Posted on 03/07/2006 11:33:16 AM PST by neverdem
Despite overwhelming bipartisan passage of HB 1531 in the Virginia House of Delegates by an 88-11 vote on Feb. 13, the Senate Education and Health Committee unfortunately defeated this timely and important legislation by a 6-9 vote on Feb. 23.
HB 1531 is needed to stop pediatricians and other doctors from meddling in our personal lives, invading our privacy, and straying from issues relating to disease and medicine.
Recently, my children visited a pediatrician for a physical. During the exam, they were asked--among other invasive, irrelevant, and unnecessary questions--whether there are guns in our home and, if so, whether they are locked up.
Fortunately (or not), I was not with them to witness this outrageous experience (and provide them with the appropriate "none of your business" answer), but my wife told me about it afterward.
Pediatricians should practice medicine rather than behave like social workers. It's none of their business whether there are guns in my home or my children wear bicycle helmets or seat belts.
As their father, I am responsible for my children's well-being and safety. Pediatricians should practice medicine and not pry into our personal lives on issues that have nothing to do with disease.
Dr. Leslie Ellwood, president of the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has said, "We don't have an opinion or issue an opinion on guns."
Visiting the AAP Web site proves otherwise; it provides official advice to parents to "not purchase a gun, especially a handgun" and to "remove all guns present in the home," and states, "The safest thing for your family is not to keep a gun in the home."
Ellwood also said, "Our plan is always to find out how the guns are managed in the household."
We as parents will manage our own households, and pediatricians should mind their own business--disease and medicine.
Charles H. Cunningham Fairfax
Has anyone seen where the Virginia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics renounced easily located statements of the national organization? Why does the AAP hide the URLs of its webpages?
http://www.aap.org/healthtopics/safety.cfm
Click on Firearms, then look for "Firearm Injury Prevention," located below "Brochures, Fact Sheets, and Quick Facts," below "Family and Community Resources," which itself is below "Firearm Injury Prevention." Go figure about why the directions seem convoluted. If I had posted that webpage by copying and pasting its HTML source code, it would have been an oversized monstrosity that you would have had to shift arrows back and forth in order to read it.
odd how their opinion on how to keep children safe from guns is to completely keep kids away from guns and not teach them anything about them other than "guns are bad", yet their opinion on sex, rather than advocate abstinence is teach them every facet of it, teach them how wonderful it is, teach them every way to protect yourself while doing it, how to do it without protection, what the consequences are, force the issue to be taught in school, give out free condoms, try to allow minors to have abortions without parental consent or knowledge...
i think doctors are a bit backwards here.
My sister had wanted a child for years and finally conceived in her early forties. Her OB-GYN immediately set upon her with all manner of statistics relating to higher incedence of Downs Syndrome and a variety of other maladies, pressuring her to abort. She even went so far as to point out supposed "abnormalities" in the ultrasound. My sister, who is just not assertive enough to tell this pushy propagandist of a "doctor" where to put her opinions, came home in tears on several occasions as a result.
To make a long story short, my sister and brother in law decided to have the baby, and she's a healthy, beautiful little girl, who will be three in May, the light of our lives.
I still go into a slow burn, whenever I think of how things could have turned out, had this supposed medical professional had had her way.
They ought to campaign against swimming pools and automobiles; both are far more deadly to kids.
OK, Americans, you can no longer have a backyard swimming pool and you may no longer own an automobile!!! Nor may you live on a street which allows automobiles..... we must all live on bike paths........
If a doctor asks questions that are none of his gawddamn business, fire the bastard and take your business elsewhere.
You wouldn't put up with your auto mechanic asking if you have guns in the house?
Gun ownership leads to voting Republican.
Promiscuity leads to liberalism.
I think liberal doctors have their priorities straight, it just isn't medicine.
Absolutely true. There can be no gun accidents in the house if there are no guns there. Now take a broader view and balance that with the safety a gun provides, and the safety of a child taught safe use of guns should he ever encounter one outside of the house.
I proudly checked the "Yes" box on my form and wansn't asked any questions. The higher the stats go for kids with guns in the house means the end statistics go down for "children killed in handgun accidents in the home in comparison to the number of homes with handguns present."
I had to get a physical for a job that required carrying a weapon.
After the usual reflex test, turn your head and cough, etc, the doc asks whether I'll be carrying for the job. I answered yes, but hadn't bought a duty weapon yet.
Imagine my utter shock when we ended up talking guns for like a half hour! Not only was he a doctor, a profession I usually associate with lefties, but the guy lived in a ritzy Boston suburb and carried. He was telling me how he had to stock up on hi-cap mags before the AWB, etc.
You just never know.
As are schools on the same issues. Either knowledge is power or knowledge is dangerous, but you can't have it both ways.
Here's a nice Physician Affidavit, courtesy of the Second Amendment Sisters (with a little clean up and reformatting by yours truly), that folks may find useful to hand to nosy physicians.
I understand your point but I also know a couple in their 40's that knew they were going to have a Down's Syndrome baby and sued their doctors after the birth of a severely retarded child because " the doctors did not advised them to abort the child" and now "our life is miserable". Or what about the woman that sued the doctor because he told her she was obese and a high risk for heart disease and she sued him "because he hurt my feelings". She lost in court and in less that a year she was dead of a massive infarct...call it poetic justice.
Nowadays physicians are seen as techs by certain patients, no loyalty, a "just give me my medicine" mentality. But things are changing because physicians are seeing patients now as "an insurance number" and are excluding from their practices patients that have crappy insurances (such as Cigna, Oxford, Medicare, Medicaid, and Aetna) in favor of PPO's, Blue Cross/Blue SHield or cash-paying customers. This is the beginning of the total decline and collapse in our health care delivery which will give opportunists like Hillary Clinton and the liberal left to propose new strategies in the health system that amount to socialized medicine.
If any "doctor" asks those questions, simply reply, "You're fired. I need a doctor, not a busybody liberal."
I thought this was a federal thing.
I just lie. It's none of their business. Besides, for all I know it's going back to the insurers.
Be careful about electronic medical records. The government is pushing for it. Take a hint.
Not exactly, the numbers used are kind of fudged and doctored a bit.
The games that are played with those numbers is embarrassing.
Your kind of assuming logic and honesty, in a brand of political statistics, where there are none, only a cause.
When the facts don't fit the theory for gun control advocates, they either disregard those facts or doctor them to fit the theory.
I can tell you two more stories just like that one - women who were advised to abort "definitely seriously disabled" babies who turned out perfectly.
That is great!
Pediatrics are turning into left wing thugs.
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