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However Dr. Hannah Dahlen, a professor of midwifery at the University of Western Sydney and the spokeswoman for the Australian College of Midwives, worries the crackdown may push people with anti-vaccination views further underground. "The worry is the confirmation bias that can occur, because people might say: 'There you go, this is proof that you can't even have an alternative opinion.' It might in fact just give people more fuel for their belief systems."
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I honestly don't care if it does "validate" anti-vaccination-pushing medical personell frankly, no medical practitioner has any business promoting non-scientifically-backed views that are of significant harm to their patients. This is the exact opposite of "do no harm". The affected patients lives are much more important a concern than what the people being disciplined think of the discipline.-
(Midwifery and therapy providers are really bad vectors of this kind of stuff, because they do not have actual medical training and in most countries there is very little regulation over who can become a midwife or therapist. In theory there are certifications, but there is no real bar to someone who is a quack getting one of these. I'm reminded of the state of the electrician's trade in the UK. As Clive Mitchell has said more than once: "Kitchen fitter is a two day course." In many states in the USA, therapist isn't even such a course.)
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@maiyannah Wait there's actually people outside of the USA that are anti-vaccination? I thought it was just another branch of their weird confusing cultural thing with religious fanaticism, conspiracies, and all that.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 10:47:55 UTC from web-
@nerthos It's caught up in the anti-big-pharma activism circuit, and is prevalent where-ever you have that. It's big back home in the UK. Less so here in Canada, since the govt pays for most prescriptions anyways so there's less of a care about that kind of thing.
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@maiyannah It's literally the first time I've heard of it out of USA. Here for example alternative medicine is a big thing, from herbs to acupunture and massages, but pretty much the only people you see complaining about meds are the people who are actually intolerant to them, like my grandmother who can only take a select few as most upset her digestive system. I've literally never seen anyone complaining about vaccination, in fact people are eager to sign up for it whenever there's an allocated number of state-paid vaccines for stuff like flu in autumn.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 11:44:13 UTC from web-
@nerthos @maiyannah I listen to one of those overnight talk shows, and other than paranormal things and political junk, alternative medicine is one of the major topics.
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@takePotato Knishesakenji Well I know for certain herbal medicine works when you know what you're doing. Of course it's useless for critical conditions, but it's amazing at most minor or cronical things.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 11:56:21 UTC from web -
@takemangoakenji @nerthos The alternative medicine that isn't bunkum (which is much less than even the optimistic would think) are basically going to be the stuff that was the precursor to current OTC medications anyways, though there is something to be said for knowing natural plants that were such precursors since it can be an affordable way to get some otherwise expensive OTC medications.
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@nerthos It's somewhat a sign of privilege, I'd say, that people are in a position where they complain about free vaccinations. Others, in less affluent countries, would do much to have such access to medication.
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@maiyannah Well that's human nature. Complaining about things they get for free and then complaining when those things aren't offered anymore.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:16:37 UTC from web -
@maiyannah As for the free vaccination, it covers the basic vaccination plan (which is actually printed on birth certificates as a way of making sure parents keep up with it, getting a stamp on each field as they're covered) and vaccines for risk factors (kids, eldely, pregnant women, and people with conditions that affect the immune system or recovery) in case of a potential outbreak of either a foreign disease, or the typical flu in the winter.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:21:08 UTC from web-
@nerthos I'm actually exactly the kind of person most would assume is anti-vaccination because my condition was caused by an improperly sterilized needle used for one, basically, but thinking something is bad because it bananaed me up when someone didn't do it right would be quite silly.
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@maiyannah Yeah, it'd be about the same as saying "knifes are bad!" because someone got stabbed.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:26:27 UTC from web-
@nerthos There's something to be said for things that can really be bad when misused or mishandled, but that's a reason to exercise caution and education, not eliminate them. Meanwhile in North America the bar is continually being lowered for doctors and we collectively wonder why these things happen or you have people perpetuating these anti-vaccination screeds. Ignorance is one of the deadliest diseases.
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@maiyannah How does that work anyway? Was it defective from the factory? or does law over there not require using a factory-sealed needle for any vaccination? Here doctors are required to use a new needle out of the blister each time, the most they can get away with is using the same needle for two applications of the same drug in the same place like when a dentist applies two or three doses of local anesthetic.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:29:56 UTC from web-
@nerthos There have been laws passed since then that require this but in the past when I was a child it was acceptable to reuse syringes that were properly sterilized using an specialized device.
It's not even that these devices are ineffective or bad - they're quite effective and using them reduces waste. It's the human element - people cutting corners in health care has huge consequences and all it takes is a forgetful nurse or a doctor that doesn't want to wait the about 10 minutes those devices take to work and someone's life gets ... interesting.-
@nerthos (This happened when I was quite young and I am not exactly a spring chicken anymore.)
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@maiyannah Yeah I assumed 20 years ago or more when you said that.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:37:17 UTC from web-
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@maiyannah Yeah that's a bit longer than I've been around. No idea how things were here back then as I only have memory of stuff past 1996.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:42:35 UTC from web-
@nerthos Less fortunate countries when it comes to health care actually tend to be stricter about stuff like sterilization than North American ones can be. Here if something bad happens there's all kind of doctors and hospitals and specialized medical care available. This isn't as much the case in some other countries, so the governments impose stricter standards.
Honestly in Canada most of the health care laws happened after someone got really sick or otherwise wasn't properly cared for.-
@maiyannah Well over here we're nowhere near "less fortunate" as far as medicine goes. It's one of the fields where the government really focused some decades ago, even if in later years the infrastructure was neglected. Right now we have crumbling hospitals, but they're crumbling model hospitals with really skilled underpaid doctors, haha. Except for dermathologists. Those you're hard pressed to find a decent one.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:49:58 UTC from web
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@maiyannah Well I hope the "doctor" ended up in jail where he/she belongs. Are we talking those quartz sand heaters? One of my grandmothers used one for sterilizing cutting instruments as she's an uuuh... whatever the person that fixes feet (calluses, ingrown nails, and such) is called, and it was quite effective if you left the tool in there for 10-15 minutes.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:36:45 UTC from web-
@nerthos They're quite effective for needles too. The hospital just didn't want to wait the time it took to properly clean the syringe and I paid for their impatience.
Chiropodist, by the way, is the term.-
@maiyannah Oh, here we usually call them "pedicuros" which is... kind of a mashup of archaic words for "foot doctor", rather than the actual medical term.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:43:22 UTC from web
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@pennyfortheguy @nerthos Nah, a podiatrist is someone who specializes in injuries to the feet, like if you apple them up playing sorts or something. A chiropodist is someone who deals with other stuff, ingrown toenails or calluses or getting custom orthonothics made.
There's a weird wide world of incredibly-specific medical specializations out there :)-
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@pennyfortheguy @nerthos There's like five specific specializations for ass doctors, though I don't remember the names for the fields off the top of my head. It was a running joke in my med studies group back in university.
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@maiyannah @nerthos I deal with assholes on a regular basis. I couldn't see myself doing that in a literal sense. It'd be a real bummer.
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@pennyfortheguy @nerthos It's one of those jobs that pays really well because no one wants to do it.
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@maiyannah You're Fluffle Puffing cherryting me!? RLY? Medical negligence. I hope you were / are being appropriately compensated for that said Fluffle Puff up.
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@pennyfortheguy I basically had my entire university education paid for by that hospital.
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@nerthos @maiyannah There is a town in Sweden where there's an anthroposophic center, and they have local epidemics of childhood illnesses.
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@clacke should be marked on a map as a "no-go-area" for ppl w children...
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@nerthos @maiyannah So that's actually a counter-example to the Rise of the Woo, or an example of a counter-rise in active Skepticism.
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@clacke @nerthos It's become trendy in academic circles in particular to actively reject skepticism. I regard this as related to the establishment as it were trying to reassert itself. An educated populace is not an easy one to control with propoganda, so they want an uneducated one.
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@maiyannah Well that's been true for a long time. Governments love idiots.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 12:54:56 UTC from web-
@nerthos The newer thing is the academics supporting it. At least over here, in the past four or five years, the universities and colleges have become patsies to government propaganda programs. Even questioning certain political discussions in the USA when you're still studying can lose your whole degree when you get kicked out. I'd say our southern neighbours are sliding rapidly into despotism, but I'm frankly unconvinced they're not already there.
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@maiyannah Oh, yeah, that has infected some of the "universities" here in the last decade. Not all though. The kirchnerist side behemently defends this while the rest calls them out. As always, all that populism has achieved is thoroughly ruin something and split society into good guys and bad/stupid guys.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:06:26 UTC from web-
@nerthos Most of them are useful idiots rather than intentionally harmful but the net effect is ultimately the same.
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@maiyannah There's not much of a difference between a gullible idiot and a genuinely evil individual, other than some people feel pity for the idiot when he's at the gallows.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:09:19 UTC from web-
@nerthos You can correct an idiot, if they've been taken, and you care to take the time, but unless they're someone close to me, it's a waste of time.
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@maiyannah Why would anyone who's not an humanist saint bother spending years trying to educate an ape that flings Potato Knishes and insults at you whenever you say "hey, listen, you've been lied to", I'd rather take away their power to decide over the rest of society. Easier and faster, and they can go back to fighting eachother on facebook.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:12:37 UTC from web-
@nerthos If they are someone close to me then I will care enough to suffer their foolishness. If they're not, I have no reason not to just mock their stupidity if it doesn't affect me, or to deal with them and what they do, if it does.
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@maiyannah Usually I pass even when they're close, as I'm terribly annoyed by people who have the capacity to be smart and reasonable yet eat obvious BS from a bucket handed by the politician or activist of the month. I don't mind someone who's clinically retarded, they can't help it, but someone who's retarded just because they can't be arsed to recognize how dumb they're thinking and acting is another story altogether.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:19:51 UTC from web-
@nerthos The means by which the media manipulates here in North America, when its genuinely trying to manipulate and not just propogandizing, is subtle enough it can easily go undetected unless you're educated in the means they use. UX dark patterns is a popular method online that the general public are just starting to tweak onto, as an example.
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@maiyannah Well I guess I'm a bit biased about it, since I inherited a very efficient instinct from my mother when it comes to noticing BS, and not everyone does. But still, it bothers me when I see something as obvious and others don't. I overlook it when it's on professional areas as no one is required to know about a topic they don't need or care about, but politics and media manipulation are something everyone should have an idea about to avoid being screwed and worse yet, screwing others without noticing. People scream at the top of their lungs about democracy but are completely oblivious to the fact it doesn't work unless everyone is qualified to actually understand what's going on.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:31:10 UTC from web-
@nerthos Well, more and more now, you have a society the government has done everything in it's power to groom to be unquestioning and unsceptical.
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@maiyannah And it's absolutely their fault, with the ridiculously easy access to more information than they could absorb in ten lifetimes that most people have. I'd understand it in the age of serfs, when people knew how to work the soil and fix their huts and nothing else, and all knowledge came from what the elders of the town told them, or what the priest read from a book they could not understand. But nowadays, with mandatory school and open access to internet, there's just no excuse to it.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:38:59 UTC from web-
@nerthos The mandatory school is exactly the vector by which this conditioning is disseminated.
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@maiyannah It is but come on, you're supposed to just get the factual stuff out of it like learning how to read and write, do math, a bit of history, biology, geography and physics. Once you're out of the place and back at home, if you have any kind of curiosity, you'll go look for stuff yourself and form your own opinions. If you lack those and take everything your teachers say as the word of god, then you're at fault. Of course I'd completely reform education to be as factual as possible if I could, but that's beside the point.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:48:22 UTC from web-
@nerthos If you think that the words of someone in authority don't shape the way people think and behave then you have a very poor understanding of how people behave.
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@maiyannah Oh no no, I think they do, but I still blame people for being idiots as their idiocy directly affects me and everyone I'm close to. Plus you can always pick who you're influenced by as you have a degree of choice in it.
Friday, 21-Oct-16 13:53:44 UTC from web
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@maiyannah @nerthos
"I'd say our southern neighbours are sliding rapidly into despotism, but I'm frankly unconvinced they're not already there"
I will say that the majority of people here would not disagree with you on that point.
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@pennyfortheguy @nerthos They might have disagreed before this election but they certainly might not now.
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