Protecting Yourself Made Easy

The corporate takeover of health is here. You can see the results in soaring health care costs, millions felled by preventable illness, and acceptance of chronic disease as a way of life.

This post is the hundredth blog on my site. Myth-busting remains my specialty and whole foods, plant-based diets my passion. I’m celebrating by sharing with you three books that taught me how to spot corporate disinformation as easily as a keen-nosed dog can find smelly garbage. These models of myth-busting inspired me in writing The Perfect Formula Diet and still keep me going:

• The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America; Allan M. Brandt, Ph.D.

• Appetite For Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back; Michele Simon

• Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine; Dr. John Abramson

Here are insights from each book.

THE CIGARETTE CENTURY

While pretty much everyone these days admits cigarettes are unhealthy, what you might not know is the sordid history of the tobacco industry. These corporations pioneered underhanded methods to deliberately confuse and mislead consumers for decades while hundreds of thousands suffered agonizing deaths from lung cancer and heart disease.

I’m placing this book first in my list of myth-busters, since the food and drug industries make profitable use big tobacco precedents. Here is a sampling of tactics all three industries love (although big tobacco may be stymied in using some now):

Read more about these myth-busting books and how they can help you

FACEBOOK COMMENTS: