health-promoting surgeon general?

[Guest guest]

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2008nl/nov/obama.htm

 

November 2008

 

Vol. 7, No. 11

 

The First Imaginary Conversation between President-Elect Barack Obama

and His Newly Appointed Surgeon General, John McDougall, MD

 

Date of 1st Meeting: November 30th, 2008

 

Barack Obama invites us to share our vision:

Write to him and include this letter.

(copy and paste the interview below into the submission form on

Obama's website)

 

Obama: Welcome to the job. I want to be clear that I have appointed

you because I need someone who has new ideas that will inspire

change. My one fear is that Congress will not confirm your

appointment because many of the members represent interests of the

food and drug industries-and you are well known to be a strong

critic of both.

 

McDougall: I voted for you because I believe you are, foremost,

interested in the welfare of people, not only Americans, but

everybody. Being intelligent, articulate, and appearing unafraid also

helped sway my vote.

 

The US Department of Health and Human Services says, "The Surgeon

General serves as America's chief health educator by providing

Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve

their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury." With two

notable exceptions, which I will talk to you about later, the Surgeon

General's office has failed the American public. I am a general

doctor; you should expect my interests to be solely focused on the

welfare of people, not industry.

 

Obama: You will be perfect; the Surgeon General functions as the

nation's family doctor. I fully realize restoring health to America

is fundamental to our success in all areas, including the economy and

the two wars we are fighting. So where do we begin?

 

McDougall: The urgency to fix the broken health of this nation is as

great as solving the housing and economic crises that you are facing.

More than 80% of our health problems are from our food choices. After

the age of 30, in our country, almost everyone is overweight, on

medications and/or has risk factors, like high cholesterol and high

blood pressure, which predict premature disability and death.

You have been asked to lead a nation of sick people, which compounds

the difficulty of solving every one of your other problems.

 

Fortunately, there is one single big solution that will revitalize our

citizens, cut food and health care costs, and reduce environmental

pollution, overnight: reestablishing the natural human diet. If you

will reflect for a moment on your life experiences you will quickly

understand what I am talking about.

 

You lived for 4 years in Jakarta, Indonesia (1967 to 1971) and in 1988

you spent 5 weeks in Kenya. Do you remember the diets of these

people?

 

Obama: Rice was the staple food in the Indonesian diet. In Kenya they

eat a ground corn flour mixed with water called ugali. They also eat

lots of green vegetables, beans, breads, rice, and a little meat and

milk.

 

McDougall: I realize you were only a young boy then, but when

you lived in Indonesia 98 percent of the calories people ate came from

plant-food sources. Even today, the Kenyans ingest about 77% of their

total daily calories from carbohydrates, primarily from starches.

 

The importance of starch as the natural human diet is resurging. Corn,

beans, and squash-the three sisters of American Indian

agriculture-will appear on the nation's one dollar coin next year.

The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the

Potato in order to address global concerns, including hunger, poverty,

and threats to the environment.

 

All large populations of trim, healthy people, throughout written

human history, have obtained the bulk of their calories from grains,

tubers, and legumes. You have read history books about this and

have witnessed this effect first hand in your extensive

travels.

 

Mr. Obama: Here Is a Partial List of Historical Examples of

Starch-Based Diets

 

Barley - Middle East for 11,000 years

 

Corn - Central and South America for 7,000 years

 

Legumes - Americas, Asia, and Europe for 6,000 years

 

Millet - Africa for 6,000 years

 

Oats - Middle East for 11,000 years

 

Potatoes - South America (Andes) for 13,000 years

 

Sorghum - East Africa for 6,000 years

 

Sweet Potato - South America and Caribbean for 5,000 years

 

Rice - Asia for more than 10,000 years

 

Rye - Asia for 5000 years

 

Wheat - Near East for 10,000 years

 

Obama: I remember; everyone was trim, healthy, and hard working in

Indonesia. The same for Kenya, in fact their runners are

legendary for their performance, endurance, and their unique ability

to recover from strenuous exercise. Today they dominate long

distance running events.

 

McDougall: Over the past century there has been escalating abandonment

of a starch-based diet in favor of one centered around

low-carbohydrate meat and dairy foods. Each and every time a

population has made this change an epidemic of obesity, heart disease,

diabetes, and cancer has followed.

 

You just finished 2 years of campaigning across America. You

must have noticed the condition of people, particularly those of

African decent. About four out of five African-American women

are overweight or obese. One-third of blacks in America have

hypertension accompanied by stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure.

Black men have the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world.

Asian Americans, often in one generation, have also become

Americanized in their diet and appearance.

 

People must learn to get the bulk of their calories from starches.

Notice I did not say every patriotic American has to become a

vegetarian or vegan-I am not pushing a religion, just a single big

change in eating.

 

Obama: You are talking about a revolution. I have promised our

nation change on a historic scale. But, this is

unprecedented.

 

McDougall: Twice before, Surgeons General have put people's

health before industrial profits. Luther Terry, MD, who was appointed

by President Kennedy, served as Surgeon General from 1961 to 1965.

Under his leadership, in 1964 the first Surgeon General's Report on

Smoking and Health was released. Look what has happened over the past

4 decades. In the late sixties, when I was a medical student, I

saw doctors smoking while examining patients. Today, smoking

cigarettes is a social disgrace.

 

A similar change in our society should have followed The Surgeon

General's Report on Nutrition and Health issued under C.

Everett Koop, MD in 1988. Unfortunately, this report didn't have the

desired effects; over the past 2 decades, obesity in America

has risen from 10% to over 30% of our population. The ultimate

insult: McDonald's and Burger King sell their products in hospitals.

We are now two decades behind; we need a health revolution backed by

our President.

 

Obama: Have you considered the effects on the meat, dairy, and

processed food industries?

 

McDougall: I have about as much sympathy for the people in these

industries as I do for those selling tobacco. I have also

considered the effect on the medical businesses. If this movement

works as planned cardiologists and bypass surgeons will be temporarily

standing in unemployment lines along with autoworkers. However,

under your leadership millions of new jobs will be created and the

country will move forward. In order to carry out your dream for a

green energy economy Americans must be competitively fit-we can no

longer add $1500 to the price of each automobile to pay for the

healthcare of the employees. The benefits to individuals will be

immediate; food costs will decrease from $14 a day to $3 a day per

person on a starch-based diet.

 

Obama: As appointed (but unconfirmed) Surgeon General can you

provide me with some specific steps to take?

 

McDougall:

 

1) Identify the livestock and processed food industries as the major

cause of death and disability in the US. This will be more

difficult than it was for tobacco because in the case of smoking in

1964, half of the population were non-smokers and could see the

insanity. Right now more than 99.9% of Americans cannot see past their

own dinner plates-they have no idea there is a problem with their

food choices. The education hurdles will be great, but not

insurmountable.

 

I am asking for $217 million annually for this budget. By no

coincidence this figure represents the amount the dairy and beef

industry spend annually-$175 million and $42 million,

respectively-shamelessly promoting their products through our school

systems, dietitians, doctors, the USDA, scientific journals, and every

available form of media. You may be asking how are we going to

pay for this?

 

2) Levy a tax on health-damaging foods. Cigarette taxes added by

individual states are as high as $2.58 per pack. Since there is

too little time to wait for individual states to act, this legislation

will immediately be brought to Congress, and become a federal tax.

This tax will achieve two social objectives: to reduce the number of

citizens making themselves sick and to raise government revenue.

Annually, 28 billion pounds of beef and 9 billion pounds of cheese are

consumed in the US. Taxed at $1 per pound, this tax will leave a

lot of money left over for other worthwhile programs. How about

dedicating $10 billion to rehabilitation live-in programs, modeled

after the highly successful McDougall Program, for people with type-2

diabetes, heart disease, inflammatory arthritis, multiple sclerosis,

GERD, IBS, obesity and other diseases caused by meat- and

dairy-centered diets?

 

3) Place Product Warning Labels. Just like those on tobacco

products. Here are two examples:

 

 

4) Change to a starch-based diet for all government funded programs.

Three very needy groups come to mind: our military, schools, and food

assistance programs. Among our fighting forces 61% are

overweight-it is unsafe to send these men and women into battle in

such poor condition. Diet-induced childhood obesity and illness will

be considered abuse, especially after adults know better.

Subsidizing foods that make people fat and sick doubly harms

underprivileged Americans. In the near future food stamps and other

assistance programs will not provide for the purchase of tobacco,

alcohol, meat, dairy, or highly processed "junk" foods.

 

5) Educate doctors and dietitians about diet and how to take people

off medications. The effects of food on health and disease, a subject

almost entirely ignored in medical schools, need to be taught.

The food industry will be highly regulated when they finance research

and banned entirely from educating dietitians. Relicensing exams will

require all professionals to take courses in diet therapy and how to

reduce and discontinue medications once used to treat diseases of

over-nutrition.

 

6) Require all hospitals to serve healthful foods. In my parents'

day, free samples of cigarettes were distributed to patients, and I

can remember hospital gift shops selling cigarettes. Right now

every hospital in the country serves to their patients the very foods

that brought them there in the first place. No longer will we

miss the "teaching moments" that ha--============_-984014911==_ma============--