Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 1824
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I "kind of" agree with you, Glenn....
[Read the article: What is the rationale behind the prescription drug laws?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that patients should have autonomy on their medical decisions (and perhaps there ought to be an ethical/RPC rule to that effect for physicians, which supplants or trumps the "first, do no harm" rule).
OTOH, I am sympathetic to the the need for good advice (which should be heeded) in medicine, and recognize the existence of scams and quacks, something that because of the nature of medical problems, becomes more acute (because the prognoses are sometimes extremely dire and the solutions in some cases simply impossible), and also because in the legal world, the lawyer-client decision is often not the last word, and the outcome reviewed by others and sometimes remediable).
I support the Pure Food and Drug Act and the FDA, and I think there is a role for regulation in the medical world, to prevent quackery and predatory behaviour (but here, there is in the legal world as well). Clearly unsafe drugs ought to be taken off the market, and the safety and efficacy should be examined by a neutral party.
Information on drugs and procedures should be published as best possible, so people can make a knowledgeable choice. But, after informed consent or decisionmaking, the patient ought to be king.
Of course, there will be fights about what is the proper "information", and there is disagreement inthe medical world. The solution is more information, in my mind, and time will remedy any rough edges.
Outright fraud should be illegal and severely punished. Business/financial interests need to be disclosed and made public.
What is the difference between the attorney-client and doctor-patient relationship, where the former is purely advisory but the latter becomes parental?
I think part of it stems from the abstruse and sometimes arcane nature of medical knowledge. We expect laypeople to have a good understanding of the law (after all, they have to abide by it in their general affairs), or at least of the general layout. But knowledge of medicine is, to some extent, much more specialised and detailed (disclosure: I have training in both areas, this is my observation).
It used to be that doctors were fairly poorly trained (and there wasn't much to train on, either), and they were permitted great freedom (they could devise their own "medicines", etc.). Medicines were largely available over-the-counter too. This turned with the proliferation of quacks and "patent" medicines, and the realisation that some more regulation was necessary on who could make competent medical decisions. When such devolved on the licensed and certified doctors and the gummint, not only were "quacks" cut out but also the patients.
We don't need to go back to that state; in today's society, the proliferation of information -- and the knowledge of those that are sufficiently invested as to go do some digging -- is much greater.
Maybe it is time to turn the decision-making back to the people, and just make sure they have the tools to make good decisions.
Cheers,
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Fan clubs of one...
[Read the article: Gonzales' Fan Club of One]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gonzales has Bush
Bush has Barney
Cheney has ....
Ok, one fan club of 0.
Time for Mary Rosh to make an appearance. ;-)
Cheers,
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@ shooter242
[Read the article: Gonzales' Fan Club of One]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lord. Perhaps you folks should consider that trying to skewer Gonzales over something that ISN'T illegal is self-defeating. But that's OK by me, I sense the shark jump is in mid flight.
Consensual blowjobs are not illegal. Demanding such of an underling is (but that's not what Clinton did).
Firing a USA is not illegal. Firing USAs for the purpose of impeding criminal investigations of Republicans or to punish those that refuse to mount unjustified partisan investigations of Democrats before an election is illegal.
As the hearings and documentary evidence have shown, there's no rational (and legal) reason for these particular USAs to have gotten the axe. Insufficient "loyal[ty to] Bush[ie]" is problematic; that they met with "political" disfavor begs the question of why they were on the outs. Failure to politicise the USA's offices for partisan purposes is hardly just "political disagreement"; it goes to legal ethics and corruption of our legal system. The maladministration will maintain that the "best" answer to why they were let go is that they were not sufficiently loyal (or the more wishy-washy yet "personality conflicts"). The question that must be answered is what specifically made them "disloyal".
When we have abundant evidence of the 'politicization of the gummint, with the executive being turned into a wholly owned subsidiary of the RNC (complete with using the parent company's e-mail servers), and the GSA being used for partisan efforts in violation of the Hatch Act, the picture of why there were these "personality conflicts" becomes clearer.
Cheers,
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Respect
[Read the article: Charles Krauthammer takes rank hypocrisy to new lows]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][Glenn, from the post]: Among our media stars, few pundits command as much respect and admiration as Charles Krauthammer does.
We're all allowed (for the time being) our own mind, judgement, and opinions ... although such may not be conducive to keeping a job as a US attorney.
As for me, I wouldn't pi$$ on the guy if he was on fire.
I think that you mean "respect and admiration from the cocktail-weenie crew". I'll wager a bet that Jon Stewart beats Krauthammer in a landslide if you ask the general population.
Cheers,
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shooter242 misses the target by a mile
[Read the article: Charles Krauthammer takes rank hypocrisy to new lows]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How long did it take for the gun control folks to weigh in? Minutes?
Did they say out of the other side of their mouths: "Hey, you guys, this is tragic, don't politicise this?"
And, as is blindingly obvious to all but the brain-dead, at least -- as Glenn pointed out -- such discussion actually related to the topic at hand.
Cheers,
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@ ironclad
[Read the article: Charles Krauthammer takes rank hypocrisy to new lows]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I call BS on this column. You may disagree with Krauthammer on his column, but in no way do I find "hypocrisy" in his points.
What? Are you hard of reading? Glenn made very clear what the hypocrisy was, and nothing you pointed out in your reply addressed that.
Cheers,