Freeloader Heaven

Socialized Medicine and other Bad Ideas, Uncategorized

Screw Social Justice

If you proposed to me that all of the poor were lazy and desired nothing more than to live lives of sloth and overindulgence; smoking their cigarettes, drinking their cheap booze, shooting their drugs, and having their lllegitimate babies willy-nilly at the taxpayer’s expense I would call you a starry-eyed idealist and and someone without a firm footing in the real world. In no way would I want your naive idealism to guide public policy because your point of view would be so extreme as to be ridiculous. And yet if you were to propose the converse, that the poor were all noble creatures mightily striving but failing to obtain their slice of prosperity because they were held back by racism, inequality,and every barrier that could be put in their path by The Man, you would be feted as a deep thinker, a person with a firm grasp on reality, and your own peculiar brand of idealism, as equally ridiculous, would inform a hundred public policy initiatives.

But that’s the problem with Social Justice, especially as it is used to justify giving everyone free health care. It makes the assumption that everyone is a victim and doesn’t allow for the possibility of the freeloader who not only exists in droves but is aggressively selected for in every nanny-state ever created. People may be lazy but they aren’t stupid and, as most people do not love their jobs, if the conditions are set to obviate the need for work many people will tend to do as little work as they possibly can. This sort of society is not sustainable for more than a generation or two as our cousins in Europe are starting to realize and it is certainly going to bankrupt our nation if we continue down the same path. In fact, the number one problem in all of the Western Democracies boils down to the unsustainable growth of entitlements paid to non-productive citizens by a dwindling pool of productive workers. Many of the recent riots in France, for example, were instigated by their government’s clumsy attempts to slightly reduce entitlements, already at levels that would make our most flagrant abusers of the welfare system blush with shame.

With this in mind, you’d think that our goal as a nation would be to reduce entitlement spending, limiting it as much as possible to those hopeless cases who demonstrate that they would actually starve to death or die from lack of primary care if not given a helping hand, not to work towards the opposite goal of giving everyone free everything whether they need it or not. Not that anything is really free. The money comes from somewhere although governments occasionally take leave of their senses and print money with nothing to support it, a short term strategy that fools nobody and leads to inflation and lack of confidence in the currency.

Unfortunately the mob, once it discovers it can vote itself access to other people’s wallets, is difficult to keep in check and the usual dependency triumvirate of ghetto, trailer park, and academia are perpetually braying for somebody else’s money. The extent to which this money can be secured depends on how many productive citizens can be lured onto the dependency plantation, usually by the propaganda of fear and class envy. The problem with creating a welfare state is that it tends to fulfill the dire prophecies of its creators. The more productive citizens are taxed the more economic activity is stifled leading to stagnant economies where there are, in fact, no jobs for many people who would be employed if growth and economic opportunity were encouraged at the expense of stealing from one set of citizens to give to another.

Social Justice is a euphemism for welfare, a word that has been so thoroughly demonized that the left has to invent a more pleasant sounding phrase.

Make Up Your Minds

The usual suspects crying for social justice are deeply conflicted anyway and their outrage is mighty selective. On one hand they argue that a collectivist approach needs to be taken to distribute medical care, essentially saying that doctors and nurses who provide this care should be forced to provide it at whatever price the the congress, acting entirely from self interest, determines to be fair. And provide it even if it entails the majority, through increased taxation, sacrifice some of their material prosperity the use of which for their own purposes is the ultimate freedom. On the other hand if I insisted that for the collective good, the ability of a citizen to sue his doctor be severely curtailed, the usual suspects will wax sanctimonious about the inability of a free people to allow even the smallest of their rights to be violated at any time, in this case the right win a legal jackpot.

Surely some medical lawsuits have merit but under the theory of social justice, for the collective good of the majority who would benefit from cheaper medical care, the minority deserving of malpractice awards would have to suck it up for the greater good. Likewise, if I insisted that for the collective good we put yer’ elderly granny down when she becomes too much of a burden to the nanny state the cries of outrage would ascend to the very heavens.

As if we don’t have enough trouble administering real justice we now have to gear up to dispense social justice, a highly nebulous concept the implementation of which requires that grievance, race, age, social status, intelligence, and other things that Americans should ignore be worked into an arbitrary and impossible behavioral calculus to give to each according to his need and to take from each according to his ability.

86 thoughts on “Freeloader Heaven”

  2. Ah, the importance of language.

    You’re obviously regressive (not progressive) and an advocate for social injustive (not justice).

    So your thoughts are not to be taken seriously.

    Wasn’t that easy? 🙂

    (“Social Justice,” like “natural,” “holistic,” “organic,” and “diversity” is a meaningless term used as cover for whatever ridiculous agenda cannot be advanced by an honest use of language.   The importance of language indeed. 

    Not to mention “progessive,” a concept built on the assumption that making as many people possible dependent on the welfare system is progress.  Why this is considered progress while limiting the role of government is not is never explained, it’s just an assumption you make and have never really examined critically as you are, unfortunately, a slave to your upbringing and incapable of truly diverse thinking. -PB)

  3. “the usual dependency triumvirate of ghetto, trailer park, and academia are perpetually braying for somebody else’s money” — I laughed !

  9. Panda – I am an old ER PA, and I check your blog every day. And I almost always agree with you. This post is spot on. Any politician who claims to have a new “healthcare plan” and hasn’t spent at least 48 hours observing in a moderately busy ER doesn’t know shit from apple butter. Something tells me you have read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ahn Rand. If not, you should. So should every elected government official.
    Those who are productive will happily produce enough for themselves with some left over for those who can’t or won’t provide for themselves, because that is what they do. But there is a limit to the punishment the producers will endure. God help us if we find that limit. Keep up the good work.

  10. Medschool Mayhem said:

    “The sad part is, I pretty much said the same thing on my blog, except you’re about a hundred times more articulate than me. Damn you.”

    No you didn’t. You have a single line about “a brood of leaching army of lazy bastards” that you obviously didn’t proofread. Your post is about a crazy ass space elevator and some imaginary liberals who DON’T want to fund stem cell research (that, sir, is a pretty small constituency if it exists at all). Your ad hom smear on religious Americans was pathetic, too.

    Judging by your previous posts, you have a uniquely bizzare view on your entitlement to private communication that isn’t usually found in somebody who doesn’t believe in healthcare entitlements. It would be refreshing (not necessarily in a good way) if you hadn’t tried to shamelessly plug your blog in a pitiful self-depreciating way. That’s why I commented here instead, because you spend time reading this blog when you should be proof-reading your own.

  11. In nursing school and in union newsletters ‘n such, you (or people who think like you, if not you directly) are flat-out called “unethical” if you are not on the side of those who think socialism will lead us all to the promised land when it comes to health care. It’s “unethical” for nurses to vote for such-and-such candidate because his proposals may lead to reduction of welfare payments for health care, etc.

    It’s “ethical” to think health care should be the same for all, regardless of employment status, ability to pay, race, etc.

    Makes me want to puke.

  12. PB,

    don’t get all mad at me regarding my post above. I was trying to be sarcastic. now I may be a slave to my upbringing, but that’s another issue altogether…

     

    (Whoops.  My apologies.  But you should see my private email.  -PB)

  13. Jobe,

    Touche :). My blog is not very popular, and I am not a particularly good writer, so I don’t expect it to become popular. But I won’t link to it from now on :).

  14. Another insightful post. I find it sad that this is the eventual path our society is heading down, and those of us who know better are powerless to change the system. Oh well, at least it will be fun to watch our society crumble and succumb to those who are willing to work hard.

  15. Is it wrong of me to want to error on the side that maybe these people DO need our help and our money instead of erroring on the side that they may just want to use us for our resourses. I straddle the fence on this issue; I can’t make up my mind fully. I don’t want people to suffer unneccessarily, but I don’t want to be used either.

     

    (Oh no.  I also want to help people and do it every day without complaint and with good cheer.  I don’t mind helping the freeloaders either because I try to be a good Christian man.  On the other hand not only am I not blind but I don’t want this kind of thing to become federal policy any more than it already has because we are trading short term benefits (and short term political gain for the politicians endorsing this kind of thing) for long-term harm to our economy and our ability to provide the opportunity for prosperity that continues to draw people from all over the world.  I’d rather people began to look after themselves instead of trading their dignity and potential for a crappy government check or access to a crappy system of enforced primary care.

    The idea that people are victims, by the way, the leftist idee fixe, is or should be insulting to everyone to whom it is supposed to apply.  Their liberal masters, after all, think so little of them that they believe they can only exist in a state of child-like dependence on those who know better. -PB)

  16. It is your blog after all, but your broad accusations of the ‘liberal masters’ running the government are pretty exaggerated. Entertaining, yes, but not factual. When you lean too far into hyperbole you risk sounding like Ann Coulter or the latest green party candidate du jour.

    Speaking as a liberal, and as one who has used ‘leftist’ government handouts in the past – and who hasn’t? Any recipient of a student loan has similarly benefited – I have never viewed the poor as “all noble creatures mightily striving but failing to obtain their slice of prosperity because they were held back by racism, inequality,and every barrier that could be put in their path by The Man”.

    I mean, really. Is this what you think liberals believe? You say that people are lazy but not stupid and then accuse liberals of stupidity.

    Some people are victims, unfortunately. Growing up in a crime-riddled neighborhood has lasting effects on an individual. Yet many manage to make their way out of the ghetto and succeed despite it. The problem is how we can maximize the success stories at minimum cost. This I believe you agree with, liberals and conservatives simply argue over methods. Luckily we can turn to the scientific literature to help us figure out the best modalities. I won’t go into it, as the linking of articles no one reads is currently under im1dc’s purview, but there is valid and thought-provoking research on this topic.

    Though you will likely accuse the authors of such research (psychologists and sociologists, all of them) of being ivory-tower liberals pushing their own agendas. Which may be true. But it’s also possible that their research is valid and worth considering.

     

    (As I always, I appreciate your well presented comments.  im1dc is our village idiot and has special dispensation to post anything he likes.  I’m thinking of asking him to guest author a defense of CAM. -PB)

  18. I hope to heaven that in real life you are a kind, loving person with a lot of redeeming qualities. I hope you are a dedicated family man who is always ready to support a friend. I hope your patients all believe that you are a compassionate and caring doctor. Because reading invective like this just makes me sick. Not sick because I am afraid of disagreement, not sick because I am swayed by your arguments, not sick because I am intolerant of dissent, not sick because I am a member of the liberal elite. I find your thoughts and feelings as conveyed in your writing not just misguided and wrong, but actually disgusting and disturbing on a visceral level. I would argue with you but I just don’t think we even have enough common ground to have a conversation. So, I apologize for lowering this to an ad hominem comment. Feel free to delete it. I did, however, want to express my feelings before signing off.

    Good bye.

     

    (From a guy whose blog is called “Movin’ Meat.” -PB)

  20. Shadowfax and PB:
    PB: You should’ve deleted his post. SF: I would expect better from someone who runs their own blog, and a physician. PB: It is clear from any cursory exam of your posts, that you are (as a person and physician) all of those things that Shadowfax “hopes” of you.

    It is unfair that someone else’s cognitive dissonance gets rerouted into an attack on a colleague.

    Since all of the compelling evidence suggests that Leftist policies result in MORE of that which they are attempting to alleviate, who, Dr. Shadowfax, should be “sick.” (Hint: reach for the trrruthhhh….)

     

    (I only delete overt ad hominem attacks and rants that are irrelevant to the theme of my blog. Shadowfax has a point of view and he is welcome to express it here. -PB)

  21. “I only delete overt ad hominem attacks and rants that are irrelevant to the theme of my blog. Shadowfax has a point of view and he is welcome to express it here. -PB”

    Sorry. (1) what part is not ad hominem? (2) where is the relevance to social justice? (3) what point of view – he is calling you out for your view and essentially dares you to publish.

    You should live up to your rhetoric on sound principles; if not, eventually you will be silenced, and even those that you have helped via elucidation, will erase you as a fraud.

    My wife and I may a New Year’s resolution three years ago: Don’t whine, unless you’re willing to do something about it.

  22. Being a physician living in Europe, in one of the countries where “social justice” (over here it is still called “the welfare state”) has been functioning for three generations now, I feel I am in a position to support some of PB’s remarks in the original article.
    Yes, the system is still functioning. But the proportion of the nation living entirely of welfare is growing every year, and that even before the demographic crisis has hit us. I’m talking about adults with no real disease, handicap or dysfunction, unless you feel that being work-shy is a diagnosis.
    The system is by now threatening to break down under the strain. Every attempt to reform it, is however defeated because the recipients of welfare is such a large voting block now that they actually wield political power.
    Perhaps you think that the welfare state at least gives us freedom from seeing beggars in the streets or prostitutes in the parks; – no, it doesn’t, as any tourist to any major European city will see for himself. The system does not deliver what it promised to do.
    And why is that? Because the system never took into account the factor that is called greed. Even a person who, although of sound mind and body, receives a fat check every month without doing a day’s work, still wants more…and then, when she gets more, she will want more still.

  23. On a per car basis, General Motors spends more money on employee health insurance than on steel.Since the beginning of this decade, health insurance premiums for average employers have increased by 87% with an overall inflation of 18%.These high costs cut into business operating margins and reduce the capacity of businesses to grow. Starbucks spent 200 MILLION for insurance for 80,000 employees. It spends more on health insurance than on beans. What does the Chairman of Starbucks have to say about this? “It’s completely unsustainable.”

    And you know what? This is great news! When you have billionaire investors like Wilbur L. Ross Jr.(#322 on the Forbes 400, the former chairman of the International Steel Group and a major investor in U.S. textile, coal and auto parts companies) along with Walmart CEO Lee Scott, the CEO’s of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and others making statements about the need for SOME FORM of UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE COVERAGE in this country, well, it ain’t long until it will happen, because corporate America and big money are what drive this country.Hey – The Big Boys even called a meeting with the President, they’re sooooo serious about what they want. When these companies start joining groups like the National Coalition on Health Care(NCHC) – which currently includes big-boys such as: Exelon, General Electric, Duke Energy and American Water – and issuing reports calling for “comprehensive universal health care,” you can bet it is on the way! Give it 2 years and we will see drastic change. Give it five or so years and we will have a true single payer/medicare-for-all-like system. Heh! With corporate America steamrolling it…it’s unstoppable!!!

    And you know what is really great? The insurance company lobbies are lined up behind the democrats ! The insurance companies are right in there licking their greedy chops for their last hurrah – and quite the hurrah it will be! They see the writing on the wall and will make the killing of all killings in their last few years. And they’ll lay down their votes for leaders whose ideas they dispise and turn their backs on all the Panda Bears, though they are Panada Bear Clones themselves because that is what is most avariciously self serving.

    Big Biz will follow the bottom line and the country will follow. Meanwhile, I have a dearly loved brother who is a corporate mogul who planned to retire @ 57 next year. But his prostate is not cooperating with him and he is learning some hard lessons – like some other Panda Bear CLones will learn…What it is like to live in fear that you may have cancer – no – what it is like for your insurance agent to tell you that as it stands, you’ve become high risk enough that the moneyed-guy policy he can offer you as of now when you retire is a 10,000 deductible one with really big-fat copays and if your psa really goes south…well…offering you ANY policy will mean thousands a month, if he has anything to offer @ all…

    (Easy buddy.  I have a valuable skill that I want to sell in a free market for a fair market price.  I am no more greedy than your plumber, your electrician, or the nice guy who delivers your pizza.  Comparing me to some corrupt politician or your stereotype of a greedy capitalist tool screwing the little guy for filthy lucre is ridiculous.  I am not a perfect person, something of a misanthrope as you may notice, but I am honest, hard-working, and have never screwed anybody over in my life.  It’s against my principles.  You make some good points without having to attack a guy like me who has about as much influence on the world as you do. -PB)

  24. DrJ at 2:08pm said: “…one who has used ‘leftist’ government handouts in the past – and who hasn’t?”

    And who hasn’t. And there you have it. The liberals have carefully offered nearly everyone some sort of piece of the tax money pie and few resist. And so while many decry the ‘deadbeats’ not many are willing to give up their own little slice. They call their slice something else than a government handout. They won’t vote for a representative who threatens to cut off their slice, however small.

    With nearly everyone benefitting from government handouts hardly anyone notices that the representatives hand themselves the biggest slices of all. Those federal reps don’t pay into the Social Security system; they’ve given themselves humungus retirement plans, and no Medicare for them — their medical coverage is extremely generous.

    Panda is exactly right on all fronts, but where I think he is most right is the insidious victimization of every person. Who, exactly, isn’t a victim these days? I know a few educated people with excellent jobs who see the deadbeats get for free all they have to pay through the nose for and they start plotting how to get some freebies for themselves, because they feel victimized by the pols and by the deadbeats. Aaaarrghh.

  25. A little pinch of socialism is acceptable, even desirable. Sort of like cooking with ginger. Too much of either is distasteful and eventually ruins what it was intended to improve.

  26. PB~
    I’ve read the comments and struggled to understand the relevance that government may or may not play in our health care system. I’ve read how people swing from (not exact quotes) “these people just don’t want to work” to “they should be insulted to be treated like victims.”

    I have a narrow minded view on this issue and I wish I could widen my perspective but I suppose my heart strings just will not allow it. You see, I have a niece who at the age of 7 was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. (Which for all of you non medical people out there means she can not and never will be able to live without the “non life saving” (yes, that’s what the government calls it) injections of insulin. She is more fortunate than most. Her parents, thinking she was a happy, healthy infant bought a small life insurance policy for her. Since her diagnosis, her parents have searched and searched for life insurance and she has been rejected at every turn. Now, at the age of 16, my niece doesn’t worry about if she has a date for Saturday night, she worries about whether or not she’ll get a job that will be able to sustain her living supplying insulin. The realization that she can not get life insurance is not a concern for her parents because they have “invested” in their own “burial benefit” for her, out of pocket. What is their worry? That a lapse of insurance coverage for just ONE day will allow the powers that be to refuse her health care insurance. Is she a victim? You tell me.

    (Hang on.  First of all, insulin is not ridiculously expensive.  1000 Units of Humulin, for example runs about 40 bucks if you shop around.  1000 Units of Lente costs about the same.  In one form or another, a typical dose is 100 units a day divided in whatever regimine (and there are many) of basal and sliding scale (as an example) you happen to be on.  I don’t want to minimize her troubles or yours but if between she, you, and her relatives you guys cannot come up with 150 bucks a month for her insulin I will be happy to have my tax dollars fund it.  But come on now.  Most people spend that much on cable TV and their cell phone, including many of the poor. 

    As to why a young girl needs a life insurance policy…well, you got me there.  I think selling life inurance, even the so-called “whole life” to nervous parents for their healthy children is a scam.  The reason I have life insurance is so if I die early, my wife can pay off our debts from my estate and have enough to support herself and the children.  Other than that, why would I need it?  By extension, why does your 16-year-old neice need life insurance and, more importantly, what does this have to do with medical insurance? -PB)

  27. Sorry, I think I just went off on a tangent up there. Please forgive the frustration, but yes, it does irritate me when many who can work and don’t work get free medical care, and there are those who do work and can’t get any medical care. Yes, I’d still rather error on the side of “give them medical care,” but I still think to myself, WTF?

  28. Samson – thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts/experience. I think that this statement is particularly frightening: “Every attempt to reform it [the welfare state], is however defeated because the recipients of welfare is such a large voting block now that they actually wield political power.”

    I wish we could find a way to tease out the “freeloaders” while continuing to help those who are in true need. My patients are mostly disabled (I’m a rehab physician) so I don’t see as many of the freeloader population as the ER docs do. I would be very concerned about an initiative that harmed my patients in order to cut off those who are abusing the system. But I agree with you and Panda that we must not increase entitlements to those who willingly choose not to contribute to society.

    How do we do a better job of separating the proverbial sheep from the goats? I’m all ears.

  29. Peggy… “The liberals have carefully offered nearly everyone some sort of piece of the tax money pie and few resist.”

    This cross doesn’t belong strictly to liberals, you see. When we look at voting records we see many, many ‘conservative’ representatives doing much the same – carve-outs and hand-outs are common on both sides of the aisle. This is an issue with government. Not conservative, not liberal. Just government. Mischaracterizing the opposition is also common on both sides of the aisle.

    Truthfully, when we talk about ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ we’re drastically simplifying the debate to make it easier to follow for the folks at home. Every issue, legislative policy, foreign policy, tax cut or tax benefit should be weighed on its’ own merit. However, how on earth can someone not intricately involved in policy-making actually do this? For goodness’ sake, the legislators themselves don’t read what they sign, their staffers do. And their staffers only handle a small chunk of what the legislator does. In other words, most people who rant on about politics don’t understand enough to even form educated opinions – and recognizing your own limitations is in my opinion one of the highest virtues to attain. Asking for comments on healthcare reform from the laypublic is like asking a chiropractor to comment on a Whipple.

  30. Also, PB, your reply here “I’d rather people began to look after themselves instead of trading their dignity and potential for a crappy government check or access to a crappy system of enforced primary care.”

    Just so I am not mischaracterized by the opposition, I’m on the record as saying I agree with this statement. Completely. Though how do we do this? Again we come back to modalities. Stopping the handouts? Stepping them up? Morphing them into something different? Changing eligibility requirements? Time limits? Tests? Better enforcement of existing regs? And on and on and on.

    This is where real decisions are made, at the boring level of minutiae that will never make the 11:00 news.

  31. Panda,

    When you have some time, I’d certainly be interested in your views on the QuickHealth thing, and whether that is the type of Primary Care model that you would find ideal?

  32. Hey My Own Woman—I was also diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 7, have insurance, have let insurance lapse (being uninsured for a year as an adult), and currently carry a nice life insurance policy. People like me always have to consider our ailments when choosing a career—we need to have a career where self-insurance that requires a medical exam to qualify is not a requirement. I’ll probably never be able to run my own business and not work as a nurse, for instance, unless I want to pay a very high insurance premium. The corporate group insurance plans are my friend.

    My parents still have my Gerber Grow-Up life insurance plan too back from before I got diagnosed 😉

    Because your niece and I were diagnosed with a disease that would have killed us before about 1923 doesn’t mean we should all go socialist. It just means we have to, perhaps, adjust our life plans slightly to accomodate our medical needs. There are enough employers out there that insure anyone who is hired without question. We’re healthy enough to work full-time—that’s a pretty good indication we’re not about to croak any time soon.

  33. This is for “I try to be a good Christian man” from the “village idiot”:

    A must read.

    The Falling-Down Professions

    By ALEX WILLIAMS
    Published: January 6, 2008

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/fashion/06professions.html?ref=fashion

    …skipping…”As of 2006, nearly 60 percent of doctors polled by the American College of Physician Executives said they had considered getting out of medicine because of low morale, and nearly 70 percent knew someone who already had.”

    No wonder you bitch, moan and whine so much you and your entire profession are clinically depressed and in need of medication. Perhaps ECT.

    Since you lay claim to being a Christian I am sure you familiar with these wise words “You reap what you sow”.

     

    (Dude, you rule.  Write an article defending CAM, but it cannot just be a collection of links, explaining how chiropracty, homeopathy, or any other particular modality you care to describe works and I will run it in toto with only grammar and spelling corrections, and an introduction by me. -PB)

  34. “Primary care is dying in this country, largely because” we need to shift to a model where advanced practice nurses are providing GP type care and doctors are focused on being specialists.

    As for another carrier group, the only reason we would need that is because we need another admiral. How much offensive strike force do we really need and why?

     

    (Whoa.  You can never have too much firepower.  Warfare, like economic activity, is dictated by the scarcity of resources and their allocation.  You cannot keep a carrier on station or a Marine Regimental Combat Team in the field or at sea indefinitely. Currently, we have 12 Carrier Battle Groups (correct me if I’m wrong) of which, generally speaking, only six are on station at any time in various theaters.  An additional Battle Group, like having an extra Marine Division or a couple thousand more cruise missles gives you much more flexibility.  Unfortunately, you cannot just put ships (and pilots, Marines, soldiers, and etc.) in mothballs, behind glass so-to-speak, to be used only in an Emergency.  The big debate with military spending is how much capability do we need to maintain at any given time.  I’m a more-is-better kind of guy but reasonable people may differ.

    But I just said I’d rather spend public money there than on my smoking asthma patients.  If you can demonstrate that we have enough offensive firepower and don’t need another carrier and her support ships let’s just lower taxes and let the public keep their money. The usual mewling from the left…that if we just cut miltary spending we could be a welfare paradise..is ridiculous. 

    Again, I want to point out that despite my career and my blog, there are more important things in the world than delivering medical care, something that most people, most of the time, need very little of and much of which is wasted (ineffectual and/or harmful with no clear mortality benefit) anyway, even on people who need it.

    Admirals are cheap, by the way.  The Navy has plenty of them.-PB)

  35. “I’d rather people began to look after themselves instead of trading their dignity and potential for a crappy government check or access to a crappy system of enforced primary care.” PB, that is the most compassionate thing I’ve read anywhere on the subject. It isn’t compassionate to encourage people to devalue themselves, in my opinion.

    DrJ, I agree totally with you that both liberals and conservatives in Congress have blown heavily socialist, which systems always devalue individual human beings. But Democrats, you know it’s true, are more wedded to socialism as a philosophy than the Repubs.

    I think it’s often individual representatives, in both parties, who see an opportunity to widen their sphere of power and influence, and/or an opportunity to buy votes with the taxpayers’ money and they do it. The accumulating consequences of their greed and corruption have been massive and very damaging to our culture.

  37. Here is the thing with socialist medicine which they don’t tell you. Look at any of the European countries that have it and you see that they are spending less money than us for health care but what you don’t see is how they are able to do it. It is not through lower payments to physicians although physicians do earn much less in a system. They do it this way: Everyone waits their turn for care and additionally as health care is now controlled by the state the state decided what type of therapies should be used and ones which are not covered because they are too expensive. Additionally they also make broad restrictions regarding care to the elderly. In the U.S.A everything is done, no expense spared, even when we know that nothing we are doing is adding even more than a few minutes to someone’s life. In european countries if you are elderly and demented you can forget about most medical therapies being done, in fact even if you are with it so to speak but elderly many therapies are still not covered by the state.
    The reality of it is that we spend most of our money caring for someone when they are in the final two weeks of life are so. In european countries they do not do this, they simply let nature follow its course if you will. That is how they have much cheaper health expenditures than we do, and lets not forget they use some of those savings to provide better funded infant and child care which helps raise the average age of death in those countries, which is why they beat us in that area as well.

  38. Peggy – “Democrats, you know it’s true, are more wedded to socialism as a philosophy than the Repubs.”

    I’ll agree with this statement. The handouts from government vary widely by legislator but for the most part Democrats focus a bit more on redistribution of wealth to the poor, while Republicans focus a bit more on redistribution of wealth to the rich, or at least the well-off and connected. Though the ‘philosophy’ of socialism is quite different from the reality of where the Democratic votes go. Candidly I believe the greatest deception pulled off in this country in the last century has been convincing the American people that Republicans and Democrats are really, truly, deeply different.

    As an aside, it’s quite pleasant to have civil discussions about this topic, on the Internet of all places. I’d have thought it impossible.

  39. Uncle Panda, obviously you hate the freeloaders, who doesn’t? But why so opposed to the change to universal healthcare? In every society their will be those who are so greedy and lazy that they suck like leeches at whatever they believe they are entitled to. Nothing we really can do about that. But many (including yourself) realize that our healthcare system could be better, way better. I get the impression that you are opposed to a real big change in our healthcare system, much like the traditionalist who don’t believe that residents should ever sleep think there is no need for a change in resident working conditions. And by big change I don’t mean the half promises politicians make every year to reform medicare, medicaid, ect. History repeats itself, people do not want to change things. Yet, its always told, those who can adapt the quickest survive , as evidence by all of the other countries better life expectancies and infant survival rates. But lets say for the sake of argument, Uncle Panda and everyone who agrees with you is completely right and we switch over to a universal healthcare system, and it falls apart. By changing from a healthcare system that is “broken” to a healthcare system that eventually falls apart (never know until we try), then have we really lost anything?

     

    (The system is not broken.  It is adapted perfectly to the legal, economic, and social environment within which it operates..  The “solution” of giving medical care away for free, essentially the only solution anybody proposes, completely avoids the real problems the solutions to which do not require converting us even more into just another creaky European-style freeloader kingdom.  “Infant Mortality” is not an indicator of a good health care system, nor is life expectency except in the obvious cases.  As I point out in a previous article, the Albanians, a country that spends about 40 bucks per capita per year on medical care, has a life expenctency almost as high as the rest of Europe.  And infant mortality is measured in so many different ways by so many different countries that it is meaningless and nothing but a cliche and a point of propaganda. -PB)

     

  40. Uncle Panda:
    Ok, well my argument doesn’t really hold any water if you go on and say that the system isn’t really broken. I thought your category called “The Future of Medicine” was full of little stories showing the problems of our current system, in your own fun little way.

    (Yeah, but they’re problems of the system-system, not the medical system, the corrections to which are practically free except that they make too much sense and will never get past the blockade of special interests.  Why do we need to, for example, have socialized medicine to enact tort reform?  Common sense in the relam of futile care?  Making it “free” is the only reform that has a chance of being enacted simply because the legal profession, which outspends the medical profession ten to one in political action, doesn’t care either way so long as they can still sue somebody, anybody.  Fix the real problems, lower taxes and implement growth policies for the economy, privatize Social Security and Medicare and then we can have a prosperous society where most people can afford most of their own medical care most of the time.  -PB)

    I want to sum up my point like this: Both our system and the universal health care systems around the world have major problems, yet they are all doing the best they can to take care of their population. Universal health care systems around the world know they have problems, they are all over the media every day. But they are acknowledging them and are trying to do the best they can to take care of everyone in their country. Here we also have problems, and attempt to acknowledge them, but we don’t accept the ethical duty to take care of our citizens, if the money isn’t there then screw them. Doesn’t that seem like real moral dilemma?

    (But you see, the problems are not only unsolvable (providing everybody with all the medical care they need regardless of cost which is what most people think they are getting with socialized medicine) but can be made worse by an ill-advised solution.  Politicians in a democracy, with rare exceptions, do not do their best for anyone but themselves either here, in Europe, or on Neptune.  They act out of self-interest which is usually short-term and focused on winning the next election by pandering to as many dependents as they can.  Occasionally their interests coincide with the Right Thing To Do and rarer still is the occasion when a politician does the right thing even in the face of opposition from his constituents.  These politicians are called Statesmen and Visionaries. The correct play is to have some “tough love” and let people take care of themselves which may cause some pain in the short-term but will pay gigantic dividends for a country that encourages this kind of thing in the long-term.  Imagine not having the constant nagging problem of figuring out how to keep pushing the mortage for all of these freebies back a little further so we can continue to pretend that we don’t have trillions upon trillions of dollars in obligations that we can’t even meet today. 

    The wealth of a nation, the value of its goods and services, does not spring fully formed from thin air but must be instead created by people with the incentive to do it, an incentive that is easily killed by overbearing socialism as there is no profit in it. -PB)

    And I know your argument will be, what about those lazy bums who say they can’t even pay for a check-up or a routine antibiotic but can afford a new TV and a cell phone. On the same coin, what about those others who have been diagnosed with cancer or otherwise but get turned down by their health insurance, that they have been paying for, because a bone marrow transplant is considered experimental? To me it seems like the hit we’ll take in the lazy bum department will be worth it to save the hard working man.

  41. BTW Uncle Panda, I really enjoy reading your postings and hope you continue it for sometime. And I want you to know realize my place on the totem pole. As a student who hasn’t even started medical school, compared to your second real career that you are just finishing on training. My life experience obviously does not compare, I guess I’m just confused on this whole health care thing.

  42. I have no problem at all with my tax money going to pay for children with cystic fibrosis or childhood cancer. I also have no problem with helping adults that are actually so poor that they cannot afford health care. It is when the “poor” person drives an escalade, or has a big TV, that I object vehemently to my tax money going to them. It is also when my tax money goes to someone, and then they squander it by smoking, or not complying with the medication that I object.

  43. “To me it seems like the hit we’ll take in the lazy bum department will be worth it to save the hard working man.”

    The problem is, the hard working man down on his luck is really fairly rare, while any laws you pass to take care of him will be immediately hijacked and exploited to the furthest extent possible by masses of freeloaders. Look at EMTALA. It sounds like a sweet and generous gesture on paper until you look at how widespread and severe the abuses of it are. Simply in the cost of lives and nothing else, how many people has it really saved that would have otherwise simply died on the street compared to the ones who died in the OR because the specialist who could have saved them decided it’s simply not worth it to be on call for ER cases anymore?

    Lots of doctors love to take charity cases, which is yet another safety net for the truly deserving as opposed to the drug seekers just looking for a free fix. They can also weed out the deserving from the undeserving better than blanket “thou shalt offer first class service to all regardless of genuine need or ability to pay” laws that legislators seem so fond of, especially when they don’t have to fund it.

     

    (Exactly.  In a Freeloader Paradise, the freeloader greatly outnumbers the truly needy. -PB)

  44. I hate to be the turd in the punchbowl:

    http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/10/30/limited-government-good-for-thee-but-not-for-me/

    Limited Government: Good for Thee, But Not For Me

    Review the link to the Heritage foundation study. Approximately 81 million Americans receive benefits from Government, either directly or as employment. What is the population of voting Americans? An even more shocking number is that from 1962, the rate of “dependent” Americans grows at 2.5 times that of the population growth! (One can only guess at how much Immigrants have augmented this number.)

    We are getting very close to the tipping point where it is in the interest of the majority of voters, to continue to “vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.”

    Many believe it is at this point the American Experience will end in failure (as most of us would describe America in a one page, eighth-grade essay).

    You are pulling on a very important thread of the whole stickin’ shirt.

    Some argue that to minimize the cumulative pain of our people, the “area under the curve,” if you will, it would be best to accelerate the process — consider the relatively slow (decades) process experience by the young nation, reaching its’ climax in the war for Southern Independence (someone’s eyes just rolled).

    These issues are quietly discussed in many places, by the wealthy/elite, but also by the average schmo, like you and me (and I don’t mean just on “Coast to Coast”).

    It’s spooky, and seemingly far-fetched, and yet y’all stumbled upon its essence without really trying.

  45. Geeze, they could have begun a looooong time ago pulling the fat government subsidies for millionaire landowners who amassed land in areas they were paid simply NOT to grow tobacco and other crops on…I knew lots of them as a kid and I grew up in the 50’s/60’s. Hmmm…been goin’ on a looooong time…

    Yes, indeed…there are allll kinds of subsidies which have been paid out for forever to people with no need/justification whatsoever for them.

  47. Panda Bear instructs: “(im1dc, post your comments without the formatting (bold, italics, etc.)”

    OK, how’s this:

    “Screw Social Justice”? Not so fast…

    For Cancer Patients, Empathy Goes a Long Way

    link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/health/08seco.html?8dpc

    Today’s article describes a common problem with today’s crop of medical physicians, patient’s believe their doctors lack the human qualities of compassion and empathy.

    I suggest you Residents and Interns learn now to ask patient’s with serious heatlh circumstances simply this: “How are you holding up” and sit still and LISTEN to them answer while making EYE CONTACT and providing an APPROPRIATE facial expression.

    I don’t care what you are actually thinking(“I got to go pee”, “Is this clown ever going to shut up” or “I have other patients I have to see about that need me more than you”, neither does the patient.

    At the moment you ask “How are you holding up”, “Are you doing OK” or “This has got to be hard on you it would be for anyone, are you making it” that patient needs you.

    They just want you to act like you care, to show empathy, when they are down and ready to give up hope.

    Is that too much to ask of you even as busy, hurried, coolly analytic and uncaring as you are in real life?

    PS All here know you can’t ‘care’ about everyone all the time, no one can.

    I’m suggesting that you fake it or do your best to fake it. Take an acting class if necessary. It really does matter. Someday it WILL matter to you personally.

  48. ‘Anon’ asks Panda Bear “This is off topic, but is there any chance you’d be willing to comment on Glenn Beck’s hospital visit:”

    No, he won’t. He doesn’t care.

    After reading several of Panda Bear’s posts and many comments by other m.d.’s it is self evident the majority here suffers from the ‘entitlement bug’, service means nothing, strutting like peacocks means everything, takers not givers who got in medicine for the money and prestige not service and the personal satisfaction of helping others that it brings.

    This bunch wants to be given a Gold Star, 24 karat, everyday they show up to see patients, nothing less will do.

    Thank heavens most physicians are not like that, at least most of the time.

    For the most part those who whine, moan and complain of their lot on this blog are a rotting bunch of soulless above average test takers.

    IMHO, Glenn Beck should be asking himself out loud on air and in print why at least one of his ‘super fantastic physician team’ did not bother to not come in to the hospital to admit him, instead of waiting until the next day to see him.

    Beck does not even mention a Hospitalist on duty or present or consulted.

    In general it is safe to assume Beck’s experience paints a picture a medical community that is very happy with its golf game.

    Beck is medically naive and a Far Right Wing nut case slobbering talking head blithering idiot unworthy of his current celebrity, imo, but he’s a human being who deserves better health care than he got from that hospital’s ER staff and his initial ward nurses.

    But what do I know, I’m the ‘village idiot’ according to “I try to be a Christian man”.

     

    (Mr. Beck seems to be very complementary to doctors in his article and blames, among others, the triage nurse for his suffering.  What’s your point?  And I have to tell you, nowadays, admitting physicians rarely come in to see the patient at admission.  If they did, being a surgeon would be a 24-hour per day, 365-days-a-year job which nobody can do and stay sane.  Generally, unless his service uses hospitalists, an admitting physican relays orders over the phone to a nurse and sees the patient in the morning.  These orders include orders for pain medication.  The process is not a mystery although Mr. Beck should have been a “direct admit” instead of going to the Emergency Department, especially as he was post-op.  Unfortunately, there is not always a staffed bed in the hospital which is why, for example, the ED is often backed up. -PB)

  49. Im1dc,

    It seems evident from your posts that you are simply scanning the NYT and pulling articles that you believe are relevant to the topic at hand, twisting them, and presenting them as rock-solid evidence that physicians suffer from the “entitlement bug.” I, too, read the NYT, but if you think about it, why would doctors be depressed? Could it be that they spend most of their time filling out insurance paperwork, billing codes for Medicare, and in general covering their asses from liability? I’ve heard from many doctors that autonomy has been wrested from them so severely as to make it virtually pointless to continue on. But in spite of it, they do. Give them a little credit.

    Imagine this: would you rather a politician call the shots during war rather than a military general actually involved in the battle and on the battlefield? To believe otherwise is to obviate the need for specialists since anyone with half a brain can apparently do anyone else’s job.

    I submit that many physicians may not be the most touchy-feely types out there, but from my experience, lack of emotional support does not equate to incompetence. On the contrary, medical students and residents are probably more likely to be compassionate precisely because they lack experience and can only be a source of support until the attending comes along.

    I don’t think that physicians should leave people without medical care because a doctor’s primary purpose is to heal. That being said, I also don’t think they should be shortchanged either, especially when they go through more than 10 years of training, sacrifice family time, sleep, and sometimes sanity to bring people the care that they vehemently believe they deserve. Yes, everyone needs care, including those who have worked their asses off for it. Those “entitled” few that you seem hung up about are probably the hotshot dermatologists, radiologists, and plastic surgeons who compete for maybe 2-3 residency spots at a hospital. Considering that an incoming medical school class is around 140-190, what happens to the other 99%?

  50. A charlatan (whoops, I mean “Doctor” of Chiropractic) calling another person “medically naive” is the quintessial pot calling the kettle black.

    http://www.chirobase.org
    Local snake oil slaesman

    Maybe chiros could plugs the gaps in the evil, uncaring healthcare system by providing free ineffectual back popping (whoops, I mean adjustment of subluxations) and anti vaccine rhetoric (whoops, I mean education about dangerous toxins) to those poor folks down on their luck.

  51. Panda Bear, read and weep:

    France best, U.S. worst in preventable deaths

    British study’s rankings based on access to timely and effective health care

    Reuters updated 2 hours, 43 minutes ago

    WASHINGTON – France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.

    If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.

    link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22554235/

    I can only imagine your witty reply “Biased Brits!”

  52. “Preventable deaths” are largely caused by obesity, smoking, alcohol, and drug abuse. Americans are among the world leaders in those categories, and if we were subjected to French-style medical care I suspect our death rate would be even higher.

  53. Panda Bear replies to my rant thusly: “Mr. Beck seems to be very complementary {sic} to doctors in his article and blames, among others, the triage nurse for his suffering.”

    My post included this phrase “’super fantastic physician team’.”

    You should read the source material before commenting.

    Mr Beck’s post was highly complimentary of his surgeons skills and bedside manner.

    However, be that as it may, Beck’s surgeon or surgeons (he said he had a team) knew immediately something had gone wrong b/c he woke up immediately on the table, alert, in great pain and COMPLAINING.

    True, Beck declined to be admitted directly from the outpatient surgery (begs the question whether a groggy post-op patient still on the table in great pain has the mental capacity to decide his own fate at such times) but he was at the ER after speaking to his surgeon on the telephone a few short hours later.

    “What’s your point?”

    The point is: Beck’s complaint was not ordinary post op discomfort and the surgeon(s) knew it.

    I fault the surgeon’s lack of humanity for not following up at the hospital until the next day.

    FYI: If you don’t want to be ‘disturbed’ by your patient when things go “horribly wrong” and you recommend they be admitted to the hospital for follow-up care post-op, don’t become a doctor and most especially don’t become a surgeon. That’s one of the times your patients need you the most.

    (As if, buddy.  Here’s a thought: How about giving your “patients” in your back-cracking clinic your personal phone number.  When they present to me with an acute exacerbation of their chronic back pain at 3 AM, I will have them call you, I will send them to your clinic, and you can meet them there and do whatever it is you do.  It seems every other chronic back pain I get has tried chiropracty at least once and by the laws of our game, if you lay hands on him once you own him for the rest of his life until he gets another back-cracker . Do this every second or third night, four or five times a night, and you get the idea of what some of our surgeons go through so you can lecture them on what it means to be a surgeon. -PB)

  54. So in your ideal world, surgeons should live only for others, and never have time for themseleves, their family or anyone but their patients.

    Gee, I wonder where our best and brightest would go then?

  55. “This bunch wants to be given a Gold Star, 24 karat, everyday they show up to see patients, nothing less will do.

    Thank heavens most physicians are not like that, at least most of the time.

    For the most part those who whine, moan and complain of their lot on this blog are a rotting bunch of soulless above average test takers.”

    Seems a bit presumptuous, don’t you think? You really don’t know anything about how any of us are in real life. There’s no harm in grousing in relative privacy and anoymity like this. Everything that goes on here is play, not work.

    If you’re mainly complaining about your general treatment here, you keep coming off as a clueless ass with a serious axe to grind with every single post, so you’re generally treated as such. If this is anything like how you act in real life as you pompously carry out your self-appointed mission in life to put doctors in their place, they’re probably politely humoring you during your nonsensical ramblings and then laughing at you behind your back. It’s highly doubtful you win many real converts, you’re likely either preaching to the choir (which we generally are not) or being humored (which there’s no need to do here since we don’t know you from Adam). Who’s kidding who anyway, though, I seriously doubt you’d even dare to be this much of an ass in real life, you’re just getting your kicks here like we are, with the exception that you’re about the only one who continually fails to see how ineffectual your “arguments” are.

  56. PB, you know perfectly well that im1dc will never do as you suggest. If he wanted to treat real problems, he never would have gotten into chiropractic. His idea of a physician’s lifestyle is a stereotype that lost its resemblance to reality more than 20 years ago, if it ever had any. But then, given the fact that nothing truly new comes along in chiropractic, he’s not used to keeping up with the times.

    He’d know the answers to every concern he raises if he ever bothered to read your posts, but he only appears to scan them looking for juicy bits to latch on to, just like he does with news articles. The only thing I see these MDs feeling entitled to is payment for their services, just like every other worker in the world. Or does im1dc give away his own work?

    Beck exaggerates a bit in his description of fentanyl. Far from an “end of life” drug, my wife uses the patches to control her chronic lower back pain. It will be chronic until she loses weight, gets some exercise, etc., as the surgeon who put a plate in her neck this past summer recently reminded her. (Having looked over a new MRI of her back, he decided surgery was inappropriate.)

    She also sees a chiropractor for it, but he’s doing her no real good. He certainly didn’t for her neck, and despite all the back cracking and rack stretching she has not improved for his treatment. As a True Believer she won’t admit this, but the truth comes out from time to time. She’s much more worried about her pain when her fentanyl prescription runs out than when she has to miss a DC appointment.

    I disagree with Doctor J on his characterization of student loans. They’re hardly a sign of creeping socialism. They’re *loans*. The program guarantees repayment so that lenders are more willing to make them, but they are (or should be) paid back with interest. I certainly paid mine. Not at all a free ride.

    feminizedwesternmale seems to think that any time the government pays for goods and services, it’s a “benefit”. While certain pork-barrel projects might amount to that, for the most part it’s just the government purchasing what it needs the same as everyone else. Is a company supposed to build an aircraft carrier, or the aircraft it carries, for free? Are government offices, and there are plenty that provide legitimate services properly the function of government, supposed to be staffed entirely by volunteers?

    Shadowfax, you’d be better off reacting with your head instead of your viscera. If you did, there might be a meeting of the minds, if not with PB then perhaps with some of his readers. Perhaps you could clarify some of the double-mindedness PB describes. As it is, your reaction just looks hysterical.

  57. “CC” not cleverly chimes in with “A charlatan (whoops, I mean “Doctor” of Chiropractic) calling another person “medically naive” is the quintessial {sic} pot calling the kettle black.”

    Your uninformed bias is evident but your proof, evidence and facts are not.

    Your link http://www.chirobase.org is the work of Stephen A. Barret, a well known anti-chiropractic zealot.

    However, he hasn’t practiced in many years and no longer has a medical license.

    He’s unfit, it was yanked by the board I believe years ago.

    Not long ago he was sued in civil court by a chiropractor for libel and or defamation and the court ruled for the chiropractor.

    That means that your source, Stephen A. Barret, is a certified liar and an unreliable source.

    I seem to recall reading that Barret is claiming he’s broke and can’t pay his legal fees nor the $$$ judgment against him.

    He’s hiding these days. Go dig up your source.

    ‘CC’ then posts “Local snake oil slaesman” {sic}

    But ‘CC’ seems uniquely unaware that “snake oil salesman” refers not to chiropractic but to medical quacks, specifically to those who sell unproven lotions, potions and devices to unwary desperate patients whom they don’t examine before providing their ‘cure’.

    Ever been in a retail pharmacy in the USA, that description fits modern medical practice today to a t.

    Once a fool….

    ‘CC’ then says: “Maybe chiros could plugs the gaps in the evil, uncaring healthcare system by providing free ineffectual back popping (whoops, I mean adjustment of subluxations) and anti vaccine rhetoric (whoops, I mean education about dangerous toxins) to those poor folks down on their luck.

    FYI, anecdotal evidence suggests that when chiropractic care is provided and utilized by a defined population the utilization of medical care declines, drug usage and adverse side effects go down, there are fewer surgeries and deaths related to surgical errors and inevitable side effects, health care satisfaction goes up, life span increases and costs go down.

    Several HMO’s in the USA have seen that effect. The most dramatic was in Florida.

    IMO, you ought to be asking why you haven’t read of those results in medical journals. Suppression of data perhaps?

    I agree with you that there are faults in chiropractic and the anti-vaccine rhetoric of a few chiropractors is not only stupid but dangerous.

    There is absolutely nothing I can do about it b/c in this country there is free speech.

    However, you erroneously assume all chiropractors are one monolithic entity and that is fallacious logic and thinking.

    That is the same as me claiming that all M.D.’s are pill pimps out to make an easy buck by writing as many prescriptions as possible.

    Undoubtedly there are many thousands such M.D.’s but I don’t believe that all M.D.’s are that sort, not even most.

    How do you like it when your own fallacious ad hominem red herring arguments are used against those who you seek to defend, medical doctors?

    With your next post try to show more thought before exposing your bias, prejudice and ignorance of CAM.

  58. “onmyway”, you are correct in your perception of my posts ON THAT DAY.

    That day I had the time and the articles were newly available so I posted many of them.

    And you are correct that I was being overly harsh on the medical professionals here and in general.

    I did that to make my point.

    Being the continual undeserved object of derision and ad hominem attacks on this blog is a little like being a lion tamer stepping into a cage full of lions with only a whip and a chair to keep the beasts at bay. You use what you have to tame the snarly beasts.

    You make several valid points in your post regarding most doctors and medicine. Most medical doctors are great people and outstanding professionals who do their best for their patients.

    Some thousands however are egotistical entitlement demanding rots.

    You fail to see the forest for the trees, its Panda Bear and his friends that want to do away with me and my profession, not the other way around.

    If M.D.’s have no time for their patients how do they have so much time to attack others?

    Maybe things are not what you imagine in the world of medicine?

    Is it possible that they are ordinary monopolists greedily seeking to eliminate competition to secure their markets?

    When I point out that he has no proof and doesn’t know what he is talking about in regard to CAM, that he doesn’t hold higher moral/scientific/ethical ground when compared to CAM and that the arguments used against CAM, me and my profession are even more vividly effective when used against medicine it is simply my way to bring sanity and balance to the war declared by Panda Bear on me, my profession and CAM in general.

    Would you suggest that I turn the other virtual cheek?

    Let me remind you this is not a religious discussion, its about who has the truth and facts to back it up, no matter how Panda and friends try to frame it differently.

    In this blog fight I happen to have the truth and the facts and Panda Bear and friends don’t.

    If he was evidence based and reasoned instead of opinionated and bloviating I would approach his blog differently.

    Until then the crowd here needs the whip not the carrot, imo.

  59. “Chris C.” I’m sorry to read about your wife’s condition.

    As for chiropractors ‘keeping up’ every jurisdiction in the USA requires annual relicensing education hours under the auspices of the Federally recognized CCE accrediting institution.

    I truly hope your wife gets permanent relief from her condition sooner than later.

  60. im1dc, you’re a liar or deluded. (I’m not “CC”, I just happen to be using my real name and initial and it coincidentally matches.) Dr. Barrett has not been de-licensed; that was a bit of slander spread about by a naturopath and her “publicist” who took exception to what he was saying and had no counterargument based on the facts. He was the one who sued for libel (i.e. defamation), not the naturopath. This case is ongoing, with the only notable result so far being the dismissal of one of the defendants with awarded attorney fees. It remains ongoing. (Case C-833021 in Alameda Superior Court if you want to look it up.) The naturopath countersued — for racketeering among other things — but withdrew, and Barrett sued again for malicious prosecution. This is also ongoing AFAIK.

    In fact, Dr. Barrett is no longer in practice because he’s been retired for 15 years. When he was in practice he was licensed in Pennsylvania, and it’s trivial to look up his record online. You therefore should have known the truth of the matter and are morally responsible for your lie. In all decency you should withdraw your claims. (Fortunately for you, the CASC ruling probably means you’re not legally liable. But IANAL.)

    Nor is Dr. Barrett in hiding, unless residence in Chapel Hill, NC counts as some kind of concealment. There’s no reason for him to, of course, as he’s not being prosecuted for anything.

    You also seem to have neglected the presence of Samuel Homola, DC on the Chirobase masthead.

    Whether you stand by your statements or do the right thing, your attempt to impeach Chirobase as a source fails utterly.

  61. A Glenn Beck of CNN medical horrors story UPDATE:

    “Last week, Glenn Beck posted a video describing his botched surgery and horrific experience with the American health care system on YouTube, but neglected to explain exactly what procedure he had gotten done. On Monday night’s “Glenn Beck” show on Headline News, he came clean: “It was butt surgery,” he said. “I had surgery on my ass.” In fact, Beck had hemorrhoid surgery.

    Beck went on to describe the prescription cocktail he was given: morphine, Toradol, Fentanyl patches, Percocet every three hours, and a synthetic morphine drip. “My mind went places that were darker than I have ever been before,” he said. Beck has battled drug and alcohol abuse and has admitted to being suicidal in the past.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/09/glenn-beck-i-had-surger_n_80800.html

     

    (So as I understand it, Mr. Beck had a hemorrhoidectomy, did not get sufficient anethesia during the procedure, has an incredibly high tolerance for narcotics, and was on huge doses of these medication intravenously without good control of his pain, went home still in pain, couldn’t pee, needed a foley, was told to go to the Emergency Department, and was re-admitted by his surgeon.  Despite the pain medications he was on at the time, his pain was not well controlled and he could hardly stand, is irate because he was not admitted quickly and it was approximately forty minutes before his pain was controlled. I wonder what kind of anesthesia he got during the procedure, whether he was under general anesthesia or just procedural sedation.  Any surgeons or anesthesiologist please chime in because I have never seen a hemorrhoidectomy and don’t know how involved it is.  I helped a surgeon band a couple of internal hemorrhoids but this only required a little ativan to relax the patient as he sat in the “chair of shame.”

    Also, how this is some kind of indictement of American medical care is beyond me.  I have seen many patients undergo minor outpatient procedures and leave the hospital feeling great with no complications.  As to why it took so long for him to be seen in the ED, we only have his word as to the elapsed time and time does stand still when we are in pain.  Additionally we have no idea the condition of the ED at the time.  Occasionally we get multiple traumas or critical patients and non-emergent things get put on the back burner.  I also don’t know what they finally did to control his pain.  It’s kind of dicey in a guy like this who is getting no relief from the big guns.  Fentanyl, by the way, is not an “end of life drug.” Lots of people are on it in the form of patches and we also use it during intubations and for trauma patients.-PB)

  62. “Chris C.,” I’m do not lie though I am mistaken occasionally.

    I lay claim to the fallibility of being human.

    I don’t have to lie b/c the truth is overwhelmingly on my side. Its M.D.’s that lie (repeatedly, overwhelmingly and deliberately) to mislead their patients and the world in general.

    Do you really think most lay people would elect to let m.d.’s practice on them if they knew #1) the typically low odds (

     

    (Yeah, but Dude, you lied about that Chirobase guy or at least passed on false information.  I want you to either prove that the guy had his license revoked and the rest of what you claimed or state that you were mistaken. This is not a matter of opinion.  The guy is either how you described or he is not. -PB)

  63. Hey, PB why is my last post abbreviated/cut off? Its less than 25% of what I wrote.

    Regarding Glenn Beck’s surgery and experience at the hospital and ER, I only posted what I read so you have all the information I have.

    I checked PENN’s Med Board website and it lists a Stephen JOEL Barrett, M.D., as retired but licensed living in NC.

    I’m unable to tell if that Barrett is the same Stephen Barret of chirobase since there is no middle initial on at that site or elsewhere that I looked.

    However, if I misreported from my source I apologize to this blog, you and of course the anti-chiropractic zealot Barrett for passing along bad information.

    I did not do so deliberately but inadvertently and innocently.

    For the record Barrett’s Wikipedia site was posted by Barrett and is only as reliable as Barrett is himself.

    And imo that’s not at all.

     

    (Fair enough. -PB)

  64. I said “liar or deluded”. I’ll settle for deluded. However, that’s no excuse for you making a false statement when it took me less than 5 minutes of searching to discover the truth from the official source. You should have ensured the information was correct before repeating it, but it sounded so much like something you wanted to hear you accepted it without question.

    And you have yet to do the decent thing and issue a public retraction.

    I have never yet had an MD lie to me. However, I have seen DCs prescribe (and vend) sugar pills, and claim to be able to cure diseases such as asthma by spinal manipulation.

    Tell me, what conditions do you believe you can successfully treat? What do you think chiropractic is good for? Because I’ve never seen it do a damned thing.

    On the other hand, I grew up able to walk normally and am alive today solely because of the work of MDs. My older son should have died at least 3 times but for MDs’ intervention, and it’s MDs who brought his seizures under control and ensured he can take in enough nutrition to avoid starvation. The MDs have controlled my wife’s chronic back pain far more effectively than the relief afforded by chiropractic, and an MD was able to rescue her from partial paralysis where the chiropractor was helpless to do anything useful.

    And I should trust DCs over MDs. Right.

  65. By “snake oil salesman”, I didn’t mean the individual in question deals in ineffective pharmaceuticals. “Quack” would’ve been a better term. The individual (who is within chiropractic mainstream) implies that chiropractic can prevent cancer and a number of other diseases. He also rails against vaccination, implying that immunizations are toxic and that the diseases they prevent aren’t that big a deal, anyway (polio, diptheria, tetanus nonwithstanding.)
    Check out this site for some honesty about anti immunization activism.

    Do you subscribe to the “subluxation theory”, that all diseases are caused by vertebral misalignment?

    If “realigning the vertebrae” improves immune functioning, and the CNS is necessary for immune functioning, why aren’t paralyzed individuals immunodeficient?

    Can you site a source that says Dr. Barrett had his license revoked, rather than just letting it expire when he retired?

  66. “Chris C.” you are correct. I should have checked instead of relying upon my memory of an article I read several years ago.

    Mea culpa.

    I beg to differ with your aassertion “I have never yet had an MD lie to me”.

    As a non-medical non-health care layman you haven’t a clue.

    Among the most egregious lies practiced routinely, daily and knowingly by virtually 100% of retail m.d.’s are errors of omission.

    Have your physicians when describing treatment options ever told you of a CAM alternative or that your condition is self-limiting so do nothing and it will resolve on its on?

    Have you or a loved one ever been prescribed antibiotics for a cold, flu, virus or ear ache?

    The odds are 99%+ that you have been lied to and simply are not aware of it b/c of the mythology surrounding medicine in your mind.

    That’s called being a sucker, a mark.

    And it shows you probably are a chump who believes in medical propaganda.

    I can relate to you regarding your personal M.D. experiences and those of your son.

    My family and I have experienced wonderful professional physicians for the greatest part too.

    Unfortunately not 100% of the time, but we simply fired them when they became untrustworthy and found another.

    I can do that without blinking an eye. You should try taking responsibility for your own health care options. It is liberating.

    I have never said m.d.’s should be denied the right to practice as PB has said of CAM.

    Medical physicians are the dominant health care profession in the USA and West for a very good reason, they are the best at what they do and we would be vastly worse off if medicine was not the vital, dynamic, advanced and focused profession it is today.

    But what do they know of CAM, natural health care, nutrition, exercise, etc.? Little to nothing. They are specialists in sickness not health.

  67. “CC” writes “By “snake oil salesman”, I didn’t mean the individual in question deals in ineffective pharmaceuticals. “Quack” would’ve been a better term.”

    HOLD THAT THOUGHT. Now read

    “Setbacks plague drug addiction remedy” subtitled “Prometa pilot program loses funding amid questions over effectiveness”

    By Kari Huus, Reporter MSNBC, Fri., Jan. 11, 2008

    “A trial of a controversial drug cocktail designed to treat meth and cocaine addiction has been halted after an audit found that the treatment’s success rate had been “greatly exaggerated.” ”

    “The action was a major blow to Hythiam Inc., which licenses the “Prometa protocol” to private doctors and stands to benefit financially if it can gain access to public funding of drug treatment across the country. Coupled with subsequent media reports that public officials who championed the pilot program owned stock in Hythiam, the news sent the company’s shares plummeting from more than $8 a share in October to about $2.75 this week.”

    “But Prometa also has generated alarm among many substance abuse experts because it headed to market without undergoing rigorous scientific testing. The drug combination required no approval from the Food and Drug Administration because of an exemption that allows for “off label” prescription of drugs for purposes other than those for which they were originally intended.”

    Reconstruct this link to see the entire story:

    http:

    //w

    w

    w.

    msnbc

    .msn

    .com/id

    /22315918/

    I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that money is the root of all evil.

    That includes medical evil imo.

  68. OK, so a drug company misled physicians and the general public regarding the efficacy of a certain treatment for addiction. That is dishonest and wrong.

    It is no more dishonest and wrong than marketing homeopathy, activation therapy, applied kinesiology, etc to patients. Likewise the practice of bringing people in for “adjustment” on a weekly basis. The data published by chiropractors’ own examining board indicates that roughly half of chiropractors engage in sham treatment. It is not a fringe element, it is mainstream.

    It is common knowledge among physicians that we overuse antibiotics. There is a substantial effort by multiple medical associations to limit their use. However, it is not true that no cases of otitis media require antibiotics. The majority do not, but some cases do.
    Likewise with “the flu”. It can be difficult to differentiate these symptoms from those of bronchitis, which is treated with macrolides first according to current literature. Of course, there is some debate as to whether bronchitis is a real clinical entity.

    What are your thoughts regarding “subluxation theory”, the therapeutic basis for chiropractic adjustment?

    Do you think that using homeopathy is appropriate? If so, what conditions has it been proven to treat?

  69. First, a correction: Our last two posts apparently crossed in the moderation queue. When I said “And you have yet to do the decent thing and issue a public retraction,” you had in fact already done so but it seems to have been chopped off the post and your repeat post was not yet available for public viewing. So that was incorrect and premature on my part, and I apologize.

    Is there some reason you’re suddenly not posting links so that they’re clickable? You can use a limited subset of HTML in these comments; the <a> tag is what you need to create linked text. This won’t screw up the formatting since those painfully long URLs won’t then be displayed in your post, just the text.

    What was your point with that last one? The story is about a drug trial that was halted because no benefit was apparent. The reason you have drug trials in the first place is to see if a new drug is safe and effective. If either was known for certain beforehand, you’d hardly need a trial. (A degree of safety must be established with animal trials beforehand.) In this case, it appears certain public officials who owned Hythiam stock pushed for the therapy before it was known to be effective, or despite the fact it was known to be ineffective.

    If you meant to indict the medical profession, you fail. I had a look at the Hythiam website. Only only one member of the board of directors is an MD and none of the principals. If there’s a story here about corruption, it’s on the part of those in government who pushed the program because they were Hythiam shareholders, and of those company principals who may have known the therapy was ineffective but went ahead with marketing it anyway.

    (Just to avoid confusion: A corporate board of directors is not involved in the day-to-day management of the company, the research it conducts, etc. They depend on company executives, over whom they function in a general supervisory role, to tell them what’s going on.)

    For comparison, when was the last time a study of a new chiropractic therapy was halted due to lack of effectiveness, or a recommendation for a therapy withdrawn on that basis? Don’t try to tell me chiropractors never make this kind of mistake, which can happen both honestly and because of fraud. You’re as human as anyone else. Unless, of course, because there are no new chiropractic therapies, or because there are no reliable methods for evaluating effectiveness. Perhaps there are and I’ve never heard of them. Educate me.

    Now, as to your questions. First, you thoroughly mischaracterize me. Parents of severely handicapped children are never simple medical laymen. I have to deal with complex medical issues all the time, and routinely give my son treatments most people only see from professionals in hospitals. I have yet to meet an MD (other than my older son’s first orthopedist) who didn’t acknowledge this. That you didn’t know it only illustrates further that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

    “Have your physicians when describing treatment options ever told you of a CAM alternative or that your condition is self-limiting so do nothing and it will resolve on its on?”

    This is really two questions. First, given that CAM practitioners define it so broadly that it encompasses some mainstream therapies, yes. For example, my son’s neurologist suggested melatonin supplements, since he often has trouble falling asleep. (Hormonal problems are common in kids with brain damage as severe as his.) CAM practitioners usually consider matters of diet and exercise CAM, and I already described what my wife’s neurosurgeon recently told her.

    I don’t often hear that my conditions are self-limiting because I know the difference for myself and do not visit my doctor in such cases.

    In the interest of full disclosure, I believe my childhood GP may have occasionally given placebos in the form of flavored basic syrup. I had a stressful childhood — today I probably would have been diagnosed with something — and in retrospect I think I suffered from a number of “phantom” illnesses. In such cases I believe placebos to be not inappropriate as long as someone responsible, in this case my mother, was informed and knows that no real medicine is being given. (In contrast to, say, homeopathy.)

    This GP was a CAM practitioner himself. Having been born and in part educated in China, he was also an acupuncturist. Although he conducted both practices from the same office he kept them separate, and didn’t suggest acupuncture to his medical patients. I believe he practiced it exclusively for the local Chinese community. Considering his willingness to use placebos with me, he may have used acupuncture along the same lines for the benefit of those who believed in it for ingrained cultural reasons.

    “Have you or a loved one ever been prescribed antibiotics for a cold, flu, virus or ear ache?”

    I have gotten antibiotics for my kids’ earaches when these were positively diagnosed as bacterial infections. Yes, it’s possible to tell, and it was not the case every time. I also have taken kids to their pediatrician for conditions I knew perfectly well were self-limiting on the insistence of my wife, only to be told when I got there that the cold will go away on its own and no medical treatment was indicated. This is justified to an extent for my older son. He has trouble managing secretions, and an abundance of mucus can lead to pneumonia because it can easily get down his trachea. At those times we need to keep a close eye on him.

    I have never been prescribed an antibiotic for any viral infection unless it brought on a secondary bacterial infection. Why would I? When antibiotics are prescribed inappropriately, most often it’s because the patient insists on it, not the doctor. If the doctors are at fault here, it’s in not saying no more firmly. But I’m not eager to take pills and never ask for them.

    So? Have I always seen the

  70. CC, I will try to answer your post when I have some time. I’m too busy today. I’m not ignoring you. You ask big questions however this is a blog and my answers I assure you will be small and pointed.

  71. Why the blue print all of a sudden? What did I do? How do I undo it? Why is there underlining when I put the cursor over the blue print?

    This is NOT deliberate on my end.

  72. You probably didn’t close out a tag. If you’re making a link, at the end of the text that should be “blue” you need to add </a>.

    I had more to say earlier, but my post got chopped off and on reflection I’d gone on long enough.

  73. “CC” asserts: “It is no more dishonest and wrong than marketing homeopathy, activation therapy, applied kinesiology, etc to patients. Likewise the practice of bringing people in for “adjustment” on a weekly basis. The data published by chiropractors’ own examining board indicates that roughly half of chiropractors engage in sham treatment. It is not a fringe element, it is mainstream.”

    Uhuh.

    NCBE website says no such thing.

    Read ‘Job Analysis of Chiropractic 2005’

    ‘The report Job Analysis of Chiropractic 2005 contains ten chapters, as well as appendices, a glossary, index, and bibliography.’

    Reconstruct link:
    http:

    //www.

    nbce.org

    /publications

    /pub_analysis_chap.

    html

  74. “CC”, Chris C. and Panda Bear,

    All of you should spend 10 minutes pursuing this brochure:

    “Studies on Chiropractic 2005”

    Reconstruct link: http://

    www.

    nbce.org/

    publications/

    pub_studies.

    html

    You can disagree with the facts, claims and assertions listed in the brochure but please stop making up and publishing your own.

    The challenge is for you to get it right if you are too criticize my profession.

    Having an M.D. degree does not entitle you to your own ‘facts.’

  75. “Chris C.”, you are correct. I copied your post comment on html tags in my post to you and b/c it did not contain the closure tag the result was all the blue print.

    My fault.

    I will endeavor to be more careful.

    You asked “Is there some reason you’re suddenly not posting links so that they’re clickable?”

    Repeating: Panda Bear asked me not to post clickable links anymore b/c they messed up the blog format somehow and often ended up in his auto spam folder which he does not have time to sort through.

    I’m complying with his directions.

    You ask: “What was your point with that last one? The story is about a drug trial that was halted because no benefit was apparent…If you meant to indict the medical profession, you fail.”

    My point was that medicine is money motivated and not on a higher moral or ethical plain than CAM.

    I succeeded–as usual.

    You go on “you thoroughly mischaracterize me. Parents of severely handicapped children are never simple medical laymen…That you didn’t know it only illustrates further that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

    You misunderstood and have mischaracterized my comment. My comment about you was spot on. You are not a health care professional with degree, credentials and experience in a given health care specialty.

    You mention “…my son’s neurologist suggested melatonin supplements, since he often has trouble falling asleep.”

    Melatonin is NOW a mainstream MEDICAL therapy but it came from of the world of CAM.

    My point, which you seem unable to fathom, is that many CAM practices become mainstream medical therapies.

    I ask you, when are these practices quackery, snake oil and charlatan’s praying on the sick and suffering as asserted by PB?

    Only when provided by CAM practitioners and not when a m.d. degree tells you to do the same thing?

    Is it impossible for you to SEE the double standard operating under your nose in your own home with your disabled son?

    Regarding your family doc: “This GP was a CAM practitioner himself. Having been born and in part educated in China, he was also an acupuncturist.”

    I’m glad you are open minded to CAM. Its too bad you only find it acceptable when proved by a M.D. That just means to me that you are a typical layman with a medical bias.

    That your GP only practiced ‘acu’ on his Chinese patients should tell you something highly informative that currently escapes your consciousness.

    I don’t believe this and neither should you: “I have never been prescribed an antibiotic for any viral infection unless it brought on a secondary bacterial infection.”

    Why? Because medicine has always used the reason to give antibiotics for viral conditions ‘to prevent a secondary bacterial infection’.

    What you were told is a snow job, a sales pitch, rhetoric and verbiage, not reality.

    You also claim “When antibiotics are prescribed inappropriately, most often it’s because the patient insists on it, not the doctor. If the doctors are at fault here, it’s in not saying no more firmly.”

    I agree.

    When patient’s go to their medical doctor and are charged on average today $125+ they want something in return and a little piece of paper with Rx on it is the medical currency in this retail trade. Its been that way for decades.

    And let us not forget Pharmaceutical Reps encourage such prescription behavior, (the profit motive at work).

    So what’s that say about retail medicine, i.e., health care as practiced by medical professionals in the USA today?

    I like the fact that you have taken responsibility for your own health care decisions and those of your special needs family. That makes you a special father and unique man, obviously stronger and more involved than most.

    Please do not take my comments as personal attacks on your physicians, I don’t know them, you or your medical situation. I’m posting in general here, except when it comes to Panda Bear who speaks for himself.

    I wish you felt differently about CAM–chirpractic in particular–but what really counts is that your eyes are open, you actively participate in health decisions and you do your best for your children and yourself.

    No one can ask more of you. I pray that all your decisions work out.

     

    (You see, I liked this post because you took the time to write your opinions without just bombarding us with links.  -PB)

  76. “NCBE website says no such thing.

    Read ‘Job Analysis of Chiropractic 2005′”

    im1dc, will you please read these things you link to? On page 136 of this report, which is found in Chapter 10, Table 10.13 shows the “passive adjunctive procedures”, i.e. treatments other than chiropractic, which licensed chiropractors say they use. In the last year surveyed, 2003, 46.4% say they’ve given homeopathic remedies, 58.2% acupressure/meridian therapies, 13.6% acupuncture, and 8.4% biofeedback.

  77. “My point was that medicine is money motivated and not on a higher moral or ethical plain than CAM.”

    That’s not what you showed, though. Where the “rubber meets the road” in medical care is between doctor and patient, not in pharmaceutical companies. Even less in highly dubious pharmaceutical companies that don’t even make a product shown effective in controlled double-blind studies.

    I’m happy to call snake-oil by name wherever it shows up. But there’s a big difference between a discipline where it’s occasionally found, and one that’s almost nothing but.

    “You misunderstood and have mischaracterized my comment.”

    I did not. You said, “As a non-medical non-health care layman you haven’t a clue.” I have very much of a clue, and I have a considerable amount of practical medical experience. Few people who are not actual medical professionals have spent as much time as I have at hospital bedsides, or in providing medical therapies.

    “Melatonin is NOW a mainstream MEDICAL therapy but it came from of the world of CAM.”

    Nonsense. Melatonin is a hormone, and was discovered and characterized using the same evidence-based techniques that support mainstream medicine. If CAM had anything do do with it, it’s in pushing it as an over-the-counter “supplement” and not a prescription medication like other hormones. There’s a good case that it ought to be. Misuse can be harmful, but you’ll find few guidelines on the bottle.

    “My point, which you seem unable to fathom, is that many CAM practices become mainstream medical therapies.”

    Of course I can fathom it. I’ve said it myself. Not by way of validating CAM; quite the opposite. Any CAM therapies that are still exclusively CAM are there because they have not been shown effective, or have been shown ineffective. But this is disingenuous anyway. Much of the mainstream pharmacopeia of the late 19th century would be labeled CAM today, and for any of it that survives in the mainstream there is therefore always a sense where you can say “CAM became mainstream.” You could say so of aspirin, for example. But backdating like that isn’t really valid, is it?

    “I ask you, when are these practices quackery, snake oil and charlatan’s praying on the sick and suffering as asserted by PB?

    Only when provided by CAM practitioners and not when a m.d. degree tells you to do the same thing?”

    No. It’s quackery, snake oil, and charlatanism when its effectiveness is asserted when it has in fact either not been established, or positively refuted. To go back to our earlier example: The effects of melatonin have been determined by evidence-based investigation. The claims of chiropractic have not.

    Examine, please Chapter 9 of the NCBE’s Job Report. There are many examples I could choose here, but table 9.17 has one of the clearest. I see that just over 20% of chiropractors choose to “Treat solely” allergies when presented with a case. How is it anything but quackery to assert that spinal manipulation can relieve allergies? Even moreso if the chiropractor chooses to dispense homeopathy for it, as 11% of chiropractic patients receive from 46% of chiropractors?

    I’ll pass over your commentary on the MD acupuncturist since you completely missed the point, except to say that I hold none of the attitudes you impute to me except open-mindedness to CAM. I’m open-minded to the extent that I’ll believe them when validated to the same standards as mainstream medicine. They might work. I’ve yet to try one not so validated that does, but you never know.

    “Because medicine has always used the reason to give antibiotics for viral conditions ‘to prevent a secondary bacterial infection’.”

    I said nothing about “prevention”. I spoke of a bacterial infection actually present. My doctor can tell the difference, and so can I. They are occasionally secondary to viral infections due to the virus stressing the immune system. One occasionally comes down with an upper respiratory infection during or shortly after a cold, for example. Please read the words I write without passing them through your “MDs are evil” filter.

    I thank you for your kind words in closing, but had you not commented on me personally in the first place I wouldn’t have felt the need to talk about my own situation.

  78. “CC”, said “Check out this site for some honesty about anti immunization activism”.

    I liked your link a lot.

    The Dr. Ed Friedlander MD, site I found to be very good/educational/informative. In fact, I’ve bookmarked it.

    I have known about anti-immunization activism for a very long time but that does not translate into paying attention to them. I know about the Flat Earth Society too and treat them the same as the anti-immunization crowd.

    I know that some chiropractors, but not very many, are against mass medicine, i.e., mass treatment before there is an actual indication of disease.

    That subset of practitioners/activists are against fluoride in our drinking water, folic acid in bread and iodine in salt.

    I and the vast majority of my chiropractic colleagues get and have our families get recommended immunizations.

    Not all chiros of course but most.

    My wife and I followed our Pediatricians recommendations. BTW, I never felt an instance of a Pediatrician ordering us to do anything, they simply recommended and told us why. Worked on us like a charm.

    I have had more trouble from school nurses who see that I’m a Chiropractor and assume I don’t want and haven’t had our kids vaccinated.

    Blind prejudice is where you find it and being a chiropractor I find it a lot.

    The closest I came to anti-immunization activism in Chiropractic College was when some activist students gave a lecture on it during a lunch hour meeting and another time a professor told us he refused a tetanus booster in the ER after stepping on a rusty nail out on a farm that required stitches. Before you go and say “aha” that professor had a tetanus shot 7 years prior and simply decided he did not need the booster.

    FYI, I am a graduate of the largest and oldest Chiropractic College and our official education was pretty orthodox.

    I believe most of the ‘anti’this or that chiropractors are coming from the Health Food Store community, purists/activist/radicals.

    I try not to take things as important as immunizations on faith, instead I use best medical advice and I have always gotten great advice from our physicians.

    CC asks “Do you subscribe to the “subluxation theory”, that all diseases are caused by vertebral misalignment?”

    No. VS or Vertebral Subluxations are complex but they don’t cause “all diseases”.

    To be historically accurate one of the Dr.’s Palmer said they caused “Dis-ease” not “disease”. He differentiated medical disease from that caused by VS as diagnosed and treated by chiropractors.

    That may seem like a minor thing, word play or sophism to you but to me it is a very serious line of differentiation between medicine and chiropractic.

    Of course, he also believed vertebra misaligned aka ‘subluxated’ and ‘pinched’ nerves causing the pain and dysfunction experienced by the patient.

    We know vertebra do not twist and ‘pinch nerves’ in that manner today.

    That doesn’t mean that vertebral misalignments called subluxations by D.C.’s do not cause nerve interference and numerous other of neural mediated effects in other more subtitle ways. Or that they can not be corrected by Chiropractors trained in their detection and diagnosis and skilled in their treatment. They do. Think neural beds, neural networks, sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, articular misalignments and vertebral motor units just for starters.

    I won’t go into it b/c its too complex and detailed but simply put we can treat the same patient and the same patient compliant(s) but for different reasons using different modalities, eg., I don’t and won’t treat a patient’s cancer but I can treat a patient with cancer, etc.

    Chiropractors put the patient first, not our profession or yours.

    CC asks “If “realigning the vertebrae” improves immune functioning, and the CNS is necessary for immune functioning, why aren’t paralyzed individuals immunodeficient?”

    They are to various degrees. You need to review your literature on that subject. For example most Quads die within 10 years of their diagnosis. Think Christopher Reeve, aka Superman.

    “Can you site a source that says Dr. Barrett had his license revoked, rather than just letting it expire when he retired?”

    Yes and No. It was either the Journal of (something) published by Terry Rondberg, D.C. out of Arizona or the American Chiropractor Magazine. I read everything that comes to me so I can’t be sure today which of the many sources I read it in, but the two above are usually full of news stories about chiropractic in the news so it was most likely one of them.

  79. ‘Chris C.’ asks “im1dc, will you please read these things you link to?”

    Another mea cupla: I don’t have the time to read every single word on every single page.

    But you still miss the forest for the trees, just b/c D.C.’s can and have doesn’t mean they do or do so often.

    But thanks for pointing this out: “…treatments other than chiropractic, which licensed chiropractors say they use. In the last year surveyed, 2003, 46.4% say they’ve given homeopathic remedies, 58.2% acupressure/meridian therapies, 13.6% acupuncture, and 8.4% biofeedback.”

    Something you forgot to mention, each of these modalities is used “rarely” and on very low percentages of patients, so low in fact that these may treatments may be asked for by the patients and not readily offered by the D.C.

    Also I suspect that some D.C.’s are trying out new modalities to see how they work on their more difficult cases, i.e., seeing if they can help the patient by providing a different modality. Its analogous to when a m.d. suggests a new pill or therapy he/she has just learned about when their first approach failed.

    I suspect the high % stated use of homeopathy remedies suggests the vitamin salesman (analogous to m.d.’s pharmaceutical salesman) are pushing these for use seasonally and the fact that not all products labeled homeopathic are diluted to nothing but water.

    Most likely the use of homeopathic remedies are grossly overstated in the NCBE surveys. I bet most D.C.’s lump them with vitamins and other nutritional supplements.

    Also NBCE may receive more survey forms back from areas of the country where D.C.’s do use homeopathy remedies heavily b/c their patients expect and demand them.

    I seriously doubt homeopathy is used that widely in chiropractic practice.

    One more thing, there are two listings for acupuncture, with needles and acupressure. Acupuncture in most jurisdictions is a separate profession for which a D.C. would have to sit and take a board after attending acceptable education so I think that is used only in acupuncture licensed office.

    Acupressure I have used and to good effect. Just b/c some in medicine and you think it doesn’t work does not mean much to patients who are helped by it.

    You and they don’t think chiropractic adjustments help patients either.

    But then that begs the question why m.d.’s and physical therapists for years have been so anxious to incorporate manipulation into their practices.

    Some have but they are no good at it.

    A recent study on MedPage found that medical manipulators in Australia failed to show any benefit by their manual manipulations of patients. “No benefit.”

    Chiropractic trials routinely show benefits.

    I wonder what we do right that they can’t?

    Get patients better, faster and cheaper apparently.

  80. Chris C. asks and asserts “Examine, please Chapter 9 of the NCBE’s Job Report. There are many examples I could choose here, but table 9.17 has one of the clearest. I see that just over 20% of chiropractors choose to “Treat solely” allergies when presented with a case. How is it anything but quackery to assert that spinal manipulation can relieve allergies?”

    Once again your bias and prejudices are showing and blinding you.

    The answer is that it works, patients get relief.

    However, I would caution you to stop your line of thinking that chiropractors are ONLY adjusting the spine to treat allergies.

    You seem imbued with the monotherapy model, one size fits all.

    I wish patients were that simple but they aren’t. They are unique and complex.

    I am quite sure their approach to allergy complaints is multifaceted.

    I urge you to stop making assumptions and leaping to conclusion from reading the NBCE survey.

    Reality is more complex than their forms allow.

  81. “Something you forgot to mention, each of these modalities is used ‘rarely’ and on very low percentages of patients, so low in fact that these may treatments may be asked for by the patients and not readily offered by the D.C.”

    Please. “Rarely” is how the study characterized it. But figure 10.1 explains how these terms are used, and they’re nothing more than summaries of the numbers. “Rarely” can mean as much as 25%, which would not be called “rare” in the real world. Unfortunately for your case, the study also gives the numbers so we don’t have to rely on the misleading terms. Homeopathy was used on 10.9% of patients, and meridian therapy on 21.9%. That’s approximately 1 in 10 patients and 1 in 5 respectively. That’s not rare.

    In the one case I’m directly aware of, I know for a fact that my wife didn’t ask for homeopathy; it was given as part of that office’s “holistic” treatment strategy. She knew nothing about it beforehand, and learned nothing about it until I found her sugar pills and explained it to her.

    It’s true that the study doesn’t say what methods are used to treat which conditions. It would have been interesting, so it’s unfortunate this information was omitted. However, if you actually look at table 9.17, you see that only 39.4% of them had “non sublux-based” diagnoses! (The true number should be exactly 100%.) So in over 60% of cases, chiropractors did perform spinal adjustments to treat allergies! And the text says, “Chiropractic management of allergies primarily consists of adjusting subluxations and providing specific nutritional advice.”

    Neither of these strategies is actually effective in treatment of allergies. Sorry, but two ineffective treatments are no better than one, or none at all. No doubt the patients are also doing something else. Good. That way they might get some relief. But I cited the “treated solely” figure, so whatever else these patients are doing, they’re not seeing anyone else for it.

    Read what you link to and you’ll spare yourself the embarrassment of inadvertently misstating what it says. You’re dodging the point anyway. You pointed CC to this study to refute his claim that half of chiropractors engage in “sham treatment.” It did the opposite. They engage in it even if they don’t offer it to all of their patients all of the time.

    It’s indeed possible to miss the forest for the trees. It’s also true that the trees comprise the forest, and if you won’t look at them you won’t merely fail to notice the forest, you won’t see it at all.

    I didn’t even point out the most alarming data I noticed. That would be figure 9.1 a and b. This shows, for a number of conditions, the percentage of chiropractors who made non-subluxation-based diagnoses for each most of the time.

    I won’t have to point out to a medical professional how disturbing it is that 49.9% of chiropractors usually ascribed appendicitis to subluxations. Not to mention the 46.4% who did so for muscle tumors.

  82. “They are to various degrees. You need to review your literature on that subject. For example most Quads die within 10 years of their diagnosis. Think Christopher Reeve, aka Superman.”

    They don’t die from the kinds of things that kill AIDS patients, chemo patients, or transplant recipients (patients whose immune systems are really heavily suppressed.) If spinal transection (Chris Reeves) caused that kind of immune dysfunction, Chris Reeves would’ve come down with Kaposi’s Sarcoma, PCP pneumonia, CMV keratitis, neutropenic fevers, toxoplasmosis, and the other problems of immunosuppressed people. Chris Reeves didn’t die from being immunosuppresed, he died from a sacral decubitus ulcer, a common aliment affecting geriatric patients who lay in one position all day.

    “Most likely the use of homeopathic remedies are grossly overstated in the NCBE surveys. I bet most D.C.’s lump them with vitamins and other nutritional supplements.”

    You and I both know that homeopathy is totally different from vitamin supplements. Homeopathy refers to specifically diluted preparations that often have no active ingredient. The active ingredient in vitamins/nutritional supplements are the vitamins. They way you describe it, these chiropractors are giving their patients something (vitamins) and calling them homeopathy. Do these chiropractors not know what they are giving their patients?

  83. Chris C. lays the wood to me: “Please. “Rarely” is how the study characterized it. But figure 10.1 explains how these terms are used, and they’re nothing more than summaries of the numbers. “Rarely” can mean as much as 25%, which would not be called “rare” in the real world.”

    We disagree on the proper interpretation of “rarely”. I stand by the NBCE report’s usage.

    This disagreement is important b/c it quite clearly shows the differences between what medicine considers a beneficial outcome i.e. 80%.

    This is not a put down, don’t take it that way.

    What I’m stating is that medicine’s patients are generally much more severe than chiropractic patients, i.e., an apples to oranges comparison not an apple to apple comparison.

    Chiropractors don’t deal with MI’s, Acute severe exacerbation of COPD, open compound fractures, stabbings, shootings, drug overdoses, cancers, end of life terminal events, etc.

    Chris C. tries again: “It’s true that the study doesn’t say what methods are used to treat which conditions…However, if you actually look at table 9.17, you see that only 39.4% of them had “non sublux-based” diagnoses! (The true number should be exactly 100%.) So in over 60% of cases, chiropractors did perform spinal adjustments to treat allergies!”

    Why the exclamation mark?

    Using it shows you don’t comprehend the complexities of interpreting the NBCE report.

    Chiropractors adjust patients as their primary modality of treatment, it’s as it should be, big woo.

    That they don’t use it as the sole treatment modality on all diagnoses shows that D.C.’s can and do distinguish and differentiate patient conditions and apply the appropriate modalities of treatment.

    DUH!

    Chris C. states: ““Chiropractic management of allergies primarily consists of adjusting subluxations and providing specific nutritional advice.”

    What were you expecting to see from a survey of chiropractors? That they did sinus surgery?

    Save your indignation and get real.

    FYI, there many different ways to ‘adjust’.

    It is not one size fits all.

    Chris C. claims: “Neither of these strategies is actually effective in treatment of allergies. Sorry, but two ineffective treatments are no better than one, or none at all. No doubt the patients are also doing something else. Good. That way they might get some relief.”

    Just b/c you claim that it doesn’t help doesn’t make it so.

    Baseless assertions like yours only serve to expose your lack of objectivity.

    For the record the only thing correct about your assertion/conclusion above is that patients do get relief.

    Chris C. really lays the wood to me this time: “Read what you link to and you’ll spare yourself the embarrassment of inadvertently misstating what it says.”

    In explanation, I did read the Intro and Summary of the report and that is what I referenced when I linked it, not the tables in the appendices on pages 146. etc..

    Taking another whack Chris C. says: “You’re dodging the point anyway. You pointed CC to this study to refute his claim that half of chiropractors engage in “sham treatment.” It did the opposite. They engage in it even if they don’t offer it to all of their patients all of the time.”

    Your point is bogus.

    The claim of “sham treatment” is yours and CC’s not mine nor is it supported by the NBCE report, not in its Intro, Summary or its Appendices.

    Using treatment modalities that need further study of efficiency is standard practice is ALL healing arts.

    That you have to be reminded of that shows you are not grounded in the reality of healing arts.

    Chris C.’s coup de grâce: “I didn’t even point out the most alarming data I noticed. That would be figure 9.1 a and b. This shows, for a number of conditions, the percentage of chiropractors who made non-subluxation-based diagnoses for each most of the time.”

    FYI, Doctors of Chiropractic are required by law to diagnose BOTH a Vertebral Subluxation and standard medicine diagnosis on all Medicare and MedicAid patients and as such the practice has been adopted industry wide by private insurers as well.

    The only reason the tables did not report 100% is if they included responses from jurisdictions or with insurers that do not require a medical diagnosis in addition to a chiropractic vertebral subluxation.

    Try to keep up.

    Chris C. though clueless, factless and most assuredly feckless is unstoppable: “I won’t have to point out to a medical professional how disturbing it is that 49.9% of chiropractors usually ascribed appendicitis to subluxations. Not to mention the 46.4% who did so for muscle tumors.”

    WELL DUH!

    Here is yet another instance when you interpret the data wrongly.

    What the data show is that the medical diagnoses comes with a corresponding vertebral subluxation.

    You do not understand that BOTH conditions are consistent, i.e., can and do co-exist.

    The question ought to be which came first since they co-exist? The responses show that D.C.’s are equally divided on which came first, the medical condition or the VS?

    A theory based D.C., a purist, would say the VS came first. A pathology/physiological based D.C. would say the condition came first causing the VS.

    It is the old which came first chicken or egg debate. I don’t think it matters.

    I’m agnostic, i. e., I don’t care. If the patient is helped by an adjustment then well and good. If not and they require antibiotics or surgery then well and good b/c the issue is the welfare of the patient not the glory of the practitioner, health care model or professional politics.

    That you, Panda Bear and CC are incapable of distinguishing this subtlety is the problem, not the mutual but different diagnoses and approaches.

  84. CC, I believe you are incorrect in regard to what Quads die from and that you are also incorrect to interpret the NBCE report to mean that half of all D.C.’s practice homeopathy.

    I know differently but I don’t have a study to show you, maybe someday, but not today.

  85. Extracted from the abstract of this study:
    Frankel HL et. al. Long-term survival in spinal cord injury: a fifty year investigation. Spinal Cord. 1998 Apr;36(4):266-74.

    “Relative risk ratio analysis showed that higher mortality risk was associated with higher neurologic level and completeness of spinal cord injury, older age at injury and earlier year of injury. For the entire fifty year time period, the leading cause of death was related to the respiratory system; urinary deaths ranked second followed by heart disease related deaths, but patterns in causes of death changed over time. In the early decades of injury, urinary deaths ranked first, heart disease deaths second and respiratory deaths third. In the last two decades of injury, respiratory deaths ranked first, heart related deaths were second, injury related deaths ranked third and urinary deaths fourth.”

    Spinal cord injury patients die from complications of aspiration (respiratory deaths), heart disease (because better treatment is allowing these patients to reach older ages) and urosepsis (due to urinary retention.) They don’t die from immunosuppression, they die from anatomical complications of being paralyzed.

    Homeopathy is what it is. It does not include nutritional supplementation and refers only to the practice of administering diluted medications. Either it is commonly used or the term is used incorrectly. It is correctly labeled a sham treatment, as its efficacy has never been proven and there is no physiologic basis for it to work.

    Is there a source that can demonstrate a series of subluxations radiographically? I am curious as to what they look like.

  86. “What I’m stating is that medicine’s patients are generally much more severe than chiropractic patients, i.e., an apples to oranges comparison not an apple to apple comparison.”

    I’m pretty tired of reading this as an excuse for why chiropracty shouldn’t be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that medicine is. Please. You either treat pathology or you don’t, and if you do then you should be able to show some benefit over placebo in a blinded study. The fact that chiropracty has never shown benefit (except for cases of low back pain of musculoskeletal origin, and again chiropracty does no better here than traditional medical therapy – rest, ice, and analgesics) in any such study is telling to everyone but chiropractors and their, excuse me for saying so, gullible patients. It is not their fault they are being duped, though. You guys somehow got to call yourselves “Doctors” too, borrowing the well-earned trust that MD’s have curried with the public by actually treating real pathology.

    “Using it shows you don’t comprehend the complexities of interpreting the NBCE report.”

    By your own admission you didn’t even read the full report. Come on. How can you interpret it without reading the whole thing?

    “Using treatment modalities that need further study of efficiency is standard practice is [sic] ALL healing arts.”

    Herein lies the rub. Homeopathy, meridian therapy, aromatherapy, acupressure, energy manipulation, crystal therapy, all the quackery that DC’s seem to have accepted as natural extensions of their own particular brand of quackery, needs no further study of efficiency. They have been studied and been found to be no better than placebo. Your profession has even convinced some federal legislators to fund the NCCAM with my tax dollars to study these things so you can’t claim a dearth of studies as your scapegoat anymore. Nothing to see here but some voodoo, smoke, and mirrors.

    “CC, I believe you are incorrect in regard to what Quads die from and that you are also incorrect to interpret the NBCE report to mean that half of all D.C.’s practice homeopathy.”

    CC beat me to the punch on providing a study to show what quadriplegics do die from. But as we all know you are wrong yet again. And again you are misrepresenting the opposition, CC stated that “roughly half of chiropractors engage in sham treatment”, which has been proven beyond reproach. I’d say the number is closer to 100% but then I’m not very charitable when it comes to seeing patients being taken advantage of.

    “If not and they require antibiotics or surgery then well and good b/c the issue is the welfare of the patient not the glory of the practitioner, health care model or professional politics.”

    No, what the real ‘issue is’ is that you want a crack at these patients too, in spite of the complete lack of success of your modality. Chiropractic wants a slice of the pie and if the patients are really sick, well, good ole’ allopathic medicine will just have to take care of them. But if patients are not really sick and instead just have a queer sense of unease then by golly chiropracty is for them, and we accept cash, check, or plastic!

    I once claimed your ill-informed posts were ruining the comments section on this blog. While I can at times find them tiring I’ve changed my mind. You are a great example of the kind of alternative practitioner I run across on a routine basis, emphatically touting the success of your treatments and not-so-subtly disparaging the treatments that have been proven to work. An odd breed of double-think, not uncommon in the lay public. It is educational to see it in action. Even more educational are the well-informed posts by Chris, CC, and the like. You are all doing a great service giving medical practitioners the tools necessary to refute this quackery when we see it. Bravo to all of you.

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