So we’re moving from Pink October to Movember, also called Blue November (yeah, we’re really having a hard time getting out of pink for girls and blue for boys, eyes-to-the-sky emoticon, but another subject). So, after the focus on women’s breast cancer, it’s time for men’s prostate or testicular cancer. And there are all the others, in particular colon, pancreas, lung, with a worrying observation: the rejuvenation of affected people. Some doctors even uttered the word “epidemic.”
It is obviously essential to talk about prevention, screening, research, treatments, support for patients and those around them, and budgets for this fight which affects 40% of Swiss people and around 50,000 new people each year. But what would also be really good is if we put a little more energy upstream, so that these cancers do not develop, or less so.
Because on the one hand we are fighting, and on the other we are making people sick.
We live in a world that is carcinogenic, carcinogenic, carcinogenic, whatever you want — there must be subtle differences between these words, but you generally understand what it is.
Take the food. In a large Geneva supermarket, I found that there were still a lot of crisps on the shelves, so I counted the types. Yes, now I have time for investigative journalism. Between the brands, the perfumes, the shapes, I counted 84 different packages! 84!!! You will also have noticed that newsstands have become distributors of chips, alcohol, smokable junk, sodas, energy drinks and Kinder horrors.
You will also have noticed that we live in a Selecta universe. You know those vending machines where you can buy something to eat without going through a human being. On sale in these things, we find almost exclusively crap, I have rarely seen let’s say… an apple. You have the choice between drink/snack combos like Coke-M&M’s or Red Bull-Snickers. If you want to consume local and demonstrate national cohesion, you can try cold tea-Kägi-Fret, haha.
These dispensers can be found everywhere now, in train stations, businesses, schools and… even in hospitals. Yes, the medical staff who give you your chemo treatments, as well as the people who come to visit you after your breasts, lung lobes or pieces of your insides have been removed, feed on these poisons which are right in front of their noses, contactless Maestro card and presto, a small dose of ultra-processed Tricatel products (if you are over 60, you know what they are). It will create new patients, that’s good, we ensure turnover. And then let’s rejoice, it keeps health insurance companies and pharma alive, win-win.
And I’m not talking about the thousands of kinds of industrial cereals. A dietician once said to me: “Do you give your children Kellogg’s cereals?” “Um…yes, sometimes.” “Well you might as well give them a bowl full of sugar to eat with a spoon, it’s the same.” Since then, not a single Froot Loop has crossed the threshold of my house!
With one hand we vote for funding for the fight against cancer, and with the other we vote for laws that cause it
Next to food, there is everything else, pesticides, endocrine disruptors, microplastics, pollutants, you know the drill. What is interesting is what happens in parliaments, where things are decided. On one hand we vote for funding for the fight against cancer, and on the other we vote for laws that cause it, by authorizing chemical substances dangerous to health, or by refusing to ban them.
And when money is tight, we reduce research and prevention budgets, but we continue to support freedom of trade, the lobbies of the agri-food industry or industry in general. It’s not a paradox, it’s not hypocrisy, it’s not schizophrenia. This is mindful sick manufacturing. Good news nonetheless, Switzerland has just suspended imports of meat from Brazil, because there is no guarantee on the use of antibiotics. That’s already it. But still take it easy on the Crousty Chicken, I believe that the animals that make it come from countries where they don’t roam around in organic alfalfa.
And since laughter is the politeness of despair and it’s good for your health, we end with the comedian Pierre Desproges (sorry eh, it’s still from the 60+ ref) who, suffering from cancer and dying of this disease at the age of 49, said: “I don’t have cancer, I never will, I’m against it.” But also: “The comforting thing about cancer is that an idiot can get a malignant tumor.”
Come on, courage.
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