Tuesday, December 21, 2004

I take every warning from “experts” with many grains of salt. My skeptical attitude started as a kid when the warnings about eggs/cholesterol started. I was a 2-egg/day consumer and I wasn’t about to stop eating my favorite breakfast food. Turns out I was smart, because the “experts” have since recinded that warning - the amounts of cholesterol are neglible in eggs.

Then came the warnings about high fat foods, which common sense told me were to be eaten in moderation anyway. But alas, food producers came out with low-fat pseudo-foods that turned out to be less healthy than the natural, fat-laden, whole foods they were to replace. Hmmm...I’ll stick with butter, thanks.

Recently came the warnings about pain relievers Vioxx and Celebrex - seems that common sense would say that those in a risk group for heart problems should be careful about those drugs and that the other 90+% of the people who take those drugs are probably OK to continue. But we’re a reactionary lot, so they’re being taken from the shelves.

And now my pain reliever of choice, Aleve (aka naproxen), is on the list of “run away very quickly or it’ll kill you!” warnings from the FDA. I have two large bottles of the stuff - one at home and one at work. I plan to continue taking it when I have pain, because it works like nothing else does for me. I’m not in a risk group for heart attack or stroke, so I’m confident that I’m safe. I don’t take it daily and I’ve never taken it for more than a couple days at a time - except when I had that sprained ankle at Young Life camp and took it for almost a month, but that was a rare instance. It was take it and be able to do my job or not take it and be parked in a chair with my leg elevated all day long while my job didn’t get done. But that’s another story for another day.

My point is that we need to relax. Our litigious society has groomed a culture of reactionary nervous Nellies. None of these studies are set in stone and they never apply to all people. Common sense should dictate here, but sadly there are way too many people who lack that commodity. And so I predict that Aleve will at some point be withdrawn from the shelves of the local drug stores, much to my disappointment.