, attention deficit disorder. And that's just the "A's."

Doesn't anybody wonder why we live with all this illness? I'll tell you why. At the L.A. County Fair last week, they were serving something called "Fried Coke." Now, my first thought was, gosh, what a waste of a perfectly good "Eight Ball." But, no, they actually pour the Coca-Cola syrup into a deep fryer.

Then put it in a cup and top it with sugar and whipped cream, and a cherry, because, you know, fruit is good for you.

Would it really be that much more unhealthy to get molested by one of the carnies?

In Hillary Clinton's health plan, the words "nutrition" and "exercise" appear once. The word "drugs" 14 times. Just as the pharmaceutical companies want it. You know, their ad weasels love to say, "When diet and exercise fail ... " Well, diet and exercise don't fail. A fact brought home last week by a new Duke University study that showed exercise -- yes, exercise -- is just as effective a cure for depression as Paxil and Zoloft.

So ask your doctor if getting off your ass is right for you!

You know, if Republicans can sell the idea of preemptive war, Democrats have to at least get us interested in the idea of preventive medicine. Someone has to stand up and say that the answer isn't another pill. The answer is spinach. Okay, not spinach. Turns out that crap'll kill you. But you know what I mean!