Why are Indian doctors so angry at SiCKO?

From: Journalists for Truth, Ethics and Awareness in Media (J4TEAM)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/j4team


SiCKO: Why are Indian doctors so angry?

By Partha Banerjee


First Dr. Sanjay Gupta blasts SiCKO on CNN, only to eat his own words lately (sort of...big media never truly apologize).

Now another Indian, so-called expert doctor-writer Dr. Atul Gawande wrote a column against the film in the New Yorker, an article he titled Sick and Twisted
(see article at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/07/23/070723taco_talk_gawande/).

Why are these Indian doctors-turned-media experts so angry at Michael Moore and his documentary on U.S. health care, a film that even right-wing politicians (the conservative-yet-sane kind) are taking seriously?

Could it be that these Indian doctors are angry because the film exposed the scandalous, inhumane, only-profit-based health care system in U.S. and compared it side by side with saner systems in France, U.K., Canada and yes, the "in-Fidel," communist Cuba?

Could be that these Indian doctors are so angry because the documentary tears apart a failed system that the elite Indian rich and their mouthpiece media (including their own "ethnic" journalist groups) are trying to emulate and impose in India?

Or, could it be that these doctors are angry because the movie challenges the U.S.-style corporate economics that thrives on exploiting peoples' health, lives and dignity, a system that some of these doctors and the Indian elite are so busy to safeguard and promote? (Of course, there are exceptions, but they rather prove the rule).

It's also noteworthy how after the initial shock and confusion, upper-echelon U.S. media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and now New Yorker have jumped on the bandwagon of CNN and Fox to ostracize Michael Moore and SiCKO, and how they're censoring the voice of dissent, except for allowing in a few letters to the editor.

(For their part, the elite-ethnic journalist groups are following their big brothers' footsteps: they would not publish dissent, period.)

It's truly "Sicko." Or, should I emulate Dr. Gawande and say, "Sick and Twisted?"


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