Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/07/meet-the-billionaire-sackler-f.html
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I read this as “the billionaire slacker family”…
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Not the only fraud going on in the medical profession. Think of all the unnecessary surgeries and elevated drugs prices in general.
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It pisses me off to find a great art exhibit only to find out it’s sponsored by the likes of the Sackler family or Altria (Phillip Morris) or ExxonMobil or some other fuck the world, it’s people and take their money corporation.
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This has been on my mind lately. We know for a fact that for-profit medicine is an ethical tar pit, where it seems impossible to survive without breaking the Hippocratic Oath. On the other hand, we know that the anti-vaxx parents are putting the community at risk for fatal outbreaks because they don’t trust doctors.
How do I keep being suspicious of the medical industry, while still continuing to judge people who don’t trust doctors? Ideally, without hypocrisy or personal growth?
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Medical Industry and trusting doctors are not the same thing. A relationship with your doctor is about trust of their knowledge and expertise. Your relationship to the Medical Industry / Big Pharma is wholly based on profit they can make on your suffering.
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Have you ever happened to be in the waiting room for “your” doctor and observed the parade of pharma reps bringing in packs of the latest corporate products? Frequently with lunch (or, at least donuts) for the staff?
Sorry, I have been twice screwed by “my” doctor and once indirectly via “my wife’s” doctor. I now have not been in a doctor’s office for more than 8 years. Interestingly, my health does not seem to have suffered for it. [EDIT]If I shouldWhen I (I accept that I will age and eventually die)[END EDIT] fall victim to some significant health issue in the future, I want to be engineered. If that is not available, I will probably seek out some particularly convincing person with rattles and a scary mask.
And who’s to blame? Lizard People of course! It’s probably not a great idea to take advice on anything from David Icke.
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Nah, that family is more affiliated with cannabinoids.
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I was just talking with a friend, who told me that about 4 years ago when she was 7 or 8 months pregnant, she was having back pain. I think you know where this is going…the doctor said “just one a day!” Oxy for a late-term pregnant lady. My god.
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It makes me wonder if they got Limbaugh hooked personally.
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Yes, they are a thing.
FYI, the Sackler museum at Harvard was based on donations by Arthur Sackler in the '80s. Arthur died almost a decade before OxyContin came to market and he was never involved with Purdue Pharma, that was his brothers and their family members. Mothers of Opioid Victims Urge Harvard to Remove Sackler Name, Bacow Refuses.
I am curious why you have such a deep inherent distrust of doctors but not of people who engage in as-yet-illegal experimental bioengineering of human beings. Wouldn’t such a person basically just be a doctor, minus the degrees and accountability?
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I did not mean to imply that I trust the people who currently engage in bioengineering. What I want is for someone to engage in rigorous investigations of what life and health truly are, with solid mechanical/chemical/engineering foundations, rather than operating from a massive edifice of often questionable statistics.
Also, my distrust of doctors is not inherent. It was learned over many years of experience.
This is entirely dependent on the doctor and institution in question.
I’ve seen doctors and institutions that have policies the don’t allow any gifts at all. Rules where them buying the doctor even a cup of coffee while at a conference isn’t allowed. Where they were barely allowed to accept conference pens and pads with a sponsor’s logo on them. Think scientific conferences with sponsors, not company events. A direct company event definitely wouldn’t happen.
And, the other end too, where a doctor’s office closed for an hour every day and a different rep provided lunch for the entire staff and the doctor gave out samples.
The problem is that it’s very hard, almost imposible, to determine which one any particular doctor is ahead of time.
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If you’re waiting for medical science to have a perfect understanding of the complexities of human biology before seeking out treatment it’s probably going to be a pretty long wait.
Statistics are actually a pretty darn good tool for devising medical procedures even if you don’t have a perfect understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Dr. John Snow saved countless Londoners from Cholera and became one of the most important figures in the field of epidemiology when he plotted out his famous “Ghost Map” of 1854 even though he had no idea how the Vibrio cholerae bacteria interact with the human body. To this day we don’t have a very good understanding of the mechanisms that cause lead neurotoxicity, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the doctors who advise that children avoid eating paint chips.
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I salute your good fortune. I would estimate that I trusted doctors for about 28 years (when I was a child, I had no choice). The first doctor I patronized, I “inherited” from my parents care. After that I selected doctors by recommendations of friends and family. I never encountered one that matched your description.
