Page 21 - Winter2014

Caustic Commentary

one serving of meat or other protein (more well off children to breast cancer. Low blood cholesterol levels are related to
can buy a second portion each day with their own dime) and slow visuomotor speed in young and middle-aged men, and
potatoes are limited to just a single serving of three-fourths low serum cholesterol levels predict cognitive decline (Am J
of a cup per student. There's no butter of course, for the dry Clin Nutr 2004;80:291-8). And finally, patients with cancer
brown bread (which the children do not like), no whole or even and other terminal disease saw an overall improvement in
2 percent milk, and even ketchup packets are rationed to one the quality of life and lived longer when taken off statins
per student. Worst of all, there's a calorie cap of 850 calories (Proceedings of the American Society for Clinical Oncology
for high schoolers, 700 for middle schoolers and a mere 650 annual meeting). Of course, when a loved one is in the hospital
calories for kids in elementary schools. Parents complain that or nursing home for whatever condition, they are automati-
their kids are starving, and the kids say the food "tastes like cally put on statins—and it often takes a fight to remove them
vomit." Across the country, some wealthier suburban school from the drug regimen. The whole statin phenomenon is snake
districts are simply backing out of the program, although do- oil, snake oil that causes serious adverse effects.
ing so means giving up a six-figure annual subsidy from the
federal government (dailycaller.com, July 27, 2013). Last year FAKE MEAT THAT BLEEDS
the New York City school system dropped out after the stu- Since consumers have mostly rejected veggie burgers based
dents complained of starvation, and an Illinois school district on beans and vegetables, the food engineers have come up
dumped the guidelines before even fully implementing them. with faux meat patties that are pink on the inside and leach
One positive outcome of the Obama lunch plan: many more a red juice when cooked. The bioengineered burger is the
students brought their lunch from home, which is what they brainchild of university professor and mad scientist Patrick
all should be doing anyway (naturalnews.com, July 19, 2013). Brown, whose start-up company, Impossible Foods, has re-
ceived millions in financial backing from Bill Gates, Google,
STATINS FOR EVERYONE and others. An individual patty costs twenty dollars to pro-
Not content with sixteen billion dollars in yearly sales, the duce so more research is needed to get the price down to one
statin industry is aiming to rope in even more patients. Ac- the average vegetarian can afford. Other laboratories have
cording to a recent study (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014; DOI: been experimenting with growing and culturing meat from
10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.6288), 97 percent of women aged animal cells, but the Impossible Burger has been developed
sixty-six to seventy-five and 100 percent of men "qualify" for using plant compounds only (huffingtonpost.com, Decem-
statins. Healthy adults whose "risk" of heart attack or stroke ber 3, 2014). On a related note, bioengineers in the U.S. are
is more than 7.5 percent should also be on statins. Mining the developing the world's first artificial cow's milk made from
data from the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Trial genetically engineered yeast "in an effort to put a sustainable
(which were collected and analyzed by the pharmaceutical option on the market." According to the developers, vegans
industry alone, with no independent oversight), researchers Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya, synthesizing cow's milk
suggest that taking a statin drug for five years in middle age will be a relatively simple process because milk has got "less
can lower heart and death risks for "decades afterwards" than twenty components and consists of about 87 percent
(www.dailymail.co.uk, November 19, 2014). (The data from water" (www.sciencealert.com, Oct 29, 2014).
the Framingham Trial showed that lowering cholesterol in
middle age increases heart disease and overall death risk as BUTTER BATTLING BACK
we grow older.) Meanwhile, evidence of serious side effects Butter consumption is rising, but not without objections from
from statins continues to accumulate. A study published in the diet dictocrats. Appearing in The Wall Street Journal
Toxicology (2013 Sept 15;311(3):162-8) found evidence that (October 29, 2014), an article entitled "The Last Anti-Fat
statins degrade the extracellular matrix of the tendons, leading Crusaders," by Nina Teicholz lambasted the lowfat dietary
to tendon rupture. Another (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers guidelines as hopelessly outdated and contrary to the current
Prev 2013 July 5) found that statins cause disruptions leading science. She cited a landmark meta-analysis of all the available
Wise Traditions WINTER 2014 Wise Traditions 17

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