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Experienced bloggers know that when posts are read in haste, the chances of the main message being misunderstood increase. I am sure most of you skim read posts. I do it when time or interest are lacking. Of course there is nothing wrong with “skimming” through posts. The problem comes in, however, when skimmers post replies based on their limited understanding of posts. They are more likely than careful readers to assume that bloggers said something they did not say.

Recently I posted an article on carbon footprinting and having babies. I got a few replies, which I am grateful for. But I am disappointed with those who, for one reason or another, misread or incorrectly interpreted my main message. I was accused of calling people who are concerned for the environment and the earth’s resources “tools of the devil”. If this were the case then I would be a tool of the devil because I recycle and occasionally take mass transit out of concern for the environment.

What I said in the blog post (see below) was that people who are concerned about the environment and resources to the point of positing limited reproduction through education and government action are doing the devil’s bidding. They are putting their eco-fanaticism ahead of the God-given command for humans to reproduce.

There are a lot of reasons, many of them personal, for couples to have or not have children. Government mandated zero population policies in the name of environmental and resource management should not be one of them.

China’s harsh and ungodly One Child policy is a classic example. As BYU political science professor Valerie Hudson pointed out, the decision among many Chinese families to have a boy through selective reproduction practices (typically through abortion of female fetuses) is creating a huge problem. She warned that by the year 2020, China will have 30 million surplus uneducated, unskilled, unemployed, and unmarried young males. Historically when such surpluses existed in China, totalitarian regimes have used the boys as soldiers in war. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24761-2004Jul2.html?referrer=emailarticlepg)

It is interesting that supposedly enlightened academics, writers, and government bureaucrats in the US are making similar arguments. Here is an example. An environmental writer for the SF Chronicle recently wrote the following about scientific research which implicates babies in carbon footprinting.

Thinking about zero population growth as something that can be obtained by empowering people, rather than forcibly sterilizing them, makes the issue more approachable. I'm glad the [carbon footprint] study reveals childbearing as an important environmental decision, but science will have to learn how to stop considering women and fertility to be interchangeable if we are to make any progress on the population issue. (Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=45122)

Another example of eco-fascism at its worse.
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Over the last decade there has been a massive influx of health care information into the public domain through the internet. Physicians have responded to the increase in public information by entering into a collaborative relationship with well-informed patients. Gone are the days where “The doctor knows best.” Today many clinicians prefer working with well-informed patients to come up with best treatment options. In health care it is sometimes called “empowering the patient.”

A few years ago my baby daughter underwent surgery to fix a displaced hip. The surgery was successful, but my daughter still needed regular x-rays to check the position of her hip. On one visit the orthopedic surgeon wanted to do a 360 degree CAT scan to check the placement of the hip. Now she is a very competent surgeon, and equally important, she is a good communicator. I felt comfortable expressing my concern with subjecting the hip to high levels of radiation from the CAT scan. There had already been plenty of x-rays, and I wanted to minimize irradiating the hip. The surgeon respected my opinion and, after some discussion, presented an alternative that everyone was happy with.

Unfortunately, there is a sinister side to our health care information age. It has perpetuated health care conspiracies. You probably know someone who is very skeptical about the health care profession. You’ve probably heard someone say that health care wants to keep people sick because revenue comes from sick people. These attitudes are not only misleading, they are damaging.

Last week I talked with one of my brothers who is a physician. He said that occasionally he encounters people who do not want to take medication because they think it is not God’s will, or they are “suspicious” toward the medical profession because of something they read on the web. I also talked with my sister who is a labor and delivery nurse. She said that occasionally she encounters couples who reject medical advice for the same reasons. In my sister’s case, extreme skepticism has led to infant deaths and injuries.

As I explain in my book Truth and Science, modern science is a gift from God. Notwithstanding the pitfalls of modern health care, God has given us medical and pharmaceutical discoveries to prolong people’s lives in the latter days. Skeptics and conspiracy theorists may fail to realize that the medicine or technology that can improve their quality of life may be a gift from God or an answer to their prayers.

When interacting with the medical profession, I say get informed, get involved, and recognize God's blessings.

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The Word of Wisdom (WofW) is a unique revelation in the sense that we are able to confirm it’s legitimacy with science.  I dare say that 176 years ago when the WofW was given, people had a difficult time seeing the wisdom in it.  To some pioneers living back then, the WofW must have seemed like a rule from heaven without justification (kind of like polygamy).  I imagine some early Latter-day Saints said things like: “Why can’t we smoke?” or “What could possibly be wrong with drinking hot drinks like coffee and tea?” 

But as the faithful know, when God commands, we should not ask “why”; we should go and do.  Today no one is asking “why” questions about the Word of Wisdom.  The answers have been provided in abundance by science.  

The WofW says that drinking wine and strong drink is not good.  Nothing drives this point home more than the fact that alcohol consumption causes about 24,000 deaths per year from alcohol-related car crashes in the US alone, and leaves another 500,000 seriously injured.  Some people get all upset about 4000 US soldiers killed in Iraq – where is the outrage over the approximately 24,000 alcohol-related car crash deaths last year!?  Alcohol consumption also costs about $90 billion in lost production and health care costs in the US.  In short, alcohol consumption has had devastating effects on our modern society.  It has affected us in ways that could not have been predicted 176 years ago.

The WofW says that tobacco is not for the body and is not good for man.  The nicotine in tobacco is very addictive, so many people get hooked on smoking and are unable (or unwilling) to quit.  The CDC’s national center for chronic disease reports that in the 1990s, smoking killed an average of 440,000 people per year in the US.  More-freakin-over, smoking cost the nation about $92,000,000,000 in lost productivity between 1997 and 2001!  Back in the day when the WofW was given, smokers who died of lung cancer just died - nobody knew why (there are few if any references to lung cancer in 19th century medical texts).  However, today we fully understand the devastating cost of tobacco.

The WofW highly recommends herbs (vegetables), fruits, and grains.  It should come as no surprise that vegetables, fruits and grains make up the bottom portions of our food pyramid.  They are at the bottom of the pyramid because science has shown that they are the foods that we should consume the most to ensure good health.  I am certain that early 1800’s science did not have extensive information on healthy eating habits.  I don’t think that people living back then would have claimed that an apple was healthier than salted pork.  In fact, the salted pork would have been more appealing to them because of its greater potential to satisfy hunger.  However, nowadays we understand the importance of healthy eating.

And finally, the WofW counsels us to eat meat sparingly.  The results of a recent research project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that “Americans who ate the most red meat boosted their overall risk of death by 30% during a 10-year period compared to those who ate the least.”  The researchers claimed that “if the heaviest red meat eaters ate as little as the people who consumed the least, they could prevent 11% of deaths among men and 16% of deaths among women.”  Now more than ever before we see the wisdom in the divine counsel to eat meat sparingly.  (Note, neither this study nor the WofW tells us that we should become vegetarians.  Red meat is a good source of iron and fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K, and antioxidants such as glutathione or carnosine.)

Indeed, as science progresses we are more fully realizing the wisdom in the WofW.  God said that he was warning and forewarning us by giving the WofW – Now we know some of the reasons why.

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My employer is a leader in healthcare delivery and outcomes.  Because of its reputation as a leader, medical professionals from around the country come to its semi-annual conference on quality improvement.  I recently attended this four week conference. I heard from at least 20 professionals who talked about a wide variety of challenges facing health care.  The last presentation impacted me the most; it got under my skin, so to speak, and for a good reason.  

The final presenter’s goal was to show how transparency in healthcare organizations improves outcomes.  She showed a video of parents with children who are suffering from cystic fibrosis.  The parents in the video were concerned that their children were not receiving the best possible care for their cystic fibrosis at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. 

The organization with data on which hospitals are delivering the best outcomes is the national Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF), but the CFF was not talking.  The foundation did not want to release data on which hospitals were producing the best outcomes and which were producing the worst.  This secrecy is a major concern given that the difference in survival years between the best and the worst cystic fibrosis treatment centers was 17 years!  That means that children from the best treatment centers were, on average, living 17 years longer than children from the worst treatment centers. 

The parents fought with the foundation until it gave them what they wanted – the name of the hospital with the best outcomes in cystic fibrosis care.  After discovering which hospital offered the best care, the parents and medical staff from Cincinnati visited the best care facility to learn what they were doing and what worked well.  This information was then incorporated into care programs at Cincinnati’s children’s hospital to improve the outcomes and prolong the lives of children suffering from cystic fibrosis in Cincinnati, Ohio.  

Watching the video and seeing young kids who were suffering from cystic fibrosis was heartbreaking enough; what made it even more heartbreaking was seeing their parents struggling to get the CFF to reveal the hospital offering the best care.  The thought that a lack of transparency in healthcare outcomes is reducing the lifespan of children suffering from cystic fibrosis is distressing.  You would think that we should be “pulling out all the stops” when it comes to helping these children.

In my opinion, what is equally distressing is our increasingly lack of transparency with the Light of Christ.  Every step that science (and society in general) takes toward godless secularism is a step away from the enlightening power of the Light of the Lord.  That same Light that inspired great discoveries in scholars like Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Einstein, and Salk has the potential to reveal promising treatments and cures for devastating diseases like cystic fibrosis.  The more we humble ourselves before the Lord and seek His guidance through prayer, the more secular knowledge we will receive through the enlightening power of the Spirit of the Lord.  On the other hand, the more we move towards secularism, the less we benefit from this enlightening power.

By increasing transparency in healthcare and improving our transparency with the Light of Christ we will advance our understanding of diseases and ultimately enhance the quality of people’s lives.  We will also, as Orson Pratt stated, help science move “higher and higher until [it is] crowned with the glory and presence of Him who is eternal.”  A wonderful goal, indeed.

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