I made the conscious decision a few years back to never again insult my body’s integrity by taking drugs. This was after I had been taking Aleve every single night for a couple of years. I read that all of the drugs classified as nsaids (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) can contribute to macular degeneration. Now, I will not even take aspirin. Although I have never smoked, which is also a contributor to the disease; my first 19 years were spent breathing the second hand smoke from two parents. I value my eyesight and I will not take chances when it comes to compromising it.
While I have avoided drugs for most of my life, the possibility of future health problems remains, as a result of having taken some in the past. I received several immunizations as a child, long before anyone began questioning their safety. I was also given antibiotics, steroids, asthma, and sinus medications when I was much younger. I did not question doctors whom I believed at the time, knew what they were doing. I was on birth control pills for at least five years before giving birth to my three children.
In my advancing years, I am questioning how I may even now be affected by those drugs I took 40, 50, or 60 years ago. I know that I have been exposed to asbestos that was later removed from the building where I went to junior high school. I have probably been exposed to lead based paint. There are numerous unknowns that I may have been ingesting or absorbing through my skin. In more recent years I have gardened for other people after they had sprayed with glyphosates and who knows what other chemicals, around the plants. Every time I walk out of my home, I am bombarded with the putrid smells of our modern world: gasoline, diesel, and other automobile fumes, asphalt, chemical smells from dryer sheets spewing out from dryer vents, and herbicides and pesticides that have recently been sprayed. Obviously, I am not alone in this. I may be more sensitive to those things. I have to hold my breath when walking down the cleaning products aisle in the store; otherwise, my lungs begin to close up and the threat of an asthma attack looms over me. Since I do not take drugs, I no longer use asthma inhalers, either. I do my best to avoid those things that make me sick. Taking drugs only adds one more thing that my body must overcome.
The really long term effects of drugs are never studied. How might drugs that I had been given as a child, have affected my own children, or even my grandchildren? The health of a mother and a father directly affects their egg and sperm, and thus will determine the health of the child they bring forth. If either parent has taken drugs before or during conception, we would be remiss to believe that this will not have bearing on the fetus. I have mostly referred to pharmaceutical drugs here, but what about those addicts who have been taking street drugs and later give birth? These children are not immune from the poisons that have passed through the parents, to them.
If all of those Christians who espouse the teachings of the bible, practiced what they preach, they would take its teachings to heart. Jesus supposedly performed numerous miracles – and he did not require drugs to bring them forth!
