Where did the aversion to preventative medicine come from?
What we’ve tried to do through the Institute for Preventative Sports Medicine is sound a wake-up call. After September 11th, I got a lot of phone calls from people who said, “You need to get that book to people in government.” And I asked why. And they said, “We all wait for the planes to hit the building and then we decide to do something about it.” I try to show folks that if you anticipate injuries and try to prevent them, they’re significantly diminished in severity if they occur at all. Our studies on bases were unique because they broke the paradigm of reactive thinking. They break the paradigm of how HMOs and insurance companies want us to think because let’s face it if we prevent injuries, we actually cost the insurance companies money. If an injury occurs, they just pass the cost on to the public. The second barrier to entry is energy. It’s a lot easier to go through life and let the world shape you rather than try to shape the world around you. To do that, you have to have a
