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Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

‘Perhaps the End of the Beginning’ on Harm Reduction for Americans

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 13:45:50 -0400 by

Yesterday, President Biden announced that he is taking three actions to reform the treatment of marijuana possession in America. These will help the federal government to get out of the way of the changes voters are making by referendum in the states to protect American citizens from the bad laws the politicians have refused to change. Voters have been repealing some of the harm their representatives have (in the name of the voters) caused to America. The president is helping those citizens.

Will pardoning simple possession of marijuana do anything to let violent criminals out of prison? No.

Will anti-American politicians claim that laws against non-violent crimes are essential to protect Americans from violence? Liars will continue to lie, but maybe voters will do a better job of rejecting the lies.

Is it reasonable to pretend that non-violent American citizens are violent, because some politicians (and some media) don’t care how many American citizens their laws hurt? No.

Currently, 37 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana, and 19 states have legal adult-use marijuana. Five states are voting on recreational cannabis legalization in the 2022 midterms: Missouri, Arkansas, North and South Dakota, and Maryland.

Biden pardons marijuana offenses, calls for review of federal law – Politico
State-by-State Medical Marijuana Laws – ProCon.org

Americans are refusing to continue to allow their elected representatives to spend citizens’ taxes dollars to lock up their non-violent neighbors for something that is none of the business of the politicians.

Should marijuana be on the schedule of controlled substances or should marijuana just be in a more appropriate place, reflecting the lack of harm compared to alcohol and tobacco, both of which are entirely legal for adults to possess and use?

What about driving while intoxicated/impaired by marijuana? That is already illegal, as it should be.

Harm reduction has been claimed to be the goal of tough criminal laws, but the increase in overdose deaths of Americans shows that tough criminal laws cause harm, not benefit.

Supervised injection sites produce the genuine reductions in harm that criminalization does not.

Results: Seventy-five relevant articles were found. All studies converged to find that SISs [Supervised Injection Sites] were efficacious in attracting the most marginalized PWID [People Who Inject Drugs], promoting safer injection conditions, enhancing access to primary health care, and reducing the overdose frequency. SISs were not found to increase drug injecting, drug trafficking or crime in the surrounding environments. SISs were found to be associated with reduced levels of public drug injections and dropped syringes. Of the articles, 85% originated from Vancouver or Sydney.

Conclusion: SISs have largely fulfilled their initial objectives without enhancing drug use or drug trafficking. Almost all of the studies found in this review were performed in Canada or Australia, whereas the majority of SISs are located in Europe. The implementation of new SISs in places with high rates of injection drug use and associated harms appears to be supported by evidence.

Supervised injection services: what has been demonstrated? A systematic literature review – PubMed

That is from a 2014 meta-analysis of some of the research showing that supervised injection sites are urgently needed to slow down, or reverse, the rate of overdose deaths of Americans. The research since then continues to show the benefits of supervised injection sites, while the morgues continue to show the harms of criminalization the war on drugs, reminiscent of the war on alcohol.

Research makes it clear that supervised injection sites save lives, but the people opposed to supervised injection sites tend to reject evidence and reason, in favor of feelings.

Mike Tyson said he was afraid before every fight, but he didn’t let that fear stop him. We need to accept that fear and recognize that this fear is irrational. We need to stop allowing politicians to use our fear to manipulate us into harming Americans who aren’t harming anyone else.

The NPR radio show/podcast called On Point recently had a segment on supervised injection sites in New York City. While the show and site have similar names, they are not connected (OnPoint NYC). Behind supervised injection sites: A controversial solution to overdose deaths (transcript and link to podcast)

Statement from President Biden on Marijuana Reform – White House

Why ‘Perhaps the End of the Beginning’ on Harm Reduction for Americans? It is not a reference to the 1937 Seán O’Casey play, but to part of the 1942 speech given by Winston Churchill following the victory by the Allies at El Alamein. “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. That speech indicated that the violently anti-fascist Allies were now fighting an offensive war.

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Filed Under: Civil Rights, Corruption, Critical Judgment, Evidence, Harm Reduction, Heresy, Law, Marijuana, Mythology, Opioid, Risk Management

What’s the Good News on Hydroxychloroquine?

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 01:15:46 -0400 by
Hydroxychloroquine is a darling of the media and of politicians, but what about the evidence? Well, the evidence on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat humans with COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease identified in 2019) is either negative (hydroxychloroquine is worse than homeopathy, acupuncture, naturopathy, prayer, . . . ) or the evidence is neutral (hydroxychloroquine is just as useless as homeopathy, acupuncture, naturopathy, prayer, . . . ).


But what is the good news?


The good news is that all of the research on hydroxychloroquine is of low quality or of very low quality. This is exactly the kind of evidence that frauds use to sell their fly by night panaceas.


The “best” news for the frauds is that one study showing harm from hydroxychloroquine has been retracted by most of the authors, due to problems with the data.[1],[2] The researchers contracted out the data acquisition and analysis to Surgisphere Corporation, a private company that appears to have promised to be able to deliver more than it can deliver.


If the negative paper has been retracted, why am I calling the promoters of hydroxychloroquine the frauds?


I am not referring to any of the researchers as frauds, not even the ones from the company that provided the retracted information. The frauds are the people promoting hydroxychloroquine without any evidence that hydroxychloroquine is safe or effective to treat COVID-19 in our species. These people are recklessly and irresponsibly endangering people for their own apparently political reasons.


We still do not have any valid evidence that hydroxychloroquine is safe to use in any humans to treat COVID-19.


We still do not have any valid evidence that hydroxychloroquine is effective at improving any outcomes for any humans with COVID-19.


Experimentation on humans should be limited to well controlled research studies.


The WHO (World Health Organization) appropriately, and only temporarily, paused research on hydroxychloroquine to re-examine the safety data available. The enrollment of patients in the WHO research has resumed.[3]


For those who claim that this retraction is evidence that science doesn’t work – It is amusing to see you trying to cite evidence to support your rejection of evidence, every time you do it. May you never tire of demonstrating the validity of the Dunning-Kruger effect.


This is like using a stopped clock to tell you the time. The stopped clock does not provide any useful information about the actual time, but it does provide useful information about the person claiming it provides useful information about the time.



This was pre-print – not yet peer reviewed, which was retracted by most of the authors, because of questions raised about the data. It may turn out that the outcomes for patients were better than represented in the paper. It may turn out that the outcomes for patients were the same as than represented in the paper. It may turn out that the outcomes for patients were worse than represented in the paper. We won’t know until the full information is independently analyzed, which might not happen. The failure to provide access for independent analysis was the reason for the retraction.


Late addition (6/08/2020 at 15:08): Dr. Steven Novella has a more detailed description of this at Neurologica, written on 6/08/2020 after I posted this on 6/06/2020:


The Surgisphere Fiasco



Footnotes:


[1] Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis.
Mehra MR, Desai SS, Ruschitzka F, Patel AN.
Lancet. 2020 May 22:S0140-6736(20)31180-6. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31180-6. Online ahead of print.
PMID: 32450107


Free Full Text from PubMed Central.


[2] Retraction—Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis
Mandeep R Mehra, Frank Ruschitzka, Amit N Patel
Published:June 05, 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31324-6


[3] “Solidarity” clinical trial for COVID-19 treatments
WHO (World Health Organization)
Information page.


Update on hydroxychloroquine


Originally posted 27 May 2020, updated 4 June 2020


Having met on 23 May 2020, the Executive Group of the Solidarity Trial decided to implement a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial, because of concerns raised about the safety of the drug. This decision was taken as a precaution while the safety data were reviewed by the Data Safety and Monitoring Committee of the Solidarity Trial.


On 3 June 2020, WHO’s Director-General announced that on the basis of the available mortality data, the members of the committee have recommended that there are no reasons to modify the trial protocol.


The Executive Group received this recommendation and endorsed the continuation of all arms of the Solidarity Trial, including hydroxychloroquine.


The Data Safety and Monitoring Committee will continue to closely monitor the safety of all therapeutics being tested in the Solidarity Trial.



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Filed Under: Corruption, COVID-19, Critical Judgment, Drug Shortages, Ethics, Evidence, Heresy, Pharmacology, Research, Risk Management

Hydroxychloroquine – The More You Know, The Worse It Looks

Fri, 22 May 2020 14:15:49 -0400 by



Do you want to use a drug that was never based on any good evidence, but only a hunch? Try hydroxychloroquine. The president says, What have you got to lose?


Kitchen sink medicine is a remnant of the Dark Ages, but it has not been eliminated from medicine. It is the argument from ignorance. If you can’t prove that the treatment is harmful, the treatment is wonderful. If you can prove the treatment is harmful, you are part of a conspiracy.


This is further evidence that hydroxychloroquine is harmful. The higher the quality of the evidence about hydroxychloroquine, the worse hydroxychloroquine looks.


Today, Lancet published this study comparing almost 15,000 patients receiving several different experimental treatments with about 80,000 patients not receiving any of the experimental treatments. This should convince reasonable people that there is no justification for treating patients with hydroxychloroquine outside of a well controlled randomized trial.


The comments on articles about the study are full of the usual anti-science, anti-vax, alternative medicine propaganda. Their religion has failed, but they keep preaching.


After controlling for multiple confounding factors (age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, underlying cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, diabetes, underlying lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and baseline disease severity), when compared with mortality in the control group (9·3%), hydroxychloroquine (18·0%; hazard ratio 1·335, 95% CI 1·223–1·457), hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide (23·8%; 1·447, 1·368–1·531), chloroquine (16·4%; 1·365, 1·218–1·531), and chloroquine with a macrolide (22·2%; 1·368, 1·273–1·469) were each independently associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality.[1]


The evidence shows that you are twice as likely to die if you receive hydroxychloroquine.


Don’t listen to anti-science, anti-vax, anti-medicine preachers, because they are not interested in your health.


What have you got to lose?


What are you treating, you politics/religion or your health?


If your goal is to treat your religion, go ahead and use the magic elixir and maybe you will not be harmed by it.


If your goal is to treat your health, avoid magic claims about treatments, regardless of the treatment. Use treatments that work in the real world.


What have you got to lose?


You are twice as likely to lose your life. Among survivors, the significant adverse effect rate was much higher in the hydroxychloroquine groups. This is the highest quality research so far and there is no good news for the hydroxychloroquine.


Read the full paper and think for yourself. Don’t listen to those making excuses to promote their agenda. Your health has never been important to those who reject science.


It is unfortunate that we do not have some treatment that works well, but that is not a good reason to bet your life on bad medicine. More people survive with better health with conventional treatment.



Footnotes:


[1] Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis
Prof Mandeep R Mehra, MD, Sapan S Desai, MD, Prof Frank Ruschitzka, MD, Amit N Patel, MD
Lancet. Published:May 22, 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31180-6


Free Full Text from Lancet.


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Filed Under: Cardiology, Conspiracy Theories, Corruption, COVID-19, Critical Judgment, EBM, Ethics, Evidence, Heresy, Narrative Fallacy, Pharmacology, Potentially Reversible Causes, Research Blogging, Risk Management, Science, V Tach

The Big Government, Big Religion, Immoral Opposition to Physician Assisted Suicide

Fri, 19 Apr 2019 05:50:12 -0400 by
 
 

The government should not force people to die painful deaths, in order to please the people who can only think of the ways something can go wrong and/or the Bible thumpers. These patients are not harming anyone else and we should stop condemning them as if they are the ones rejecting morality.

There are ways to protect vulnerable patients from being taken advantage of by family, or by others, without forcing everyone to die painfully. Physician assisted suicide is a way to protect vulnerable patients from being taken advantage of by those who claim to know what is best for everyone and want to force it on everyone, for their own good.

The alternative to physician assisted suicide is to require moral physicians break the law in order to provide the care the patient needs – relief of suffering that cannot otherwise be relieved. Physician assisted suicide should not be opposed by any ethical medical organization.

The older I get, the more I see patients abused by this hypocritical legal prohibition on ethical behavior.

Providing the care that the patient requests, with fully informed consent by the patient, is far more ethical than claiming that other people should control patients’ lives for the patients.

This does not affect me much, as a patient, because I can acquire whatever I need to end my life, whenever I feel it is the best option. I also have the ability to administer whatever medications I might choose to use, but I would probably have to do this sooner than I would like, in order to avoid having to rely on others to do what is right.

I will not ask anyone else to put themselves at legal risk, in order to allow me more time.

I will do whatever I need to do before I lose the ability to do everything on my own. Obviously, this will not apply to many medical conditions that have catastrophic sudden onset. I am not currently experiencing any symptoms and I do not have any diagnosis of any condition that would encourage me to end my life, but I may need to move to a state that does not require patients to be tortured to death, if that changes. If the SCOTUS literalists/originalists imposes a big government sharia decision to prohibit ethical end of life decisions by patients, then I might need to move to another country in order to have a longer life.

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Filed Under: Corruption, Ethics, Heresy, Legal Medicine, Mythology

Anti-Vaccine Means Pro-Corruption

Fri, 30 Nov 2018 09:30:45 -0500 by
 

Can you be opposed to vaccines and not be supporting corruption? What does it mean to oppose vaccines?

Vaccines are probably the safest and most effective medical intervention available. Anti-vaxers oppose that.

Vaccines save millions of lives every year. Anti-vaxers oppose that.

If you disagree, provide valid evidence that anything else is as safe as vaccines and provide valid evidence that anything else is as effective as vaccines. There is the small possibility that I am wrong and that vaccines are only second, or maybe even third, among the safest and most effective medical interventions available.

But aren’t the anti-vaxers trying to protect children from unnecessary risk?

That is one of many anti-vaccine claims, but it is just another anti-vax lie.

Look at these heroes of the anti-vaccine propaganda industry. Mark and David Geier.

David Geier pretends to be a doctor, even though he never has been a doctor, or even been enrolled in a medical school.
 

As explained above, the Board concludes that David Geier practiced medicine in Maryland without being licensed by the Board to practice in violation of section 14-601 of the Health Occupations Article.[1]

 

Mark Geier did become a doctor, but the corruption of the anti-vax propaganda and treatment business led him to violate his responsibility to protect his patients. If you see Mark Geier working as a doctor, call the police.
 

Since 2011, Geier’s medical license has been suspended or revoked in every state in which he was licensed over concerns about his autism treatments and his misrepresentation of his credentials to the Maryland Board of Health, where he falsely claimed to be a board-certified geneticist and epidemiologist.[4] [2]

 

What is so bad about the Geiers and why do anti-vaxers continue to worship the Geiers?

Mark and David Geier castrate children with a chemical that has been approved for some medical uses, but definitely not to treat autism. The chemical has never been shown to be safe or even slightly effective for that purpose. If you think that autism is the worst thing ever – worse than smallpox, measles, polio, pertussis, et cetera, you may think that it is morally acceptable to torture children and to have faith in these quacks.
 


 

The fake doctor (David) is on the left and the revoked license doctor (Mark) is on the right.

But isn’t it an exaggeration to call this chemical castration.
 

Speaking about one teen he put on the drug, Mark Geier said: “I wasn’t worried about whether he would have children when he is 25 years old. If you want to call it a nasty name, call it chemical castration. If you want to call it something nice, say you are lowering testosterone.”[3]

 

For those who claim that this would be a short-term treatment, and the side effects would be minimized, that’s not the way quacks work – especially with paying customers. These are not reasonable people. Quacks will be expected to keep giving the magic treatment, possibly increasing the dose several times, until that treatment works, because they think that they know believe that it works. Reasonable people would be expected to stop never start this unapproved and dangerous treatment to begin with. Since the treatment does not work, and is expected to make the patients’ conditions worse, these people would not be expected to stop. As with other alternative medicine, treatment failures are blamed on the patient, or on the family. Quacks do not take responsibility for the incompetence of using chemicals that are dangerous and ineffective.

But what if it really does work?

Almost every proposed treatment, regardless of what it is, will be found to be more harmful than beneficial. Most are discarded long before they get to the point of being tested on actual humans. Poisoning patients, based on What if it works? is dangerous, unethical, and irresponsible.

If you have an autistic child, do not let the Geiers chemically castrate your child for fun and profit.

How do the same anti-vaxers, who claim that they are protecting their children from what is probably the safest and most effective medical intervention available, support this dangerous, unethical, and irresponsible treatment?

That is the way anti-vaxers think. Anti-vccine claims are arrogant rejections of competence, science, and reality. Protect your children from anti-vaxers.

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Footnotes:

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[1] In the matter of David A. Geier before the Maryland State Board of Physicians
Case Nos. 2008-0022 & 2009-0318
Maryland Department of Health
Final Decision and Order in PDF format.

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[2] Mark Geier
Wikipedia
Article

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[3] ‘Miracle drug’ called junk science
Trine Tsouderos
Tribune reporter
May 21, 2009
Article

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Filed Under: Anti-Science, Children, Conspiracy Theories, Corruption, Critical Judgment, Denialism, Evidence, Pharmacology, Research, Risk Management

Anti-Vax Doctors Lack Competence and Ethics

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 18:40:47 -0400 by
 
 

Effective July 27, 2018, the latest anti-vax doctor to have his license revoked will be Dr. Bob Sears. Yes, he promotes his image as Dr. Bob.

Who are the dangerous doctors Bob Sears will be joining?

Andrew Wakefield‘s fraudulent research, unnecessarily painful research on children, lack of ethical approval for research, and other corruption, convinced the British General Medical Council to revoke his license. Wakefield was also trying to sell a vaccine of his own, to compete with the MMR (polyvalent Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine. Wakefield’s attempts to discredit the MMR vaccine would have helped him to sell his own competing vaccine.
 

the lawyers responsible for the MMR lawsuit had paid Wakefield personally more than £400,000, which he had not previously disclosed.[67] [1]

 

Andrew Wakefield claims that he is not a fraud and sues a lot of people.

All of the cases have been thrown out by the courts or have been withdrawn by Wakefield.[2]

Do those who claim to be trying to protect their children, by avoiding vaccines, based on a trust of this fraudulent doctor, know what Wakefield has done?

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The kiddie castrators – David Geier and Mark Geier.

David Geier was never a doctor, but has been caught faking it.[3] In the make believe world of anti-vaxers, why let reality get in the way of pretending to have credibility?

Mark Geier was a doctor, but had his license revoked in every state where he had a license (Maryland, Washington, Virginia, California, Missouri, Illinois, and Hawaii). Why do the Geiers castrate children? Chemical castration is an approved treatment for some rare conditions. Mastectomy is an approved treatment for some breast cancers, but that does not mean that it is at all ethical, or competent, to recommend mastectomy as treatment for other medical conditions. The Geiers claim to believe that castration cures autism. There is no valid evidence to support their hunch.

Consider this. You have an autistic child and someone tells you there is a cure. The person says that they know their expensive chemicals work. The person may even say, I’ve seen it work.[4] All you have to do is give permission for this doctor (before his license was revoked), and his son the fake doctor, to use chemicals to castrate your child.

Do you ask for evidence?

Their is no valid evidence. You just have to trust the castrators and their excuses for the absence of evidence.

The “evidence” has been retracted, because the research is junk science. All human research has to be approved by an independent IRB (Institutional Review Board) to make sure that there are not any conflicts of interest or unnecessary risks to the children participating in the research. The members of the independent IRB were the Geiers, the Geier’s employees, and the Geier’s lawyer. That is not independent.

If chemical castration doesn’t work, the Geiers can sell you other expensive and dangerous treatments that do not work, such as chelation. Chelation is the use of chemicals to remove heavy metals from the body, based on the assumption that mercury causes autism. Chelation is harmful, so it is only indicated, when there is a good reason to believe the benefit will be greater than the harm. There is no valid evidence to support this hunch of the Geiers.

The motto of the company run by the Geiers is First do no harm. Are they completely unaware of the harm they cause, or so dishonest that they tell the boldest lies? Does it matter why they harm children?

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What did Bob Sears do to get his license revoked? He claimed to assess patients, but did not keep records of what he claimed to do. His incompetence/negligence endangered patients.[5] ,[6]

For example, a mother frequently brought J.G., a 2 year old, to see Dr. Bob. One visit was for a head ache a couple of weeks after the child’s father hit the child on the head with a hammer. The only apparent concern of the mother and Dr. Bob was to prevent the child from receiving vaccines. There is no record of any neurological assessment, or referral to a competent doctor for a neurological assessment.

J.G. had visited Dr. Bob the previous month for constipation. Assessment and treatment plans were documented. Constipation can be very serious, but so can hitting a child on the head with a hammer. The reason for the difference in approaches was determined to be gross negligence. Another visit, following apparent resolution of otitis media following treatment with Omnicef (cefdinir), there was a diagnosis of a sudden onset of flu, with a prescription for Tamiflu (oseltamivir), so there is no apparent hesitation to use ineffective, or minimally effective, treatments. Is J.G.’s last name Munchausen, or is he just unlucky in his choice of parents?

Bob Sears does not appear to be hesitant to prescribe drugs based on hunches, but he does appear to recognize that being anti-vax can be very profitable. Sears has written 4 books, but still fails to document assessments.

Bob Sears will have to be monitored by another physician for 35 months, following this revocation, to be able to get his license reinstated. He must follow all laws, not be negligent, and not deviate from the standard of medical care. He cannot just take the 3 years off and write books, because he has to be monitored while working to get his license back.

It looks like Bob Sears will be vaccinating children, just as real doctors do.

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Vaccines save millions of lives every year.

Vaccines are probably the safest and most effective medical intervention we have, and anti-vaxers hate that.

If some of us do not see the need for vaccines, it is because of the success of vaccines. Vaccines are an important part of the reason that the average life expectancy has doubled in a little over 100 years.

For a great review of the effect of vaccines on vaccine-preventable illnesses, there is a study in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), which shows how the rate of each illness, and deaths from each illness, declined after the introduction of each vaccine. There are anti-vaxers who claim that it wasn’t the vaccines, but sanitation that stopped these illnesses. Don’t fall for that.[7]

Sanitation is important at preventing the spread of illnesses, but sanitation does not wait for each different vaccine to be introduced for each different vaccine-preventable illness to change the illness and fatality rates.

Look at the evidence.

Historical comparisons of morbidity and mortality for vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States.
Roush SW, Murphy TV; Vaccine-Preventable Disease Table Working Group.
JAMA. 2007 Nov 14;298(18):2155-63.
PMID: 18000199

Free Full Text Article from JAMA.

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Footnotes:

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[1] Aftermath of initial controversy
Andrew Wakefield
Wikipedia
Article

The referenced article by Brian Deer is:

Huge sums paid to Andrew Wakefield
The Sunday Times
December 31 2006
Brian Deer
Article

Andrew Wakefield has repeatedly sued Brian Deer and lost or run away every time.

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[2] Deer counter-response
Andrew Wakefield
Wikipedia
Article

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[3] Medical licenses revoked
Mark Geier
Wikipedia
Article
 

In 2011, his son David Geier was charged by the Maryland State Board of Physicians with practicing as if a licensed physician when he only has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology,[42] and was fined $10,000 in July 2012.[40]

 

Charges by the Maryland Medical Board
In the Matter of David A. Geier before the Maryland State Board of Physicians
Practicing without a license
PDF document of charges
 

The Respondent is not and never has been licensed to practice medicine or any other health profession in the State of Maryland or any other State.

 

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[4] I’ve Seen It Work and Other Lies
Tue, 21 Jun 2011
Rogue Medic
Article

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[5] Antivaccine pediatrician Dr. Bob Sears finally faces discipline from the Medical Board of California
Respectful Insolence
Orac
June 29, 2018
Article

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[6] Stipulated Settlement and Disciplinary Order
Decision of the Medical Board of California
Department of Consumer Affairs
State of California
Case No. 800-2015-012268
OAH No. 2017100889
PDF of Decision

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[7] “Vaccines didn’t save us” (a.k.a. “vaccines don’t work”): Intellectual dishonesty at its most naked
Science-Based Medicine
David Gorski
March 29, 2010
Article

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Filed Under: 'Alternative' Medicine, Anti-Science, Corruption, Critical Judgment, Denialism, Ethics, Fraud, Heresy, Malpractice, Vaccines

Happy Bill of Rights Day – 225 Years Old

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 23:00:34 -0500 by
bill-of-rights-hero-lg-1
 

The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791, which makes today the 225th anniversary of being signed into law. The Bill of Rights protects the interests of minorities from oppression by tyrannical majorities. This is why we are not really a democracy, but a constitutional republic.

If a majority decides that a minority should not be entitled to the same rights as the majority, or promotes some rationalization of the difference as not being a valid difference, that minority can appeal to the courts for relief. On the other hand, there are no absolute rights, which would invalidate all other rights.

You can be executed for a crime you did not commit, even if you can prove that you are innocent. You have to appeal to the governor or president for intervention. As the Supreme Court decided –
 

Held: Herrera’s claim of actual innocence does not entitle him to federal habeas relief. Pp. 6-28.[1]

 

Due process of law does not require that the innocent be set free. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are not to be found in the American Constitution. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are not to be found in the Bill of Rights.

Rights also come with responsibilities. We need to respect the rights of others, no matter how much we might think that others cannot be trusted to make those decisions, while we claim to be able to make these same decisions, not just for ourselves, but for others.

If people of different races want to marry, the state governments are not permitted to use their authority to sanction marriages to deprive citizens of their right to marry based on tradition. States rights have limitations, just as individual rights have limitations.

Discriminating against citizens of a politically incorrect group for decades, or even centuries, is not a justification for continuing to deprive them of equal treatment under the law.

Others may use their freedom, which always comes with responsibilities, in ways we do not like, but that is part of the price of freedom.

Even though slavery was legal at the time of ratification of the American Constitution and Bill of Rights, and is still endorsed by the Bible, we have recognized that slavery is bad. Our Constitution caught up with a lot of the rest of the world.

The Bible still endorses slavery and says that I can sell my daughter as a sex slave.

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. – Sigmund Freud

The Bill of Rights is much better than the Bible. Go blaspheme in celebration of the Bill of Rights, which protects us from those who would burn us, or our writing, or otherwise punish us for being honest.

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Footnotes:

–

[1] Herrera v. Collins (91-7328), 506 U.S. 390 (1993)
Argued October 7, 1992
Decided January 25, 1993
US Supreme Court
Decision

 

In criminal cases, thetrial is the paramount event for determining the defendant’s guilt or innocence. Where, as here, a defendant has been afforded a fair trial and convicted of the offense for which he was charged, the constitutional presumption of innocence disappears. Federal habeas courts do not sit to correct errors of fact, but to ensure that individuals are not imprisoned in violation of the Constitution. See, e.g., Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86, 87-88. Thus, claims of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence have never been held to state a ground for federal habeas relief absent an independent constitutional violation occurring in the course of the underlying state criminal proceedings.

 

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Filed Under: Blasphemy, Censorship, Civil Rights, Corruption, Critical Judgment, Ethics, Heresy, Law, Politics, Understanding

Welfare Queens Protest the EMS Responsibility Act

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:15:26 -0500 by
March 4th was the opportunity for irresponsible people to oppose attempts to improve the quality of care in Maryland.

Why would they do that?

Politics. Nothing but Dirty Politics.


Brian Slack
Those opposed to the two bills show their support for the status quo at a rally at the state house.

The sign reads – Why Change What is Not Broken?[1]

How bad does it have to be for people to realize that they are being lied to.

Broken may not be the word.

It is a rotting festering corpse polluting everything it touches. It also kills.

The people protesting have something to gain from defeating these bills – SB 650 and SB 764. They are making money from keeping things the way they are. That is the problem. Things have stayed the same, or become worse, for decades. That is the legacy of Dr. R Adams Cowley. At least that is his legacy in the hands of those running EMS in Maryland.

In one interview, Dr. Matthew Lissauer,[2] a doctor at Shock Trauma, says that paying for the helicopter program out of driver’s license taxes should be seen as a good thing.

Really?

If it is a good thing, why don’t we expand the system to all ambulance transport in Maryland?

If it is a good idea at all, why limit this to helicopter transport?

The reason is that Dr. Lissauer benefits from the money for the helicopter program, since they frequently return to Shock Trauma with patients. This is money going from tax payer pockets into his pockets.

When the money is spread out over the state, the cost does not seem so bad, but what if we operated everything this way? The excesses would have bankrupted the state, and the tax payers, long ago. This is a failed system. The people of Maryland deserve better.

Others talk about the helicopter program as a World Class operation. It is only world class in the third world. Who else in America operates with only one medic on board? Where in the world do you have to go to find such an complete disregard for patients’ lives?

Dozens of state troopers and their supporters rallied outside the State House yesterday in opposition to pending legislation that would change – and perhaps privatize – Maryland’s emergency helicopter transport system, one of the first and most venerated in the country.[3]

By venerated, they appear to mean that when anyone tries to reform it, they are opposed by this kind of self-serving political machine. This represents the worst of American politics.

Change?

We don’t change, we just get out the vote to keep the MSP (Maryland State Police) Aviation the worst staffed EMS in the country. We are determined to stay there.

Decades of attempting to improve this antiquated system will probably fail, one more time. Maryland Swindlers Prevail Again.

A sad commentary on how gullible people are in EMS. Somebody states that bad care is the best in the world and we believe them. Is there any wonder why so many of the EMS myths persist? We are just a step or two out of the Dark Ages. People are actually protesting against good patient care, because bad care is free.

The people of Maryland deserve better.

There is another article on the rally.[4]

Footnotes:

^ 1 Maryland Crews Respond to Save Medevac, Fire Programs
Posted: 03-04-2009
Updated: 03-05-2009 09:20:47 AM
Susan Nicol Kyle
Firehouse.com News
Article

^ 2 Some Lawmakers Support Privatizing Medevac System
Reporting
Adam May
Annapolis, Md. (WJZ)
wjz.com
Article and Video

^ 3 Report signals that medevacs should remain under state control
House Speaker Michael E. Busch calls the draft ‘absolutely’ premature
By Gadi Dechter
March 5, 2009
BaltimoreSun.com
Article

^ 4 Opponents to medevac changes mobilize
By Liam Farrell, Staff Writer
Published 03/05/09
HometownAnnapolis.com
Article

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Filed Under: Corruption, Helicopters, Heresy, Politics Tagged With: , , ,