Cancer Treatment: China Mulls Looser Experimental Therapy Rules(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Cancer Treatment: China Mulls Looser Experimental Therapy Rules
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-12-10/cancer-treatment-china-mulls-looser-experimental-therapy-rules
43 comments
The problem is that people frame this issue as might help or might not help.
The real issue is it might help, it might not help, it might hurt you in various unknown and interesting ways.
Nobody wants to be responsible for that 3rd option.
The real issue is it might help, it might not help, it might hurt you in various unknown and interesting ways.
Nobody wants to be responsible for that 3rd option.
indeed, spending lots of money on ineffective treatments is a serious risk.
perhaps a good model would be to pay only if the treatment actually works.
this could easily be applied to any kind of treatment that promises an improvement, including chinese medicine. with proper enforcement, snake oil would soon disappear from the market, and any experimental treatment could continue, even if it gets more expensive because the successes have to cover the costs of the failures. but i expect that someone who survives thanks to that treatment will gladly pay.
perhaps a good model would be to pay only if the treatment actually works.
this could easily be applied to any kind of treatment that promises an improvement, including chinese medicine. with proper enforcement, snake oil would soon disappear from the market, and any experimental treatment could continue, even if it gets more expensive because the successes have to cover the costs of the failures. but i expect that someone who survives thanks to that treatment will gladly pay.
[flagged]
Please don't cross into personal attacks and name-calling on HN. I'm sure you can make your substantive points about treatment quality without stooping to that, even though the issue can touch some strong feelings.
Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and not posting in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something quite different than that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and not posting in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something quite different than that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I’m sorry, it’s hard to remain polite when posters talk of playing with others’ lives like they’re the latest Apple geegaw.
Especially nerds, who—let’s admit it—are amongst the world’s worst at owning their own screwups. Honestly, if some fiery language is the worst those muppets have to deal with, they don’t know how lucky they are.
Modern medicine and pseudo-medicine already carry long trails of corpses behind them, but at least real medicine has learned by its mistakes and made self-corrections.
What it doesn’t need is a bunch holy-rolling technocrats piling up corpses in front of them as well, just because they think they’re too clever and special to respect those hard-won rules that were earned in blood.
You want to improve it, you do by building on top of those shoulders, not by throwing caution and lives to hell.
..
Here’s that FDA link that I forgot to include in my previous post.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/expanded...
And here’s some reminders y’all aren’t special, are as gullible and fallible as the rest of us, and the harms you can easily unleash extend way beyond yourselves:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/bucking-fda-peter-th...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/tuskege...
https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/la...
The Science Based Medicine site I linked elsewhere has lots more.
Especially nerds, who—let’s admit it—are amongst the world’s worst at owning their own screwups. Honestly, if some fiery language is the worst those muppets have to deal with, they don’t know how lucky they are.
Modern medicine and pseudo-medicine already carry long trails of corpses behind them, but at least real medicine has learned by its mistakes and made self-corrections.
What it doesn’t need is a bunch holy-rolling technocrats piling up corpses in front of them as well, just because they think they’re too clever and special to respect those hard-won rules that were earned in blood.
You want to improve it, you do by building on top of those shoulders, not by throwing caution and lives to hell.
..
Here’s that FDA link that I forgot to include in my previous post.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/expanded...
And here’s some reminders y’all aren’t special, are as gullible and fallible as the rest of us, and the harms you can easily unleash extend way beyond yourselves:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/bucking-fda-peter-th...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/tuskege...
https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/la...
The Science Based Medicine site I linked elsewhere has lots more.
Yes, it's hard to remain polite, and you need to do it if you want to keep posting here. The site guidelines should make that clear when you review them.
It's a bit like the trolley problem. Allowing someone medicine that might kill them feels like pushing someone onto the tracks but not allowing it feels like inaction even if in the course of events someone will die.
Also, the agency that is supposed to prevent medicine from killing people understandably gets blamed if medicine kills people. But they aren't doctors so it isn't them that gets blamed if lack of medicine kills someone.
Also, the agency that is supposed to prevent medicine from killing people understandably gets blamed if medicine kills people. But they aren't doctors so it isn't them that gets blamed if lack of medicine kills someone.
> It's a bit like the trolley problem. Allowing someone medicine that might kill them feels like pushing someone onto the tracks
Huh? Surely allowing someone to take medicine that might kill them feels like letting someone jump onto the tracks. The analogue of pushing someone onto the tracks would be forcing them to take the medicine.
Huh? Surely allowing someone to take medicine that might kill them feels like letting someone jump onto the tracks. The analogue of pushing someone onto the tracks would be forcing them to take the medicine.
That's how I would think of it but if you work in a department under a legal framework where drugs are illegal by default and you have to do certain paperwork to make them legal it will tend to feel very different.
I'm a strong advocate for improving access to experimental cancer therapies, particularly because a drug I got access to pre-approval may have saved my life. Cancer patients should have easier access to novel therapies, and novel therapies should be easier to bring to market. There's a tradeoff between ensuring patient safety on one hand and giving patients access the treatments on the other, and I don't think we're at the right point on that spectrum.
On the other hand, I don't particularly trust China to land at my preferred point on that spectrum given a penchant for questionable medical ethics. Ultimately, though, US patients may benefit from Chinese aggressiveness.
On the other hand, I don't particularly trust China to land at my preferred point on that spectrum given a penchant for questionable medical ethics. Ultimately, though, US patients may benefit from Chinese aggressiveness.
hamhand(1)
What could go wrong.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/scientific-fraud-in-china/
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/scientific-fraud-in-china/
While you have a valid point, and one can point at the Human Right violations in Tibet, the Ugyhur camps, and Hong Kong to point and why this is all an incredibly horrid idea. I do think that China being the trailblazer in Biotech will and continue to happen, the 'Crispr babies' is an example of what should of happened in the Public domain, and now it will likely be kept indefinitely in the realms of academia and other government funded labs, we need this advancement in the Human Gene editing, Mars colonization is the most glaring one, but instead it seems that the cost of that is your career as seen with He Jiankui.
He opened pandora's box, their is no going back, and for some of us in the Biohacker community we see this open, 'looser' experimentation as progress from the corrupt Western model; most of whom were actually commending Dr. Jiankui for his efforts in private, and then condemning him in public when they realized that their funding would be cut if he took his side.
As a biologist and a (former?) member of the scientific community, I see the potential for good outweighing the bad here, if only we set some Humane controls in place: as in the subject(s) must be willing and consenting and doing so of their own volition.
If this doesn't make any person in the Health Sciences have a grin ear to ear they need to reconsider why they even bother doing it at all:
> After spending three weeks in the hospital in May — during which white blood cells were removed from his body, genetically engineered, and then infused back in — an analysis of Zhang’s bone marrow in June showed his body was clear of cancer.
I can't wait to see this documentary, and not just because it has our Biohacker all-stars in it, but what it can do if we collectively embrace this as a reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyv3Ibxw-a0
He opened pandora's box, their is no going back, and for some of us in the Biohacker community we see this open, 'looser' experimentation as progress from the corrupt Western model; most of whom were actually commending Dr. Jiankui for his efforts in private, and then condemning him in public when they realized that their funding would be cut if he took his side.
As a biologist and a (former?) member of the scientific community, I see the potential for good outweighing the bad here, if only we set some Humane controls in place: as in the subject(s) must be willing and consenting and doing so of their own volition.
If this doesn't make any person in the Health Sciences have a grin ear to ear they need to reconsider why they even bother doing it at all:
> After spending three weeks in the hospital in May — during which white blood cells were removed from his body, genetically engineered, and then infused back in — an analysis of Zhang’s bone marrow in June showed his body was clear of cancer.
I can't wait to see this documentary, and not just because it has our Biohacker all-stars in it, but what it can do if we collectively embrace this as a reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyv3Ibxw-a0
> if only we set some Humane controls in place
Sorry but that's brutally naive, even ignoring we talk about China here. Usages will be for more efficient warfare, more obedient general populace, easier surveillance of the same, and of course enhancing super-rich beyond what it means to be a human being.
Some of the progress will eventually trickle down to common population, but I can see very easily how this could be a net (and huge one) loss for mankind as a whole.
Sorry but that's brutally naive, even ignoring we talk about China here. Usages will be for more efficient warfare, more obedient general populace, easier surveillance of the same, and of course enhancing super-rich beyond what it means to be a human being.
Some of the progress will eventually trickle down to common population, but I can see very easily how this could be a net (and huge one) loss for mankind as a whole.
> Sorry but that's brutally naive,
Hence why I mentioned and dropped the Biohacker motivation to all of this, which in case you are unaware one of has many goals: it's biggest aim(s) is making tech like gene-editing more accessible to the general public and open-sourcing as much of this as possible.
The article above is actually focused on 80s technology (CAR-T) to modify T-cells in case you didn't read it. This is all old-hat in the Medical field, the problem is that it was extremely cost prohibitive, the only real noteable advent here is that the Chinese cell therapy company just expedited the process and total turn around which subsequently dropped the cost.
Gene-editing is already taking place, in China and elsewhere: whether you like it or not, that much is clear.
Furthermore, Dr. Zayber, who is in Code of the Wild by the way, is an Ex-NASA researcher (who was studying a microbe to help terra-form Mars) got in trouble for doing just that with his ODIN project this year, they dropped the inquiry once they realized he wasn't violating any Law:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-15/biohacker...
It is because of people like him/us why its not 'naive' at all to make this tech mainstream, and force them to publish their work in peer reviewed journals so those of us who studied Biology can in turn re-create their work, in fact Josiah goes on to say how he can synthesize a now-inaccessible drug that was killed off in Phase 2 of clinical trials on just what was published as an example of why and how this will benefit us. It was deemed not Market viable, but the treatment is still effective.
I have no doubt that attempts will be made for this tech to be used for those purposes, assuming it hasn't already in clandestine operations; but guess what, the surveillance based social-media reward system many of you helped build and maintain is far more effective at creating subservience and quelling dissidence amongst the general population, how that has all unfolded makes the need to manufacture gene-edited serfs entirely moot.
The PRC/CCP weaponized that platform and created Sesame Credit, now you are making the equivalent argument that things like Myspace/FB/Twitter etc... should have never been explored because tyrants will do what they always do with any tech and you think that's a valid point?
You opine for Humanity as though that 'loss' hasn't already happened, I'd say this (and the potential Nueralink may have in the future) are the few attempts to re-gain something from that loss.
Big Pharma already created a tiered caste system in the US and elsewhere, this is at least one way to try and regain some agency in what has been a horrid one-sided onslaught.
Hence why I mentioned and dropped the Biohacker motivation to all of this, which in case you are unaware one of has many goals: it's biggest aim(s) is making tech like gene-editing more accessible to the general public and open-sourcing as much of this as possible.
The article above is actually focused on 80s technology (CAR-T) to modify T-cells in case you didn't read it. This is all old-hat in the Medical field, the problem is that it was extremely cost prohibitive, the only real noteable advent here is that the Chinese cell therapy company just expedited the process and total turn around which subsequently dropped the cost.
Gene-editing is already taking place, in China and elsewhere: whether you like it or not, that much is clear.
Furthermore, Dr. Zayber, who is in Code of the Wild by the way, is an Ex-NASA researcher (who was studying a microbe to help terra-form Mars) got in trouble for doing just that with his ODIN project this year, they dropped the inquiry once they realized he wasn't violating any Law:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-15/biohacker...
It is because of people like him/us why its not 'naive' at all to make this tech mainstream, and force them to publish their work in peer reviewed journals so those of us who studied Biology can in turn re-create their work, in fact Josiah goes on to say how he can synthesize a now-inaccessible drug that was killed off in Phase 2 of clinical trials on just what was published as an example of why and how this will benefit us. It was deemed not Market viable, but the treatment is still effective.
I have no doubt that attempts will be made for this tech to be used for those purposes, assuming it hasn't already in clandestine operations; but guess what, the surveillance based social-media reward system many of you helped build and maintain is far more effective at creating subservience and quelling dissidence amongst the general population, how that has all unfolded makes the need to manufacture gene-edited serfs entirely moot.
The PRC/CCP weaponized that platform and created Sesame Credit, now you are making the equivalent argument that things like Myspace/FB/Twitter etc... should have never been explored because tyrants will do what they always do with any tech and you think that's a valid point?
You opine for Humanity as though that 'loss' hasn't already happened, I'd say this (and the potential Nueralink may have in the future) are the few attempts to re-gain something from that loss.
Big Pharma already created a tiered caste system in the US and elsewhere, this is at least one way to try and regain some agency in what has been a horrid one-sided onslaught.
“Biohacker community”
Sorry, but you appear to have gotten Religion in your science.
Not that I give a crap as long as it’s only your funeral, but like all evangelicals you never can just stop there.
“corrupt Western model”
Paranoid and racist self-serving bollocks. There’s science and scientists, and then there’s fantasy-prone punks with delusions of grandeur. Try killing a patient, then get back to us.
Sorry, but you appear to have gotten Religion in your science.
Not that I give a crap as long as it’s only your funeral, but like all evangelicals you never can just stop there.
“corrupt Western model”
Paranoid and racist self-serving bollocks. There’s science and scientists, and then there’s fantasy-prone punks with delusions of grandeur. Try killing a patient, then get back to us.
> Sorry, but you appear to have gotten Religion in your science.
I'm not drawing parallels between the two as I'm personally not Religious and despise the affects dogmatic faith has had on Science (think stem cell research ban in the US), but in Truth the two were once seen as the same; Newtonian physics and mechanics was after all based and conjured from his fervent belief in Christianity and its application on understanding the Natural World.
> Paranoid and racist self-serving bollocks. There’s science and scientists, and then there’s fantasy-prone punks with delusions of grandeur. Try killing a patient, then get back to us.
I'm a Westerner born of Western parents and raised and lived my entire life in the Western World, in the US and Europe respectively. I'm not sure what racism has to do with the corrupt profit models of Bayer/Novartis/Dupont et al, who quite honestly are just doing the same evil stuff they did during WWII in their pursuit of profit at all costs--when I was in my WESTERN University studying Biology I saw how Eli Lilly kicked off a Cardiologist off the FDA panel because he refused to acquiesce that their product didn't prove it wasn't harmful:
https://www.reuters.com/article/congress-prasugrel-idUST2032...
Years later this happened with the same corp who pulled their FDA APPROVED drug for not meeting its targets:
https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
I can go on, but I actually studied this and unlike many of you I had undergo a lot financial hardships to work in this Industry, only to see this level of corruption as the norm, not the exception; so I enough to know that the FDA system is broken: its interest are not aligned with the welfare of the General Public and it never was meant to. Its their to prevent others from taking Market Share from the established Industry players who lobby the government to enact legislation and dismiss their cases when they don't comply by their own imposed Laws and get a bunch of people sick, poisoned or killed.
At least if what this article is alluding to is happening in China, specifically with these terminal cancer patients, they are given the choice and opportunity to explore all options they see fit; which cam include experimental drugs so we can in turn garner more insight and learn from these processes if its documented and published in medical/health journals.
Death is a certain variable in the Health Sciences, that's why its so important, and you needed to understand that in your Freshman year of undergrad (or sooner) to get why any of this matters.
Have you ever been in an ER or Cancer-ward? People die everyday in Hospitals because they are denied access to research level treatment(s) as an option due to legal matters, not scientific ones, this isn't the 'punk' view, this the root for why its broken: let people decide what they should do with their bodies, retaining some level of agency into death is least we can do for those hapless souls. Many would forfeit doing so anyway, I should know: my mother is an example of just that, luckily she is healthy now, but radiation and chemotherapy is a barbaric relic akin to that of leeches when things like CAR-T have been a norm before I was even born.
The only delusions here are your misplaced faith on the aforementioned system despite all the evidence to why you should question its validity.
I'm not drawing parallels between the two as I'm personally not Religious and despise the affects dogmatic faith has had on Science (think stem cell research ban in the US), but in Truth the two were once seen as the same; Newtonian physics and mechanics was after all based and conjured from his fervent belief in Christianity and its application on understanding the Natural World.
> Paranoid and racist self-serving bollocks. There’s science and scientists, and then there’s fantasy-prone punks with delusions of grandeur. Try killing a patient, then get back to us.
I'm a Westerner born of Western parents and raised and lived my entire life in the Western World, in the US and Europe respectively. I'm not sure what racism has to do with the corrupt profit models of Bayer/Novartis/Dupont et al, who quite honestly are just doing the same evil stuff they did during WWII in their pursuit of profit at all costs--when I was in my WESTERN University studying Biology I saw how Eli Lilly kicked off a Cardiologist off the FDA panel because he refused to acquiesce that their product didn't prove it wasn't harmful:
https://www.reuters.com/article/congress-prasugrel-idUST2032...
Years later this happened with the same corp who pulled their FDA APPROVED drug for not meeting its targets:
https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
I can go on, but I actually studied this and unlike many of you I had undergo a lot financial hardships to work in this Industry, only to see this level of corruption as the norm, not the exception; so I enough to know that the FDA system is broken: its interest are not aligned with the welfare of the General Public and it never was meant to. Its their to prevent others from taking Market Share from the established Industry players who lobby the government to enact legislation and dismiss their cases when they don't comply by their own imposed Laws and get a bunch of people sick, poisoned or killed.
At least if what this article is alluding to is happening in China, specifically with these terminal cancer patients, they are given the choice and opportunity to explore all options they see fit; which cam include experimental drugs so we can in turn garner more insight and learn from these processes if its documented and published in medical/health journals.
Death is a certain variable in the Health Sciences, that's why its so important, and you needed to understand that in your Freshman year of undergrad (or sooner) to get why any of this matters.
Have you ever been in an ER or Cancer-ward? People die everyday in Hospitals because they are denied access to research level treatment(s) as an option due to legal matters, not scientific ones, this isn't the 'punk' view, this the root for why its broken: let people decide what they should do with their bodies, retaining some level of agency into death is least we can do for those hapless souls. Many would forfeit doing so anyway, I should know: my mother is an example of just that, luckily she is healthy now, but radiation and chemotherapy is a barbaric relic akin to that of leeches when things like CAR-T have been a norm before I was even born.
The only delusions here are your misplaced faith on the aforementioned system despite all the evidence to why you should question its validity.
>> Sorry, but you appear to have gotten Religion in your science.
> I'm not drawing parallels between the two as I'm personally not Religious
And if I say “It’s just a metaphor, dude”, your reply is…?
..
Here is your problem:
Having observed that existing systems are corrupt, you devoutly believe that your system will not be. You may be super smart (as you appear to be) but, honestly, you’re kinda naive and just a little bit dumb. I’m not telling you this to hurt you [mods take note], I’m telling you this to help you: to help you avoid hurting yourself, or—worse—others.
You’re just as fallible and foolish and myopic [metaphor!] as everyone, and here you’re telling us you’re on a messianic mission from DNA Jesus. If you aren’t very, VERY careful, you will make yourself Dangerous too. Look at Pauling or Montagnier—even more smart and successful than you, and yet they still went utterly off the rails at the end. How many have suffered and died from being sucked into the whole vast all-absorbing AltMeb web of delusions and deceits, to which Pauling’s Vitamin C quackery is just one of a myriad of gateway drugs?
Protip for Very Smart People: Don’t be a Pauling.
..
To answer your question “Have you ever been in an ER or Cancer-ward?”, yes (for various ills) and no (family members got post-surgery mop-up chemo as out-patients). To say “radiation and chemotherapy is a barbaric relic” is grossly naive and ignorant of history: they are an improvement over what went before, just as modern BCS is an improvement over Halstead’s radical mastectomies for everyone, which was still an immeasurable improvement over every person who got breast cancer rotting to death in agony and darkness. Modern chemo has made great improvements since its origins, both in targeting and tolerance. Radiation? Good lord, until the middle of last century grandstanders and grifters were marketing radioactives as beauty products! All lab- and field-proven tools with known costs and benefits, constantly improved and refined.
Once again, you do an atrocious disservice to both practitioners and patients who have sweated and bled to get us even this far. And yes, ACT is bringing in a whole new toolset, and should it be so successful as to obsolete all its predecessors then that’ll be a good thing indeed. But you don’t get there cutting corners: you get there by proving your new therapy significantly improves on the current standard of care. This has nothing to do with the economics of healthcare, which Dog knows in the US is broken AF (and you should consider exactly who benefits by keeping it broken like that).
This is about raw comparative numbers: lives saved, lives lost, survival times between the two, and quality of life across it. You don’t get that by being the Hero who dashes in to save everyone; you get it by doing the work, doing the math, and knowing that you will not save everyone who is sick now, but if you do it right you will save the countless more who fall sick in the years and centuries to come.
You seriously need to step back and wrap a choke leash round that big ego of yours. Your motivation is admirable; your sense of professional and personal liability is not.
..
My turn to ask you: Have you ever killed a patient?
Because I have.
Breech birth. Done it plenty times before. Get in there; turn, pull, wallop. Sorted.
Bad one. Start panicking. Tunnel vision (another metaphor). Forgot procedures, training, basic (if there is such a thing) common sense. Should’ve stopped, got help. Did not. Kept going.
Boss found out what’s happening; stepped in, got babby out.
But by then, I’d already torn a hole in mom’s uterus.
Baby lived. Mom bled out.
30 years on and I can still see her lying dead knowing it was me who had done it.
..
I was lucky in that Mom was “only” a Cheviot ewe, not a member of Homo Sapiens. I got yelled at, and rightly so, but it’s not like I was up on charges. Far from my only fuckup in life, but one with an early and perhaps fortunate lesson. Now I can be sanguine and joke: Many a fluffy puppy dodged a bullet the day I crashed and burned out of vet pre-med.
Today I write software (Ground-Breaking! Revolutionary! Industry-Changing! no less) and the worst harm I can do is trigger a multi-million dollar product recall and some panic on the shelves. But if there’s a coda to my slow but eventual ability to learn from my own long and embarrassing narrative of total personal balls-ups, it’s that my last few braincells work not to be the Hero of the Day but to make bloody well sure my code has the appropriate checks and feedbacks and fail-safes up the wazoo. So that when it blows up (and it will and does blow up, like every complex imperfect system that works for a living out in the real world) that damage is limited, contained, admitted, acknowleged, and learned from.
..
Which is much the same reasons modern research medicine has grown its own checks and balances. Because who in their right mind wants their ego writing the story ending in “killed a whole lot of people we meant to save instead”. So ponder that as you evolve your own narrative, and please remember you are not alone (in every sense, not just metaphor).
> I'm not drawing parallels between the two as I'm personally not Religious
And if I say “It’s just a metaphor, dude”, your reply is…?
..
Here is your problem:
Having observed that existing systems are corrupt, you devoutly believe that your system will not be. You may be super smart (as you appear to be) but, honestly, you’re kinda naive and just a little bit dumb. I’m not telling you this to hurt you [mods take note], I’m telling you this to help you: to help you avoid hurting yourself, or—worse—others.
You’re just as fallible and foolish and myopic [metaphor!] as everyone, and here you’re telling us you’re on a messianic mission from DNA Jesus. If you aren’t very, VERY careful, you will make yourself Dangerous too. Look at Pauling or Montagnier—even more smart and successful than you, and yet they still went utterly off the rails at the end. How many have suffered and died from being sucked into the whole vast all-absorbing AltMeb web of delusions and deceits, to which Pauling’s Vitamin C quackery is just one of a myriad of gateway drugs?
Protip for Very Smart People: Don’t be a Pauling.
..
To answer your question “Have you ever been in an ER or Cancer-ward?”, yes (for various ills) and no (family members got post-surgery mop-up chemo as out-patients). To say “radiation and chemotherapy is a barbaric relic” is grossly naive and ignorant of history: they are an improvement over what went before, just as modern BCS is an improvement over Halstead’s radical mastectomies for everyone, which was still an immeasurable improvement over every person who got breast cancer rotting to death in agony and darkness. Modern chemo has made great improvements since its origins, both in targeting and tolerance. Radiation? Good lord, until the middle of last century grandstanders and grifters were marketing radioactives as beauty products! All lab- and field-proven tools with known costs and benefits, constantly improved and refined.
Once again, you do an atrocious disservice to both practitioners and patients who have sweated and bled to get us even this far. And yes, ACT is bringing in a whole new toolset, and should it be so successful as to obsolete all its predecessors then that’ll be a good thing indeed. But you don’t get there cutting corners: you get there by proving your new therapy significantly improves on the current standard of care. This has nothing to do with the economics of healthcare, which Dog knows in the US is broken AF (and you should consider exactly who benefits by keeping it broken like that).
This is about raw comparative numbers: lives saved, lives lost, survival times between the two, and quality of life across it. You don’t get that by being the Hero who dashes in to save everyone; you get it by doing the work, doing the math, and knowing that you will not save everyone who is sick now, but if you do it right you will save the countless more who fall sick in the years and centuries to come.
You seriously need to step back and wrap a choke leash round that big ego of yours. Your motivation is admirable; your sense of professional and personal liability is not.
..
My turn to ask you: Have you ever killed a patient?
Because I have.
Breech birth. Done it plenty times before. Get in there; turn, pull, wallop. Sorted.
Bad one. Start panicking. Tunnel vision (another metaphor). Forgot procedures, training, basic (if there is such a thing) common sense. Should’ve stopped, got help. Did not. Kept going.
Boss found out what’s happening; stepped in, got babby out.
But by then, I’d already torn a hole in mom’s uterus.
Baby lived. Mom bled out.
30 years on and I can still see her lying dead knowing it was me who had done it.
..
I was lucky in that Mom was “only” a Cheviot ewe, not a member of Homo Sapiens. I got yelled at, and rightly so, but it’s not like I was up on charges. Far from my only fuckup in life, but one with an early and perhaps fortunate lesson. Now I can be sanguine and joke: Many a fluffy puppy dodged a bullet the day I crashed and burned out of vet pre-med.
Today I write software (Ground-Breaking! Revolutionary! Industry-Changing! no less) and the worst harm I can do is trigger a multi-million dollar product recall and some panic on the shelves. But if there’s a coda to my slow but eventual ability to learn from my own long and embarrassing narrative of total personal balls-ups, it’s that my last few braincells work not to be the Hero of the Day but to make bloody well sure my code has the appropriate checks and feedbacks and fail-safes up the wazoo. So that when it blows up (and it will and does blow up, like every complex imperfect system that works for a living out in the real world) that damage is limited, contained, admitted, acknowleged, and learned from.
..
Which is much the same reasons modern research medicine has grown its own checks and balances. Because who in their right mind wants their ego writing the story ending in “killed a whole lot of people we meant to save instead”. So ponder that as you evolve your own narrative, and please remember you are not alone (in every sense, not just metaphor).
> Especially nerds, who—let’s admit it—are amongst the world’s worst at owning their own screwups. Honestly, if some fiery language is the worst those muppets have to deal with, they don’t know how lucky they are.
I was about to just look over this, but then this gave me a chuckle as I agree with you.
To answer your question, no, because I never went into Medicine, I was in diagnostics. I find Medicine, especially in the West, to be a costly and bureaucratic nightmare imposed over what I believe is at odds with a Person's Health--be it mental, or physical. None of my work did anything but confirm or deny a physicians inquiry, and thus I can operate in an unbiased and neutral position: this malady does or doesn't exist in the host, what you do with that information is out of my control.
And it is that vein that I operate from, if successful we could garner insight from these medical journals from China in order to re-create their work and bring it into a domain beyond the Medical Industrial Complex and offer a 3rd choice to those who see fit to explore those options. Will people get hurt or killed in the process, sure, of course they will, but people die of sports injuries all the time and yet Nike is never held liable for pre-mature torn ligaments or spine injuries, so why should this be any different? Humans have agency, and free will; that should include experimenting on themselves and have to deal with the consequences therein should it not work out, ideally they publish these findings to help others not make that mistake.
People can and will experiment on themselves, at least if this does take place you can accelerate the process to refine it in such a way that the Human Species can al benefit, rather than just the affluent Westerner you seem to be touting as the apex of all Humans. Western Medicine is broken, if only because it neglects the importance of preventative medicine, very little is understood about how something so critical like the microbiome in your stomach effects everything from neurological disorders to immunological responses, and yet many cultures, western and eastern alike, advocate for eating fermented foods to do so, others promote fasting as religious practices to reset and pause or correct the rate of metabolism etc... And yet, Western medicine, which is to say allopathic medicine dismisses that entirely for the most part and advocates for furthering its pharmacologic dystopia despite the very obvious crimes it has enabled--Purdue's opioid epidemic is just one of the very many in the US' short medical History.
Your argument is very circular, and your rhetoric meandering, but I understand what you are saying; I just think you are applying 20th century thinking to 21st Century mode of operation. Its akin to saying that LibGen is putting the public in danger because it makes all the scientific journals at the hands of the unwashed masses who cannot grasp or come to understand what those of us who have spent time in academia know.
Its elitist thinking, that quite frankly turned me off entirely to the formal Education process: despite getting honours' and letters of recommendation throughout my Undergrad to encourage me to further my studies, I don't even like looking at my 'accomplishments' from that period in a positive light, as I see it as an unrecoverable loss of time, ambition and motivation. I personally feel I could have done so much more with that time.
Lastly, as this will have to be my last response to this as it has taken far too much of my time already: check out a series on Netflix called UnNatural Selection [1], it highlights the Biohacker community and how it operates (footage from Biohack the World conference is seen), but also shows that the need for traditional medicine still exists and will continue to be as well, but it also underpins the personal, financial and emotional costs it has on the People who suffer from it.
Its an awesome 4 episode series, if you have time you can also look at Dr. Zayner's 'brazen' attempt [2] to be the first to alter his entire microbiome, all while being called a fool and reckless endangerment to public safety--and now not only is he much better, but I personally witnessed as the narrative of probiotic use become extremely more prevalent in that time-frame in US MSM and the amount of Kombucha/Kefer companies has followed in suit.
Just imagine what we as Health Scientists can do to the Human Species' and by extension the Human Condition if we did this on many facets?
1: https://www.netflix.com/title/80208910
2: https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/4/11581994/fmt-fecal-matter-...
I was about to just look over this, but then this gave me a chuckle as I agree with you.
To answer your question, no, because I never went into Medicine, I was in diagnostics. I find Medicine, especially in the West, to be a costly and bureaucratic nightmare imposed over what I believe is at odds with a Person's Health--be it mental, or physical. None of my work did anything but confirm or deny a physicians inquiry, and thus I can operate in an unbiased and neutral position: this malady does or doesn't exist in the host, what you do with that information is out of my control.
And it is that vein that I operate from, if successful we could garner insight from these medical journals from China in order to re-create their work and bring it into a domain beyond the Medical Industrial Complex and offer a 3rd choice to those who see fit to explore those options. Will people get hurt or killed in the process, sure, of course they will, but people die of sports injuries all the time and yet Nike is never held liable for pre-mature torn ligaments or spine injuries, so why should this be any different? Humans have agency, and free will; that should include experimenting on themselves and have to deal with the consequences therein should it not work out, ideally they publish these findings to help others not make that mistake.
People can and will experiment on themselves, at least if this does take place you can accelerate the process to refine it in such a way that the Human Species can al benefit, rather than just the affluent Westerner you seem to be touting as the apex of all Humans. Western Medicine is broken, if only because it neglects the importance of preventative medicine, very little is understood about how something so critical like the microbiome in your stomach effects everything from neurological disorders to immunological responses, and yet many cultures, western and eastern alike, advocate for eating fermented foods to do so, others promote fasting as religious practices to reset and pause or correct the rate of metabolism etc... And yet, Western medicine, which is to say allopathic medicine dismisses that entirely for the most part and advocates for furthering its pharmacologic dystopia despite the very obvious crimes it has enabled--Purdue's opioid epidemic is just one of the very many in the US' short medical History.
Your argument is very circular, and your rhetoric meandering, but I understand what you are saying; I just think you are applying 20th century thinking to 21st Century mode of operation. Its akin to saying that LibGen is putting the public in danger because it makes all the scientific journals at the hands of the unwashed masses who cannot grasp or come to understand what those of us who have spent time in academia know.
Its elitist thinking, that quite frankly turned me off entirely to the formal Education process: despite getting honours' and letters of recommendation throughout my Undergrad to encourage me to further my studies, I don't even like looking at my 'accomplishments' from that period in a positive light, as I see it as an unrecoverable loss of time, ambition and motivation. I personally feel I could have done so much more with that time.
Lastly, as this will have to be my last response to this as it has taken far too much of my time already: check out a series on Netflix called UnNatural Selection [1], it highlights the Biohacker community and how it operates (footage from Biohack the World conference is seen), but also shows that the need for traditional medicine still exists and will continue to be as well, but it also underpins the personal, financial and emotional costs it has on the People who suffer from it.
Its an awesome 4 episode series, if you have time you can also look at Dr. Zayner's 'brazen' attempt [2] to be the first to alter his entire microbiome, all while being called a fool and reckless endangerment to public safety--and now not only is he much better, but I personally witnessed as the narrative of probiotic use become extremely more prevalent in that time-frame in US MSM and the amount of Kombucha/Kefer companies has followed in suit.
Just imagine what we as Health Scientists can do to the Human Species' and by extension the Human Condition if we did this on many facets?
1: https://www.netflix.com/title/80208910
2: https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/4/11581994/fmt-fecal-matter-...
Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21818920.
Human beings have the innate right to manage their own bodies.
For any government or doctor to dictate to the individual adult citizen what he/she can or cannot put into or onto their bodies, is tyranny.
Enforce the laws against real crime. Leave sick people, one of whom will inevitably stumble across something new which works (eventually benefiting all) alone.
Doctors have, seemingly, forgotten that many of the innovators who they study and revere for their breakthroughs, had no university degrees.
Arrogance and protectionism - all the while stifling innovation.
It is time for this unfortunate cycle to end.
For any government or doctor to dictate to the individual adult citizen what he/she can or cannot put into or onto their bodies, is tyranny.
Enforce the laws against real crime. Leave sick people, one of whom will inevitably stumble across something new which works (eventually benefiting all) alone.
Doctors have, seemingly, forgotten that many of the innovators who they study and revere for their breakthroughs, had no university degrees.
Arrogance and protectionism - all the while stifling innovation.
It is time for this unfortunate cycle to end.
>For any government or doctor to dictate to the individual adult citizen what he/she can or cannot put into or onto their bodies, is tyranny.
Interesting...I worked on a case once where a pregnant woman with HIV/AIDs refused medication which would ensure the baby was born without HIV. The Court ordered the treatments against the woman's wishes/will...is that really tyranny?
Interesting...I worked on a case once where a pregnant woman with HIV/AIDs refused medication which would ensure the baby was born without HIV. The Court ordered the treatments against the woman's wishes/will...is that really tyranny?
> Interesting...I worked on a case once where a pregnant woman with HIV/AIDs refused medication which would ensure the baby was born without HIV. The Court ordered the treatments against the woman's wishes/will...is that really tyranny?
Yes, if only because it sets a horrible precedent; the State is not the paragon for determining Life and Death, despite what many think, it was never intended to be anything more than a system to ensure and maintain the Rights of the People--and it does such a horrid job of it I personally thought we'd have evolved past it already by now. Refusing treatment or medication and in turn having it forced upon you leads to this being fringe situation (2009) and having a court rule in favour of the State:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30763438/ns/health-childrens_healt...
To this being the norm (2019):
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/health-news/2019/10/police-ne...
Some people and cultures view Life and Death differently than most of the World, and they may not see it as the worst thing that can happen to a person, and we as a Society must respect that choice even when we feel it conflicts with our morals and ethics; that's what a tolerant Civilization adheres to above all else. Otherwise, yes, what you have is tyranny by the few on the many who will impose its will via its court systems and its jackbooted thugs (LEO).
In the former's case, the boy survived the treatment, but I cannot imagine the psychological trauma was worth it, his mother had her Life ruined in this process, they were also financially ruined; they fled the country and were hunted down for exercising what they felt was in their best interest for their family.
Yes, if only because it sets a horrible precedent; the State is not the paragon for determining Life and Death, despite what many think, it was never intended to be anything more than a system to ensure and maintain the Rights of the People--and it does such a horrid job of it I personally thought we'd have evolved past it already by now. Refusing treatment or medication and in turn having it forced upon you leads to this being fringe situation (2009) and having a court rule in favour of the State:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30763438/ns/health-childrens_healt...
To this being the norm (2019):
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/health-news/2019/10/police-ne...
Some people and cultures view Life and Death differently than most of the World, and they may not see it as the worst thing that can happen to a person, and we as a Society must respect that choice even when we feel it conflicts with our morals and ethics; that's what a tolerant Civilization adheres to above all else. Otherwise, yes, what you have is tyranny by the few on the many who will impose its will via its court systems and its jackbooted thugs (LEO).
In the former's case, the boy survived the treatment, but I cannot imagine the psychological trauma was worth it, his mother had her Life ruined in this process, they were also financially ruined; they fled the country and were hunted down for exercising what they felt was in their best interest for their family.
Ah, the familiar pseudo-libertarian argument: the Rights of the Individual Trump All…also, my child is not an Individual but parental chattel to do to as I will.
Mate, that’s not Libertarian, that’s “Egomaniacal Authoritarian From Hell” with a footnote that the ONLY authority they recognize is their own. Does not look out of place on r/RaisedByNarcissists.
So do you really want to go down that road? Because it always ends on parents who think it perfectly fine to have sex with their own kids. Always.
Mate, that’s not Libertarian, that’s “Egomaniacal Authoritarian From Hell” with a footnote that the ONLY authority they recognize is their own. Does not look out of place on r/RaisedByNarcissists.
So do you really want to go down that road? Because it always ends on parents who think it perfectly fine to have sex with their own kids. Always.
> Ah, the familiar pseudo-libertarian argument...
First, I'm an anarchist and reject the very notion or the construct of the State; I'm not a Libertarian, who I will agree are nothing more than closet-Statists masking their intent in order to gain the ability to to use State power for their own ends. Its disgusting.
I'm not going to engage with the ego/narcissist aspect, as you made that clear in your meandering diatribe above; but what I can and will say is I personally accept the things my parents did that I felt negatively afflicted me as a child now as an adult because of this--I was forced to go to private Catholic school, I was physically punished for my mistakes, subjected to teachings I found abhorrent and was humiliated when I refused to accept them in front of my peers. I was punished in such a way that I now value my time and mental as well as physical health as a priority and staunchly oppose that which robs me of any of them.
I now understand that it is because this was who/how they wanted me, their child they brought into the World, and to accept and adhere to a certain value system that would shape my morals, ethics and general World view in the way they saw best. But in that difficult process, you as a child learn more of yourself and who you are and as in my case: reject and evolve past that phase to be in a position to question and then later surpass your parents ability and understanding of the World--in that way I see it as a success, albeit a very troublesome and painful process, but its so prevalent in Nature I cannot deny its utility.
You can call that narcissistic or ego-manical all you want, but that is how Natural, Biological systems improve in the Wild: I've just outlined how immunology functions and applied it to parenthood. (I can go on to say how we stand in a unique time in History where we can target this with gene-editing and Cell Therapy, but I already know how that ends, too.)
At no point in time does that alone or directly lead to pedophilia, and to be honest; I'm struck by your statement(s) and I fear you may have been a victim of that and you're projecting anything that resembles an attack on you as a person or your ideas as perceivable threat. If so, I'm sorry.
Just so its clear: I find the sexual molestation of children one of the most vile things a person can do to a Human being, unlike death the victim has to continue live with a sense of shame and guilt that always afflicts their psyche and development toward the World; I've met a female lawyer who was molested several times as a child and it turned out positively in the end, but... it came at too high a cost. On the surface she is a lovely person who defends the under-represented minorities in her community pro-bono all while holding a career as a civil defense and immigration lawyer. But underneath all of that is a psychological mess.
First, I'm an anarchist and reject the very notion or the construct of the State; I'm not a Libertarian, who I will agree are nothing more than closet-Statists masking their intent in order to gain the ability to to use State power for their own ends. Its disgusting.
I'm not going to engage with the ego/narcissist aspect, as you made that clear in your meandering diatribe above; but what I can and will say is I personally accept the things my parents did that I felt negatively afflicted me as a child now as an adult because of this--I was forced to go to private Catholic school, I was physically punished for my mistakes, subjected to teachings I found abhorrent and was humiliated when I refused to accept them in front of my peers. I was punished in such a way that I now value my time and mental as well as physical health as a priority and staunchly oppose that which robs me of any of them.
I now understand that it is because this was who/how they wanted me, their child they brought into the World, and to accept and adhere to a certain value system that would shape my morals, ethics and general World view in the way they saw best. But in that difficult process, you as a child learn more of yourself and who you are and as in my case: reject and evolve past that phase to be in a position to question and then later surpass your parents ability and understanding of the World--in that way I see it as a success, albeit a very troublesome and painful process, but its so prevalent in Nature I cannot deny its utility.
You can call that narcissistic or ego-manical all you want, but that is how Natural, Biological systems improve in the Wild: I've just outlined how immunology functions and applied it to parenthood. (I can go on to say how we stand in a unique time in History where we can target this with gene-editing and Cell Therapy, but I already know how that ends, too.)
At no point in time does that alone or directly lead to pedophilia, and to be honest; I'm struck by your statement(s) and I fear you may have been a victim of that and you're projecting anything that resembles an attack on you as a person or your ideas as perceivable threat. If so, I'm sorry.
Just so its clear: I find the sexual molestation of children one of the most vile things a person can do to a Human being, unlike death the victim has to continue live with a sense of shame and guilt that always afflicts their psyche and development toward the World; I've met a female lawyer who was molested several times as a child and it turned out positively in the end, but... it came at too high a cost. On the surface she is a lovely person who defends the under-represented minorities in her community pro-bono all while holding a career as a civil defense and immigration lawyer. But underneath all of that is a psychological mess.
As this needs clarified:
You’re the one who brought up the state’s overriding “interference” in parental decisions that impact their sick children. You’re the one bringing black-white thinking to a complex and difficult problem space that is every shade of gray.
The pseudo-libertarian argument against this—that parents have absolute rights over their own children and no-one else (e.g. the state) has no right to override that, hands carte blanche to all misguided and abusive parents, including those who rape and murder their kids—not just the ones you seek to excuse. It is a warped argument from authority, where the only authority recognized is the parent’s own.
You dug that hole for yourself when you used Prince Rehan and Daniel Hauser as body shields in your own defense. If the state was torturing them for profit or glory, you’d have a point. You don’t: the state was protecting those children’s right to life in response to misguided or delusional parents who believe they know better, and act on those beliefs without even considering the harm they will cause if those beliefs are wrong.
..
Yeah, chemo for blood cancers is tough as hell. (Though still better than it used to be.) Makes patients feel sick as a dog. Oncologists use it not because they enjoy it, but because it is the best treatment available right now. Fingers crossed that CAR-T renders it obsolete over the next decade or two, and children who develop leukemia 20 years from now will enjoy that new improved standard of care.
But nothing is simple, straightforward, or easy in dealing with cancer; and its history is thick with great hopes, smashed on hard reality. As you ought to know already. Because—ironically enough—cancer is a civil war within an organized cooperative society (a multicellular organism) and evangelical anarchist rebels out for nothing and no-one but themselves.
So what’s the anarchist’s position on parents who deny their own children the medical standard of care?
We both agree parents who abuse their kids sexually are wrong and must be stopped, regardless of those parents’ beliefs and justifications. So what about parents who kill?
--
For those who appreciate finer distinctions such as “parents are not always right” and wish to explore further, the following blog post by an oncological research surgeon discusses one particular recent case and links to several more:
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2019/05/10/noah-mcadams-anot...
Unlike Mr Harps up there in his bloodless ivory tower, that’s a man down on the ground working in the ichor and guts of hard daily reality working to make things better, both for those sick now and all those who get sick in future.
..
Now maybe Mr Harps will man up and do the damn legwork, and 20 years from now he’ll be getting his much deserved Nobel. If he does that, I will applaud him, and so will every other man, woman, and child on the planet. (Except, natch, the cancer quacks down in Tijuana who he just put out of business for good.)
Or maybe he’ll be down in a Tijuana clinic of his own, still raving about how HE has all the answers and it’s everyone else who is lazy and corrupt—just one more malignant quack amongst all the other fabulists and frauds, ushering his own abused victims to their poor and painful death.
The Belmont Report. Read it. And remember why it had to be written in the first place.
https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-repo...
You’re the one who brought up the state’s overriding “interference” in parental decisions that impact their sick children. You’re the one bringing black-white thinking to a complex and difficult problem space that is every shade of gray.
The pseudo-libertarian argument against this—that parents have absolute rights over their own children and no-one else (e.g. the state) has no right to override that, hands carte blanche to all misguided and abusive parents, including those who rape and murder their kids—not just the ones you seek to excuse. It is a warped argument from authority, where the only authority recognized is the parent’s own.
You dug that hole for yourself when you used Prince Rehan and Daniel Hauser as body shields in your own defense. If the state was torturing them for profit or glory, you’d have a point. You don’t: the state was protecting those children’s right to life in response to misguided or delusional parents who believe they know better, and act on those beliefs without even considering the harm they will cause if those beliefs are wrong.
..
Yeah, chemo for blood cancers is tough as hell. (Though still better than it used to be.) Makes patients feel sick as a dog. Oncologists use it not because they enjoy it, but because it is the best treatment available right now. Fingers crossed that CAR-T renders it obsolete over the next decade or two, and children who develop leukemia 20 years from now will enjoy that new improved standard of care.
But nothing is simple, straightforward, or easy in dealing with cancer; and its history is thick with great hopes, smashed on hard reality. As you ought to know already. Because—ironically enough—cancer is a civil war within an organized cooperative society (a multicellular organism) and evangelical anarchist rebels out for nothing and no-one but themselves.
So what’s the anarchist’s position on parents who deny their own children the medical standard of care?
We both agree parents who abuse their kids sexually are wrong and must be stopped, regardless of those parents’ beliefs and justifications. So what about parents who kill?
--
For those who appreciate finer distinctions such as “parents are not always right” and wish to explore further, the following blog post by an oncological research surgeon discusses one particular recent case and links to several more:
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2019/05/10/noah-mcadams-anot...
Unlike Mr Harps up there in his bloodless ivory tower, that’s a man down on the ground working in the ichor and guts of hard daily reality working to make things better, both for those sick now and all those who get sick in future.
..
Now maybe Mr Harps will man up and do the damn legwork, and 20 years from now he’ll be getting his much deserved Nobel. If he does that, I will applaud him, and so will every other man, woman, and child on the planet. (Except, natch, the cancer quacks down in Tijuana who he just put out of business for good.)
Or maybe he’ll be down in a Tijuana clinic of his own, still raving about how HE has all the answers and it’s everyone else who is lazy and corrupt—just one more malignant quack amongst all the other fabulists and frauds, ushering his own abused victims to their poor and painful death.
The Belmont Report. Read it. And remember why it had to be written in the first place.
https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-repo...
Does the child count as their own body though? That sounds like it falls under government protection for child endangerment.
By that reasoning, abortion would also be illegal excepting maybe self defense (aka the pregnancy endagers the mother's life).
I'm not weighing in either way, just pointing out that getting a rational, logical consensus on why some things can and cannot be done is next to impossible. Another example- us states where murder of a pregnant woman can be charged as two murders, yet abortion remains legal.
Trying to have it both ways often ends up meaning abandoning a pretense of logic.
I'm not weighing in either way, just pointing out that getting a rational, logical consensus on why some things can and cannot be done is next to impossible. Another example- us states where murder of a pregnant woman can be charged as two murders, yet abortion remains legal.
Trying to have it both ways often ends up meaning abandoning a pretense of logic.
Abortion is a giant debate, and there should be SOME type of regulation as to how far you can go along with a pregnancy before you decide to just kill it. But this is about a human, intentionally giving another human HIV. Intentionally giving anyone HIV should be against the law.
> Intentionally giving anyone HIV should be against the law.
If you consider a pregnant mother transferring HIV to an in-utero fetus as a human giving another human HIV, then to be logically consistent you must consider abortion as one human killing another. The size of the debate is irrelevant. Whether you carve out exceptions is a different story (I.e. self defense from health complications) but that is simply a justification for the killing, not changing the act itself.
Edit: To complicate matters more, if a parent passing on HIV were illegal, should people with Down syndrome be legally allowed to have children? After all, there is a very significant chance the parents would "give" the child the syndrome as well.
If you consider a pregnant mother transferring HIV to an in-utero fetus as a human giving another human HIV, then to be logically consistent you must consider abortion as one human killing another. The size of the debate is irrelevant. Whether you carve out exceptions is a different story (I.e. self defense from health complications) but that is simply a justification for the killing, not changing the act itself.
Edit: To complicate matters more, if a parent passing on HIV were illegal, should people with Down syndrome be legally allowed to have children? After all, there is a very significant chance the parents would "give" the child the syndrome as well.
>That sounds like it falls under government protection for child endangerment.
On the other hand parents can legally refuse all kinds of life saving treatments for their children...for example refusal of blood transfusions on religious grounds occurs all the time.
On the other hand parents can legally refuse all kinds of life saving treatments for their children...for example refusal of blood transfusions on religious grounds occurs all the time.
that's certainly not legal everywhere. it doesn't appear to be the case in canada where courts have overruled parents on this, and it definitely is not the case in germany, where, if a childs life is at risk, doctors have not only the right, but the duty to override the parents, and do whatever they need to save the child.
Its US based on Constitutional Right of Freedom of Religion.
However, your points about the law in Canada/Germany where a doctor can force treatment gets to the original comment I replied to...which called such forced treatment by a government or doctor...tyranny.
However, your points about the law in Canada/Germany where a doctor can force treatment gets to the original comment I replied to...which called such forced treatment by a government or doctor...tyranny.
the problem here is who gets to make the decision. people can make the decision for themselves. they just can't make that decision for others.
it's a question of where to draw the line. people make different decisions when their own life is on the line vs others.
if it's your own life and you still refuse help, fine. that's on you. but if it's your childs life then you don't get free reign.
in new zealand it is illegal to hit your children, while some groups advocate such acts as appropriate punishment.
more generally, in many countries it is illegal to allow your children to come to bodily harm. in germany, the view is that this trumps freedom of religion. that is, freedom of religion is limited to yourself, but does not allow you to make choices that can hurt others, even if they are your own children. there is no tyrrany in that.
it's a question of where to draw the line. people make different decisions when their own life is on the line vs others.
if it's your own life and you still refuse help, fine. that's on you. but if it's your childs life then you don't get free reign.
in new zealand it is illegal to hit your children, while some groups advocate such acts as appropriate punishment.
more generally, in many countries it is illegal to allow your children to come to bodily harm. in germany, the view is that this trumps freedom of religion. that is, freedom of religion is limited to yourself, but does not allow you to make choices that can hurt others, even if they are your own children. there is no tyrrany in that.
One protection though is that desperate people will pay for snake oil so maybe it must be free or cheap.