Has the American Medical Association Lost its Collective Mind?
By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
Has the American Medical Association Lost its Collective Mind?
AMA: Straight white Christian male doctors are responsible for inequities in health outcomes. Who knew?
Remember “Rocky and His Friends” when Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale were turning smart people into idiots by spraying them with goof gas? Well it is apparent that the American Medical Association has been one of their victims. How else to explain their stances on social issues? Like many universities and other institutions infected by wokeness, the AMA has produced a guide in which they try to change standard language into woke speak. George Orwell would be proud.
The “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts” should be an embarrassment to all physicians. The guide juxtaposes conventional statements to revised ones. Consider “Native Americans have the highest mortality rates in the United States.” The revision is “Dispossessed by the government of their land and culture, Native Americans have the highest mortality rates in the United States.” Really? Is the “dispossession” of land responsible for mortality rates? Then I guess all those who have their land grabbed by the government under eminent domain must also have higher mortality rates. Or how about “Low income people have the highest level of coronary artery disease in the United States”? The revision is “People underpaid and forced into poverty as a result of banking policies, real estate developers gentrifying neighborhoods and corporations weaking the power of labor movements, among others, have the highest level of coronary artery disease in the United States.” Who wrote this stuff Saul Alinsky? Consider the assertion that health equity is impossible unless there is “explicit recognition and reconciliation of our country’s twin, fundamental injustices of genocide and forced labor.” In the AMA’s own words: “The dominant narratives in American medicine and society reflect the values and interests of the historically more privileged socioeconomic groups—white, heterosexual, able-bodied, cisgendered, male, wealthy, English-speaking, Christian, U.S.-born.” Egads! I guess I should find a queer, nonbinary, poor, non-English speaking crippled, Third World heathen doctor! Understand that the ones who are condemning the above are most likely white males damning themselves. Being an empiricist, I want the AMA to produce evidence that a change in language positively affects medical outcomes. It’s a pretty safe bet that no such evidence exists. Moreover telling the majority of doctors that they are racists and are not colorblind in their practice of medicine does not engender better medicine.
The wokeness of the AMA has spilled down to our medical schools which now ask applicants about their views on racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, sexual orientation and gender identity. I bet that 100 percent of the applicants lie. Not only is wokeness on the application but has also been incorporated into medical education. The AMA says that “we believe this topic deserves just as much attention from learners and educators at every stage of their careers as the latest scientific breakthroughs.” Huh? Boris Badenov strikes again! There have been virtually no studies that have shown that teaching of Critical Race Theory and the woke glossary have produced better outcomes. Rather the research shows that instead of enlightenment, such teaching builds resentment and racial/class strife. I guess toney educations don’t prevent one from being a fool.
Next there is the AMA’s position on transgenders and transgender “care.” The AMA vigorously supports the use of one’s chosen pronouns and has filed several amici briefs in cases where such pronoun use has been at issue. The AMA is all in stating “Gender-affirming care is medically-necessary, evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender and gender-diverse people.” Excuse me? The evidence is to the contrary. Several European countries recognize that gender dysphoria by the young is often the product of mental strife and that most grow out of it. They urge caution in performing surgeries such as the removal of breasts and castration. A recent study in Great Britain showed that the country’s national health service was “failing thousands of children, and prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones despite “remarkably weak evidence.”
The British study is a rebuke of the gender-industrial complex. Recall that Vanderbilt University was revealed as one that performed these surgeries and that they were highly profitable – never mind the harm they were inflicting on the children. There has got to be a special place in Hell for the doctors who perform these surgeries.
