In 1960 a young man named John Fitzgerald Kennedy wanted to be the President of the United States. He had a lot going for him including good looks, a ton of charisma, and the backing of a very rich and powerful family.
But John had a problem. He was a Catholic, and back then some Americans were concerned that if a Catholic was elected President he just might take his marching orders from the Pope. To address those concerns, Kennedy gave a famous speech on what he thought the relationship should be between the church and the state. Here’s a quote from that speech:
“I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish, where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”
I think that’s just the right attitude for a man who wants to be President of a religiously diverse country like ours. A President should represent all American citizens without prejudice, not just the people who go to the same church he does.
But not everyone agrees. One person who does not agree with President Kennedy’s view on religion and government is Rick Santorum, another Catholic who is running for President this year and is currently doing quite well in the Republican primaries.
Santorum (who has directly disagreed with the sentiments expressed in Kennedy’s speech on more than one occasion) is very upfront about how his Catholic beliefs influence his legislative actions.
He opposes gay marriage of course, and supports the outlawing of abortion in all cases. That’s pretty standard stuff for Republicans these days. But he’s also spoken out against prenatal medical screening tests (which he believes may encourage women to have abortions) and has said that states should have the right to ban contraception.
Lately he’s even taken to directly criticizing President Obama’s theological viewpoints. Obama might be a Christian, Santorum speculates, but if so he’s using the wrong interpretation of the Bible to inform his public policy decisions. Apparently he thinks that Obama wasn’t reading Genesis correctly when he came up with his environmental policies, for example. (Please don’t ask me to explain this.)
Santorum’s strategy seems to be paying off for him, at least in the GOP primaries. But the primaries are heavily influenced by the most enthusiastic social conservatives, and some of the Republican power brokers are getting nervous about how Santorum’s antics would play in a general election where moderate and independent voters end up making the difference. I think they have good reason to be nervous.
Polls indicate that about 25% of Americans identify themselves as Catholics, 50% as Protestant Christians, 15% have no religious affiliation at all, and 5% are members of non-Christian religions. Santorum would obviously have a hard time winning over the 20% of Americans who aren’t Christians, but with his stance against contraception and prenatal screenings and his apparent need to justify public policy decisions based on his interpretation of the Bible I think he’s also bound going to lose a lot of Christians who don’t think theocracy is such a swell idea.
I do not see a path to victory in the general election for Rick Santorum, and sadly I’m having a hard time seeing a path to victory for the Republican Party in 2012. I believe people are ready for a change (I know I am), but the Republican primary looks like a beauty contest where no one can get through the talent portion of the competition without breaking their leg or setting their own hair on fire.
Could we please get a do-over?
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Too much doctoring can make you sick
Once upon a time, further back than most of us can remember, people only went to the doctor when they were sick. Unless you were in a lot of pain or otherwise unable to go about your regular activities you left the doctor alone so he could look after the sick folks.
But things are different today. Thanks to advances in medical science we are now encouraged to go see the doctor for regular “checkups” even we feel fine, and we are often encouraged to undergo medical tests to “screen” for possible hidden problems.
Aren’t we lucky to be living in an age where doctors are actively looking for problems before they occur? Imagine how many lives have been extended and improved thanks to preventative medical screening!
No doubt there is some truth to that, but it is not quite so cut and dried. Lately we’ve been hearing some dissenting voices within the medical community concerning the wisdom of ordering diagnostic tests for apparently healthy patients. I am currently reading a book called “Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health” by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch that makes that very point, and I strongly encourage you to pick it up and read it for yourself.
The central theme of this book, which Dr. Welch drives home with numerous real world examples from his own practice, is that the medical community has used its increasingly advanced medical diagnostic capabilities to expand the number of patients it tests and treats for “abnormalities” that might well have caused patients no real problems if they’d been left alone. Even worse, there are a disturbing number of cases where this unneeded treatment is causing unnecessary harm.
One of the starkest examples of the “more harm than good” class of medical tests he cites is the PSA blood test that until recently all men were encouraged to take to screen for prostate cancer once they reached a certain age. The test is so sensitive that it detects extremely minute elevations of a chemical in the blood that can be a signal of cancerous activity within the prostate.
Dr. Welch estimates that over a million American men underwent treatment for prostate cancer based on the results of these tests that otherwise would have had no issues with their prostate during a normal lifespan. The treatments are expensive and can be painful and debilitating, and that doesn’t take into account the psychological toll that being a “cancer patient” takes on a person and their loved ones.
The PSA test now seems to be falling out of favor entirely with many doctors, but similar questions are being raised about other popular medical screening tests. Lately there’s a lot of discussion over whether women really benefit overall from having preventive mammography screenings, a debate that sounds an awful lot like the PSA blood test controversy with talk of numerous false positives leading to a lot of unnecessary treatment.
As health care consumers we need to be aware of certain factors that encourage doctors to run as many tests as possible and treat any possible issue these tests find in an aggressive manner. Medical tests are a significant source of income for doctors and hospitals and it is rare for a doctor to get sued for being overzealous in testing and treating possible illnesses, so they are likely to err on the side of overtreatment.
When it comes to your medical care, it’s up to you to look out for your own best interests. Unless you are experiencing a medical emergency that obviously requires immediate treatment, do your research and ask questions before you agree to expensive diagnostic tests and subsequent courses of treatment. Oftentimes there are trade-offs between the risk a potential problem represents and the cost and side effects of a course of treatment. Know what those trade-offs are and be an active participant in deciding what is done to your body.
It is, after all, your body, and your life. If your doctor is one that doesn’t believe in making his patient an active partner in his or her own medical care, you need to find another doctor.
But things are different today. Thanks to advances in medical science we are now encouraged to go see the doctor for regular “checkups” even we feel fine, and we are often encouraged to undergo medical tests to “screen” for possible hidden problems.
Aren’t we lucky to be living in an age where doctors are actively looking for problems before they occur? Imagine how many lives have been extended and improved thanks to preventative medical screening!
No doubt there is some truth to that, but it is not quite so cut and dried. Lately we’ve been hearing some dissenting voices within the medical community concerning the wisdom of ordering diagnostic tests for apparently healthy patients. I am currently reading a book called “Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health” by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch that makes that very point, and I strongly encourage you to pick it up and read it for yourself.
The central theme of this book, which Dr. Welch drives home with numerous real world examples from his own practice, is that the medical community has used its increasingly advanced medical diagnostic capabilities to expand the number of patients it tests and treats for “abnormalities” that might well have caused patients no real problems if they’d been left alone. Even worse, there are a disturbing number of cases where this unneeded treatment is causing unnecessary harm.
One of the starkest examples of the “more harm than good” class of medical tests he cites is the PSA blood test that until recently all men were encouraged to take to screen for prostate cancer once they reached a certain age. The test is so sensitive that it detects extremely minute elevations of a chemical in the blood that can be a signal of cancerous activity within the prostate.
Dr. Welch estimates that over a million American men underwent treatment for prostate cancer based on the results of these tests that otherwise would have had no issues with their prostate during a normal lifespan. The treatments are expensive and can be painful and debilitating, and that doesn’t take into account the psychological toll that being a “cancer patient” takes on a person and their loved ones.
The PSA test now seems to be falling out of favor entirely with many doctors, but similar questions are being raised about other popular medical screening tests. Lately there’s a lot of discussion over whether women really benefit overall from having preventive mammography screenings, a debate that sounds an awful lot like the PSA blood test controversy with talk of numerous false positives leading to a lot of unnecessary treatment.
As health care consumers we need to be aware of certain factors that encourage doctors to run as many tests as possible and treat any possible issue these tests find in an aggressive manner. Medical tests are a significant source of income for doctors and hospitals and it is rare for a doctor to get sued for being overzealous in testing and treating possible illnesses, so they are likely to err on the side of overtreatment.
When it comes to your medical care, it’s up to you to look out for your own best interests. Unless you are experiencing a medical emergency that obviously requires immediate treatment, do your research and ask questions before you agree to expensive diagnostic tests and subsequent courses of treatment. Oftentimes there are trade-offs between the risk a potential problem represents and the cost and side effects of a course of treatment. Know what those trade-offs are and be an active participant in deciding what is done to your body.
It is, after all, your body, and your life. If your doctor is one that doesn’t believe in making his patient an active partner in his or her own medical care, you need to find another doctor.
Taxpayers get bit by gambling sting
I’ve been sleeping a little better at night this week, and I think the reason is that a scourge that has been quietly plaguing our community for who-knows-how-long has finally been met head-on by our local law enforcement. The Warner Robins Police Department made a bold series of arrests last Friday that has surely shaken the criminal element in the International City to its very core.
What dastardly deed did this dragnet sweep up and dump into the dustbin of law and order? Was it murder, rape, robbery, or assault? Nope. Was it was drunk-driving, child pornography, or drug dealing? Wrong again.
The nasty, vicious, community-threatening enterprise that the WRPD spent a significant amount of time and money setting up and executing a sting operating for last week was…wait for it…video gambling!
13 citizens were rounded up and arrested for operating businesses that provided illegal gambling services to their customers. These businesses were offering cash prizes to customers who got lucky on their video gaming machines. The machines themselves are not illegal, but paying out cash as a prize (as opposed to merchandise or store credit) is.
I want to state very clearly that I understand that the police don’t make laws - they only enforce them - and I have no beef with the WRPD for doing their jobs. But a couple of things bother me about this sting operation, and I’m going to tell you about them, because that’s what I do.
First of all it seems hypocritical to me, to an almost ridiculous degree, that the state of Georgia prosecutes private citizens for engaging in an activity that is perfectly legal when the state is the one profiting from said activity.
The usual logic (which I find questionable) for outlawing victimless crimes like gambling is because of the harm it does for people who become addicted and can’t control their behavior. But anyone who will be prevented from gambling away the family income on video poker thanks to these arrests can easily walk into a convenience store and blow said income on the state-run lottery.
This looks an awful lot more like a powerful state protecting its financial interests than a principled stand for the public morality.
But even if we ignore the arguably shaky moral ground that Georgia’s anti-gambling laws are built upon, I have another issue with this sting operation. I have to wonder what person, or group of people, made the decision to devote a great deal of money and manpower to addressing this particular crime?
Video gambling is illegal, certainly, but so is littering, jaywalking, and driving 1 mile an hour over the speed limit. With all the crimes that inevitably get committed on a daily basis in a city the size of Warner Robins, how did video gambling rise to a status that merited this kind of time and attention by our law enforcement community?
That is not a rhetorical question. It’s one I’d really like to have answered. If anyone connected with the police department, the city government, or any other agency that played a role in this sting operation can shed any light on my question, I’d love to see it explained right here on the pages of The Telegraph.
If we were to add up all the costs associated with an operation like this – the pay for the officers involved, the court costs and attorney’s fees associated with prosecuting those arrested, and the cost of jailing anyone convicted – I think we’d find it running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, at a minimum.
I think it’s fair to ask, at the end of the day, if it was all worth it. It’s fair to question whether these anti-gambling laws should even be on the books, and it is more than fair to question how much valuable police time and taxpayer money is getting gobbled up to combat an activity that, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
What dastardly deed did this dragnet sweep up and dump into the dustbin of law and order? Was it murder, rape, robbery, or assault? Nope. Was it was drunk-driving, child pornography, or drug dealing? Wrong again.
The nasty, vicious, community-threatening enterprise that the WRPD spent a significant amount of time and money setting up and executing a sting operating for last week was…wait for it…video gambling!
13 citizens were rounded up and arrested for operating businesses that provided illegal gambling services to their customers. These businesses were offering cash prizes to customers who got lucky on their video gaming machines. The machines themselves are not illegal, but paying out cash as a prize (as opposed to merchandise or store credit) is.
I want to state very clearly that I understand that the police don’t make laws - they only enforce them - and I have no beef with the WRPD for doing their jobs. But a couple of things bother me about this sting operation, and I’m going to tell you about them, because that’s what I do.
First of all it seems hypocritical to me, to an almost ridiculous degree, that the state of Georgia prosecutes private citizens for engaging in an activity that is perfectly legal when the state is the one profiting from said activity.
The usual logic (which I find questionable) for outlawing victimless crimes like gambling is because of the harm it does for people who become addicted and can’t control their behavior. But anyone who will be prevented from gambling away the family income on video poker thanks to these arrests can easily walk into a convenience store and blow said income on the state-run lottery.
This looks an awful lot more like a powerful state protecting its financial interests than a principled stand for the public morality.
But even if we ignore the arguably shaky moral ground that Georgia’s anti-gambling laws are built upon, I have another issue with this sting operation. I have to wonder what person, or group of people, made the decision to devote a great deal of money and manpower to addressing this particular crime?
Video gambling is illegal, certainly, but so is littering, jaywalking, and driving 1 mile an hour over the speed limit. With all the crimes that inevitably get committed on a daily basis in a city the size of Warner Robins, how did video gambling rise to a status that merited this kind of time and attention by our law enforcement community?
That is not a rhetorical question. It’s one I’d really like to have answered. If anyone connected with the police department, the city government, or any other agency that played a role in this sting operation can shed any light on my question, I’d love to see it explained right here on the pages of The Telegraph.
If we were to add up all the costs associated with an operation like this – the pay for the officers involved, the court costs and attorney’s fees associated with prosecuting those arrested, and the cost of jailing anyone convicted – I think we’d find it running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, at a minimum.
I think it’s fair to ask, at the end of the day, if it was all worth it. It’s fair to question whether these anti-gambling laws should even be on the books, and it is more than fair to question how much valuable police time and taxpayer money is getting gobbled up to combat an activity that, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
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