Unnatural Causes - Young Anabaptist Radicals

Tonight, as I was half-heartedly trying to do some reading for school and half-heartedly flipping through channels, I came across the first episode in a PBS series called Unnatural Causes…Is Inequality Making Us Sick? I didn’t catch the entire hour but there are three more episodes in the series and what I caught of the first one was very interesting. I thought it seemed loosely relevant to recent discussions here and wanted to point other YARs there. There’s a five minute trailer on the site so you can get a good sense of the series. No commentary and no questions from me right now, just a suggestion to check it out. There is also an independent site for the documentary here.

Comments (3)

somasoul March 28, 2008 at 11:26 am

That seems really interesting. I’m at work and oculdn’t check out the trailer. But there is one topic “How your street address affects your health” (or something) I talk about a lot.

In Baltimore the people are overweigh. East Baltimore, worse. But you go 40 miles south to the DC suburbs and nearly everyone is good looking and trim. Go to Miami and the only fat people are tourists.

Different areas definetly experience a difference in health, fitness, and personal hygiene.

Wealth and weather.

SteveK March 28, 2008 at 1:35 pm

And, of course, if you have no address at all, your health is even more adversely affected. I just had a friend of mine of 10 years die last week because his parents kicked him out when he was really sick (throat cancer) and received inadequate health care.

Steve K

somasoul March 28, 2008 at 6:40 pm

Alrighty, just got a chance to watch the trailer. Boy………BOOOORRRRRIIIIINNNNGGGG. Almost died of un-natural causes watching it.

A couple notes:

Health Insurance vs Health Care – I didn’t like how at one point it had mentioned something like “Is a lack of health insurance the problem?” This is a common complaint. People don’t want Health Insurance, they want HEALTH CARE!!! The insurance companies are the problem but we keep using the term INSURANCE like more insurance will solve the problem insurance has caused.

We rank 30th in the world – America is a big place full of all types of people. I’m glad they mentioned food and smoking. Americans just eat really poorly. Is ranking 30th a medical care issue or a body care issue? Probably a bit of both.

Babies die early – We are not a baby friendly culture. Period. We have one of the highest rates of C-Section in the world. Nearly 1/3 of babies are born un-naturally during surgery. Breast Feeding, while tremendously healthier for children, is still very taboo.

inequality – There is inequality in the system. I don’t know why people think they are entitled to being equal. Some people are very rich. And some very poor. Some by bouts of good/bad luck. Others by bouts of good/bad decisions. Nothing entitles us to someone elses labor, even doctors. If you want more equality find a way to rid the system of health insurance. Insurance varies greatly in cost, quality of care, and doctor selection. Finding a way to let people choose their own care is the best way around the artificial inequality we have created.

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