Monday, April 16, 2007

Sicko


The film called Sicko has been two years in the making, and those in the medical industry have been closely watching Michael Moore and what kind of antics that he was going to try to pull.

There have been rumors that his film crew have been going to medical conventions and filming the pharmaceutical displays and trying to get docs on film talking about their free pens.

In Sunday's New York Post, there is a new twist. According to the report, he took ailing Ground Zero responders to Cuba to film how (in his opinion) Castro's socialized medicine is superior to the medical care in the United States.
Responders were told Cuban doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illness, and that health care in the communist country was free, according to those offered the two-week February trip.

Cuba has made recent advancements in biotechnology and exports its cancer treatments to 40 countries around the world, raking in an estimated $100 million a year, according to The Associated Press.

In 2004 the U.S. government granted an exception to its economic embargo against Cuba and allowed a California drug company to test three cancer vaccines developed in Havana, according to the AP.
Naturally, some people are upset by this and see this as exploitation....
"He's using people that are in a bad situation and that's wrong, that's morally wrong," railed Jeff Endean, a former SWAT commander from Morris County, N.J., who spent a month at Ground Zero and suffers from respiratory problems.
The article goes on to mention one 9/11 worker who didn't want to go on the Cuba trip and another worker who states me was left behind by the filmmaker. I love the closing paragraphs of this article.
"From what I heard through the grapevine, those people that went are utterly happy," said John Feal, who runs the Fealgood Foundation to help raise money for responders and was approached by Moore to find responders willing to take the trip.

"They got the Elvis treatment."

Although he has been a critic of Cuba, Moore grew popular there after a pirated version of his movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11," was played on state-owned TV.
I usually don't dignify garbage like this with a post, but it's going to be a news story eventually - especially with the slated premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in about four weeks. It's definitely going to be hit piece on the pharmaceutical industry with docs being another target.

The press love to spin things up into a frenzy - the recent Imus story is a prime example. I'll have more to say over the next four weeks as the hype increases. I just wanted to get you ready, because the medical industry is going to take more of a beating in the press than usual (and probably from the US presidential candidates as well)....

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

ew! i cant stand mr moore! i cant imagine anything he does to ever be worth seeing. yuck...

im sure this film will be just like his other works, just a blown up version of his own opinions, put forth as they were reliable or knowledgeble. he's a fool, and he's just advertising the fact.

kïrstin♫

Anonymous said...

That is just sad all the way around.

Anonymous said...

Haven't watched a single Moore movie. He's an info-whore if there ever was one. Even the true things he says are slimed by the lies and selective filming/editing.

coaster1robert said...

well Mr.Moore is a true communist.even Castro hired a Doctor from Spain ,because he believed their doctors were better then cuba's health care system.

BruNo said...

i´ll see it. MM rulez. Is he the only american who has the balls to laught at Mr Bush face?

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SuperStenoGirl said...

You know what? I can't stand Moore. Ever since I was forced to sit through his Bowling for Columbine move in my Marketing 12 class, I've disliked him. "Documentary"? Hardly. He presents things purely as one-sided and clearly biased. His little fiasco with the NRA was apalling to watch and the interviews with some people were less than professional in my opinion (although I will note that I was really surprised to see that I'd agree with everything Marilyn Manson had to say).

As someone who suffered excessive and severe school bullying (to the point I have police reports on a few kids who tried to kill me), and as someone who comes from a long line of hunters and avid gun users (only for hunting mind you), I was disgusted as how he portrayed gun enthusiasts as the main culprit in this problem.

I haven't even bothered to watch the 9/11 "documentary" and I certainly won't be paying any money to see this new one.

Moore is, in my opinion nothing more than a "Moore"on. I dislike his tactics, I dislike his lack of professionalism and I dislike his biased presentation of so-called facts.

The man needs to be shoved back into whatever cave he's crawled out of and forgotten about.

Elizabeth said...

Well, whatever Cuba's problems, their medical system can't be worse than ours, with so many unisured. Just because you have a kneejerk reaction against Michael Moore doesn't mean he's entirely wrong. Why don't we all just be open minded and look honestly at the MANY inequities of our medical system and try to fix it, instead of being defensive.

Anonymous said...

I posted earlier, but it somehow got lost in cyberblogspace. I'll try to recreate my tome.
I guess I'll be one of the lone liberal voices. Does Michael Moore push the envelope? YES. Does he go too far? I Don't think so.
I'm sure that a lot of his new movie will not be pretty, nor put healthcare and Pharma in the limelight.
As someone who has worked in healthcare for a long time, and as a hard core (albeit unwillingly) consumer of healthcare services, the system is broken people.
MM was the one willing to scream "The emperor has no clothes."
I have a hard time witnessing the large amounts of money spent on fluff and waste to take docs on vacations under the auspices of research, when we have a large population of people who can't afford or get access to the meds they need.

What I find troubling is how people have determined how horrific/un-American he is without ever having seen ANY of his work!

If history is any indicator, it really won't matter how bad what MM's new movie has to say. After all, he already screamed, "The Emperor has no clothes.", and he got re-appointed to 4 more years anyway.