My "Time" Find

"$5 Billion
Combined 2007 sales of the cholesterol-lowering drugs Zetia and Vytorin, manufactured by Schering-Plough and Merck

26%
Drop in Schering-Plough's stock price after a panel of cardiologists announced on March 30 that the drugs may not work. Merck's stock fell 15%"

I heard a little about this on the news, but came across it again last night while reading this week's Time magazine.
5 BILLION DOLLARS! These companies were making 5 BILLION dollars on these two drugs. Do you really think they have our best interests at heart? Truly? Because to me, with all their "research", it seems like the fact that their drugs may not work would have been discovered by someone on their panel of researchers. Think about it. These companies were making BILLIONS. Think of what they have to lose by having these drugs pulled. You guessed it...BILLIONS!

If Schering-Plough and Merck really cared about you and me, they would tell us that we could lower cholesterol naturally, with diet and aerobic exercise. However, in defense of Schering-Plough and Merck, we have to take responsibility for our health. We have got to stop being lazy and depending on a cure to fix what we have destroyed.

"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple" (1Cor 3:16-17).

In America, we depend on quick fixes. We microwave our food, we eat at fast food restaurants, we have email on our cell phones, we drive thru to pick up our dry cleaning... The list goes on. We have come to expect everything in speedy time, with very little effort. Many of us are not willing to do what it takes to be healthy.

I have someone in my family who constantly complains about being overweight. She goes on diet after diet. She has seen doctors, taken weight-loss pills. From time to time, she loses some weight, only to have it pile back on the instant she heads back to McDonalds. I tried to tell her that she needs to combine exercise with healthy food choices. Her response? "I don't have time to exercise." People, we have to MAKE time. We make time for things that are important to us...our kids' t-ball games, t.v., work, friends. We have to make our health a priority as well. I need to do this myself. After Asher was born, I exercised constantly. I did this for several months. Then, in the past few months, I have totally slacked off. This is a lesson I need to learn too.

1 Corinthians tells us what will happen if we don't honor our bodies. It is very clear. We need to take note and do what it takes to take care of God's temple. We will reap what we sow. There isn't a magic pill. The sooner we all realize this, the better off we'll be.

Disclaimer: I am not saying all medication is bad. The point I'm trying to get across to you is that so many people are taking potentially harmful medication to cure ailments that could have been prevented in the first place.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
Let's take control of our health. As Joyce Meyer said,
"We need to learn how to live so we don't need a miracle."