More Prescription Drug Deaths Than…

When we talk about addiction, we’re not just talking about alcohol abuse or illicit drug abuse. In a report released in July 2005, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University said that prescription drug abuse is skyrocketing. In the United States there is a startling difference between the death rates caused by prescription drugs and more well known killers of our time…

Cause of Death	Annual Death Toll 2005
Prescription Drugs	32,000
Suicide	30,622
Firearms	29,000
Car Accidents	26,347
Homicide	20,308
Sexual Behavior	20,000
HIV/AIDS	17,011
Illegal Drugs	17,000
Anti-Inflammatory	7,600
Terrorism	310

Suicide

1,378 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than suicide…that’s 4% more. Total suicide deaths in 2005: 30,622 One suicide occurs every 16 minutes, with one attempt every minute. The number one cause of suicide is undiagnosed and untreated depression.

Firearms

3,000 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than firearms…that’s 9% more. Total firearm deaths in 2005: 29,000. The U.S. has the highest concentration of gun owners in the world. It is estimated that Americans buy half of all the guns manufactured in the world each year. Currently, due to the rise of shootings on campuses, twelve states are considering legislation to allow guns on college campuses.

Car Accidents

5,653 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than car accidents… that’s 18% more. Total car accident deaths in 2005: 26,347 There were over 6 million car accidents in 2005 costing more than $2 billion.

Homicide

11,692 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than homicide … that’s 37% more. Total Homicide deaths in 2005: 20,308 Detroit is considered the most dangerous city in the U.S. with 418 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in 2006. That’s 47 murders per every 100,00 residents.

Sexual Behavior

1,200 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than sexual behavior…that’s 37% more. Total sexual behavior deaths in 2005: 20,000 Sexual behavior includes infertility, abortions, and sexually transmitted infections. Women account for 80% of deaths attributed to sexual behavior due to cervical cancer.

HIV/AIDS

14,989 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than HIV/AIDS… that’s 47% more. Total HIV/AIDS deaths in 2005:17,011 Currently, it is believed that more than 1 million people are living with HIV in the U.S. Since 1981 more than half a million Americans have died of AIDS - the equivalent of the entire population of Las Vegas. Over 60% of men and women diagnosed with HIV/AIDS were exposed to it through sexual contact.

Illegal Drugs

15,000 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than illegal drugs (including heroin and cocaine)…that’s 47% more. Total illegal drug deaths in 2005:17,000 Drug induced deaths result directly from drug consumption and overdose. Drug abuse is a major factor in the transmission of std’s, hepatitis, and tuberculosis.

Anti-Inflammatory Drugs

24,400 more people died from prescription drugs in 2005 than anti-inflammatory drugs…that’s 76% more. Total anti-inflammatory drug deaths in 2005: 7,600 Anti-inflammatores include ibuprofen, diclofenac, and naproxen. Long term use of these can cause gastric erosions which can become stomach ulcers and in extreme cases cause severe hemorrhaging resulting in death.

Terrorism

Statistics prove prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists. It is not difficult to calculate the actual probability that one of us might die from a terrorist attack on US soil. If we consider Oklahoma City and 9/11, as well as the other attacks on US soil, we end up with close to 3100 terror deaths in ten years. That’s about 310 deaths by terror on US soil per year.

Prescription Drugs

The pharmaceutical industry has spent tens of billions of dollars to gain the influence of powerful politicians, the FDA, and the medical profession to market medications to the public. According to Neurologist Dr. Fred Baughman, author of The ADHD Fraud, the pharmaceutical industry is the biggest, most evil drug cartel in history. He says, “At least the pusher of ‘crack’ on inner city streets does not come in a white coat.” Drug dependency often occurs because patients are convinced that they have a problem only to be remedied by medication. The medication often causes side effects, and the patient is prescribed another medication to treat said side effects, and thus the cycle continues.

For example, currently 5-7 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD. These children are being given powerful psychiatric medications in drug cocktails that are detrimental to them. These medications include amphetamines such as Adderall and Dexedrine, and methylphenidates such as Ritalin and Concerta, the same drugs that most know as Speed. These stimulant drugs cause insomnia, creating a need for sleeping pills, and contributing to an 85% increase in the use of sleeping medication taken by children since 2002. On average, these children wind up on four to five psychiatric drugs.

Between 1999 and 2003 the FDA reported 25 deaths and 54 cases of serious cardiovascular problems, including strokes and heart attacks, linked to ADHD drugs.

There were 32,000 deaths in the United States due to prescription drugs in 2005. There are currently an estimated 106,000 to 126,000 deaths per year due to prescription drug use. Americans often search for a quick fix to health problems, not realizing how potentially lethal and addictive prescription drugs are. Prescription drugs don’t treat diseases; they merely disguise the symptoms, providing care for disease rather than health. The over-prescription of drugs and medication is designed to treat disease rather than preventing it. One may believe that because a drug is prescribed by a doctor, and it can be purchased in public, from a pharmacist behind a counter, that there is no danger involved. But herein lays the root of the prescription drug epidemic.
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Kids' Show Makes Spinach Cool

If your kids are suddenly getting active and eating their veggies, you may have a man from Iceland to thank. That man is Magnus Scheving, the 43-year-old creator of the hit show LazyTown. Your kids might know him as Sportacus, the super-fit star of the show, who for the past four years has been stealthily persuading children around the world that being healthy is fun.

LazyTown — which is seen in over 110 countries — revolves around city residents who are constantly being tempted with junk food and idle ideas by slothful villain Robbie Rotten. In each episode, Scheving, a former aerobics champion, somersaults to the rescue and outwits the villain with acrobatics and "sports candy" — that's fruit and vegetables to you. The on-screen health battles are accompanied by high-energy Europop, with lyrics that urge young viewers to get active.

Check out LazyTown

The healthy-living message is clear — but not too heavy-handed. "A boy watching LazyTown will think it's an action show," says Scheving, "while a girl might think it's a dance program." Fans also love the show's vivid visuals. Shot in Gardabaer, a suburb of Reykjavik, LazyTown blends live action, puppetry and cutting-edge CGI backgrounds. Each 25-minute episode costs $800,000 — four times the average budget of a kids' show. It's a price worth paying. "By 2015, there will be more than 700 million obese people worldwide," says Scheving. "It's vital to motivate families to make healthier choices."

Motivation has never been a problem for Scheving. He started his first job when he was five, running messages to residents of his hometown who didn't own phones. In his early 20s he worked as a carpenter — Scheving proudly boasts that he built his own house "from scratch" — and taught fitness in his spare time. Then, when he was 25, Scheving made a life-changing bet with a friend: they gave each other three years to excel in a sport they'd never tried before. "I chose snooker for him, and he picked aerobic gymnastics for me," he says.

It ended up taking Scheving a little longer to meet the challenge. But five years after making the bet, he won silver at the 1994 World Aerobics Championship, and gold at the 1994 and 1995 European Championships. (His friend was crowned Iceland's snooker champion in 1993). As a sporting celebrity, Scheving was booked to deliver motivational talks across Europe. And it was while he was lecturing adults on the need to stay fit that Scheving spotted a gap in the market: "I realized that nobody was acting as a healthy role model for kids."

He started his one-man-campaign for kids' health in 1991 with the book Go, Go, LazyTown! It became a best-seller in Iceland, and other LazyTown-branded books, stage musicals and a 24-hour radio station soon followed. After 10 years establishing the brand in Iceland and Scandinavia, Scheving decided to approach Nickelodeon with the idea of a TV show. He wowed Nick exec Brown Johnson — now the network's president of animation — with an exhaustingly acrobatic pitch. "Magnus walked into the meeting on his hands. We talked for a while about the show and then he started to do mid-air splits, and one-armed push-ups," she remembers. "I thought, 'You're amazing, I need to have this show.'"

LazyTown has gone on to win millions of young fans around the world, but its impact has been felt strongest in Scheving's native Iceland (pop. 300,000). In 2004, a Sportacus-themed healthy eating drive saw fruit and vegetable sales skyrocket by 22%. The country's Surgeon General has even credited the show with halting the rise of childhood obesity. " LazyTown is the most brilliant tax-saving phenomenon," Iceland's president, Olafur Grimsson, told TIME. "The chance of these children developing obesity-related diseases — which place a burden on the health system — has been greatly reduced."

Still, Scheving knows there's only so much a TV show can accomplish. "You can be a good role model for kids, but if there are no healthy, affordable products in shops, you won't change anything," he says. And so, whenever Scheving isn't filming, he travels the world, urging retailers, governments and NGOs to tackle the obesity epidemic. In March, he visited nine countries in 11 days, and held meetings with Wal-Mart execs, heads of state and health ministers. Cookie monster, your days are numbered.

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Gobs of Pleasure? No Thanks

If you prefer wines of delicacy rather than intensity, welcome to the world of the gob-less. (Photo: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

Peter Liem, a senior editor at Wine & Spirits magazine, has coined a brilliant term for wines of grace, balance and finesse, and though he credits a friend for the word, I credit him for writing about it. The term is “gob-less.’’

It’s a response to the gushing critical use of the word “gobs’’ to describe wines of overwhelming power and fruity sweetness, as in the phrase “gobs of hedonistic pleasure,’’ or “explosively rich with gobs of crushed blackberries and raspberries and a texture bordering on syrupy.’’ If you like blockbuster portlike wines formidably endowed, as they say, with freakish layers of extract, then gobs are most likely for you. But if you prefer wines of delicacy and subtlety, welcome to the world of the gob-less.

Peter used the term in his excellent column in the June issue of Wine & Spirits magazine, where he is a senior editor. I especially liked the column because the two examples of perfectly gob-less wines are wines that I love: the Arbois Pupillin red from Emmanuel Houillon, a delicate, beautifully aromatic yet pale wine, so pale – “almost partridge-eye color,’’ Peter writes – that it would be dismissed by many people as lacking in intensity (as if all red wines were required to be dark as night). In truth, its restraint and gentle earthiness is an essential part of its character. In the Jura, most people would drink a red like this before a more powerful white, like one of Houillon’s savagnins.

Peter also mentions the riesling spätlese from Joh. Jos. Prüm, which epitomizes the shimmering delicacy and vitality of the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, at a mere 8.5 percent alcohol. “Few wine-knowledgeable people would say that Joh. Jos. Prüm’s pungent, minerally riesling spätlese is lacking in intensity or concentration,’’ Peter rightly points out.

Of course, gobby wines have their place just as the gob-less do.
Read the column, see what you think. You can also read Peter’s fine blog, Besotted Ramblings. Me, I’ve been humming a variation on an old tune all day:

There ain’t no gobs on us!
There ain’t no gobs on us!
There may be gobs on some of you slobs,
But there ain’t no gobs on us!

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