Under what possible circumstances does a Dr. ask about the weapons ownership of his/her patient (other than a bullet wound in the foot)?
My doctor asks a lot of questions of me, but that one has never come up...
My liberal cousin is screeching about this. She hasn’t answered me about whether doctors should ask if children live in homes with pools which cause 6X as many deaths as guns.
The law violates the first amendment. They should be allowed to ask anything they want. On the other hand, you should have the right to refuse to answer, politely or otherwise. We have enough laws. It’s time for people to take responsibility for their own lives and ability to say “shove it” to people asking questions they don’t want to answer. e.g. don’t give out your social security number unless it is a financial requirement. I’ve given out false ones from time to time if someone is really insistent.
If they ask me a question I don’t want to answer, I just lie to them.
It’s not like I’m under oath or anything like that.
If you cop to a shot or two of whiskey a week, too many will just put you in the raging alcoholic category.
Strangers cannot be trusted with sensitive information.
As usual, a tool of the Democrat Party
January 1999 Policy Statement entitled “The Role of the Pediatrician in Youth Violence Prevention and Clinical Practice and at the Community Level.” In that paper, the AAP advises pediatricians to screen children for risk factors indicating violence, such as:
— Whether the parents or family members have substance abuse problems
— Whether the parents are employed
— Whether any family members are involved in gangs
— Whether the parents spank their children
— Whether the parents watch violent television programs or keep guns in the home ……”
The Social Hygiene of Gun Control
By Timothy Wheeler, M.D.
A version of this article appeared in the March 20, 2000 Edition of CNSNews.com
A version of this article will appear in the Orange County Register
We share with physicians the private details of our lives so they can make us well. We depend on them to educate us in the promotion of health. How tempting it is, then, for a doctor to misuse that trust and offer a heartfelt political belief as medical advice. Especially if it’s for the good of children.
Pediatricians, regrettably, yielded to that temptation long ago with gun control. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued an update on Monday of its recommendations for preventive child health care. The guidelines refer doctors to a detailed action plan and set forth a multi-tiered advocacy effort. Specifically, the AAP advises doctors to “incorporate questions about guns into their patient history taking” and to “urge parents who possess guns to remove them, especially handguns, from the home.”
Doctors are supposed to work this political agenda on patients and their families, in their communities, and in government. The AAP guidelines urge lawmakers to ban handguns and “assault weapons” as “the most effective way to reduce firearm-related injuries.” Civil rights and the Constitution are not a hindrance to the AAP, the Second Amendment apparently regarded as an embarrassing nuisance.
Pediatrics has a long and proud tradition of promoting the well being of children. Widespread immunization against polio and diphtheria, for example, is the result of years of pediatricians’ vigilance and dedication. As a result, these old scourges are just a bad memory. Because of pediatricians, children in abusive homes are routinely rescued from injury or death.
But with these guidelines, pediatricians are redirecting the principle of prevention into our lives in a way never intended by their professional mandate.
The pediatrician who is the chief architect of the AAP’s anti-gun guidelines also founded the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network. This is an exclusive organization dedicated to banning guns. Physicians who oppose the HELP Network’s radical agenda are not even allowed to attend the group’s conferences, a policy unthinkable in any scientific organization.
Public health often balances the general good against personal freedoms. One need only look at the resistance of some parents to child immunizations to understand the issues of personal autonomy at stake.
But when public health intervention undermines a constitutional right, citizens are justified in resisting it. Today there is no clearer example of a public health assault on civil liberties than the pediatricians’ campaign to persuade families that guns are bad.
There is another problem with the public health anti-gun crusade. It urges doctors to probe their young patients and their parents about guns in the home. Such meddling violates the boundary between a patient and doctor. Patients trust doctors to do what is right for them. When the doctor is driven by an ulterior motive such as trying to turn kids and their parents against gun ownership, she is committing an unethical act deserving of disciplinary action.
The AAP anticipates some patients may not go along quietly. The organization’s instructional packet for speakers includes a section on how to deal with “challenging individuals” who might object to the AAP’s gun demonization program on scientific or constitutional grounds.
American gun owners feel the heat being slowly turned up. Now they are coming to realize that Clinton-Gore and the American Academy of Pediatrics are making no exception for law-abiding gun owners. In the war of words, they are being lumped in with the very few criminal gun owners who make daily headlines. A suburban father who takes his kids to the shooting range is the moral equivalent of a crack-addicted father who abandons his child to the care of another criminal. No wonder the National Rifle Association is signing up new members so fast.
We have become accustomed to exaggerated rhetoric from politicians. But our doctors? Never. Never should we have to put up with feigned motives and false counsel from the professionals in whose hands we place our children’s wellness.
We can, however, believe the meaning of one pronouncement from the HELP Network’s founder: “Guns are a virus that must be eradicated.” American gun owners, you have been warned.
Visit Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership | More on the Second Amendment
To go down the list:
1) The American Pediatric Association is a radical leftist controlled organization. They stated that it is the “ethical obligation” of pediatricians to ask parents if they have guns in their home. They also suggested that Pediatricians should threaten to deny service or deny service to parents who refuse to answer. Pediatricians are not numerous in Florida, so this could represent a significant hardship to parents.
2) Because of the HIPPA Act (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), physicians whose patients receive any medical care via government programs, must have their records on computer accessible to a wide array of medical, insurance, government and police agencies, without warrant. This means that parental gun ownership would be known to them as well.
3) Last year, in Florida, again, a State representative and his wife, seeking to adopt, were questioned by the adoption agency about their gun ownership. He was immediately concerned that gun ownership might be used as a pretext to deny adoption to prospective parents. So he sponsored a bill that would *prohibit* adoptive agencies from using gun ownership to deny them a child.
At the time, Democrats derided the bill, saying it was “Pandering to the NRA”.
4) In other States, Child Protective Services already take into account parental gun ownership, the ability of children to access guns, the training of children to use guns, or the parent discharging a gun under any circumstance while the child watches, in determining if a parent is “fit” to raise their child.
Since these criteria are not “exclusively” enough to take away children, they are excused as “just some of many questions”. But in combination with other factors, they certainly may be used to justify the State taking away children.
The problem is that pediatricians have been pushing a political agenda, and that doctors have increasingly become an arm of the State.”
This is exactly right. Moreover, the left has greatly influenced doctor training and has managed to get the Hippocratic oath changed. When coupled with AA, it is apparent that that the medical profession cannot be trusted...individual doctors, yes, but the profession as a whole, no.
Hummm. . . . glue gun, grease gun, staple gun, caulking gun, boat flare gun, and, my wife may have a cake decorating gun. Other than those, I forget.
When the hell did this start? Doctors asking patients about guns??????? Why???
Both of those statements are probably true to a certain extent. But I'd venture to guess that doctors in private practice nationally vote Republican by a fairly hefty majority. That's because the 'Rat party has made itself an enemy of practicing physicians with its ever-increasing government control (in the name of "regulation" for "public health") over the profession, both on a federal and state level - even before the added burdens of ObamaCare - and its obtuseness with respect to malpractice tort reform because of its alliance with the plaintiff's bar.
Doctors vs. Gun Owners
Doctors
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is
700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians
per year are
120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician
is
0.171
Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of
Health and Human Services.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now think about this:
Guns
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S.
is
80,000,000.
(Yes, that’s 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths
per year, all age groups,
is
1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths
per gun owner
is
.0000188
Statistics courtesy of FBI
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So, statistically, doctors are approximately
9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Remember, ‘Guns don’t kill people, doctors do.’
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN,
BUT
Almost everyone has at least one doctor.
This means you are over 9,000 times more likely to be killed by a doctor as by a gun owner!!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Please alert your friends
tothis
alarming threat.
We must ban doctors
before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Out of concern for the public at large,
We withheld the statistics on
lawyers
for fear the shock would cause
people to panic and seek medical attention!
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