Madam, - Dr. Muiris Houston claims in his Monday column that "Prevention is better than cure" is a widely accepted notion in modern medicine. Perhaps, then, he would like to explain why far less than 1 per cent of the health budget is spent on prevention of illness, why no health supplements that would prevent illness are allowed on health insurance, private or otherwise, why the importance of health supplements to the modern diet is not explained in any school education program that I know of, why most establishment doctors have little or no education in anything outside pharmaceuticals and illness detection equipment, not even basic nutrition, and why the European Parliament is going to ban most of the supplements that would keep us healthy.
It is very simply provable that having people ill and keeping them ill is the prime motivating factor behind modern medicine. Illness is a multi-billion dollar industry. - Yours, etc.,
RICHARD D. BARTON,
(Dip. Nutritional Medicine),
Tinahely,
Co.Wicklow.