This is related to that last post. It looks like Paul Offit has a book out, and he's kinda well-known in these parts but, now (music to my ears) the good doctor sounds a little more pissed than I remember:
Offit says it infuriates him to see not only ordinary citizens buy into the claims of homeopaths, naturopaths and the vitamin industry, but doctors and hospitals. He calls out Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Deepak Chopra and others, saying they have abandoned science for the thrill of celebrity that goes with evangelizing alternative medicine.
“They have this almost guru-like stature that you should listen to them,” Offit says. “It is the surety of their statements that draw you to them. They make you think they are someone who just knows. But it should be the strength of data, the strength of science, rather than personality, that decide what it is true.”
Weil, for instance, has promoted the plant kava as a non-addictive relaxant. “Seven years later, when kava was shown to cause severe liver damage, the FDA issued a warning against its use,” Offit writes. But few consumers are aware. Weil sells his own line of supplements.
Chopra sells a line of supplements, oils, books and even jewelry. “Chopra has helped wealthy businessmen, celebrities and politicians like Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Winona Ryder, Debra Winger, Madonna, Mikhail Gorbachev. Michael Milken and Hillary Clinton find their inner space without feeling bad about being rich,” Offit writes.
I don't know what that last line means but, it's against NewAge so,...Go Paul! You might have to "dial it down a little" for television, but you go 'head, man. TMR's got your back, good buddy.
It's you and me:
O.K., you and motherfucking me,...
As to that last line, I'll wager a guess that it means teaching them meditative whatever so they can feel good about themselves, even superior, while doing whatever they want to to accumulate vast wealth and do whatever they want to.
ReplyDelete...sorta like Nazi camp guards doing yoga to "center their inner space".
The feeling good about themselves is troubling (sorry, nobody should feel entirely "good about themselves"...at least that's the way I was brought up), but the feeling superior part (which they do and are daily affirming themselves of I'm almost certain) is dangerous as hell.
PW