Poster Boys For Ethical Activism?
Lucy Barnes
Journal of Medical Ethics- When a group of federal employees and doctors recommend against treating patients who are sick, and/or brutally stalk and harass them for years on end in an attempt to silence and discredit them, then publish on how others should be ethical, it makes people wonder who taught the ethics classes at Johns Hopkins, the devil himself?
Referring to volunteers, chronically ill patients and their doctors as, "disorganized, antagonistic, vindictive, back-biting, fratricidal groups, conspiracy nuts, and any number of certified mental patients acting as self-appointed Movement spokespersons" would most likely get you a seat facing the corner in a manners class, as well as a failing grade in ethics.
Yet, it is amazing that one of the authors of the ethics article, a Hopkins researcher (Dumler), can publicly speak about how he felt when he and his best buds were under fire by the CT Attorney General for a number of illegal actions and whines, "...the intimidation, the negative comments [against him] have really got to stop."
And after his "let's be friends" performance in front of the IOM in the fall of 2010, he feels comfortable sitting around doing nothing about the horrendous walloping of innocent patients that has been ongoing for 15 years by his friends and coauthors.
To make matters worse, it seems he enjoyed slapping his name and his Hopkins credentials on an ethics "lecture" he coauthored that was designed to chastise Lyme patients once again!
Ethics Lecture from the Poster Boys for Ethical Activism...
J Med Ethics doi:10.1136/jme.2009.032896
Clinical ethics
Scientific evidence and best patient care practices should guide the ethics of Lyme disease activism
Paul G Auwaerter1, Johan S Bakken2, Raymond J Dattwyler3, J Stephen Dumler4,John J Halperin5,6, Edward McSweegan7, Robert B Nadelman8, Susan O'Connell9, Sunil K Sood10, Arthur Weinstein11, Gary P Wormser8
Author Affiliations
1Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
2Section of Infectious Diseases, St Luke''s Hospital, Duluth, Minnesota, USA
3Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York, USA
4Division of Medical Microbiology, Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
5Atlantic Neuroscience Institute, Summit, New Jersey, USA
6The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
7Crofton, Maryland, USA
8Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York, USA
9Lyme Borreliosis Unit, Health Protection Agency Microbiology Laboratory, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, UK
10Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Schneider Children's Hospital at North Shore, Manhasset, New York, USA
11Section of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, Washington Hospital Center and Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA
Abstract:
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2010/11/21/jme.2009.032896.abstract