The Straight Goods Report

More laser surgery risk, selling schools, "indie" Web media in Quebec, hoax virus warnings...

By: Ish Theilheimer, Publisher, Straight Goods

  Unreported laser surgery risks. Have you been for laser eye surgery yet? It's the latest and greatest for people who don't mind flexing the plastic to get rid of glasses, especially aging boomers who want to look a whole lot younger. A huge industry has developed in just a few years. Over a million Americans and up to 100,000 Canadians underwent laser surgery last year.
  Harmless? Not according to the Food and Drug Administration in the US. Definitely not for risk-takers, they say. The carefree growth of the industry ended last spring when investigators began to report that up to 50% of laser surgery patients experience abnormalities of night vision. Soon horror stories began to hit the press. Like most quick fixes, laser surgery isn't necessarily either. Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.
  Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a co-founder of the progressive-minded Medical Reform Group, says there's another risk that doesn't get as much reporting. Ultimately what may be more of a threat is what the laser surgery industry does to public health care in Canada. If fees are high enough for private eye surgery, doctors - trained at public expense - will opt for doing these surgeries instead of the publicly funded work they would otherwise do, producing "fewer ophthalmologists to perform emergency procedures, as well as longer waiting lists," according to last year's Ontario Medical Review. Your aging parents - like a close neighbour of mine - must wait a year for cataract removal so someone younger and wealthier can buy elective laser surgery.

  This lesson brought to you by... We all know - because we're constantly told by the experts, right-wing pols, and media - that education is too expensive and taxes are too high. So as a result our governments have cut education budgets and left schools without "frills" like libraries, sports and music lessons - things that can motivate kids and teach them discipline and skills they can use throughout their lives.
  The impact is schools are looking for profit centres. Ethical business reporter Paul Pellizari has been following the rise of buinesses like YNN, Channel 1, and Microsoft that advertise and do product placements in schools - often pushing junk food and pricey consumer stuff that drives parents crazy. It also drives teachers crazy because many of the freebie media programs, computers and so on carry a big price tag - a set amount of classroom time. And what do teachers have less of than ever these days? Time. A real Trojan horse.

  Web-organized "indie media" converge on Quebec. As reported last week, the Quebec trade summit continues to be the hottest thing on the Internet among youth, protest types, and a lot of ordinary people alarmed at the rise of corporate dominance of our lives. On March 23-24 there was a huge convergence of independent or "indie" media types - people who have gone and created their own, usually on-line, media because they don't feel citizens are getting enough straight goods. Our grassroots correspondent Darryl Leroux of Peterborough was there in the flesh. People came from all over Canada and the US who don't belong to traditional groups with memberships or bylaws. Most had never met in the flesh. Yet, using the Internet, these several hundred strangers converged in what is not exactly the easiest place on the continent to reach. They networked, planned coverage, toured the site and shared info.

  Hold that hoax warning. There's a lot of official hype, spin and lies out there concealing actual dangers. So it's probably fitting that widespread e-mail use has given rise to another kind of mass lie: the false warning. If you're on e-mail a lot, you probably receive a lot of frantic messages saying things like TELL EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST NOT TO SPREAD THIS NEW TERRIBLE VIRUS. IT WILL GIVE YOU TAPEWORMS or some such. Before you pass that warning to me and everyone else on your list, do us all a favour by checking it out at a hoax website. I recommend vil.mcafee.com/hoax.shtml or vmyths.com/hoax.cfm. Please check it out and save yourself some embarrassment.

  Happy surfing!

The Straight Goods Report is a new weekly column being distributed to newspapers, web 'zines and portals, and radio stations all over Canada. You need not ask permission to reproduce it in your print or web publication, but please include our URL and let us know where you are posting it.

- Ish Theilheimer
- Killaloe, Ontario
- April 02, 2001
- ish@straightgoods.com

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