Ask your Doctor if Death is Right for You

The number of people with chronic degenerative diseases is rising, and so are the prices of pharmaceuticals. Healthcare costs everywhere are overflowing their budgetary banks (1) and if we were a rational species rather than a rationalizing one, reactive healthcare systems based on pharmaceuticals would have been replaced by now with low-cost, preventive systems based on pharmaco-nutrition.

Thanks to the military/industrial/congressional / pharmaceutical / IT complex, however, we remain stuck at Do Not Pass Go. We can see the promised land of better health through nutrition but we cannot yet set foot there; stakeholders bar the way, and have made it illegal to discuss the new science openly.

What do they offer instead? Well, one way to cut costs while maintaining the current system is to focus on the lingering unwell, the middle-aged and elderly with chronic conditions who clog up the waiting rooms, surgical lists and hospital wards, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, and terminate them. The depopulation tango (2) is being played everywhere, and the Overton window is thrown open to an ever-widening discussion of the merits of euthanasia (3).

In March 2024 president Micron came out in favor of assisted dying (4), shortly before announcing his decision to send French troops into Ukraine. In May, the head of the largest Belgian health insurance company went public (5), lamenting the burden of the increasing numbers of elderly and exhorting us to ‘haul away the stigma between life and death’.

But it was a contemporary editorial in the Dutch Algemeen Dagblad (6), rejoicing in the fact that the substantial excess deaths between 2020 and 2023 (Covid jabs and policies) saved the Dutch government hundreds of millions of euros, that gave the economic game away.

We’ve been primed for this. A generation of children have been spoon-fed crude Malthusianism. With overpopulation the great evil and our species a cancer on Gaia, eco-Jacobins see useless eaters everywhere. The germ of the idea of the virtue of the destruction of such eaters, starting with self-destruction, takes easy root in this soil.

Consider The Times newspaper, known in more morally certain times as The Thunderer. The childless columnist Matthew Parris, once an ineffective politician and now an ineffectual writer, pushes assisted dying programs and pressurizing the terminally ill to kill themselves. Echoing his European seigneurs he writes (7): “I would welcome (euthanasia)… How much is all this..’ (he refers to the long-haul dying of cancer, dementia and similar diseases) ‘.. costing relatives and the health service?”.

Ah, the golden poison apple. Matthew’s modish answer merely shows that he does not understand the question. A glove puppet for financiers who see the oncoming demographic train wreck (8), he cannot see further than the currently poisoned Mclandscape.

Animals dying in the wild do not take long to die. Nor, until relatively recently, did many of us, until in the mid-20^th century the food industry started the program of chronic poisoning that has made chronic degenerative diseases so prevalent.

A century and a half ago, at a time when health expectancy was at least as good as ours (in England), and when most folks had the decency to die of infections and therefore fairly rapidly (9), healthcare costs were a fraction of what we pay today (10,11). The burden of caring for our sick and elderly was far lighter, and there were proportionately more to bear it (12). There were indeed a few who died more slowly, but the percentage of chronically ill was only 10% of ours (13-16).

I do think that among those dying the lingering kind of death that has become so popular, the option of assisted dying can be a kindness. Having variously witnessed and participated in the assisted dying of humans and animals, I know what I will do when my time comes. But when we see euthanasia being seriously considered as the final solution for mental illness, poverty and homelessness (17, 18), it is time to ignore the judgment of Parris and take stock.

Where are we now?

Wormtongue Trudeau blazed the trail, with assisted suicides (branded as Medical Assistance in Dying aka MAID) increasing 10-fold in Canada between 2016 and 2022 (19) as criteria and expectations were progressively widened (20).

Cold Cases

1 in 2 Canadians today agree that adults should have access to medical assistance in dying due to an inability to receive medical treatment (51%) or a disability (50%). So far, so good. But almost 1 in 3 now believe that guidelines should be expanded to include homelessness and poverty (21).

Perhaps the most scandalous example is Christine Gauthier, a para-Olympian who was apparently offered MAID as a cost-effective alternative to having a wheelchair ramp installed in her home (22).

In a second Canadian case currently going through the legal system, the reason for allowing MAID seems to consist of autism and ADHD (17). A third case, in the Netherlands, involves borderline personality and chronic depression (23). Another physically healthy but allegedly depressed Dutch woman named Jolanda Fun, may have been terminated by the time this post is published (24).

Ms Fun is very photogenic, and one has to suspect a PR angle. If the next batch of high-profile cases include Nils Baimouth, Jolie A’Meusinck and Hayley Korste-Avechtev, my spidey senses will definitely start to tingle.

One problem is that we are mortal and of necessity fallible. Codes set up in good faith easily slip off the path, as the unedifying (and undeifing) story of the Liverpool Care Pathway illustrates (25). Another is the trans-humanism woven into the Western elite’s on-going psyop, pushed to the masses in Blackrock-financed super-hero movies and games, and on real-world display at the current geo-political earthquake zones of Ukraine and Gaza.

The Western elite clearly thinks of us as homo economicus, to be adapted as desired and terminated when no longer productive. Their strategy of widening euthanasia guidelines to include financial difficulty and emotional discomfort is not good for us, I suggest – and even worse when you consider that the current floods of chronically ill and the increasing numbers of people, especially young people with depression and anxiety, appear to be an artifact and a historical anomaly.

There are fairly direct links between our degraded Mcdiet, our unhappiness and our ill health (ie 26, 27). The data are messy, as to be expected in the multi-parametric world of humans and food, but they are persuasive. And they can be changed.

We could re-design the ultra-processed and near-addictive kibbles that dominate the international food space, and transform them from health-destroying to health-promoting. Attitudes and expectations could change. We could turn Japanese.

In 1991 the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare introduced a functional food regulation called “foods for specified health uses” (FOSHU). In 2023 the Japanese functional food market exceeded 900 billion yen ($6 billion) in annual sales (28).

By eating more healthily and ageing more successfully, we can dramatically reduce the burden of ill health both personally and societally. By all means keep euthanasia to cut suffering at the end of life but let us not use it, as scribbler Parris suggests, merely to cut costs.

One last soft scoop.

My work has always been about helping others to live healthier lives. However, it’s clear that some would prefer to thin out the waiting rooms by decimating the ranks of the useless eaters. A cartel of third-rate grifters in Washington and Brussels are promoting war which they know nothing of and yet long for. I would gift them euthanasia, without hesitation.

Next week: Kindling hope in the heart, and how to re-wire a mis-firing myocardium.

References

1. https://drpaulclayton.eu/blog/end-of-the-road/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TytGOeiW0aE
3. Freeman S. Will Assisted Dying in Europe Impact Living With Dignity? Medscape, April 18, 2024
4. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240310-macron-backs-bill-allowing-medically-assisted-death
5. https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2024/04/08/cm-voorzitter-luc-van-gorp-vergrijzing-aanpakken-door-het-leven/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
6. https://www.ad.nl/politiek/mysterieuze-oversterfte-levert-honderden-miljoenen-op-waar-moet-dat-geld-naartoe~afe3ed88/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack.com%2F
7. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-cant-afford-a-taboo-on-assisted-dying-n6p8bfg9k (Paywalled)
8. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bye-bye-babies-bye-bye-workers-can-europe-slow-impact-its-aging-society
9. Clayton P, Rowbotham J. How the mid-Victorians worked, ate and died. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2009 Mar;6(3):1235-53. 
10. Getzen TE. The Growth of Health Spending in the United States From 1776 to 2026. OUP 2024. https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/Files/Research/research-growth-health-spending.pdf  See: P3, Figs. 1a and 1b.
11. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/
12. Izekenova AK, Kumar AB, Abikulova AK, Izekenova AK. Trends in the ageing of the population and the life expectancy after retirement: A comparative country-based analysis. J Res Med Sci. 2015 Mar;20(3):250-2.
13. Shin-Yi W, Green A. Prevalence of Chronic Illness Prevalence and Cost Inflation. Rand Corp 2000. https://www.rand.org/blog/rand-review/2017/07/chronic-conditions-in-america-price-and-prevalence.html  Accessed 30.5.23
14. Gerteis J, Izrael D, Deborah Deitz D, LeRoy L, MBA, Ricciardi R, PhD, Miller T, Basu J. Multiple Chronic Conditions Chartbook, 2010 MEDICAL EXPENDITURE PANEL SURVEY DATA. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/professionals/prevention-chronic-care/decision/mcc/mccchartbook.pdf  Accessed 30.5.23
15. The national health survey 1935-1936: significance, scope and method of a nation-wide family canvass of sickness in relation to its social and economic setting, preliminary reports. Generated by the United States Division of Public Health Methods, Washington 1938
16. Cumming HS. “Chronic Disease as a Public Health Problem,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 14, no. 2 (1936): 125–131, 127.
17. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-maid-father-daughter-court-injunction-judicial-review-decision-1.7154794
18. https://researchco.ca/2023/05/05/maid-canada-2023/
19. Canada Government. Fourth annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2022. Chart 3.1 https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2022.html#chart_3.1
20. Meier DE. The Treatment of Patients With Unbearable Suffering-The Slippery Slope Is Real. JAMA Intern Med. 2021 Feb 1;181(2):160-161.
21. Poll conducted by Research Co. on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada – May 5, 2023, page 4. https://researchco.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Tables_MAiD_CAN_05May2023.pdf
22. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/medical-assistance-death-maid-veterans-christine-gauthier-1.6674747
23. https://www.thefp.com/p/im-28-and-im-scheduled-to-die
24. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13349209/Physically-healthy-Dutch-woman-hopes-latest-person-country-end-life-euthanasia-34th-birthday.html
25. Knights D, Wood D, Barclay S. The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying: what went wrong? Br J Gen Pract. 2013 Oct;63(615):509-10.
26. https://drpaulclayton.eu/blog/hothead/
27. Lane MM, Gamage E, Du S, Ashtree DN, McGuinness AJ, Gauci S, Baker P, Lawrence M, Rebholz CM, Srour B, Touvier M, Jacka FN, O’Neil A, Segasby T, Marx W. Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses. BMJ 2024;384:e077310
28. https://www.statista.com/statistics/820671/japan-health-foods-market-size/#:~:text=Health%20foods%20market%20size%20in%20Japan%20FY%202015%2D2024&text=In%20fiscal%20year%202023%2C%20the,time%20in%20the%20last%20decade.