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The Profitable Destruction of Americans’ Health
by Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds
Who needs a healthy populace rich in well-being when you can have trillions in annual corporate profits?
The destruction caused by decay is just as catastrophic as the destruction wrought by calamity. The difference is we don’t notice the decay until it’s too late. When a wood-frame house is knocked down by a hurricane, earthquake or bulldozer, we are stunned and mortified by the destruction. But when termites or dry-rot eat away the framing for years until the house collapses, no single event triggers a response: we set aside evidence of the eventual negative consequences and reckon we can deal with it later.
The collapse of Americans’ health has proceeded in much the same fashion. According to Diabetes in 1964: A World Survey, the global rate of diagnosed diabetes in 1964 was estimated to be around 1% to 2%. In the US, 1% of the populace was diagnosed with diabetes (11 diagnosed cases per 1,000 people), and an estimated 8 cases per 1,000 were as yet undiagnosed.