Health care reform per Robin Cook

I practiced pediatrics in several settings including government, HMO and private practice for over 20 years. In my semi-retirement forced on me primarily by my personal medical situation, and as an extreme liberal, I found this short (relatively) diatribe on the current state of the US health care nonsystem to be, quite frankly, RIGHT ON!

In his most recent novel, Cure, the prolific medical thriller writer, Robin Cook, had this to say about a doctor who got into legal trouble because of his greed:

"The fatal flaw of greed evidencing itself in an individual who most likely started out with an altruistic desire to help people, just like ninety-nine percent of other medical students."

"It's the unfortunate marriage of medicine and business. In the mid-twentieth century you could do well in medicine, but you really couldn't become truly wealthy. All that changed when medicine in this country did not emerge as a responsibility of government, like education or defense, as it did in most every other industrialized country. Add to that the US government inadvertantly contributing to medical inflation by passing Medicare without effective cost controls, by generously subsidizing biomedical research without maintaining ownership of the resulting discoveries for the American public. and by its patent office awarding medical process patents life for human gene sequences, which it is not supposed to do by law. I tell you, the medical patent situation in this country is a total mess, which is already starting to haunt the biomedical industry, but that is another issue."

"Unfortunately today if a doctor wants to become truly wealthy, and a lot of them do, it is reasonably within their grasp by choosing the right specialty, getting involved in the pharmaceutical industry, the health-insurance industry, the specialty-hospital industry, or the biotech industry. All these industries say they exist to help people, which they can, but it is more of a byproduct, not the goal. The goal is to make money, and do they ever."

".....most if not all medical students are altruistic to begin with , but they are also competitive. They have to be, to get into the best college, to get into medical school, and to do the best to get the most coveted residencies to get into the best medical specialty, meaning, most likely, the one that pays the most so they can pay down their student loans the fastest. What they don't realize is that the profession in this country has drastically changed over the years, mostly because of economics."

Note: when the discussant was asked if health care reform legislation could fix this problem, the good doctor replied:

"In a generous moment, I might say it is a start At its core there is the goal of some sense of social equality in regard to medical care as a resource and a responsibility of government. But in this country medical care is a competitive stakeholder industry, and the new legislation does not change that; it just resorts the relative power of the stakeholders. I'm afraid the ultimate effect is going to be more pressure for costs to rise, since, like Medicare, there are not enough spcific cost controls."

None of this is new, much of it reflects the views of many medical economists (Ewe Reinhardt and Paul Krugman) and curmudgeonly docs like Arnold Relman, Marcia Angell, and John Abramson (to name but a few). But it is an interesting way for a fiction writer like 'Robin Cook (himself a trained MD) to work in some economic/political analysis into a story.

Why are some Friend so unable to forgive?

So unable to listen to people who care about them?

I am upset because I got in a war of posts with a Friend who I thought was a friend, about 10 months ago. It was over a decision by he and his wife not to have their children immunized against swine flu. I took exception to his claim that he was invoking a religious exemption.

Here is one email I sent:

Dear M*****

I am sorry for my nasty words yesterday. I let my anger get the better of me, and must admit a bit of ego got in the way as in how dare you question my expertise, as well as that of the medical establishment in general . I don't want to lose our friendship over this.

But I am still quite worried about your children and would beg you to reconsider your stance on these vaccines. Have you refused other vaccines. I pray not, some are truly lifesaving. And then there is the issue of unvaccinated children passing their infections on to other children. Remember we vaccinate all children to protect one another. This is public health basics, so please know it is not just your children a shot protects. What it the proper Christian approach to this opportunity to help one another? And would you feel bad if your child say got chicken pox and gave them to a child who for some reason was more susceptible (no vaccines are perfectly effective) and got a fatal superinfection? What about whooping cough, babies die, do you want one of your friend's young children to get it from yours?

And from a larger perspective, Glanz says the findings also show "that the decision to refuse immunizations could have important ramifications for the health of the entire community. Based on our analysis, we found that 1 in 10 additional whooping cough infections could have been prevented by immunization"

But finally I want to point out the lack of truth in claiming a religious objection to having your child vaccinated. I know there is no doctrine on this in either the Catholic or Quaker faiths. (not much doctrine at all for us Quakers, LOL). Saying your dialog with God led you to this decision should undergo discernment with a priest and in a Quaker clearness gathering. Have you done that. If you say your faith in God is so strong you do not need vaccines, I have to ask you why go to a doctor at all?I cannot see picking and choosing to which aspects of medical care to let your children have is based on true spiritual guidance. Bottom line, this claiming of religious objection has the loud ring of untruth about it

Again, all my passion on this is a true concern for your children's health....

never heard back from him. Sent this when I was not given access to a blog this person runs:

M*****

I tried to join a few months ago and did not receive notification. I can only hope I am not being excluded because of our disagreement over your decision to not immunize your children. That would not be in keeping with open dialog in Quaker tradition. Nor I might add in the spirit of eldering....I hope if you have control over who gets in this web site you will forgive me my anger....and allow me to join the conversation. Let's bury the verbal hatchets so to speak

Peace, Wayne

and then I tried once again to join and was SUSPENDED, allowed no access to even view posts. Unbelievable, no attempt to even dialog with me. I tried to apologize but no forgiveness. See my rejection:



Then I got sneaky. Tried to sign up under a fake name, using a different email account and a different browser. Here is the response I got:

Why I am glad Friends don't do icons...

I was looking through some posts on the Young Turks and the Huffington Post the other day and came across this very strange story. It seems the St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Warr Acres Oklahoma has been experiencing some controversy over a crucifix that was placed over the altar recently. A local artist was said to have created the iconic crucifix copied from the historic original San Damiano cross. This was the cross St Francis of Assisi was said to have been praying in front of when he received a message from God to rebuild the church. The original is now in the Basilica of St Clare in Assisi. The controversy surrounds the abdomen of Christ, the question being whether there is a large male genitalia there or just a distension, somewhat like the "6 pack" abdomen of muscle bound weight lifters. You can see the crucifix in question below:

Well I don't know about the average Internet user or the average Quaker but I am a physician and I have to tell you - that is not a "distended abdomen" and certainly not a "six-pack" but rather a male penis and testicles!! I had to research this some more so here are some examples of six packs:

I wondered if the original San Damiano cross was as obvious and after spending some time on the Internet searching for an image of the original I found it and here it is with a close up of the abdomen to the right:

Definitely more subtle but still very suggestive, no? A friend and I talked about this and wondered whether the modern artist was trying to make a statement, given the ongoing sexual abuse scandal rocking the Catholic church around the world.

Here are two other icons that are copies of the San Damiano but as you can see the one on the right shows what looks somewhat more like a 6 pack, and the one on the left is somewhat in between penis and 6 pack:

So other artists since the original have been a bit more discrete in their interpretation. This gets us back to the modern artist. In her interpretation was she deliberately making a point? It turns out that this icon has provoked commentary in the past, see here. In 2006 a documentary, Rape of the Soul, was released. In this film, the Catholic church's sex abuse crisis is blamed on satanic and occult imagery embedded in its artwork. In a comment on the film another iconic crucifix with suggestive imagery is presented. This is the Bigalia Crucifix in Italy and dating from the 13th century. It looks pretty similar and maybe even more suggestive with the "testes" arising from under the loin cloth.:

So the question still remains did the artist embelish her rendition to make a point or was she just following iconic tradition? In the first article on the Warr Acres controversy:

Janet Jaime, a local iconography artist who designed the crucifix, had no comment.

"I think it was painted according to the certain specific rules of iconography and church art,” Seeton said of the crucifix.

The crucifix is about 10 feet tall. It has been hanging above the altar since Feb. 21.

Seeton said the crucifix doesn’t concern him, and there are no plans to remove it.

Monsignor Edward Weisenburger of theOklahoma City Archdiocese also said he has no problems with the crucifix

But thankfully, for the church and all those who understand human anatomy, the story today from Oklahoma is that the crucifix has been taken down and will be altered by the artist, who is said to be distraught over the controversy. A fellow artist who knows her said today that she put too much contrast in the abdomen and was working too close to realize how it looked from farther away. He added, "She is very serious about her religion and wouldn’t in the slightest possibility ever imagine wanting to sneak a pee-pee on to Jesus.” You can draw your own conclusions here...thankfully this is not something we would ever have to deal with in our meeting houses!

More "Christian" work

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806227.htm?section=world

Their "Saviour" is no doubt, as they say, "spinning in his grave" or just angry up there sitting on the right hand of his Father

How violence begets violence

I have just read a disturbing article in this Sunday NY Times magazin The Jihadist Next Door, about the son of a Syrian immigrant, Omar Hammami, who went from normal American life (such as it is, he was raised as a Southern Baptist and Muslim at the same time!) in Alabama, to being a violent jihadist in Somali.

As a young idealist high school and college student he began a process of finding his spiritual niche, at first somewhat of a militant some time after 9/11 when he is quoted as saying:

Soon after, the hijackers struck on 9/11, and local reporters began calling Hammami for comment. Publicly, he struck a measured tone, telling the school paper, “It’s difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this.”But he was caught off guard by the attacks and felt insufficiently knowledgeable about Islam, friends recalled.

but then he got involved with the American Salafi movement and became more involved with Islam meeting a convert named Sylvester. This branch of the Salafi were not violent:

Several of Sylvester’s students said in interviews that he subscribed to a nonviolent school, one that represented the majority of American Salafis. They tend to believe that Muslims should remain politically disengaged and take up arms only when called to duty in a Muslim-governed country; anything else represents rebellion against the government, which violates Islamic law.

But he struggled with finding his identity and at one time embraced some militant thinking, and then with further study of Islam,

Hammami soon began denouncing the militant Islamists he once defended. He came to believe that Muslims were suffering because they had lost their religion, Culveyhouse and Stewart recall. The solution, Hammami now argued, was not to take up arms but to engage in a spiritual jihad, practicing the faith with greater devotion.

He ended up leaving home and moving to Toronto and marrying a Somali immigrant. It was in the Muslim community in Canada that his radicalization began:

Over the next few months, Hammami became consumed with events in Iraq and Afghanistan. He began subscribing to conspiracy theories about 9/11, Dena and Culveyhouse recall. He soon found himself rethinking his nonmilitant Salafi stance.

“I was finding it difficult to reconcile between having Americans attacking my brothers, at home and abroad, while I was supposed to remain completely neutral, without getting involved,” he wrote in the December e-mail message responding to questions posed to him through an intermediary.

There is the crux of my post: think of how these young men all over the world including those raised in our own country would not have embraced the violent Jihad if we had not attacked Iraq or Afghanistan. This fellow, the doctor at Fort Hood, the underwear bomber, and many many more men, may have found the peaceful path of Islam and stayed there were it not for our "Christian" just wars.....