The Los Angeles Times has details on Michael Moore’s latest piece of propaganda theater–a hit on the health care/pharmaceutical industry titled “Sicko:”

Rumors are already flying within the industry about Moore’s moviemaking tactics. Moore, it is said, has hired actors to portray pharmaceutical salesmen who offer gifts to doctors who promote their products. There’s also word that he’s offered physicians $50,000 apiece to install secret cameras in their offices in an effort to document alleged corruption.

In September, employees said that Moore was shoving a microphone at people at GlaxoSmithKline, Bloom notes, even though he was in town only for a radio appearance.

“We have six business centers nationwide, all of which report ‘sightings,’ ” Bloom said. “Michael Moore is becoming an urban legend.”

Tentatively titled “Sicko,” Moore’s film will probably be released in the first half of 2006, sometime between the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. No deal has yet been reached, but an announcement is expected after the new year. There’s interest in the industry, he says, on the part of some of the major studios and not just their specialty divisions.

Quick aside: My hubby worked in the health care field (both government and pharma) for several years, and I’m well aware of a lot of the crap–kickbacks, marketing violations, pricing shenanigans, etc.–that goes on.

That said, unhinged pharma-bashers like Moore put all the blame for America’s health care crisis on greedy drug companies–and none on Americans themselves. One of the biggest factors driving up health care costs and fueling pharma is obesity.

Nearly 130 million adults are overweight in the US alone, and 60 million of them are considered clinically obese. RTI concluded last year that the health care costs associated with obesity now rival those attributable to smoking. Obesity costs in the U.S. totaled up to $92.6 billion last year, and government-funded public insurers Medicare and Medicaid financed about half the bill.

Instead of whingeing (it’s my word of the day) about the high cost of cholesterol drugs and diabetes treatments and gastric bypass surgeries, and instead of demonizing the pharma innovators who are rescuing Americans from their destructive vices, Michael Moore could actually do some good for the country by taking personal responsibility and turning the camera on himself.

The demon is in the mirror, dude.