"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.

Meta: I added a "topic: medical" tag. I'm going to go back and tag old posts and add a "! needs tag" option when I get a chance. (I'm on break at work right now.) Please use that to alert me that a topic tag is needed and let me know what it should be.

Comments

[lokifan]

So appalling! And so deeply shocking as a Brit, given what it shows about the financial incentives of the US healthcare system.

[matsushima]

I'm an American but I've spent most of my adult life in Japan. When I (briefly) moved back to the U.S. for work, I crawled up the walls onto the ceiling, Exorcist-style, when my mom explained what a "deductible" is. This shmuck in particular is unusually craven in his evil deeds but the whole system is, to put it mildly, fucked.

[lokifan]

Right??? Like I feel like a bit of a dick being all 'omg how awful!' from overseas but just the fact that if you get a serious illness you're financially fucked is so appalling. I mean, obvs serious illness can massively fuck up your finances here, too, because statutory sick pay isn't enough to live on - I'd have to move in with my parents if I couldn't work for more than a few months - but people going into DEBT for MEDICAL CARE is just. So incredibly evil, in a wealthy country.

[chasing_silver]

Jesus Christ. That article was chilling.