NOTE TO READERS: This post, which is below the fold, is intended for older men, men around my age, as we face one of the scourges of our time, the threat of prostate cancer. If you are younger, you’re invincible, and will not benefit from reading this.
Category: Medical malpractice
Puerperal fever
I am going to quote from brief passages from the book Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History, by Suzanne Humphries, MD and Roman Bystrianyk, written in 2013 and updated in 2015. I would file the chapter about puerperal fever (pyoo͞-ûr′pər-əl) under the heading “Doctors think they are gods”. The condition came about as doctors and hospitals began to crowd out midwives, who apparently knew something about cleanliness that doctors did not. And of course all doctors were male at that time, so there was no sense even trying womansplaining. They weren’t listening.
There is no particular bacteria associated with puerperal fever, and of course (in my view) no virus. It came about because of filth. Doctors refused to wash their hands and instruments between births, and often inserted them into the post-partum vaginal canal. The result, often enough, was severe pain, pelvic abscesses, sepsis, high fever and an agonizing death.
Epoch Times is a mixed bag
I posted the following comment below this article, Highest ever childhood vaccine exemption rate in history, doctors explain. Although buried halfway down in 373 comments, it has received 10 “likes” and no thumbs down. Most of the comments are ragged attack on the vaccine regime. The article itself complains that the vaccine rate in this country has fallen from 95 to 93 percent. I too find that distressing, but for different reasons.
Psychiatry: a useless profession
I do not have a lot of faith in the profession of psychiatry. I am familiar with the work of Jung, and only somewhat with Freud, and I regard them both as brilliant men and trailblazers. Freud came to the conclusion that children abused before the age of five would not remember that abuse even as it affected them for life. I think that is a brilliant insight.
Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, is taken from the DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. I am somewhat confident that it is a real thing, and in fact have a been exposed to it both at work and in my personal life. However, psychiatrists are pill dispensers first, diagnosticians second, and the DSM contains hundreds of disorders that have been voted on by members of the profession. I don’t buy that, don’t buy any of it, don’t imagine that there is ADD or defiant personality disorder or anything else. There are just people in pain.
Expert texpert
Two years ago in March I was on a bird walk with a group of people, and was just coming to grasp the intensity of the propaganda storm that was coming our way. I still believed in “viruses” per se, but not in Sars-Cov-2 and said as much as I walked along with the group leader.
He said “Are you a scientist then?” He was implying that mere mortals were not qualified to express any doubt about “scientists.” I was not prepared for that question, and my “No” response cost me the argument. I was flummoxed.
I haven’t watched news for decades, but I do know that news readers emphasize that certain people they interview are “experts.” What does the word even mean?
One with the special skill or knowledge representing mastery of a particular subject.
That’s the official definition. But I don ‘t think that is how the word is used in practice. In real life, I think the definition of “expert” is as follows:
A person whose opinion relieves all others of the need to think.
That is how experts are used in the news media. They don’t bring in experts to clarify, as in any matter of complexity, there are going to be differing views. Then, as with Dilbert above, it is up to us to decide which expert to trust.
Piece of Mindful 