Pharmaceutical industry will always have a hold on us

THE pharmaceutical industry will launch in PNG alternative cancer prevention through the Human Pappiloma Virus vaccination programme (HPV) which targets young females.
This may be good news for those who are not well versed about cervical cancer and wish to just take precaution by taking the shot in their early ages.
However, there are some very crucial questions people now need to ask about these programmes and past global cancer campaigns.
Most cancer programmes for lack emphasis and clearly omit the key elements of living a simple healthy life as a means to avoiding cancer.
Firstly, in all these forms of cancer programmes there is the financial aspect of injecting millions of taxpayers’ money, let alone the truth about salaries needed to pay people like oncologists.
A good percentage of resources are already going towards ending the fight against cancer given both the high costs of maintaining contracted expatriate salaries and the machines used to treat cancer patients.
Expensive treatments like chemotherapy do not cure cancer but only prolong the lives of the patients.
In the process chemo destroys good cells in the body so really we are funding the slow death of our love ones to say the least.
Getting told there is nothing doctors can do when they refer a
patient to Angau Memorial Hospital in Lae is probably the worst thing a patient can hear from a doctor.
We feel this is what the good doctors should be telling young girls and women in PNG through these programmes and campaigns is if they want to live longer and avoid cervical cancer there is an opportunity cost to life.
Let go your fancy but dangerous hair dyes, cosmetics, alcohol consumption, smoke, chewing and dining out on the wrong foods besides others.
Living right simply means we eat natural organic PNG foods rather than be fooled by corporate marketing lies that sell most manufactured foods and sugary drinks today to our young generation.
Papua New Guineans must note carefully that there is nothing more dangerous than the processed foods and drinks we consume daily in the world today.
If you do not want to get cancer stop eating it as we believe that’s where it’s coming from.
No one will get better by not doing the hard yards about diet and life style.
With the growth of manufacturing comes the high incidence of many forms of cancer.
It is sad that our lives will always be dictated by the might of the pharmaceutical industry in the outside world because they think we know nothing about ourselves and the healing power of our bodies.
So they may just test new drugs on our people to make money but do we know the long term side effects of HPV if any?

Peter Potit
Eriku, Lae