Does Informed Consent Truly Exist?
Informed consent is a basic human right in which a person has the ability to voluntarily accept or reject a treatment or medical procedure, including use of pharmaceutical products, after being fully informed of all possible risks and benefits. “The most important goal of informed consent,” according to the University of Washington School of Medicine, “is that the patient has…
Science Teacher May Be Disciplined for Urging Students Be Informed of Vaccination Risks
In March 2015, science teacher Timothy Sullivan approached public health nurses administering vaccines to high school students at his school in Waterford, Ontario, Canada and asked whether they had appropriately informed the students about the potential risks of the shots they were giving. He noted that the teenagers were required to give informed consent and the nurses…
Are Doctors Being Trained to Manipulate Patients About Vaccines?
The number of parents questioning the safety of vaccines, the ingredients used, and the expanding 70-dose CDC schedule is growing, and medical organizations are trying to understand why. Numerous studies have been conducted to learn the reasons more parents are selectively refusing vaccines and what tactics may…
Should Doctors Lose Their License Over a Difference of Opinion?
The art of medicine. It’s the cornerstone of medical practice. If medicine were all science, and only science, then we wouldn’t need human beings as doctors. We could just use computers. Or robots. They’d probably do better if medicine were simply the act of decision-making based purely on facts. How much easier would medicine…
Vaccines: It’s Up to You
A few weeks ago, I shared part of an online conversation I had about vaccines. Initially, I was hesitant to reply but after rereading a callous response made by a woman I’d never met, I needed say something. Demanding that everyone should be vaccinated no matter what, I thought I might offer this person a bit caution in making…
Why Mandatory Vaccination Laws Won’t Work
It seems like mandating vaccines for all children in schools would have an obvious outcome of eliminating vaccine preventable diseases. It seems as if denying families vaccine exemptions would keep these diseases from infecting students or others in the community. It seems as if these types of laws are actually necessary to keep kids safe. But what if you…