Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 09:21:35 -0700 From: spooner@doitnow.com (Rick Tompkins/Kathy Harrer) Subject: [lpaz-repost] RE: ! Boundary Violations. To: lpaz-repost@yahoogroups.com
>From: libertymls@yahoo.com
>Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 10:18:47 -0500
>Reply-To: libertyactivists2-owner@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [libertyactivists2] (Fwd) RE: ! Boundary Violations.
>
>
> ------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
>
> http://reason.com/sullum/032701.html
>
> March 27, 2001
>
> Disarming Questions
>
> By Jacob Sullum
>
> Physicians like to think they operate outside the
> grubby commercial world where the customer is
> always right. That is why a medical examination,
> ostensibly a service that you purchase from a
> doctor, is actually a ceremony designed to put you
> in your place.
>
> Although you arrive for your appointment on time,
> you have to sit in the waiting room for at least half
> an hour, which impresses upon you the important
> point that your time is much less valuable than the
> doctors. Then you are brought to an examination
> room, where you are instructed to remove your
> clothing and put on a skimpy apron humorously
>""
>
> You wait in the chilly room another half-hour until
> the (fully dressed) doctor deigns to visit you. He
> probes your private parts, asks you personal
> questions, comments on your weight, stares at your
> blemishes, and chides you for your unhealthy
> habits.
>
> Jeremiah Barondess, president of the New York
> Academy of Medicine, apparently thinks this
> experience is not invasive and humiliating enough.
> He has come up with a way to make patients even
> more uncomfortable: ask them about their guns.
>
> According to a recent story in The New York
> Observer, Barondess is the main instigator of a
> 13-group coalition called Doctors Against Handgun
>"" says the
>"health professionals and health systems
> should ask about firearm ownership when taking a
> medical history or engaging in preventive
> counseling....Patients should be provided with
> information about the risks of having a firearm in
> the home, as well as methods to reduce the risk,
>"
>
> The expectation that patients will think twice about
>""
> doctors are likely to provide. It will consist mainly
> of factoids that exaggerate the risks and discount the
> benefits of gun ownership.
>
> Patients will be told, for example, that guns are used
> to murder people far more often than they are used
> to kill assailants; they wont be told that people who
> use guns in self-defense almost never need to fire
> them, let alone wound or kill the attacker. If
> patients actually have a question about reducing
> gun-related risks--such as how to store a weapon so
> it is accessible to the owner in an emergency but not
> to curious children--they will be much better off
> consulting a gun dealer.
>
> Barondess insists he is not pushing a political
>"We are
> neutral politically, academically, and
>""Without
> politicizing this, it is possible for medical
> professionals to proselytize for this and point out the
>"
>
> Yeah, and the doctor will be with you shortly. Lets
> put aside the fact that Barondesss coalition
> advocates stricter gun control laws along with
> nosier medical exams. The question is, given the
> multitude of ways in which people can be injured or
> killed, why focus on guns?
>
>""
>"Part of this mayhem is
> preventable, and doctors are in the
>"
>
> But since almost everything we do carries some
> level of risk, this reasoning would make just about
> any detail of our lives an appropriate topic for
> medical probing. Do you have a swimming pool?
> Do you ski? Do you cook with gas? Do you have
> scissors? Do you run with them?
>
> If doctors decide whether to ask about a particular
> device or activity based on the number of deaths
> associated with it, surely automobiles are as worthy
> a topic as guns. Do you own a car? Do you wear a
> seat belt? Do you speed? How much braking
> distance do you allow for in the rain?
>
> Patients probably would object to such questions,
> since doctors have no special expertise in this area.
> But the same is true about guns--even more so,
> since physicians are more likely to have personal
> experience with cars.
>
> The absurd idea that physicians are authorities on
> anything that can cause death or injury reflects the
> arrogance of a cartelized profession whose members
> flaunt their power as official gatekeepers, restrict
> competition with the governments help, and
> routinely substitute their judgment for that of their
> customers. Given the seething resentment created by
> medical high-handedness, doctors would be
> well-advised to avoid broaching the subject of gun
> violence with their patients.
>
> Copyright 2001 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
> ___________________________________________________________
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