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Medicine: Playing God

Where Are the Intellectually Curious Doctors?

By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.
American Thinker

January 9, 2023

Medicine, like most sciences, entails thinking and hypothesis creation to explain the myriad complexities of the healthy and diseased human body.

Hypotheses are tested and refined, with new information or insights nudging or abruptly shifting current knowledge in a new direction.

For examples, bloodletting with leeches is no longer standard medical practice for most ailments as it was up until the late 19th century. More recently, Vioxx was considered a safer painkiller, until it was found to cause heart attacks and strokes, similar to another “safe and effective” product introduced about two years ago. Oxycontin was marketed as a nonaddictive pain killer until it devasted hundreds of thousands of lives and families and was shown to be otherwise.

Physicians, upon medical school graduation, recite the Hippocratic Oath. Quoting from the revised version (simply because the language is easier to understand), physicians swear, “I will not be ashamed to say, ‘I know not’” and “Above all, I must not play at God.”

Saying “I don’t know” is what drives the pursuit of new or alternate hypotheses. Physicians of a few hundred years ago saw their bloodletting patients die and didn’t know why, so they devised better treatments by asking questions and not playing God.

Some modern physicians play God by declaring, “I am the science,” as if they are the final arbiter in all of medicine. I assume Dr. Anthony Fauci recited the Hippocratic Oath when he graduated medical school.

What questions should physicians have been asking over the past two years? Are they staying mum because they believe the science is settled and challenges to the status quo are heresy? Or are they cowed into silence over fear over losing their ability to practice the profession which they spent a decade learning and from which they earn their living?

Start with the highly touted COVID-19 vaccines.

In the United States, 80% of the population have received one dose and 68% two doses. Yet almost three years into the pandemic, this recent headline from ABC News suggests that there is no end in sight, “WHO sounds the alarm: New COVID variant is most transmissible yet.” And the Washington Post cautions “COVID hospitalizations rising post-Thanksgiving.”

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From American Thinker, here.

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ukraine… Seeing a Pattern Yet?

The Evil Strategy of “Degrading” Russia

By 

The Future of Freedom Foundation

January 7, 2023

 

One of the fascinating aspects of the war in Ukraine has been the extreme reluctance of the mainstream press and Pentagon-CIA supporters to acknowledge, much less condemn, the Pentagon for its role in bringing about this war. After all, the two concepts — the Pentagon’s bringing about the crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — are not mutually exclusive. You can have both things happening — the Pentagon gins up the crisis with the aim of “degrading” Russia and then Russia falls into the trap by getting mired down in a deadly and destructive war against Ukraine.

But when one raises the first part of this equation — that is, the Pentagon’s role in ginning up the crisis — the mainstream press and Pentagon-CIA supporters go ballistic. For them, it’s heresy to point out what the Pentagon did to gin up the crisis. For them, the Pentagon and the CIA are innocent, virtuous babes in the woods that would never do such a thing. For them, the Pentagon and the CIA are nothing but a “force for good” in the world. 

But we know that the Pentagon and the CIA do engage in these types of evil machinations. In fact, they did the same thing to Russia in 1979. They lured the Russians into invading Afghanistan, with the same goal they had with their Ukraine machinations — to give the Russians their own “Vietnam,” which meant “degrading” Russia through the killing of massive numbers of Russian soldiers. 

“Conspiracy theory”? Well, not exactly. That’s because National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, in a remarkable degree of candor, admitted that they had knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally done it. He was proud of it. He was bragging about how they had gotten the Russians to fall into their trap. The entire national-security establishment loved the fact that tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were being killed in the process. The more soldiers being killed, the more Russia was being “degraded.”

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From LRC, here.

SHORT AND SWEET: Walter Block Illuminates So-Called ‘Pay Gap’

Can Wage Transparency Fix the Pay Gap?

By Walter E. Block

The Libertarian Institute

January 6, 2023

 

Will wage transparency reduce or eliminate the pay gap between men and women?

Yes and no.

Let’s take the no side first. Wage transparency will not reduce or eliminate this pay gap because it emanates from real differences in productivity (actually discounted marginal revenue productivity, but we’re going to keep it simple, here). That is to say, there is an economic law that maintains that wages tend to reflect productivity. What is productivity? That is the amount by which you increase your employer’s bottom line for every hour you are on the assembly line, or shop floor, or driving a truck or pecking away at a computer at your desk.

Suppose that your productivity is $20 per hour. Any other wage apart from that is unsustainable, at least in the long run. If you are being paid $30 hourly, your employer is losing $10 per hour by hiring you. If this practice of his is widespread, he will tend to go bankrupt. If your pay is $15, he is profiting from your labor to the tune of $5 per hour. This, too, will not and cannot last. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the economy abjures a profit: some other employer will offer you $16, since he can then earn a $4 profit from your work, another will up this to $17, with the intention of “exploiting” you at the rate of $3 per hour. Where will this process end? It can only culminate at equilibrium, assuming nothing else changes, at $20 per hour.

Why do women earn less than men? It is simple: they bring lower productivity levels to the market than men, on average. A century or two ago this was easy to see. Most jobs required upper body strength, and males, on average, are stronger than females. This of course applies to a far less degree in the modern era. How, then, to explain the gap that remains even to this day? The best theory out there is the marital asymmetry hypothesis: married women do the lion’s share of housework, child care, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. Whenever you do anything, you do it at the cost of doing something else less well. Their focus is more on the home, not the business world. Hence, lower productivity in the latter realm.

There are two bits of evidence that support this contention. One, there is a wage gap between all men and all women, but when broken down by marriage status, this divergence between never married males and females virtually disappears into thin air. Two, if women of equal productivity were really paid less than men, greater profits could be earned in industries that hire more females, and this is just plain silly: profits tend to equalize, given risk, in all areas of the economy. Any divergences are met with investment reallocations, toward high profit areas, reducing profits, and away from low profit industries, raising them there.

Here is the yes side. Greater wage transparency will make it unavoidably clear that there are indeed sexual wage gaps. Given the economic illiteracy of not only the general public but also on the part of most of the political leadership of this country, stringent laws will be enacted requiring equal pay. They will not mandate that male wages be reduced; rather that female compensation be raised. This will increase unemployment for the latter group. Returning to one of our earlier examples, if employers are compelled to pay $30 per hour to females with a productivity level of $20 per hour, they just will not be hired at all in the first place, and, if already on the job, will be fired.

A similar occurrence takes place at present with the minimum wage law. If it is set at $7 per hour, then all those with productivities less than that amount are unemployable. If it is set at $10 per hour, then all those with productivities less than that amount are unemployable. If it is set at $15 per hour, then all those with productivities less than that amount are unemployable.

I have no problem with employers and employees sharing information about salaries. It is a free country. But it is not a free country when the government compels either to do so. Will this narrow the pay gap? Of course not. Wages are dependent upon productivity. Women earn less than males because their productivity, on average, is lower. Publicizing statistics about wages will not change productivity by one iota. Therefore, it will not alter wages. Ergo, this pay gap will remain.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

From LRC, here.

Rabbi Hershel Shachter on Modern Halachic Attitudes Toward Women

1/7/23 – Shiur 402 – Women’s role in society – Has our Halachic attitude towards women shifted over the years?

4 days ago

Making a Bas Mitzvah
Women giving Shiurim and writing articles in Halacha and Hashkafa
Women giving Hadracha and Paskening Shailos – Yoetzet Halacha
Women going to college and joining the workforce
Women’s Hatzalah

with Rabbi Hershel Schachter – Rosh Yeshiva of YU, Poseik of the OU – 24:51
with Rebbetzin Chana Henkin – Dean of Nishmat – 50:25

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From Headlines in Halacha, here.

Understand the Moral Hazard of Psychological Disability Welfare

How To Retire At Age 27

A doctor’s primary responsibility is to heal, and all of our efforts and resources should be devoted to that goal.  At times, it is impossible to restore a patient to perfect health and he or she must unfortunately deal with some degree of chronic disability.  Still other times, though, the line between “perfect health” and “disability” is blurred, and nowhere (in my opinion) is this more problematic than in psychiatry.

To illustrate, consider the following example from my practice:

Keisha (not her real name), a 27 year-old resident of a particularly impoverished and crime-ridden section of a large city, came to my office for a psychiatric intake appointment.  I reviewed her intake questionnaire; under the question “Why are you seeking help at this time?” she wrote: “bipolar schizophrenia depression mood swings bad anxiety ADHD panic attacks.”  Under “past medications,” she listed six different psychiatric drugs (from several different categories).  She had never been hospitalized.

When I first saw her, she appeared overweight but otherwise in no distress.  An interview revealed no obvious thought disorder, no evidence of hallucinations or delusions, nor did she complain of significant mood symptoms.  During the interview, she told me, “I just got my SSDI so I’m retired now.”  I asked her to elaborate.  “I’m retired now,” she said.  “I get my check every month, I just have to keep seeing a doctor.”  When I asked why she’s on disability, she replied, “I don’t know, whatever they wrote, bipolar, mood swings, panic attacks, stuff like that.”  She had been off medications for over two months (with no apparent symptoms); she said she really “didn’t notice” any effect of the drugs, except the Valium 20 mg per day, which “helped me settle down and relax.”

Keisha is a generally healthy 27 year-old.  She graduated high school (something rare in this community, actually) and took some nursing-assistant classes at a local vocational school.  She dropped out, however, because “I got stressed out.”  She tried looking for other work but then found out from a family member that she could “apply for disability.”  She applied and was denied, but then called a lawyer who specialized in disability appeals and, after about a year of resubmissions, received the good news that she can get Social Security Disability, ensuring a monthly check.

How is Keisha “disabled”?  She’s disabled because she went to see a doctor and, presumably, told that doctor that she can’t work because of “stress.”  That doctor probably asked her a series of questions like “are you unable to work because of your depressed mood?”, “Do you find it hard to deal in social situations because of your mood swings?” etc., and she answered them in the affirmative.  I’ve seen dozens—if not hundreds—of disability questionnaires, which ask the same questions.

I have no doubt that Keisha lives a stressful life.  I’ve driven through her part of town.  I’ve read about the turf wars being waged by the gangs there.  I know that her city has one of the highest murder rates in America, unemployment is high, schools are bad, and drug abuse and criminal activity are widespread.  I would be surprised if anyone from her neighborhood was not anxious, depressed, moody, irritable, or paranoid.

But I am not convinced that Keisha has a mental illness.

Lest you think that I don’t care about Keisha’s plight, I do.  Keisha may very well be struggling, but whether this is “major depression,” a true “anxiety disorder,” or simply a reaction to her stressful situation is unclear.  Unfortunately, psychiatry uses simple questions to arrive at a diagnosis—and there are no objective tests for mental illness—so a careless (or unscrupulous) provider can easily apply a label, designating Keisha’s situation as a legitimate medical problem.  When combined with the law firms eager to help people get “the government money they deserve,” and the very real fact that money and housing actually do help people like Keisha, we’ve created the illusion that mental illness is a direct consequence of poverty, and the way to treat it is to give out monthly checks.

As a physician, I see this as counter-therapeutic for a number of reasons.  With patients like Keisha, I often wonder, what exactly am I “treating”?  What constitutes success?  An improvement in symptoms?  (What symptoms?)  Or successfully getting her on the government dole?  And when a patient comes to me, already on disability after receiving a diagnosis of MDD (296.34) or panic disorder (300.21) from some other doctor or clinic, I can’t just say, “I’m sorry about your situation, but let’s see what we can do to overcome it together,” because there’s no incentive to overcome it.  (This is from someone who dealt with severe 307.51 for sixteen years, but who also had the promise of a bright future to help overcome it.)

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From Thought Broadcast, here.