The exploitation of suffering...

In Greece we are a nation I think that panic easily over health issues and often exaggerate. In psychological studies Greek s often demonstrate high levels of health anxiety and general worries over their health. There are also people that live through TV and they adopt as an established truth what they generally listen through this little box.

What occurred lately was a parade of doctors and people who have been cured from cancer on TV shows. They were suggesting that drinking the juice that the leaves of an olive tree produce could combat potentially cancer. The doctors were unsure as this assumption is not scientifically tested however they were on the shows along with ex-cancer patients and this for a simple person translates as a possibility for a cure!

When you bring people on a show that claim that they have been cured they are going to direct their hopes on this new cure and ignore that this is just an assumption of some TV doctors and is not something that is embraced by the medical community. Television has a great influence on people and can lead to the manipulation of the masses quite easily. People started drinking this juice and some were admitted to hospital with intestinal pains. There were also people who sold leaves and prepared this recipe for people and not without a price.

I was talking to an older friend about this incident and he told me that when he was young there was a similar incidence of mass hysteria. Someone from Kamatero was claiming that he had access to water that could cure cancer. In the end of course he was imprisoned for fraud but on the court many people appeared that believed that they were cured from cancer and supported him wholehearted.

There are people who suffer from serious and chronic illness like cancer and desperately seek for cure. Encouraging people to drink daily the juice of olive leaves is giving false hope to the patients. Maybe the leaves are beneficial but there has not been any research that proves that. Maybe the leaves are beneficial but can they be beneficial alone? The cure of the disease relies on interplay of different factors. It depends on the biology of the individual, on the psychological state, on his/her quality of life and the medical treatment that this person receives. Therefore, my impression is that there can‘t be an only cure. There can only be a ground for a further manipulation and degradation of the sufferers. People who want to benefit are aware that when a person suffers is ready to believe in absolutely anything.

Stormrider has written a beautiful article on his opinion over the olives leaves incident and particularly on the responsibility of the doctors link)

(image by wrenda)