From: tara@starburst.umd.edu (Tara McDermott)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: The Power of Prevention (was: Animal Experiments)
Date: 15 Dec 92 17:13:47 GMT

This is exerpted (with permission) from a booklet put out by the
American Anti-Vivisection Society, called "Health and Humane
Research":

The Power of Prevention
-----------------------

Animal researchers would like us to believe that without vivisection
we would still be living in the dark ages.  It is certainly true that
life-expectancy has increased dramatically over the past hundred
years, but is this really due to animal experiments?

During the 19th century, infectious epidemics of typhoid, TB, whooping
cough, measles, scarlet fever, diphtherica and many others were still
a feared and common occurence with infant mortality appallingly high.
It was the virtual eradication of these infections that proved almost
exclusively responsible for the decline in deaths and resulting
increase in life-expectancy.

By careful observation of different communities, they (two researchers
- Lemuel Shattuck and Edwin Chadwick) discovered that people who lived
in dirty, overcrowded and unsanitary conditions with little food or
clean water, were most likely to die of infectious disease.  They
called for sanitary reforms, arguing that preventitive measures would
achieve infinitely more than remedies for the cure of disease.  The
resulting improvements in food supplies, hygiene and sanitation, and
living and working conditions led to a rapid fall in deaths with
mortality from nearly all the infectious diseases declining before,
and in most cases long before, specific drugs or vaccines became
available.(1)  So vital were the reforms that in 1971, Edward Kass,
President of the Infectious Disease Society of America, described the
decline of infectious disorders and their correlation with improving
socioeconomic conditions,(2) as "the most important happening in the
history of the health of man." 

Despite the improvements, poverty, malnutrition and bad housing are
still major causes of ill health, not only in Third World countries,
but in poorer sections of affluent nations where the death rate for TB
is ten times higher among the poor.  Indeed, studies in the Scottish
city of Glasgow have shown that a child's social class is three times
more important than vaccination in influencing whooping cough
outbreaks.

As living standards improved, the old infectious epidemics were
replaced by new killer diseases such as cancer, heart disease and
stroke.  These conditions are usually very difficult and often
impossible to cure but once again they are amenable to preventive
action.  For instance, human population studies have shown that heart
disease could be virtually eliminated by controlling three main
factors - cholesterol, smoking and blood pressure.  Even with existing
heart disease, dietary and lifestyle measures can prove beneficial.
Dr. Dean Ornish of the University of California at San Francisco has
shown that if people who have advanced heart disease adopt a low-fat
vegetarian diet and stop smoking, the plaques in their arteries
actually start to disappear.(3)

Since the mid-1960's, when the US had one of the highest death rates
from coronary disease in the world, mortality has started to decline.
Nevertheless heart disease still kills over half a million people in
the US every year with a further 20 million at risk.  Furthermore,
American men still have a much higher death rate from coronary disease
than their Japanese counterparts, who owe their exceptionally low
rates not to their genes but to their way of life: when they move to
the US they quickly acquire America's higher mortality.

But the substantial fall in coronary deaths over the past 20 years
does at least point the way ahead.  For it has been achieved mainly
through prevention, with specific medical measures such as bypass
operations and coronary care units making only a small contribution,
at best.(4)  As Dr. Dave Nash, Clinical Professor of Medicine at the
State University of New York Health Service Center in Syracuse,
explains(5), "while it may be dramatic to demonstrate our technical
skill in replacing blocked arteries, or even replacing the human heart
with a mechanical device, risk factor reduction is a far more
realistic, cost-effective and humane approach to resolving this
serious health problem."

Further evidence for the vital role of prevention comes from the
Centers for Disease Control which found that lifestyle and
environmental factors account for over 70% of premature deaths from
the 10 leading causes of mortality.(6)  Only about 10% could be
influenced by medical services with a further 20% attributed to
hereditary factors.  Clearly most cases of premature death could be
avoided by preventative action.

On the other hand, neglect of preventative measures can have
disastrous consequences. Despite progress against some rare forms of
cancer, accounting for 1-2% of total deaths caused by the disease, Dr.
John Bailar of Harvard University's School of Public Health found that
the overall death rate had increased substantially since 1950.  "The
main conclusion we draw is that some 35 years of intense effort
focused largely on improving treatment must be judged a qualified
failure."  The report further concluded that "we are losing the war
against cancer" and called for a shift in emphasis towards prevention
if there is to be substantial progress.(7)

Fortunately, population studies have again shown that most cancers are
preventable, the main risks being smoking and dietary factors such as
too much meat and fat.  Interestingly, the 1981 Office of Technology
Assessment report on the causes of cancer relied far more on human
studies than animal research or other laboratory experiments because,
its authors argued, these "...cannot provide reliable risk
assessment."

With diet, lifestyle and environment the most important influences on
our health, medicine's best strategy is to put the greatest emphasis
on prevention.  Such initiatives are only possible when doctors study
human beings and identify the main cuases of disease so that people
know HOW to avoid illness.  In this context, animal research is not
only irrelevant to the major factors which govern our health but a
serious waste of resources.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"In general, medical measures (both chemotherapeutic and prophylactic)
appear to have contributed little to the overall decline in mortality
in the US since about 1900 - having in many instances been introduced
several decades after a marked decline had already set in and having
no detectable influence in most instances."
                 - John & Sonja McKinlay, "Health and Society", 1977

"The control of coronary heart disease necessarily depends on
prevention since treatment so often comes too late.  Mass medication
is potentially dangerous, and it would be better if risk factors could
be controlled by changing habits."
                 - "British Medical Journal", March 15, 1980

"80-90% of cancer is determined environmentally and thus theoretically
avoidable."      - "International Agence for Research on Cancer", 1985

Estimated Percentae of US Cancers Due to Selected Factors:
Diet - 35%
Tobacco - 30%
Occupation - 4%
Alcohol - 3%
Radiation - 3%
Pollution - 2%
Medications -1%

----------------------------------------------------------------------

References:

(1) T. McKeown, "The Role of Medicine" (Blackwell, 1979); J.B.
McKinlay & S. McKinlay, "Health & Society", 1977, 405-428

(2) E. H. Kass, "Journal of Infectious Diseases", 1971, vol. 123,
110-114.  

(3) D. Ornish et al, "Lancet", 1990, July 21, 129-133

(4) S. Pell & W. Fayerweather, "New England Journal of Medicine",
1985, vol. 312, 1005-1011.

(5) D. Nash, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Press
Release, 1988, October 31; "Postgraduate Medicine", 1988, July,
231-234

(6) "Ten Leading Causes of Death in the US", 1977, US Dept. of Health
& Human Services, July 1980.

(7) J.C. Bailar & E.M. Smith, "New England Journal of Medicine", 1986,
vol. 314, 1126-1232.

--
Tara McDermott                                  tara@starburst.umd.edu

Sweet and sweet is their poisoned note, the little snakes' of silver throat,
in mossy skulls that nest and lie, ever singing "die, oh! die."
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg