CVS: healthcare central?

I'm assuming this guy is angry and not, y'know, fapping.

Why is this recent news story making me irrationally angry?

CVS Caremark, the country’s largest drugstore chain in overall sales, announced on Wednesday that it planned to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products by October.
The company’s move was yet another sign of its metamorphosis into becoming more of a health care provider than a largely retail business, with its stores offering more miniclinics and health advice to aid customers visiting its pharmacies.

Our health care system is so f'd up that CVS is planning to transform itself into a "health care provider"? This is the same chain of drug stores that sell crappy chocolate heart-shaped boxes on Valentines day, really crappy music on CDs and a wide variety of lipsticks, shampoos and school supplies?

Once I get beyond the mild shock and creeping disgust at the thought, I then have to think about the outright hypocrisy of the move. Selling "health care" and cigarettes together is too obvious a contradiction for even the average stupid person to swallow, but what about all the food? The shelf-stable cookies & chips, the refrigerator case full of hyper-processed convenience foods and the freezer stocked with tubs of crappy industrial ice cream, what about that? Let's not even mention the fig leaf of a few "good for you" questionably fresh GMO-filled green salads and gallons of hormone-riddled ultra-pasteurized milk.

Even the stupidest among us can see the contradiction of selling cigarettes and health care side by side. Uh, right?

My apartment building has a kosher butcher, an old-school Greek diner and a huge CVS in it's retail space. The CVS took over from an independently run supermarket the year I moved in, about 15 years ago. CVS is a national chain, but I've noticed how it's evolved and catered to the needs of the neighborhood -- mainly by adding the previously mentioned aisle of crappy food in the past decade. They saw all the crappy bodegas in the surrounding neighborhood, and decided to compete.

There were other pharmacies around when CVS showed up. When an old drugstore went out of business down the block, CVS paid to have all the prescription-fulfillment of the their clients transferred over. When my mom was terribly sick and on the way to die, I tried to fill her script for methadone at CVS. I got a lot of hemming and hawing and told it would take a week -- I needed it no later than the next day when what the hospital gave us would run out. I went down the street to a mom-n-pop independently run pharmacy and they filled my script and delivered the drugs to my mom's home health aid by 9am the next morning. That's health care with the stress on "care". Suffice to say, I have not given the corporate "health care professionals" at CVS my business since.

Our corporate overlords don't discriminate...between flu shots and grapeade, as long as it makes a buck. Credit.

But back to the larger point. My CVS replaced a full-service supermarket with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and more. The horrible convenience store food that CVS sells is just as big or probably bigger a threat to the public's health than tobacco products. Tobacco use has been on the downswing for decades now, as the heaviest users (like my mom) die and fewer teens get suckered into it's "coolness". Obesity, however, has been on the upswing, and the food industry, the paid-for government regulators and the for-profit "health care" system has no real interest in implicating a growing profit-center in a major health crisis. Tobacco was easy to throw overboard for CVS, because if you just follow the money, the media value of squashing tobacco's sale is much higher than the minimal (and shrinking) profit they bring in. Those boxes of oreos, bags of Frito's and tubs of "lite" ice cream, however, -crickets-.

Why is there this cloud of unclarity  when it comes to crap food? Two articles in the Times suggests two specific reasons: one, lack of research, and two, the politics of money.

For the very first few weeks of this blog, I beat the drum that sugar is both a foodstuff and a mind-altering drug. However, if you read the "facts" at the sugar-industry's website, that very concept is not only ignored, but is in direct contradiction to the wholesome, safe image they spin. But to be honest, despite the drum beat of this individual blogger, it is not really backed up by science.  You just don't have studies on human populations that really definitively say this.

In 1960, fewer than 13 percent of Americans were obese, and diabetes had been diagnosed in 1 percent. Today, the percentage of obese Americans has almost tripled; the percentage of Americans with diabetes has increased sevenfold.
Meanwhile, the research literature on obesity has also ballooned. In 1960, fewer than 1,100 articles were published on obesity or diabetes in the indexed medical literature. Last year it was more than 44,000. In total, over 600,000 articles have been published purporting to convey some meaningful information on these conditions.
It would be nice to think that this deluge of research has brought clarity to the issue. The trend data argue otherwise. If we understand these disorders so well, why have we failed so miserably to prevent them? The conventional explanation is that this is the manifestation of an unfortunate reality: Type 2 diabetes is caused or exacerbated by obesity, and obesity is a complex, intractable disorder. The more we learn, the more we need to know.
Here’s another possibility: The 600,000 articles — along with several tens of thousands of diet books — are the noise generated by a dysfunctional research establishment. Because the nutrition research community has failed to establish reliable, unambiguous knowledge about the environmental triggers of obesity and diabetes, it has opened the door to a diversity of opinions on the subject, of hypotheses about cause, cure and prevention, many of which cannot be refuted by the existing evidence. Everyone has a theory. The evidence doesn’t exist to say unequivocally who’s wrong.

Bottom line: to find out the root causes of obesity with 99.9% certainty of the scientific community (because science only tests theories and finds evidence in support and never can actually be 100% certain...y'know, like the tiny, eensy weensy bit of scientific uncertainty around evolution and climate change that conservatives love to rally around when science contradicts their faith or prejudices, -sigh-), there has to be HUGE human studies. Nutrition is a comparatively young science, maybe a few hundred years old compared to, say, chemistry's 500 (lead to gold, anyone?) or physics and astronomy's 1000s.

The TED organization recognizes that the relative youth of nutritional science and lack of scientifically rigorous  research is a problem, and has issued policy notes that warn for 'pseudo-science', particularly in topics such as food as medicine, GMOs, and vaccinations & autism.

Of course, my favorite source of nutritional mumbo jumbo is my man Yuri, the Canadian Eyebrow. In his series of podcasts and videos that are in support of the sale of his nutritional plan-for-life, he always couches it in vague (and not so vague) conspiracy theory and tiny, limited studies that he equates with hard science. I found him interesting for a while, but the basic rootlessness of his wandering in an unformed science that, to take TED's term, is basically pseudo, nonsensical and contradictory, well, I just don't find him interesting anymore. (And no, TED does not ban the subject of GMOs, just the subject of GMOs when it is approached from an invalid, half-assed, unscientific perspective, which is a great deal of Yuri's stock-in-trade.)

New science needs new research - on people, not rats. That takes a large amount of money, and big money takes political will. Health care, and it's antecedent health research, should be forever non-profit, run by government without the interference of for-profit actors, free for all like public parks (minus the private conservancies.) Of course, that is the pie-in-the-sky liberal in me daydreaming. If the current evidence is pointing to things like added sweeteners as the root cause of obesity and diabetes, do you think the Sweetener Industry's love of humanity and our children's health will overwhelm it's desire for profit and fund the tens of billions of dollars it'll take to do a conclusive human study that may or may not give a result in it's favor? (italics mine)

WASHINGTON — The corn refinery and sugar industries, bitter rivals in the manufacture of billions of dollars’ worth of sweeteners for sodas and other high-calorie foods, covertly funded dueling nonprofit groups in Washington in a multiyear effort to grab market share, while also stoking fears among consumers about possible health risks, court records made public in a federal lawsuit between the two parties show.
The lawsuit, which has brought hundreds of pages of secret corporate emails and strategy documents into the public domain, demonstrates how Washington-based groups and academic experts frequently become extensions of corporate lobbying campaigns as rival industries use them to try to inflict damage on their competitors or defend their reputations against such assaults.

Essentially, rival sweeteners will spend gobs of money on politicians, policy and bad science to promote their own product and besmirch competitors. Non-partisan science (which, hello, should be ALL science) has said again and again, in reality that sugar is sugar, period. Whether it is from cane or corn, it's the same when it comes to the processing in the body. Ugg, I can't even go down that rabbit hole right now and find some supporting links. There is just so much noise and contradictory information that's funded by groups who are protecting their cash cows. Nutritional science has taken a back seat to profit and political expediency.

In my neighborhood, a few blocks down Grand Street from the CVS trying to transform itself into a local health care clinic, sits an old building up for sale and in the news recently for attempts to landmark it. (Again, italics mine, all mine. Gimme all the italics!)

On Jan. 14, 2013, Friends of the Lower East Side submitted a Request for Evaluation to the Landmarks Preservation Commission as a first step toward landmark designation for 75 Essex Street, the former Good Samaritan/Eastern District Dispensary, constructed in 1890.
The free-standing, four-story, brick building was designed in the Italianate style by eminent architects Rose & Stone and survives remarkably intact, featuring ground-floor rusticated masonry and a series of rounded arches. The dispensary, constructed with private donations and operated for 60 years with city funding, was a walk-in community medical facility offering free or low-cost health care and prescription medicines.

I know nostalgia for a time I never lived in is silly and unproductive, but really, man? From this to CVS pimping flu shots and grapeade? -sigh-
-----

Brought my road bike into the premier road bike shop this past week for full service -- take the bike apart, clean each piece from inside out, repack bearings, true wheels, replace whatever is worn out, and basically make it run like a brand new bike. The bike itself has been ridden hard since '99, but I indulge in this service at this shop every other year (it ain't cheap, but it saves mightily on doing it piecemeal.) I figure I won't be able to ride anyway this week because of snow storms predicted and scheduling with the kids, but still it's making me inordinately giddy -- Spring is gonna see some deep f'ing riding. Viva   l'étrange cyclisme!
-----

WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2859

Oy, not a good eating week. Really feeling winter. Part of it was a snow day from work on Thursday that really interrupted what would have otherwise been a good eating day. Looking forward to the Spring and hitting the bike hard.

MONDAY COUNT: 2440

SLEPT: 9:30pm-4:30am, 7 hrs
Standard Monday. Already planned on cashews to end the day, but slipped in cheetos because Edie & Mili were eating cheetos as an evening snack, and it was sooo much fun to sit with them and play "cheers" with the things, shouting CHEERS! then knocking cheetos together before popping them in our mouths. -sigh-, I got the greatest kids.

AM SNACK:4:45 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel, leek artichoke & potato soup, health salad, pickles, 870 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, momma salad, humus 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, poppa salad with light Italian, 75 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, tilapia, asparagus , 415 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, cheetos, 300 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, cashews, 170 cal

-----

TUESDAY COUNT: 3160

SLEPT: 8:30pm-5am, 8.5 hrs
Woke up with a sore throat, has been a little sore for a few days but this was notable. Ears still clogged up a bit, doc saw it, says it's no biggie, just the standard.  Slept well despite having a toddler in bed with me. When I put myself to bed at 8:15, I still had cravings for more, but I was glad I made it through the day. Unfortunately, I could not fall asleep due getting too much sleep the night before and a one hour nap during the day at work (it wasn't busy, there is a private 'wellness' room that locks with a 'do not disturb' sign) and my sore throat was acting up a little. I ate a little cheetos, the bottom the bag, and that was it, off to the races. -sigh- I did this last week, too, though it was a little bit more dramatic. Striving to be better, not perfection.

AM SNACK: 6am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, almonds and vanilla, 285 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, madras lentils, pickles, 680 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45 pm, momma salad, with hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with bottled ranch, 110 cal

PM SNACK: 6:45pm, cheetos, 300 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, grilled pork loin, roasted brussel sprouts, 465 cal

EVENING GORGE: 9pm, a little cheetos, a lotta M&Ms, +/- 1000 cal

-----

WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2135

SLEPT: 11pm-6am, 7 hrs
A little insomnia, not helped by the M&Ms the night before. Fortunately, I had pre-done a few chores with some spare time the day before so I let myself sleep in for an extra hour, which in the end was all I needed for a normal amount of sleep. 

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, grilled pork loin, roasted brussel sprouts, quinoa, pickles, 745 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45 pm, momma salad, with hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, cashews, 170 cal

DINNER: 8:30pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

EVENING SNACK: 8:45pm, japanese style crackers from graze box, 100 cal

-----

THURSDAY COUNT: 3505

SLEPT: 10:15pm-5am, 6.75 hrs
Snow day. Stuck to my schedule and got a good lift in in the early AM. Between helping get kids to school in the morning, picking up Edie from school early then going home and lying on the couch instead of my Thursday activities, I guess I should have seen some gorging coming. Ate well until dinner, but felt run down, my stomach felt a little funny and I hit the bathroom a few extra times. I think my body was telling me to just relax a bit in the evening, but my appetite overtook my rational mind in the evening.

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, fruit smoothie, 410 cal

LUNCH: 12:30pm, grilled pork loin, roasted brussel sprouts, quinoa, pickles, 745 cal

PM SNACK: 2:30 pm, momma salad, peppercorn rice crackers from graze box 200 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, cashews, 170 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, Stouffers Frenchbread pizzas, 820 cal

EVENING SNACK: 6:30pm, big bowl of popcorn, big bowl of M&Ms, +/- 1000 cal

-----

FRIDAY COUNT: 3055

SLEPT: 8:15pm-5am, 8.75 hrs
Funny, sometimes my stomach feels a little off after a gorging night, but I felt fine this morning. Pleasantly sore in the upper-outer chest area, I purposefully hit the elevated pushups a little harder yesterday, nice to get a response the next morning, confirming that yes, I did try harder than usual.

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, Fage whole yogurt with vanilla, honey and almonds, 285 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, health salad, pickles, 610 cal

PM SNACK: 2:45 pm, momma salad, slice of stretza, +/-300 cal
Lots of free pizza in the office, managed to indulge in just one slice by swapping out my graze box nibble and hitching it to the baby carrots. Made eating it slowly, bites inbetween masticating the crunchy carrots, much easier and more satisfying.

DINNER: 5:30pm, Cesar Salad, some fries, some chicken finger, some brownie & ice cream, a few small pieces of good chocolate+/- 800 cal

DINNER 2: 8pm, 1 small burger, 2 glasses of wine, 8 pieces of cheap chocolate, +/- 800 cal

-----

WEEKEND REPORT
Didn't really keep track of the eating, and am too tired to try to recall. Over all ate too much, but it felt a little less compulsive, due to some things outside the scope of this blog. Does anyone actually read this far down? C'mon, someone, give me some inspiration!