Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to They "targeted" themselves.

[expletive deleted]
Mary Anne — (archived)

Speaking as someone who lost a parent and a grandparent (paternal grandmother) to cancer...

Not so long ago, common wisdom had it that gastrointestinal ulcers were caused by personality. Turns out a microorganism is to blame.

Longer ago than that, common wisdom had it that stinky smells caused disease, included the so-named malaria. We even have a nursery rhyme referring to the practice of carrying flowers to stave off the bad smells that cause disease, but "we all fall down" anyway. It turns out that smell is not the problem, but bacteria, which often inhabit places that have bad smells because of bacteria food nearby. Hence,

Now we hear that it's all in our heads. Beware of filling your head with pockets full of posies. Heads full of posies seldom get past the common wisdom, which is always common and seldom wise.

You have cited studies that refer to the efficacy of positive thinking. Positive thinking positively affects treatments that drain one's strength, appetite and general joie de vivre, because without positive thinking, one would resist the treatment, and without the treatment one would die.

In the case of Molly Ivins, in the column in which she announced her diagnosis, she stated outright that her downfall was a reluctance to have a mammogram. She referred to her disease as an "outstanding case of breast cancer", and she urged all her readers to learn from her stubbornness and to get regular mammograms. Truly, this is a facet of personality, the reluctance to seek out diagnostic medicine because of a reluctance to be poked and prodded. Yet, the absence of a mammogram was no cause of cancer.

I'm sitting here watching a 1998 interview with Molly Ivins. Her positive attitude, and her laughter, jump off the screen.

If Molly Ivins targetted herself for cancer, Ronald Reagan targetted himself for Alzheimer's.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (50 posts)