Dear Scientists,
When I was relatively sane, I used to read - on a daily basis - the 'Health' page of the Guardian. No more; it upsets me, and, I suspect, many others. After years of dire warnings from you lot about everything from obesity, heart disease, cancer and strokes, you have come up with the astonishing conclusion that people who worry about their health - although quite well - stand a greater chance of suffering from heart disease than people who, shall we say, don't give a flying wossname. A lot of quite - well people do, in fact, now worry about their health, particularly after reading a load of 'doom and gloom' articles from people like you, who should really consider getting proper jobs.
This startling revelation - which was made shortly after the one about the link between cancer and playing marbles, but well before the fascinating study on the benefits of being involved in a road traffic collision - has prompted me to question certain aspects of what you do. The first question must surely be how much it costs for a bunch of white-coated fuckwits to waste everyone's time coming up with crap like this.
The second question centres around why you do it. As far as I can see, the announcement that bacon is linked to some kinds of cancer has had little or no effect on bacon sales (no-one, as far as I know, from Danepak or Walls has suicided following your announcement) which must surely mean that we're all still enjoying the stuff and have ignored you. This has, perhaps understandably, upset a number of pigs, but that's life - or not, in their case of course.
It has been clear ever since we started thinking (around last Friday), that we have to die of something, and the general theory has been that striking a balance between a suicidal tendency to poison ourselves and enjoyment of what, after all, is a realtively short existence, is making the best use of the life we have. If we can get through life without harming others, that is a bonus.
It seems that while heeding your warnings may, in some cases, enable a lucky few to squeeze a few more miserable, cold, months out of life, you have failed to recognize that it's all about quality, and that cheating the Grim Reaper for a few more bowls of gruel or a nut cutlet isn't really the object of the exercise. Actually, I think I recall you telling us that nuts are linked to certain types of cancer, so we'd better stick to the gruel - at least, until next week, when no doubt you will publish shocking new evidence linking gruel to erectile dysfunction.
We have all had friends whose blameless, alcohol, nicotine, and cholesterol - free existences have been cut tragically short years before their time, as we also know others who have drank like fishes, smoked twenty fags a day since the age of twelve, and indulged daily in a full English with a roast for dinner, who have survived into their nineties. Perhaps you could devote your energies to finding out what it is that protects the latter, because if you can find that, it may preclude the former.
Use your abilities to help with important issues like Alzheimer's, and a cure for cancer - although I suspect that both will always be with us, because nobody ever dies of nothing. Parents who feed their children too much of the wrong food - and they do so knowingly - don't need scientists, they need flogging. We all know the dangers of smoking, alcohol, and fatty foods, so leave us alone - or at least treat us like adults. If we abide by your warnings, this already unhappy world will become even more unhappy. Why, take away all our enjoyment, and we'll all be on drugs.
And they're bad for you, you know.
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