"Eat What You Kill"

[matsushima]

Content notes: Medical gaslighting, medical neglect, ableism, death of a parent, death of a child, preventable/unnecessary death

“Comfort” was a word Weiner used often in our conversations. If a patient dies as a result of his treatment, he told me, it’s not unethical if his intent was to provide comfort. In medicine, this is called the principle of double effect. First developed by the Catholic saint and theologian Thomas Aquinas, it’s a set of criteria by which a person can morally justify ending someone’s life. It stipulates that a harmful consequence of a medical treatment, such as death, is permissible if it’s a secondary effect of beneficial treatment, such as alleviating pain with drugs. “It’s for their comfort,” Weiner told me. “It’s not that I euthanize them.”

-J. David McSwane, "Eat What You Kill"

This is one of the most deeply fucked up things I've ever read.

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