According to “Breast cancer cases in UK under-50s top 10,000 a year” article, in 2008-2010, the figures of women, under 50 years old, who was diagnosed as having a breast cancer have reached 10,000, rising 15% compared with 1993-1995.
Nowadays, more and more new diseases have arisen. Our daily life activities cause us having more diseases, such as stress, eating unhealthy food, or lacking of exercise. Some of diseases are developed and have severe form of the disease. Last year, I went to Ramathibodi hospital in the evening clinic to have an eyes exam. There are so many patients. It was not entirely unexpected, but it just has a lot more than I thought. Many of them had to stand waiting for the doctor; some sleep sitting up in the chairs. I spent four hours there just to see the doctor only four minutes. It such a boring four hours and was waste of the time.
Many of gardeners, who grow fresh vegetables to sell, use a lot of insecticide, so when I eat vegetable I feel like I eat another form of poisoning, this is one of my excuses for eating less of vegetables. Long time ago, I was told a story about gardeners that plant vegetables for sale. In the whole village, they have two separated gardens. One is for themselves to eat in the house and another garden for selling to stupid people in the city. They all do not eat vegetables in the garden which they grow to sell because they use a lot of insecticide. I do not know this is a true story or not, but I always think of this story when I eat food that have a lot of fresh vegetables or when I see fresh vegetables in market.
Reference
Breast cancer cases in UK under-50s top 10,000 a year. (2013, May 3). BBC New Health. Retrieved May 4, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22383416
We face insufficient health care all around the world. In Bangkok, although we think we don't have adequate health care, how about in remote areas? How possibly bad there are? Unexpectedly, I was sick and had to go to hospital at mid night when I travelled in France. I still had to wait for doctors and met them at 5 o'clock in the morning. Even the hospital in Paris, the capital city in developed Western country, still doesn't have enough doctors and rooms for patients, who can do nothing but wait.
ReplyDeleteWe are in 21st century, perhaps we rely on either technology or nature or other people or all of them too much. We always request for convenient instead of being forbearing. Is this because we get everything more easily than in the past? Do we gradually lose patience?
Also, when everyone can reach appropriate medical service throughly?
This would need more time, money and cooperation. Therefore, people should rely on themselves first to avoid diseases.
As Wut mentioned about vegetable, undeniably, a lot of what we eat everyday have insecticide. But, alternatively, today there are organic food available in markets and supermarkets. Hydroponic, for example, are grown without soil and chemical substance. Prices are also regularly higher, but they're worth to buy.
We are all have choices. It's up to our decisions.
I like Sorn's useful example based on her experience in France. I wonder if it would have been different in, say, the US? I think it would have been different in Australia. So, why the problems in France?
DeleteMy other question is: are organic foods worth paying more for? Why or why not?
I think they might be worth a little more, but not for the popular reason. And which is better for preserving natural environments intact: organic or chemical farming? (OK, I had a couple of questions.)
I agree that the reason why people get sick because of their lifestyle. However, I just wonder that the number of patients who are diagnosed to be sick are increased because of the advancement in technology so that the patients can be realized of their sickness at the early stage or because of there are the increase in the number of patient indeed.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, pollution is one of the main reason of having cancer.As many new diseases have occurred, people should concern more about what they consume. I agree with Sorn that we have more choices to buy food like organic food. At least we can ensure that food we eat is deprived of residue. However, the government should control the price to be reasonable price in order that everyone can buy.
ReplyDeleteNot only just food, pollution also comes from air, noise or water which are all environmental problems. For city voyagers, it is hard to avoid these pollution but ones can create their living places to be more green. For example, growing some veggies in the garden or at the corridor can reduce the carbon dioxide and also can be your organic food.
Poom's comment above @ May 5, 2013 at 12:06 AM is the one I was thinking of that led me to expect her to disagree with Clayton's second priority for developing nations, that they "improve the climate for free enterprise" by, for example, not controlling prices, but allowing "competitive markets - not politicians - to make the allocation decisions" (Hartmann & Blass, 2007, p. 104).
DeleteAnd Poom seemed to have the majority supporting her against Clayton's ideas in Economics: Principles and Practices (as cited in Hartmann & Blass, 2007).
As I suggested, I do agree with Clayton, and I thought that the particular example of organic food might be a useful with which to explore the reasons for and against.
So, why do you think that Clayton and I are wrong on this?
And who is going to support me and him?
A very promising discussion, as was the excellent work you did on the inflationary tendencies of Bitcoins, which brought up examples of the different types of definition that Hartmann and Blass list on page 40.
Reference
Hartmann, P., & Blass, L. (2007). Quest 3 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
I agree with Peter and Clayton that the government should not impose price control. I think if the government control price of organic food, this will unbalance supply and demand. In this case, if the government reduce the price , it won't persuade new gardeners to make organic food, and probably make old gardeners who make organic food out of business.
DeleteThe another example is rice-pledging scheme of Thai Government. The government control by raising the price too high, so it make farmer produce so much rice to market, then this cause the government spend a huge budget to buy the rice and make Thai farmer lost competitiveness to other country.
Thank you Wut.
DeleteYour short cause & effect paragraph clearly outlines the argument against government price control for organic food: such interference in the market would actually be bad for those who like organic food since it would reduce the supply, perhaps to zero.
I wonder if any who favour government interference have a reply to your argument, which is also an excellent warm up for the weekend academic writing assignment that's coming up in Quest tomorrow.
I agree with Wut's idea that the price control will have a bad effect on the sellers. However, if there is no government intervention, the price of some products will be too high to afford. For example, in the past the government subsidizes the petrol price resulting in a low petrol price, which is stable for a long time. Nevertheless, nowadays, the government floats the petrol price; as a result, the price makes new high frequently. Therefore, the government interference is good in this case, especially from the consumer's point of view.
DeleteDo the selfish demands of one group of consumers really make something good policy if it harms others or the entire economy?
DeleteControlling the price of organic food would be bad not just for sellers, but, because the organic food would no longer be supplied in the same quantity, would be even worse for consumers who wanted it.
Was the petrol subsidy good or bad for the Thai economy as a whole? My guess is that it caused more harm than benefit, as does most government interference in markets, which is why, as Clayton tells us, according to Hartmann and Blass, the World Bank advises against such government intervention in allocating goods and services. The move to end it was economically sensible, even if some, or many, people do not like it because they no longer get artificially cheap petrol.
I agree with peace that many of diseases are founded very early state by advanced of medical technology and these make the number of patients to rise very quickly.
ReplyDeleteEspecially, Cancer is the most of disease that can be founded in each age range. When patients are found cancer in their body, they know that cancer can be cure but, most of the patients feel very anxious and get too much stress from this even though they are in the first state of cancer. Many of them worry very much which it causes they cannot eat or do anything as their usual. This makes the situation worse because their bodies are goint to be very weak. they are frustrated by the cures of cancer which are very dangerous and painful.
There is no evident that cancer comes from genes or not? But, we believed it is caused by our lifestyle and environment that is polluted.
As I was reading Wut's another question, or set of questions, apart from my doubts about the health value of organic food occurred to me, which I think is also something that occurred to Peace: are cancer rates really rising, and by how much?
ReplyDeleteThen I realised that although I had ideas about this, I really did not know. Without some solid statistics to back my ideas, those ideas are, pretty much, worthless. So I've just spent the last 30 minutes or more trying to find out whether or not cancer really is rising at an alarming rate. It was actually a bit more difficult than I had anticipated.
The first thing I did was check Wut's source - where I think that Wut might have made a mistake. The percentage increase in his summary paragraph is 11% not 15%. (It's always a good idea to double check figures. As pointed out in "Is wrong the most useful word in academic English?", even Harvard University academics can be embarrassed when they fail to double check figues.)
Next, I Googled "cancer rates over last 100 years" (Actually, I just did the first three words, and let Google auto-complete. A nice graph for the past century would have been very useful.)
You might like to try this and see what you think of the results.
Then I Googled "cancer rates over time".
You might also like to try this and see what you think of the results.
Finally, I think I now have some basis for asserting an opinion about changes in the incidence of cancer that is not completely worthless, as it would have been only one hour ago. But it would be a useful mini-research project for you to do the same, so I'm not telling what I've discovered just yet. See what your research turns up.
And now I can get back to enjoying my cold coffee!
Meanwhile, another mini-research project for those who think it is healthier to eat organic food: is there any solid support for that belief?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Helpguide, "The term “organic” refers to the way agricultural products are grown and processed. Specific requirements must be met and maintained in order for products to be labeled as "organic"".
DeleteThere are some benefits of having organic food. Firstly, organic vegetable has fewer pesticide since it is grown by natural fertilizers instead of synthetic or chemical fertilizers. Secondly, organic food is fresher then it tastes better. Thirdly, for organic meat, it is free of antibiotics, hormones, or pesticides.
Reference
Maya W. Paul, Gina Kemp, M.A., and Robert Segal, M.A. (2012, December). Organic Foods. Helpguide.Org Retrieved May 5, 2013 from http://www.helpguide.org/life/organic_foods_pesticides_gmo.htm
Thank you Poom,
DeleteYour information is interesting, and certainly useful, but I'm not sure if you have answered my question. I can infer your answer, but my inference might be wrong.
I might have written exactly what you have, but I'm sure that I do not agree with what I infer is your answer to my question as to whether there is any solid evidence for the popular idea that eating organic food is healthier than the non-organic varieties that are normally eaten.
Can you add another comment to directly answer the question with a main idea. Then I'll know if my inference is right or wrong, and whether I need to agree or disagree with your very useful ideas in the above comment @ May 5, 2013 at 11:11 PM.
And for those wondering, the question I asked in the very short comment @ May 5, 2013 at 12:08 PM might not be so easy as it first looks.
DeleteI do think that Poom's initial response is very useful.
And of course, the first thing we want to do in response to Poom's comment is ... what?
DeleteI forgot to mention that when I checked Poom's source this morning, something we like to do, I thought it was pretty good. Do you agree?
DeleteBut I don't think it supports Poom's answer to my question, as I've inferred her answer to be.
I agree with Peach that diseases are from people's lifestyle. However, my late grandmother of my girlfriend who exercised considerably and daily without any sign of bad health got the flu and then diagnosed with lung cancer. It's very surprise and depressed.
ReplyDeleteAnd our thanks to Wut for starting off such a useful set of discussions, pushing us to practise some very useful academic skills.
ReplyDeleteI have just read the Bas's blog talking about cancers. I totally agree with his idea that we are now facing with many health problems which is caused by several factors mentioning above. However, I am very surprised with the last paragraph telling us about current gardeners' behavior that they really do not care about consumers' health by selling their products which have a lot of insecticide. Is this a real story? Nevertheless, I believe that this problem happens in a short time because, nowadays, there
ReplyDeleteare many organizations established by government in every country in order to check the quality of every product before it is sold to buyers.