MAHER: All right, I want to ask about food here, because I’ve been anxious to get you back on this panel, because you were on our satellite, and like Tommy Thompson, who was here a couple of weeks ago, you are, I think, what we would say – I’ll mean this as an insult – part of the medical establishment.
HEALY: Oh, yes. And proud of it.
MAHER: But as you know, I don’t believe in the medical establishment. I think there is an “axis of evil” in this country with our health. The food industry—[applause]—the food industry, the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry—[applause] [cheers]—work together and – true or false: it is a diet of chemicals, preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, dead nutrients, that is mainly responsible for the fact that this country has such a staggering health care bill. True or false? [applause]
FOLEY: False.
MAHER: False, really?
HEALY: Yes.
FOLEY: That combined with the most inefficient health care system on the face of earth. [applause]
MAHER: But why do we need so much health care if we weren’t sick? And why are we sick? What is the main thing we do to ourselves? Eat.
RENO: One of the main things we do to ourselves is we do not take care of our children when they come into this world by providing proper vaccinations, proper preventative medical care—[applause] [cheers]—proper strong, supportive health care for infants and children in this country.
MAHER: I don’t believe in vaccination either.
HEALY: Oh, dear.
MAHER: That’s – what? That’s another theory that I think is flawed. And that we go by the Louis Pasteur theory even though Louis Pasteur renounced it on his own death bed and said, “Beauchamps was right; it’s not the invading germs, it’s the terrain. It’s not the mosquitoes, it’s the swamp that they’re breeding in.” [applause]
RENO: What are you going to do about smallpox?
MAHER: What am I going to do about smallpox? Not go to the chicken farm. [laughter]
FOLEY: You’ve got to say, the polio vaccine turned out well. [applause] You know—
HEALY: You know, I think there – I mean, I think it’s great theater to, when you’re well, to say, oh, all those sick people, you know, let’s just dismiss them. But, you know, when you’re sick, there’s nothing better than having a good medical establishment.
MAHER: But why do they get sick? Do you think it’s normal that people need this amount of drugs?
HEALY: Well, I think that people get sick and we don’t entirely know why they get sick. And the older they get, the sicker they get. Every ten years that you add onto your life, you have a higher chance of getting sick. And you get atherosclerosis, you get cancer. I mean, the notion—
MAHER: Why?
HEALY: --that somehow if you get sick, it’s your fault.
MAHER: [overlapping] It’s the—
HEALY: It’s the wrong attitude. It’s not your fault. You don’t have a guilt trip because you get sick. People get sick. You know, they say all around the world people think that death is inevitable.
MAHER: [overlapping] You’re in denial.
HEALY: In the United States of America, we think it’s an option! I mean, death is not an option! [applause]
MAHER: You’re in denial of, I think, a key fact, which is—
HEALY: Okay.
MAHER: --there is – it is the – people get sick because of an aggregate toxicity—[applause]—because their body has so much poison in it from the air, the water – yes, much of it is not our fault and we can’t control it, but a lot of it we can. And even the food people think is good for them is bad. And I’m not setting myself as a paradigm. I do cruddy things to my body, too, and I enjoy them. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]
But when I do them, I’m not in denial. I’m not eating fat-free cheese and saying, “You know what? I’m healthy for eating this.” I’m saying, “Oh, yeah, this is chemical goop and it’s killing me.” [laughter]
HEALY: Well, you know – and right now, I think that you would be the greatest spokesman for anti-smoking. I mean, really, the most dangerous—
MAHER: Well, of course, smoking—
HEALY: --the most dangerous thing people do to themselves is they smoke cigarettes.
MAHER: Yes.
HEALY: It’s toxic to their lungs. It causes, you know, all sorts of cancers. It causes lung disease, heart disease.
MAHER: Yes, but we know that. No one is arguing that smoking—
HEALY: But why are 25% of Americans still smoking?
MAHER: Well, because—
HEALY: Because of all this disease—
MAHER: Yes.
FOLEY: And it still looks cool. [laughter]
HEALY: And it’s still in those movies. [voices overlap]
FOLEY: Yeah, but – no – you know, and as much money as we spend on helping people, you know, stay alive, you know, the tobacco industry spends more than that on convincing people they should smoke.
HEALY: But it’s still a person’s responsibility.
MAHER: Yes.
HEALY: We keep blaming the company. We keep blaming the advertising. Someone has to decide their going to go and spend an abominable amount of money to buy a pack of weeds that’ll kill them, you know, when they put it in their—
FOLEY: Yeah.
MAHER: But you just said we shouldn’t blame ourselves!
FOLEY: But they’re addicting.
HEALY: We should blame our behaviors. I mean, we should have healthy behavior. We should be responsible for our behaviors.
MAHER: Then we agree. All right. [applause]
HEALY: We agree. Oh, wonderful. Finally.
FOLEY: But we just – but earlier we discussed teenagers, their minds not being fully developed enough to keep their intellect and their emotions in synch.
HEALY: That’s why parents have to say, “No, you may not smoke, kids. And we’re not going to give you money to…”
MAHER: Don’t smoke, kids! It turns your mind to plastic! [laughter]
