Practicing medicine without a license
As we try to find words for exactly how we should object to medical tyranny, I would like to suggest one complaint that captures a growing aspect of the problem: elected officials, HR departments, and university administrators are practicing medicine without a license.
Take the vaccine mandates being imposed by school boards and university presidents, now morphing even less justifiably into booster mandates at some universities. It remains a marvel to me still that individuals with no competence in medicine whatsoever, watching over students who cannot be known by them except in a general statistical way, are ordering medical treatments for them. Doctors go to school for many years to gain permission to prescribe medications; silly them, they could have just run for a low-level political office, it would have been much less work. A suggestion: if you wouldn’t hire your university president to be your personal physician, then he shouldn’t be ordering medical treatments for you. If you wouldn’t hire your local mayor to be your personal physician, then he shouldn’t be ordering medications for you. It is madness that they should have such power. (It is also quite arrogant on their part to even believe it is within their competence to issue such demands, but such positions do not select for humility.)
We are happy SCOTUS re-injuncted the OSHA mandate today, but per the healthcare workers mandate that was upheld:
And let us not miss the fact that, in many of these instances, the political orders are not only aside from, but even contrary to expert advice. One pattern we’ve seen play out now is where an expert panel, for example, recommends permitting children to receive vaccination, in particular because they are worried about certain high-risk children who would benefit, with members of the panel at the same time making it clear that they do not want their approval of making vaccination available to be treated as an invitation to mandate them. The CDC, showing itself to be a political agency that also does some science, then grabs the panel comments and recommends all children be vaccinated. Certain officials then grab the CDC recommendation and require all children to be vaccinated, claiming they are following the science while in fact acting contrary to the expert panel. And, what may even be worse in my mind, while you might be able to grab a religious exemption for your child, “but that isn’t even what the experts said!” is apparently not a valid excuse, the elected officials overrule the doctors when it comes to medicine now. It’s quite possible you do understand the science better than the people issuing the orders, but no opt-out permission comes from just having superior understanding.
Another rule we created to protect people that is permitted to be ignored when it comes to COVID-19 vaccination is the requirement that side effects be explained when a medication is advertised. No other drug, I trust, could you advertise on television as “safe and effective” with no further elaboration. No, we all know that, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness, drug commercials are filled up with lists of possible side effects. And we know the COVID-19 vaccines sometimes have side effects – sometimes serious ones (e.g. blood clotting, or myocarditis), sometimes apparently less serious ones (?) like effects on menstruation, effects which should still certainly be explained to people ahead of time so they at least know what to expect. And we know that these “safe and effective” vaccines are, at least some of the time, not safe (see the new advice that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine be avoided if possible). Again it is remarkable to me that people can be encouraged to take a drug and not have it explained to them what all the effects upon their body are likely to be. That’s not the way medicine is supposed to operate.
The answer, and a change that would restore some trust, is to return to treating medicine as medicine, to let the standard operating procedures that apply to every other medication apply to the COVID-19 vaccines as well. In mass communications, risks and benefits should both be clearly explained. And most importantly, people who are not-doctors, who don’t really know the people they are addressing, should not be ordering medical treatments for others. The incentives and pressures that motivate the behavior of a political official are quite different from the incentives and pressures that motivate a doctor in the personal doctor/patient relationship. The incentives and pressures that motivate the behavior of a university president are quite different from the incentives and pressures that motivate a doctor in the doctor/patient relationship. This is why medical decisions should be made by doctors and patients. “But I don’t think that is appropriate for me or my child” should be a decision anyone can make and not something you have to somehow wedge into a religious or medical exemption to make it valid. Medicine should be treated as medicine again.
It is clear that health policy regarding covid is imposed by a central authority to the extent that in many cases even basic treatment is no longer possible by the physician. Sicking at home is the message. A small minority of physicians simply could not let this happen to high-risk patients and took matters into their own hands. The one-size-fits-all approach is downright criminal. Vaccination is the only remedy and the only message. Everything else doesn't exist if it isn't first approved by the bureaucrats. There comes a point when you don't even try to understand anymore, because the rationale in the discourse is simply lacking.
Fortunately, there are still physicians who make an attempt at common sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ik6cxFBbBw
When you recommend a patient and doctor make a decision, I assume you are thinking of a individual discussion.
This cultural and political battle already has oppositional premises baked in. The covidians and leftists take a collectivist perspective when addressing any problem in the news, so your recommendation is indecent and mockable to them regardless of content.
Therefore, in their minds, if they do want consensus with you, they would likely say, "I agree David, which is why I support my school system superintendent imposing a mask, distancing, testing, and generally hysterical program, because, as he says, he is following Dr. Linda Vail, Ingham County, and Dr. Walensky. He is turning off his mind, and acting like a robot, because he knows he is not a doctor."
Likewise, I am pretty sure most pastors are doing the same. Wet the finger, put in the air to measure emotional winds, and make (%<& up.