The Complete Patient

Today I received another one of those calls—this one from the American Cancer Society. No, I wasn’t being asked to give money, but rather to send out requests for donations to 14 of my neighbors.

This was the third such call I’ve received over the last couple weeks (or at least, the third such call I’ve answered). One was from the American Heart Association and another from the American Lung Association.

Each time, I briefly apologized to the solicitor and said I wouldn’t be able to help.

What I didn’t do is explain why I wouldn’t take on such a seemingly simple task. (I actually did do it a couple years ago, and it was pretty easy.) I hadn't articulated my feelings all that well, and the solicitors seemed to be paid contractors reading from a script, in any event.

But I now realize I was shying away because I don’t want to actively support these organizations...even though I'm a cancer survivor. Not because they are inherently evil. But because so much of their focus is on what might be referred to as “the medical-industrial complex” and its emphasis on Big Pharma and surgical solutions to the major diseases they stand for.

In so doing, they give short shrift to prevention and holistic approaches to heading off and treating disease.

Dave Milano touches on just that issue (in his comment on my previous posting) when he calls up a Center for Disease Control (CDC) statistical examination of breast cancer. It’s more about focusing on fear factors underlying the disease, than exploring lifestyle and diet habits that can aid in prevention.

These organizations, together with the federal government, are as much, or more, part of the problem than they are part of the solution. Still, I feel twinges of guilt about rejecting organizations that hold themselves out as our national solutions to cancer, heart disease, and lung disease. I know I shouldn’t—it’s just I’ve been so well conditioned.