This was not deserving of a hospital visit. This is one reason why we overspend so much on health care.
https://twitter.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1770570078783782986
What good is California’s “health insurance” if it doesn’t actually let you see a doctor?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hours-hold-limited-appointments-why-110011226.html
Hours on hold, limited appointments: Why California babies aren’t going to the doctor
By Jenny Gold
February 26, 2024
Maria Mercado’s 5- and 7-year-old daughters haven’t been to the doctor for a check-up in two years. And it’s not for lack of trying.
Mercado, a factory worker in South Los Angeles, has called the pediatrician’s office over and over hoping to book an appointment for a well-child visit, only to be told there are no appointments available and to call back in a month. Sometimes, she waits on hold for an hour. Like more than half of children in California, Mercado’s daughters have Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents.
Her children are two years behind on their vaccinations. Mercado isn’t sure if they’re growing well, and they haven’t been screened for vision, hearing or developmental delays. Her older daughter has developed a stutter, and she worries the girl might need speech therapy.
“It is frustrating because as a mom, you want your kids to hit every milestone,” she said. “And if you see something’s going on and they’re not helping you, it’s like, what am I supposed to do at this point?”
California — where 97% of children have health insurance — ranks 46th out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for providing a preventive care visit for kids 5 and under, according to a 2022 federal government survey. A recent report card from Children Now, a nonprofit advocacy group, rated California a D on children’s access to preventive care, despite the state’s A- grade for ensuring children have coverage.
How thoughtful! Governor Newsom is trying help the other 49 states to solve their illegal immigration problem by encouraging all of their illegal immigrants to move to California. I hope his plan works!
https://twitter.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1740866878824915142
Sexually transmitted diseases are not caused by lack of government funding. They are caused by irresponsible behavior.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/why-many-people-getting-syphilis-185238400.html
Why Are So Many People Getting Syphilis? An Expert Explains the Uptick in Cases
By Vanessa Etienne
July 21, 2023
Dr. Edward Hook — director of the STD Control Program for the Jefferson County Department of Health — spoke to PEOPLE to explain the recent uptick in the sexually transmitted infection.
Syphilis rates in the United States have been going up for about 20 years — along with other sexually transmitted infections.
But in April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that syphilis rates jumped by nearly 32% for all stages of the infection, with a total of 176,713 syphilis cases recorded in 2021. The last time cases were nearly this high was in 1950, when 217,558 cases were reported.
PEOPLE spoke to Dr. Edward Hook — professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and director of the STD Control Program for the Jefferson County Department of Health — about the resurgence, a well as what syphilis is and why there’s a recent influx in cases of the sexually transmitted infection.
What is syphilis?
Syphilis is a bacterial infection that is usually spread through sexual contact, according to the Mayo Clinic, and usually presents as painless sores that spread the disease.
Because the sores don’t hurt, they often go undetected. However, the CDC says that while the sores will last 3-6 weeks regardless of treatment, it’s important to seek medical care to prevent the infection from progressing to the next, more dangerous stage.
At its early stage, syphilis can be cured with a single dose of antibiotics. But “without treatment, syphilis can severely damage the heart, brain or other organs, and can be life-threatening.”
While syphilis is on the rise, the CDC cautions that it cannot be spread through toilet seats, door knobs — or even from sharing utensils. The best way to avoid syphilis is by avoiding contact with the sores caused by the infection — so the CDC recommends using condoms if you are sexually active, although contact with the sores in areas not covered by a condom can still spread the disease.
Why are syphilis cases rising?
“Syphilis was lowest to start with in terms of the total population so it had the most room for increasing,” Hook notes.
Part of the reason cases of syphilis — as well as other STIs — are rising is because public health efforts to control these diseases are underfunded.
“In the past 20 years, the amount of money that goes to the CDC for STD control has remained level because of inflation. That means that the buying power of that funding is 40% less than it was 20 years ago. So it seems to me that the lack of resources is another important contributor to this problem.”
Additionally, syphilis cases are no longer present primarily among men who have sex with men.
“The current syphilis epidemic, of the past 10 or 15 years, started amongst men who had sex with other men,” he says. “But no surprise, it has then moved beyond men who have sex with men to involve men who have sex with women, and women who have sex with men, and other groups as well because people don’t exclusively partner with one kind of sex partner or another.”
Why are cases of syphilis in women increasing?
In addition to an overall rise in syphilis cases, the country has also seen an increase in women getting the STI, as well as a rise in congenital syphilis — which is when a mother with syphilis passes the infection to her unborn baby. According to the CDC, cases of congenital syphilis in the United States have “more than tripled” in recent years — although the disease was once “nearly eliminated.”
For example, the Houston Health Department reported this week that there was a 128% increase in congenital syphilis in Houston and Harris County — a rise that is similar to that of other cities across the United States.
“Congenital syphilis rates are now higher than they’ve been in the United States in more than 25 years. There are several reasons for that,” Hook says. “One is that this mirrors the general increase in syphilis and the movement of the syphilis epidemic from men who have sex with men into heterosexual population.”
“Second is that women with syphilis are disproportionately ethnic minorities, racial minorities, and those are people who have less ready access to healthcare than other populations,” he continues. “So, if you look at the simplest rates in the United States, you’ll see that the rates have gone up disproportionately amongst Hispanic women and Black women — the same groups who have other challenges with regards to access to healthcare, prenatal care, etc.”
Although cases in women are rising, Hook assures that these rates do not mean that women are more susceptible to syphilis. “It’s not a vulnerability issue,” he stresses. “There is no data whatsoever to suggest that one group or another is more vulnerable to acquiring syphilis than others.”
What is the key to decreasing overall syphilis cases?
Hook emphasizes that the national rate of syphilis cases could easily be lowered if there was greater investment in public health in the United States.
That investment involves increasing availability of and accessibility to preventive and care services, increasing education about screening and treatment, and focusing those efforts on underserved populations.
“We’ve proven again and again — most recently in the early 1990s — that if you make it a priority and you put resources into it, you can control this disease,” Hook tells PEOPLE. “Syphilis rates in the United States by the mid 1990s were the lowest that they’d been in decades. That was because there had been an epidemic of syphilis in the late eighties and early nineties that became a CDC priority. CDC put resources into it, the Congress of the United States helped fund syphilis control programs and rates plummeted.”
He adds, “The rates got so low that people said, ‘We’re in good shape, we can now reallocate resources to other purposes.’ And they did. The disease smoldered for a while, and then came back in a new vulnerable population this time, men who had sex with men.”
How often should people get tested for syphilis?
“That answer is different for everybody,” Hook admits. “In general, the more partners a person has, the more often they should be checked. We would suggest that everybody be checked at least once. For the people who are in stable, monogamous relationships and are confident that their partners are similarly monogamous, one test should be enough. If there are questions about monogamy, testing periodically — perhaps once a year — is reasonable. For people who have more than three, four sexual partners in a year, testing as frequently as every six months might be a good idea.”
This article says there’s a racist aspect to brushing your teeth before you go to the dentist. I disagree. I always brush my teeth before I go to the dentist, but it has nothing to do with racism. Why do some people insist on seeing racism everywhere?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 16, 2023
This article from the Grio starts out with the following:
Black patients modify speech, dress up to reduce medical bias, survey shows
Black Californians report adjusting their appearance, changing behavior, minimizing questions and signaling to providers that they are educated to reduce chance of discrimination in hospitals and doctors’ offices.
A young mother in California’s Antelope Valley bathes her children and dresses them in neat clothes, making sure they look their very best — at medical appointments. “I brush their teeth before they see the dentist. Just little things like that to protect myself from being treated unfairly,” she told researchers.
I always brush my teeth, take a shower, and put on clean clothes before I go to the dentist, or any other medical appointment.
I don’t see what race has to do with it.
Why do some people insist on seeing racism everywhere?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-patients-modify-speech-dress-163722184.html
Black patients modify speech, dress up to reduce medical bias, survey shows
By Annie Sciacca
March 16, 2023
Black Californians report adjusting their appearance, changing behavior, minimizing questions and signaling to providers that they are educated to reduce chance of discrimination in hospitals and doctors’ offices.
A young mother in California’s Antelope Valley bathes her children and dresses them in neat clothes, making sure they look their very best — at medical appointments. “I brush their teeth before they see the dentist. Just little things like that to protect myself from being treated unfairly,” she told researchers.
A 72-year-old in Los Angeles, mindful that he is a Black man, tries to put providers at ease around him. “My actions will probably be looked at and applied to the whole race, especially if my actions are negative,” he said. “And especially if they are perceived as aggressive.”
Many Black Californians report adjusting their appearance or behavior — even minimizing questions — all to reduce the chances of discrimination and bias in hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices. Of the strategies they describe taking, 32% pay special attention to how they dress; 35% modify their speech or behavior to put doctors at ease. And 41% of Black patients signal to providers that they are educated, knowledgeable, and prepared.
The ubiquity of these behaviors is captured in a survey of 3,325 people as part of an October study titled “Listening to Black Californians: How the Health Care System Undermines Their Pursuit of Good Health,” funded by the California Health Care Foundation. (California Healthline is an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.) Part of its goal was to call attention to the effort Black patients must exert to get quality care from health providers.
“If you look at the frequency with which Black Californians are altering their speech and dress to go into a health care visit,” said Shakari Byerly, whose research firm, Evitarus, led the study, “that’s a signal that something needs to change.”
One-third of Black patients report bringing a companion into the exam room to observe and advocate for them. And, the study found, more than a quarter of Black Californians avoid medical care simply because they believe they will be treated unfairly.
“The system looks at us differently, not only in doctors’ offices,” said Dr. Michael LeNoir, who was not part of the survey.
LeNoir, an Oakland allergist and pediatrician who founded the African American Wellness Project nearly two decades ago to combat health disparities, found the responses unsurprising, given that many Black people have learned to make such adjustments routinely. “There is general discrimination,” he said, “so we all learn the role.”
There is ample evidence of racial inequality in health care. An analysis by the nonprofit Urban Institute published in 2021 found that Black patients are much more likely to suffer problems related to surgical procedures than white patients in the same hospital. A study published in November by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Black mothers and babies had worse outcomes than other groups across many health measures. And a study published in January, led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators, found that older Black and Hispanic patients with advanced cancer are less likely to receive opioid medications for pain than white patients. (Hispanic people can be of any race or combination of races.)
Gigi Crowder, executive director of the Contra Costa County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she frequently sees delayed mental health diagnoses for Black patients.
“I hear so many stories about how long it takes for people to get their diagnoses,” Crowder said. “Many don’t get their diagnoses until six or seven years after the onset of their illness.”
Almost one-third of respondents in the California Health Care Foundation study — which looked only at Black Californians, not other ethnic or racial groups — reported having been treated poorly by a health care provider because of their race or ethnicity. One participant said her doctor advised her simply to exercise more and lose weight when she reported feeling short of breath. She eventually discovered she had anemia and needed two blood transfusions.
“I feel like Black voices aren’t as loud. They are not taken as seriously,” the woman told researchers. “In this case, I wasn’t listened to, and it ended up being a very serious, actually life-threatening problem.”
People KHN spoke with who weren’t part of the study described similar bad experiences.
Southern California resident Shaleta Smith, 44, went to the emergency room, bleeding, a week after giving birth to her third daughter. An ER doctor wanted to discharge her, but a diligent nurse called Smith’s obstetrician for a second opinion. It turned out to be a serious problem for which she needed a hysterectomy.
“I almost died,” Smith said.
Years later and in an unrelated experience, Smith said, her primary care doctor insisted her persistent loss of voice and recurring fever were symptoms of laryngitis. After she pleaded for a referral, a specialist diagnosed her with an autoimmune disorder.
Smith said it’s not clear to her whether bias was a factor in those interactions with doctors, but she strives to have her health concerns taken seriously. When Smith meets providers, she will slip in that she works in the medical field in administration.
Black patients also take on the additional legwork of finding doctors they think will be more responsive to them.
Ovester Armstrong Jr. lives in Tracy, in the Central Valley, but he’s willing to drive an hour to the Bay Area to seek out providers who may be more accustomed to treating Black and other minority patients.
“I have had experiences with doctors who are not experienced with care of different cultures — not aware of cultural differences or even the socialization of Black folks, the fact that our menus are different,” Armstrong said.
Once he gets there, he may still not find doctors who look like him. A 2021 UCLA study found that the proportion of U.S. physicians who are Black is 5.4%, an increase of only 4 percentage points over the past 120 years.
While health advocates and experts acknowledge that Black patients should not have to take on the burden of minimizing poor health care, helping them be proactive is part of their strategy for improving Black health.
LeNoir’s African American Wellness Project arms patients with information so they can ask their doctors informed questions. And the California Black Women’s Health Project is hiring health “ambassadors” to help Black patients navigate the system, said Raena Granberry, senior manager of maternal and reproductive health for the organization.
Southern California resident Joyce Clarke, who is in her 70s, takes along written questions when she sees a doctor to make sure her concerns are taken seriously. “Health professionals are people first, so they come with their own biases, whether intentional or unintentional, and it keeps a Black person’s guard up,” Clarke said.
While the study shed light on how Black patients interact with medical professionals, Katherine Haynes, a senior program officer with the California Health Care Foundation, said further research could track whether patient experiences improve.
“The people who are providing care — the clinicians — they need timely feedback on who’s experiencing what,” she said.
I asked ChatGPT: “Is illegal drug addiction a choice?”
I asked ChatGPT: “Is illegal drug addiction a choice?”
This is the answer that it gave:
“The question of whether drug addiction is a choice or not is complex and controversial. It is widely accepted in the medical and scientific communities that addiction is a chronic medical condition that changes the structure and function of the brain. People with addiction have difficulty controlling their use of drugs and often continue to use despite negative consequences.”
“However, the initial decision to use drugs is often a choice. Substance abuse and addiction can be influenced by a range of factors, including genetics, environment, and mental health. Some people may be more susceptible to addiction due to their biology, while others may be exposed to drugs and find it difficult to stop using.”
“It is important to understand that addiction is a complex issue and should not be seen as a personal failing or a matter of willpower. People with addiction need access to evidence-based treatment and support to overcome their condition and reclaim their lives.”
After a Canadian military veteran complained that the government still hadn’t installed a wheelchair ramp in her home five years after she had originally requested it, the government offered to euthanize her
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721
Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death
Retired corporal Christine Gauthier said the department even offered to provide the equipment
By Murray Brewster
December 1, 2022
A paraplegic former member of the Canadian military shocked MPs on Thursday by testifying that the Department of Veterans Affairs offered her, in writing, the opportunity for a medically assisted death — and even offered to provide the equipment.
Retired corporal Christine Gauthier, who competed for Canada at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics and the Invictus Games that same year, spoke before the House of Commons veterans committee and agreed to provide a copy of the letter.
“With respect to me, I have a letter in my file, because I had to face that as well,” said Gauthier, referring to the debate about veterans being offered the option of medical assistance in dying (MAID).
“I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying,” said Gauthier who first injured her back in a training accident in 1989.
Testifying in French, she said she has been fighting for a home wheelchair ramp for five years and expressed her concerns about the assisted dying offer in a recent letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and that they [Veterans Affairs] offered me MAID and would supply equipment,” said Gauthier.
Gauthier did not say when the assisted death offer was made, whether it came from a case manager or a veterans services agent, or when she wrote to the prime minister.
On Friday, Prime minister Justin Trudeau called the report of what happened to Gauthier “absolutely unacceptable” and said the government took action the moment it heard of other cases.
“We are following up with investigations and we are changing protocols to ensure what should seem obvious to all of us: that it is not the place of Veterans Affairs Canada, who are supposed to be there to support those people who stepped up to serve their country, to offer them medical assistance in dying.”
Veterans Minister Lawrence MacAulay revealed last week in testimony before the same committee that four — perhaps five — cases of Canadian military veterans being given the MAID option by a now-suspended veterans service agent have been referred to the RCMP.
MacAulay urged other veterans who may have had similar experiences to come forward.
Department officials told CBC News they couldn’t confirm whether the incident involving Gauthier represents a new case or was something the department was investigating already.
During his testimony last week, MacAulay walked the committee through four cases he said the department was certain of and that had been uncovered as part of a file review launched last summer.
The veterans service agent who allegedly provided the advice has been removed from her post while the department and the RCMP investigate.
“We remain confident that this is all related to one single employee, and it’s not a widespread or a systemic issue,” MacAulay told the committee last week.
Another veteran who testified Thursday, retired corporal Bruce Moncur, said that at a meeting two weeks ago, a deputy minister at the department tried to assure an advisory committee that includes veterans that what they were facing was an isolated incident.
“Five days later, we found out through the media that that was all lies,” said Moncur. “So we’re having, literally, an assistant deputy minister lying to veterans faces five days before the truth comes out. So, I said, it’s disheartening to say the least.”
‘I am in shock’
A spokesperson for MacAulay said late Thursday that the advisory committee was given the most recent information the department had at the time of the meeting.
New Democrat MP Rachel Blaney, a member of the committee, said she was shaken by what she heard on Thursday.
“I just want to extend my deepest apologies,” she told Gauthier. “I just, I am in shock. And I thank you for bringing this reality [to the committee].”
The question of what is going on at Veterans Affairs, and whether the Liberal government has a handle on the problem, was put before the prime minister during a media availability Thursday.
Trudeau tried reassurance, saying the employees in question no longer have contact with veterans. He also acknowledged that these cases fit within a larger debate over the expansion of medically-assisted dying in Canada to include those with mental illness.
That could become an option next spring.
“The issue of medical assistance in dying is a deeply personal, extraordinarily difficult choice that individuals and families need to make in the most thoughtful and best supported way possible,” Trudeau said.
“We understand that making sure we are respecting people’s rights and their choices, at the same time as we protect the most vulnerable, is a very important but challenging balance to establish.”
Op-Ed: Listen up, college students. You don’t ‘get’ a grade. You have to earn it
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-09/college-rating-professor-jones-petition-students
Op-Ed: Listen up, college students. You don’t ‘get’ a grade. You have to earn it
By Jillian Horton
October 9, 2022
Every fall, my mental timeline is flooded with memories of the teachers who changed my life. And last week — when I read about the controversial termination of Maitland Jones Jr., a distinguished New York University professor whose courses in organic chemistry were deemed too hard by students hoping to get into medicine — it took me back to the September I met my toughest teacher.
It was 1994, and I was a 19-year-old student in my third year at Western University in London, Ontario. I had signed up for a course in the department of English taught by one Donald S. Hair. My first clue that professor Hair would defy expectations? He was bald.
Standing at the lectern in a three-piece suit, he took roll, ever-so-properly referring to each of us as “Miss” or “Mister.” It was a distinct shift from the vaguely beatnik tone of many of our other professors, with whom students could sometimes be found drinking beer at one of the campus pubs.
A few weeks into the class, the professor administered our first test. I didn’t think I had anything to worry about — until he handed my exam back the following week with a 67 written on it in red ink.
Sixty-seven! I’d never received such a low mark. I was dependent on a scholarship, and any grade below 80 put my future in jeopardy. My seatmate’s murderous expression revealed her mark had been miserable too. We fumed silently: Professor Hair was an old weirdo! How dare he derail our GPAs? What was the old boy’s problem, anyway?
But the real problem was this: He was right. I knew it as soon as I’d cooled off and taken the time to digest his comments. My writing was sloppy, my understanding of key concepts superficial. Like many of my peers, I was used to earning top grades. Now, for the first time, a teacher had introduced an uncomfortable question. Were we actually “earning” them?
The next day, I went to his office. With burning cheeks, I told him I knew I’d butchered the exam. To my childish surprise, he wasn’t a “weirdo” in the least. He was funny, warm and uncommonly patient. He assured me if I worked hard, I’d achieve my potential in the course, and he’d be available to help me.
I went away, read and read some more. The more I read, the more interesting his classes became, and soon, his complex, spellbinding lectures were the highlight of my week. I worked my guts out in that course. The grade I earned in his class was the lowest I’d receive that year. But I had earned that grade. Nearly 30 years later, I’m still proud of that.
As an associate dean and teacher of medical students for the last 20 years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what usually makes a good doctor — and it isn’t organic chemistry. I disagree with the colleague of professor Jones who told the New York Times that he did not want anyone treating patients who did not “appreciate transformations at the molecular level.” The comment struck me as slightly less outdated than keeping a bag of leeches for emergency bloodletting. There is ample evidence other paths prepare students extremely well for a career in medicine.
That issue is a sideshow anyway, because the strong public reaction to this story is largely about something else: the commodification of education. For U.S. medical schools, the Assn. of American Medical Colleges oversees a rigorous and detailed accreditation process, which relies on the collection of mounds of data — including an exit survey that can heavily influence the school’s accreditation outcome. The survey begins by asking students to rate the degree to which they agree or disagree with this statement: “Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of my medical education.”
Is that the right way to ask someone to evaluate their education? It seems more appropriate for rating their Starbucks latte. My job is not to ensure my children — or my students — are always “satisfied.” That metric would worsen the quality of my parenting and my teaching; both require me to do unpopular things if I am to do my job well. “Satisfaction” is the language of consumer experience, and when it becomes a target metric, it alters something fundamental about the interaction between people.
I have felt that shift as an educator. I’ve witnessed, and championed, long-overdue changes in the learning environment, including a focus on the psychological safety of students. But I’ve seen disheartening changes too — namely the evolution of a relationship with students that sometimes feels transactional, as if the primary objective is no longer just about turning them into doctors but, rather, keeping them constantly satisfied, the teacher less preceptor than proprietor.
That shift is deeply, deeply unsatisfying.
Long after I’d moved on from Western University, I heard professor Hair had been nominated for an award for excellence in teaching. “Professors are often afraid to employ his high standards,” I eagerly wrote in a two-page letter of support. “Setting the bar higher may initially be uncomfortable, but it gives students … a sense of self-respect and pride which is stolen from us when we work in circumstances where such experiences do not exist.” He won that award. And he also earned it.
If my low grade in professor Hair’s class had been a barrier to me becoming a doctor, would I feel differently? I really don’t know. I suppose I thought he had a right to be tough as long as he was also trying to be fair. The irony? What I learned from him made me a better doctor. Not because I was satisfied.
Because I grew.
Jillian Horton is a writer and physician. She is the author of “We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing.”
New York University dumbs down its pre-med curriculum so students who are too dumb and/or lazy to pass organic chemistry can still become doctors
At N.Y.U., Students Were Failing Organic Chemistry. Who Was to Blame?
Maitland Jones Jr., a respected professor, defended his standards. But students started a petition, and the university dismissed him.
By Stephanie Saul
October 3, 2022
In the field of organic chemistry, Maitland Jones Jr. has a storied reputation. He taught the subject for decades, first at Princeton and then at New York University, and wrote an influential textbook. He received awards for his teaching, as well as recognition as one of N.Y.U.’s coolest professors.
But last spring, as the campus emerged from pandemic restrictions, 82 of his 350 students signed a petition against him.
Students said the high-stakes course – notorious for ending many a dream of medical school – was too hard, blaming Dr. Jones for their poor test scores.
The professor defended his standards. But just before the start of the fall semester, university deans terminated Dr. Jones’s contract.
The officials also had tried to placate the students by offering to review their grades and allowing them to withdraw from the class retroactively. The chemistry department’s chairman, Mark E. Tuckerman, said the unusual offer to withdraw was a “one-time exception granted to students by the dean of the college.”
Marc A. Walters, director of undergraduate studies in the chemistry department, summed up the situation in an email to Dr. Jones, before his firing.
He said the plan would “extend a gentle but firm hand to the students and those who pay the tuition bills,” an apparent reference to parents.
The university’s handling of the petition provoked equal and opposite reactions from both the chemistry faculty, who protested the decisions, and pro-Jones students, who sent glowing letters of endorsement.
“The deans are obviously going for some bottom line, and they want happy students who are saying great things about the university so more people apply and the U.S. News rankings keep going higher,” said Paramjit Arora, a chemistry professor who has worked closely with Dr. Jones.
In short, this one unhappy chemistry class could be a case study of the pressures on higher education as it tries to handle its Gen-Z student body. Should universities ease pressure on students, many of whom are still coping with the pandemic’s effects on their mental health and schooling? How should universities respond to the increasing number of complaints by students against professors? Do students have too much power over contract faculty members, who do not have the protections of tenure?
And how hard should organic chemistry be anyway?
Dr. Jones, 84, is known for changing the way the subject is taught. In addition to writing the 1,300-page textbook “Organic Chemistry,” now in its fifth edition, he pioneered a new method of instruction that relied less on rote memorization and more on problem solving.
After retiring from Princeton in 2007, he taught organic chemistry at N.Y.U. on a series of yearly contracts. About a decade ago, he said in an interview, he noticed a loss of focus among the students, even as more of them enrolled in his class, hoping to pursue medical careers.
“Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate,” he wrote in a grievance to the university, protesting his termination. Grades fell even as he reduced the difficulty of his exams.
The problem was exacerbated by the pandemic, he said. “In the last two years, they fell off a cliff,” he wrote. “We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”
After several years of Covid learning loss, the students not only didn’t study, they didn’t seem to know how to study, Dr. Jones said.
To ease pandemic stress, Dr. Jones and two other professors taped 52 organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Jones said that he personally paid more than $5,000 for the videos and that they are still used by the university.
That was not enough. In 2020, some 30 students out of 475 filed a petition asking for more help, said Dr. Arora, who taught that class with Dr. Jones. “They were really struggling,” he explained. “They didn’t have good internet coverage at home. All sorts of things.”
The professors assuaged the students in an online town-hall meeting, Dr. Arora said.
Many students were having other problems. Kent Kirshenbaum, another chemistry professor at N.Y.U., said he discovered cheating during online tests.
When he pushed students’ grades down, noting the egregious misconduct, he said they protested that “they were not given grades that would allow them to get into medical school.”
By spring 2022, the university was returning with fewer Covid restrictions, but the anxiety continued and students seemed disengaged.
“They weren’t coming to class, that’s for sure, because I can count the house,” Dr. Jones said in an interview. “They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions.”
Students could choose between two sections, one focused on problem solving, the other on traditional lectures. Students in both sections shared problems on a GroupMe chat and began venting about the class. Those texts kick-started the petition, submitted in May.
“We are very concerned about our scores, and find that they are not an accurate reflection of the time and effort put into this class,” the petition said.
The students criticized Dr. Jones’s decision to reduce the number of midterm exams from three to two, flattening their chances to compensate for low grades. They said that he had tried to conceal course averages, did not offer extra credit and removed Zoom access to his lectures, even though some students had Covid. And, they said, he had a “condescending and demanding” tone.
“We urge you to realize,” the petition said, “that a class with such a high percentage of withdrawals and low grades has failed to make students’ learning and well-being a priority and reflects poorly on the chemistry department as well as the institution as a whole.”
Dr. Jones said in an interview that he reduced the number of exams because the university scheduled the first test date after six classes, which was too soon.
On the accusation that he concealed course averages, Dr. Jones said that they were impossible to provide because 25 percent of the grade relied on lab scores and a final lab test, but that students were otherwise aware of their grades.
As for Zoom access, he said the technology in the lecture hall made it impossible to record his white board problems.
Zacharia Benslimane, a teaching assistant in the problem-solving section of the course, defended Dr. Jones in an email to university officials.
“I think this petition was written more out of unhappiness with exam scores than an actual feeling of being treated unfairly,” wrote Mr. Benslimane, now a Ph.D. student at Harvard. “I have noticed that many of the students who consistently complained about the class did not use the resources we afforded to them.”
Ryan Xue, who took the course, said he found Dr. Jones both likable and inspiring.
“This is a big lecture course, and it also has the reputation of being a weed-out class,” said Mr. Xue, who has transferred and is now a junior at Brown. “So there are people who will not get the best grades. Some of the comments might have been very heavily influenced by what grade students have gotten.”
Other students, though, seemed shellshocked from the experience. In interviews, several of them said that Dr. Jones was keen to help students who asked questions, but that he could also be sarcastic and downbeat about the class’s poor performance.
After the second midterm for which the average hovered around 30 percent, they said that many feared for their futures. One student was hyperventilating.
But students also described being surprised that Dr. Jones was fired, a measure the petition did not request and students did not think was possible.
The entire controversy seems to illustrate a sea change in teaching, from an era when professors set the bar and expected the class to meet it, to the current more supportive, student-centered approach.
Dr. Jones “learned to teach during a time when the goal was to teach at a very high and rigorous level,” Dr. Arora said. “We hope that students will see that putting them through that rigor is doing them good.”
James W. Canary, chairman of the department until about a year ago, said he admired Dr. Jones’s course content and pedagogy, but felt that his communication with students was skeletal and sometimes perceived as harsh.
“He hasn’t changed his style or methods in a good many years,” Dr. Canary said. “The students have changed, though, and they were asking for and expecting more support from the faculty when they’re struggling.”
N.Y.U. is evaluating so-called stumble courses — those in which a higher percentage of students get D’s and F’s, said John Beckman, a spokesman for the university.
“Organic chemistry has historically been one of those courses,” Mr. Beckman said. “Do these courses really need to be punitive in order to be rigorous?”
Dr. Kirshenbaum said he worried about any effort to reduce the course’s demands, noting that most students in organic chemistry want to become doctors.
“Unless you appreciate these transformations at the molecular level,” he said, “I don’t think you can be a good physician, and I don’t want you treating patients.”
In August, Dr. Jones received a short note from Gregory Gabadadze, dean for science, terminating his contract. Dr. Jones’s performance, he wrote, “did not rise to the standards we require from our teaching faculty.”
Dr. Gabadadze declined to be interviewed. But Mr. Beckman defended the decision, saying that Dr. Jones had been the target of multiple student complaints about his “dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and opacity about grading.”
Dr. Jones’s course evaluations, he added, “were by far the worst, not only among members of the chemistry department, but among all the university’s undergraduate science courses.”
Professors in the chemistry department have pushed back. In a letter to Dr. Gabadadze and other deans, they wrote that they worried about setting “a precedent, completely lacking in due process, that could undermine faculty freedoms and correspondingly enfeeble proven pedagogic practices.”
Nathaniel J. Traaseth, one of about 20 chemistry professors, mostly tenured, who signed the letter, said the university’s actions may deter rigorous instruction, especially given the growing tendency of students to file petitions.
“Now the faculty who are not tenured are looking at this case and thinking, ‘Wow, what if this happens to me and they don’t renew my contract?’” he said.
Dr. Jones agrees.
“I don’t want my job back,” he said, adding that he had planned to retire soon anyway. “I just want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
A person in New York has become paralyzed because their idiotic parents never got them vaccinated for polio
How polio came back to New York for the first time in decades, silently spread and left a patient paralyzed
By Spencer Kimball
October 4, 2022
An unvaccinated adult suffered paralysis in June from polio, the first case in New York since 1990.
Wastewater surveillance later found the virus had been spreading silently in the New York City area for months.
The origin of the virus is still under investigation, but samples in New York are genetically linked to polioviruses found in London and Jerusalem wastewater.
When a young adult in a New York City suburb visited an emergency department in June after experiencing weakness in their lower legs, the shocking diagnosis would lead local officials to declare a health emergency in New York and put authorities across the U.S. and around the world on a state of alert.
The individual, a resident of Rockland County, had suffered from a fever, a stiff neck, back and abdominal pain as well as constipation for five days. The patient was hospitalized and tested for enterovirus, a family of pathogens that in rare cases can cause weakness in the arms and legs.
New York state’s Wadsworth Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would subsequently confirm the worst: The young adult was suffering from paralysis after contracting polio, the first known U.S. case in nearly a decade and the first in New York since 1990.
The patient was unvaccinated.
“I was very surprised. I never thought I’d see a case of polio in the United States, certainly not in Rockland County,” said Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the county health commissioner. The CDC considers a single case of paralytic polio a public health emergency in the U.S.
Polio is a devastating, incurable disease that once struck fear into parents’ hearts every summer when transmission peaked, threatening children with paralysis. But the virus has faded from U.S. public consciousness over the decades after a successful vaccination campaign crushed transmission in the 1960s.
In the late 1940s, more than 35,000 people were paralyzed from polio in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC. But the advent of an effective vaccine in 1955 dramatically reduced the spread of the disease to less than 100 cases annually by the 1960s.
The virus had been eliminated from the U.S. by 1979, though sporadic cases that originated abroad have been identified over the years.
How polio reemerged in New York this year remains the subject of investigation, but public health officials believe the virus originated overseas in a country that still uses the oral polio vaccine. American health officials stopped using the oral vaccine more than 20 years ago because it contains live virus that can — in rare circumstances — mutate to become virulent, but it is still common in other countries.
Genetic analysis of New York poliovirus samples indicates a weakened virus strain used in one of the oral vaccines mutated over time to cause the outbreak. Combined with low vaccination rates in some New York communities and greater international travel, this provided an opening for the virus to slip back into the U.S. this year and paralyze the Rockland patient.
“The underlying lesson is this is an infectious disease and it travels easily with population movements,” said Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesperson for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the organization that represents the worldwide campaign to eliminate the virus.
Laura L. Morgan in the Wall St. Journal: ‘Implicit Bias’ Training Cost Me My Job – States are forcing medical professionals to make false confessions of racism. I refused to go along.
‘Implicit Bias’ Training Cost Me My Nursing Job
States are forcing medical professionals to make false confessions of racism. I refused to go along.
By Laura L. Morgan
September 30, 2022
I was fired from my nursing job this year for refusing to take “implicit bias” training. After 39 years of providing equal care to all my patients without regard to their race, I objected to a mandatory course grounded in the idea that I’m racist because I’m white. I fear every healthcare professional will soon be forced to make the same awful decision I did: Falsely admit to being racist or abandon the medical field.
My ordeal started in September 2021 when my employer, Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health, rolled out its annual training modules for clinical educators. The list included “Overcoming Unconscious Bias.” After viewing the interactive course, I contacted my supervisor and asked for a meeting with the chief nursing officer and the human resources director. The former sent a surrogate; the latter didn’t attend. After two meetings, it was clear that I wouldn’t be given an exemption. My supervisor told me, “I don’t want you to die on this cross.”
But I did. The idea of implicit bias is grounded in the belief that white people treat those who aren’t white worse than those who are. It’s part of the woke assumption that society, including healthcare, suffers from “systemic racism.” Accordingly, my own supposed implicit bias, which is a euphemism for ingrained racism, must be rooted out. Not only that, it must be replaced with preferential treatment for the nonwhite. I fail to see how real racial discrimination is justified by my nonexistent racism.
I knew it was coming, but I was still devastated when I was fired in February. I went from a six-figure job to zero income. The day I was fired I sold my car to make sure I’d have enough money to live on. When I tried to find a new healthcare job, no one would hire me. No doubt if they contacted my old employer, they were told why I was let go.
States are increasingly requiring implicit-bias training as a condition for obtaining medical and nursing licenses. As of July, the Kentucky Board of Nursing requires that all registered nurses take a continuing-education course on implicit bias. In July, as a journalistic exercise, I paid $5 and signed up for the recommended course, created by the Kentucky Nurses Association. Nurses are told that “implicit bias kills,” and that white privilege is a “covert” form of racism. The course walks nurses through their possible contributions to “modern-day lynchings in the workplace.”
In June, Michigan started requiring all professional-license holders to take two hours of implicit-bias training. That’s everyone from doctors and nurses to dentists and counselors. The training must be taken at every license renewal, which sends the message that racism is essentially permanent and incurable. Massachusetts also mandated implicit-bias training for doctors in June, connecting doctors’ supposed racism to lower-quality care for minority patients. Maryland will enact its rule for “all healthcare practitioners” on Oct. 1.
No state board of medicine or nursing provides sufficient evidence to support the claim that all white people are implicitly biased, and there’s plenty of scholarly research that shows that implicit-bias testing is flawed. Policy makers don’t seem to be considering the unintended consequences of these mandates. Accusing my peers and me of racism will contribute to soaring levels of burnout, causing many to leave the medical profession. Some, like me, will surely be forced out. Patients, especially minorities, will experience the most harm. Their caregivers are being told to admit to unconscious racism. Why would you see a physician who supposedly hates you and will hurt your health?
More state mandates are surely on the way, including in red states. Most state medical associations, which exert a powerful influence over policy, have bought in to the belief that their own members are racist. The Texas Nurses Association declares the existence of “racial biases in healthcare” and supports implicit-bias training for nurses. The national Federation of State Medical Boards urges state boards to take a bigger role in addressing the “systemic racism and structural inequities” that it says are “embedded” in American healthcare.
Before I was fired, I wrote the following to the leadership of Baylor Scott & White Health: “Treating patients, coworkers, family members, and my superiors in a fair and respectful manner is the practice I have subscribed to during my entire 39-year nursing career.” The same is true of most of the medical professionals I’ve worked with. No one – not me, my peers or our patients – will be better off if more states call us liars and racists.
Top female scientist canceled over 13-year-old ‘Michael Jackson’ Halloween costume
Top female scientist canceled over 13-year-old ‘Michael Jackson’ Halloween costume
By Jennifer Kabbany
March 7, 2022
‘UW Medicine is helping to ruin a woman who devoted her career to finding a cure for HIV’
Highly decorated virologist Julie Overbaugh has been forced out of a position of leadership at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and resigned her faculty affiliate position at the University of Washington School of Medicine due to accusations of racism and investigations involving her decision to wear a Michael Jackson costume to a Halloween party in 2009.
A picture of the 13-year-old incident, in which she is accused of wearing “blackface,” has prompted peers to accuse her of racism despite the fact that her research has focused on aiding Africans for the last three decades.
“Overbaugh has devoted her professional career to studying viral pathogens that cause HIV. But amid publishing papers, running her own research lab, and flying back and forth from Kenya, she has also pursued another professional passion: mentoring. Overbaugh is one of two recipients of this year’s Nature Award for Mentoring in Science, which is awarded to select scientists in one country or region each year,” a 2016 report in GeekWire reports.
Last year, Overbaugh was elected to National Academy of Sciences.
“I am really happy to see gender balance in this year’s elected members and hope this signals a future trend,” Overbaugh said at the time. “In my field, HIV, which is a very large field, there have only been a couple of women elected — hopefully, there will be more in the future.”
But Overbaugh’s accomplishments during an age in which female STEM recruitment and retainment is a social justice priority apparently could not outweigh the 2009 incident of emulating the King of Pop at a party that was reportedly themed after Jackson’s famous “Thriller” album.
Members of the Overbaugh lab apparently enjoy celebrating Halloween and have posted pictures of its themed parties every year. In past years they have dressed as emojis, bumble bees, fish — and even as “Binders of Babes” — a riff on Republican Mitt Romney’s gaffe while running for president.
The picture from the year 2009 is conspicuously missing from the webpage.
“The act depicted in the photo is racist, offensive and hurtful, and we offer our sincere apologies to anyone who has experienced pain or upset because of the act or this photo,” the cancer center announced in mid-February, adding Overbaugh was put on administrative leave and placed under investigation.
“Dr. Overbaugh has stepped down from her senior vice president role at Fred Hutch. She will continue working in her lab and will take a hiatus from her leadership duties in the Office of Education & Training. During this time, she will engage in an intensive education and reflection process.”
The Federalist reports:
Though the incident didn’t occur at UW Medicine, its CEO and equity officer also waded into the faux controversy. UW Medicine CEO Dr. Paul Ramsey and Chief Equity Officer Paula Houston notified UW Medicine staff in an email that Overbaugh was punished for engaging in the “racist, dehumanizing, and abhorrent act” of “blackface.” During a separate formal review process for UW faculty, the email confirmed, Overbaugh resigned from her UW affiliate faculty member appointment.
Overbaugh released a short statement to me. “I did not know the association of this with blackface at the time, in 2009, but understand the offense that is associated with this now,” she said. “I have apologized for this both publicly and privately and beyond that have no other comments.”
Ramsey and Houston claim that the UW Medicine community was “harmed” by the 13-year-old photo that most staff didn’t know existed until reading about it in the Feb. 25 email. “We acknowledge that our community has been harmed by this incident and the fact that 13 years elapsed before action was taken,” they wrote. “We are convening a series of affinity group meetings in the next few weeks to provide spaces for mutual support, reflection, and response.”
Neither Ramsey nor Houston explained how the photo “harmed” anyone. Indeed, beyond one confirmed complaint, it’s unclear if anyone even cared about the old photo.
The full memo from UW Medicine was republished by journalist Jesse Singal on his Twitter page. The memo notes that Overbaugh resigned her post at the university once administrators began their own probe into the incident.
Her faculty bio is no longer on the UW School of Medicine website, although its Department of Global Health has, as of Monday afternoon, yet to strip her from its webpage.
“A U. Washington doctor who has dedicated her career to fighting HIV in Africa, including research w/sex workers, is having her reputation and career incinerated because she dressed up as Michael Jackson, in blackface, once in 2009,” Singal noted.
https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1497289911996760064
“Just to situate everyone, the event in question happened several years before the most recent instance of 30 Rock airing blackface-oriented comedy to tens of millions of people. What she did was a bad idea but at the time was obviously not seen as too risque even for network TV,” he added.
Writing for The Federalist, Jason Rantz points out that “UW Medicine is lashing out against Overbaugh to show its wokeness and earn social currency.”
“That UW Medicine is helping to ruin a woman who devoted her career to finding a cure for HIV is immaterial to its leaders. To progressive activists, highlighting one’s virtues is more important than curing a deadly disease.”
Woman gets $688.35 ER bill for spending 7 hours in the waiting room — without being treated
Woman gets $688.35 ER bill for spending 7 hours in the waiting room — without being treated
November 1, 2021
By Nicole Lyn Pesce
The woman says Emory Healthcare told her, ‘You get charged before you are seen. Not for being seen.’
A Georgia woman spent seven hours waiting for emergency room staff to check out her head injury, and left before receiving any treatment. But the real headache began when the hospital billed her almost $700 for the visit a few weeks later.
“I didn’t get my vitals taken, nobody called my name. I wasn’t seen at all,” Taylor Davis told a local Fox affiliate.
She said that she went to Emory Decatur Hospital ER in July for a head injury, and waited as long as she could stand it. “I sat there for seven hours. There’s no way I should be sitting in an emergency room … for seven hours,” she said. So she went home. And was charged $688.35 for the ordeal.
Davis said she called the hospital after receiving the surprise medical bill, because she was convinced it was a mistake. But she says that she was told, “it’s hospital protocol even if you’re just walking in and you’re not seen. When you type in your Social [Security number], that’s it. You’re going to get charged regardless,” she said.
Fox 5 in Atlanta saw a copy of her past due notice for $688.35, as well as an email that she received from an Emory Healthcare patient financial services employee that read, “You get charged before you are seen. Not for being seen.”
Representatives from Emory Healthcare were not immediately available for comment. But Emory Healthcare sent the following statement to Fox 5 in Atlanta: “Emory Healthcare takes all patient concerns seriously and appreciates this has been brought to our attention. Our teams are currently looking into this matter and will follow up directly with the individual.”
Davis said this would probably prevent her from seeking medical attention in the future. “I’m very reluctant to go to the hospital now. That’s kind of like the last resort now. Seeing that they’re able to bill you for random things, it doesn’t make me want to go. So that’s not good,” she said.
The story, which published online over Halloween weekend, was soon the top post on Reddit’s homepage on Monday afternoon, drawing roughly 6,000 comments from people sharing their own surprise medical bill stories.
Indeed, Davis is not alone here. One in five Americans who undergo elective surgery get hit with unexpected out-of-network medical bills, according to a 2020 study of almost 350,000 people. And those suffering sticker shock ended up owing $2,011 more than they were expecting, on average. And nearly one in five families who delivered babies in 2019 may have gotten at least one surprise bill for the delivery and/or newborn hospitalization, with an average bill of $744, another study estimates.
Earlier in the pandemic, men and women getting hit with surprise bills after getting treated for COVID-19 also made headlines. One survivor who spent six weeks in a Seattle ICU ran up a $1.1 million medical tab, although he was quite fortunate in that his insurance paid most of the bill. (If you’re curious, here’s how his $1,122,501.04 bill breaks down.)
But research shows that people making less than $35,000 a year have the most difficulty paying medical, dental or prescription drug bills.
Help could be on the way. Former President Donald Trump signed a federal rule requiring hospitals to publicly list the cost of many of their services in accessible, consumer-friendly language, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2021. This includes X-rays, outpatient visits, imaging and laboratory tests, or bundled services such as a colonoscopy.
And President Joe Biden’s consumer protections against surprise medical bills, which includes being protected from unexpected charges if an out-of-network clinician takes part in a surgery or procedure conducted at an in-network hospital, is on track to take effect on Jan. 1, 2022.
Video: Dr. Rand Paul vs lawyer Xavier Becerra, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, who does not have a degree in medicine or science, and is a complete idiot when it comes to the subject of natural immunity for people who have been infected with COVID-19
Rand Paul is a medical doctor.
Xavier Becerra is a lawyer who has no degree in medicine or science. Despite this, he is the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In this video, Dr. Paul explains why Becerra is a complete idiot when it comes to the subject of natural immunity for people who have been infected with COVID-19.
Dr. Paul also explains why Becerra is a totalitarian control freak who has no respect for individual freedom.
I think the COVID-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving. Here are my many reasons for thinking such a thing. Updated for March 26, 2021.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 26, 2021
I think the COVIOD-19 lockdown is killing more people than it is saving.
I’m going to start out by posting the CDC’s estimated survival rates, by age, for people who contract COVID-19:
BBC article on people who regretted getting sex change surgery
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6923912.stm
Are sex change operations justified?
By Innes Bowen
August 1, 2007
Many people who have been through sex change operations say it was the only solution to a distressing condition. But a leading feminist campaigner claims that sex reassignment surgery is based on unscientific ideas – and could be doing more harm than good.
“I should never have had sex change surgery,” Claudia MacLean, a transsexual woman told the audience at a recent debate organised by the BBC Radio 4 programme Hecklers and the Royal Society of Medicine in London.
“As a result of the surgery, I am incapable of sex and I have lived a life apart.”
Claudia was speaking out in support of Julie Bindel, a radical feminist and journalist, who was trying to persuade medics and trans people that sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation.
Threatening concept
Radical feminists have ideological reasons for opposing sex change surgery.
To them, the claim that someone can be “born into the wrong sex” is a deeply threatening concept.
Many feminists believe that the behaviours and feelings which are considered typically masculine or typically feminine are purely socially conditioned.
But if, as some in the transsexual lobby believes, the tendency to feel masculine or feminine is something innate then it follows that gender stereotypical behaviours could well be “natural” rather than as the result of social pressures and male oppression.
As a feminist, Julie Bindel therefore has a strong political motivation for her scepticism about sex change surgery.
But, her argument goes beyond ideology.
Having looked into the medical research on transsexualism, she claims there is a lack of science behind the diagnosis, no satisfactory research into the outcomes for patients and individual stories of post-operative regret.
Regret
Claudia says she was referred for surgery after a single 45 minute consultation.
“At no time did I say to that psychiatrist that I felt like a woman. In my opinion what happened to me was all about money.”
She is one of a small number of trans people who have publicly expressed their regrets about having had sex change surgery.
Another is Charles Kane who, as Sam Hashimi, was the subject of a BBC documentary One Life: Make me a Man Again, televised in 2004.
This showed Sam, a transsexual woman, undergoing surgery to become a man again.
She told the BBC that her desire to become a woman had developed following a nervous breakdown.
For her, these feelings were caused by a longing to retreat into a fantasy character rather than having a crisis of gender identity.
“When I was in the psychiatric hospital there was a man on one side of me who thought he was King George and another guy on the other side who thought he was Jesus Christ. I decided I was Sam.”
Others, like Miranda Ponsonby, blame post-operative discontent on society’s lack of willingness to accept transsexual people.
In her forthcoming autobiography, The Making of Miranda, she describes having a strong sense from a young age that she was a female trapped in a man’s body.
However, like Claudia, she says that, since her surgery, she has lived a life apart.
She claims that she is no happier now than she was before the operation.
Her advice to those contemplating sex change surgery is “Don’t do it.”
Stories of satisfaction
Against these stories of disappointment and regret, there are many more people who will testify publicly to their overwhelming satisfaction with sex change surgery.
But are most people who have sex change surgery satisfied or dissatisfied?
It comes as something of a surprise to learn that the medical profession does not yet know the answer to this question.
According to a review carried out by the School of Health and Related Research at Sheffield University, the poor quality of research in this area means that “little robust evidence exists” on the outcomes for patients who have sex change surgery.
Dr Kevan Wylie, a consultant in sexual medicine and the head of the UK body looking into standards of care for sex change surgery patients, admits there have been difficulties.
“The problem is that we tend to lose touch with our patients after a relatively short period of time following surgery.”
Some local health authorities now refuse to fund sex change operations on the basis that there is a lack of evidence about the surgical efficacy and psychological benefits of surgery.
In the absence of more research studies, gender dysphoria specialist Dr Kevan Wylie says it is important to listen to his patients.
However, those contemplating surgery – and the health authorities which fund them – ought also to be able to get advice about the risks versus the potential benefits of such a major operation and, until further research is done, doctors are unable to give them such information.
Best-Selling Controversial Book on Transgender People Removed From Amazon 3 Years After Publication
Best-Selling Controversial Book on Transgender People Removed From Amazon 3 Years After Publication
By Katherine Fung
February 22, 2021
Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally was removed from Amazon’s cyber shelves Sunday, three years after the controversial best-seller was published on February 20, 2018.
Anderson told Newsweek that he discovered that his book had vanished from Amazon—as well as the company’s e-reader Kindle, podcast service Audible and used-book sellers—when someone looking to buy a copy informed the author. He said that neither he nor his publisher were notified by Amazon.
In 2018, the book hit No. 1 on two of Amazon’s best-seller list before it was even released, but sparked controversy for arguing that society’s growing acceptance of transgender people stems more from ideology than science.
“We need to respect the dignity of people who identify as transgender,” Anderson argued in the book, “but without encouraging children to undergo experimental transition treatments, and without trampling on the needs and interests of others.”
While the book was well-received by conservatives, LGBTQ activists have dismissed the book as anti-trans and “dangerous.”
“People who have actually read my book discovered that it was a thoughtful and accessible presentation of the state of the scientific, medical, philosophical and legal debates,” Anderson told Newsweek. “Yes, it advances an argument from a certain viewpoint. No, it didn’t get any facts wrong, and it didn’t engage in any name-calling.”
He argues that the book’s research is more important than ever before given the recent push for trans policies from the new Biden administration.
“Three years after publication, in the very same week that the House of Representatives is going to ram through a radical transgender bill amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Amazon erases my book opposing gender ideology from their cyber shelves,” Anderson wrote to Newsweek. “Make no mistake, both Big Government and Big Tech can undermine human dignity and liberty, human flourishing and the common good.”
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden undid a host of Trump-era policies and issued a sweeping executive order, protecting gay and transgender people from discrimination in schools, the workplace, health care among other facets of daily life.
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports,” Biden’s executive order stated. “Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access health care and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination.”
Days later, Biden also reversed former President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. military.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Equality Act this week after Democratic Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island reintroduced the LGBTQ rights bill last week.
The Equality Act would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces, public funding and jury service.
While it passed the House in 2019 after eight GOP lawmakers broke party ranks in a historic vote, the bill was stalled in the then-Republican-controlled Senate. But sponsors of the bill are hopeful that it could pass now that the Senate is split 50–50.
Anderson said that although his book has been praised by a number of psychology experts “none of that matters. It’s not about how you say it, it’s not about how rigorously you argue it, it’s not about how charitably you present it. It’s about whether you dissent from a new orthodoxy.”
He said his publisher has since contacted Amazon to inquire about the grounds for removal but has not received a response.
Amazon also declined Newsweek’s request for comment, although a spokesperson referred to the company’s content guidelines, which removes books that include illegal or infringing content, offensive content, poor customer experience or public domain content.
“We don’t sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia, advocates terrorism, or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive,” Amazon’s guidelines read.
However, it remains unclear as to why Anderson’s book has been removed by the online retailer.
Democrats used to be in favor of universal education and universal employment. But now with “cancel culture,” Democrats are against those things. And I’m guessing that it’s only a matter of time until Democrats start being against the universal health care that they currently claim to support.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 31, 2021
Until recently, Democrats were in favor of universal education and universal employment.
However, with the current movement known as “cancel culture,” Democrats are now against both of those things.
After a high school student named Mimi Groves was accepted to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a public university which was her #1 choice for college, the college later asked her not to attend, because one of her high school classmates named Jimmy Galligan sent the college a video of a private Snapchat conversation from three years earlier, where Groves had said to her friends, “I can drive [racial slur].”
The New York Times praised Galligan for sending the video to the college.
Public colleges used to be about universal education. That is clearly no longer the case.
A data analyst named David Shor was fired from his job at Civis Analytics because he tweeted a link to a study by a Princeton professor which said that peaceful protesting was more effective than violent rioting.
Democrats used to say they supported universal education and universal employment.
However, the two above examples prove that Democrats are now against universal education and universal employment.
Democrats also say they support universal health care.
But based on those two above examples, I’m guessing that it’s only a matter of time until Democrats start being against universal health care too.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 