#because one of the tenets of her oath is responsibility and she refuses to be an actual oathbreaker

[ace-nding-god]

Behold, my oath of the crown paladin, Eryx Mavros, and her elk Makaria.

Eryx was, up until quite recently, a member of the king's guard, known as the Houndsmen. The king, however, attempted to twist her oath by demanding that she execute someone who'd been labeled a threat to the crown, but pretty obviously was just a petty thief. She turned against the king and was labeled an oathbreaker, though she still firmly believes she has yet to violate her tenets.

She swore to protect the Crown, after all. Not to blindly obey a king.

Makaria, the elk, is her mount from the find steed spell, and also a reflection of Eryx's mental state. The king's insignia is an elk, so both the DM and I have agreed that as Eryx slowly heals, Makaria will start to gain lupine features, until she just suddenly stops being an elk all at once.

[pitz182]

Florida Versus Evidence: How I Lost My Children Because of Past Drug Use

I am living in two worlds. One is a world populated by doctors and advocates, run on the tenets of research and science and reason. It is a world in which addiction is treated with medicine, and where there's no question that people who use drugs deserve to be safe and free of avoidable infections and diseases. In this world, nobody hesitates to administer naloxone if the occasion calls for it. In this world, people are not afraid to touch the bodies of drug users, and we all understand that if you can self-administer naloxone, you don't need naloxone. I experience this world through phone lines, e-mails, and social media. I write about this world; this world is my template for how all worlds should be.Addiction as Moral FailureThen there is the world where my life takes place. In this world, having an addiction is a moral failure. Drug use is met with punishment. Judges replace doctors and toxicologists, making medical decisions and determining the results of drug tests with reckless abandon. In this world, abstinence is the only route to health. In this world, a hit of pot is just as chaotic as compulsive, daily injections of heroin. In this world, there is no sterile equipment; in this world, everyone is sick. Here, you can be sentenced to death just for being the friend of someone who overdoses. This is the world I touch with my fingers and teeth—the world where I walk, and eat, and breathe. This is the world where I live.I became involved with the Florida Department of Children and Families in April 2018. I was never charged with a crime or afforded the presumption of innocence, evidentiary standards, or jury decision that would have accompanied a criminal charge. Instead, one judge—virtually accountable to no one and equipped with full immunity—deemed my husband and me guilty of some nebulous pre-crime like the woeful characters in Philip K. Dick's short-story-turned-film "Minority Report." Apparently, I am guilty of the possibility of neglecting or otherwise harming my children in the future because I have a diagnosed substance use disorder.Since that decision, I have been forced to obey the mandates set forth by my county's child welfare authorities in an attempt to win back custody of my girls. So far, not a single mandate has been evidence-based.I love writing about harm reduction, evidence-based addiction care, and trauma-informed mental health practices. I enjoy staying informed about best practices in addiction medicine. I am proud that I get to help demystify and destigmatize addiction and mental illness, and I am honored to have the opportunity to speak with the researchers who have dedicated themselves to driving us out of the dark ages of addiction medicine. But now that I am living in those dark ages myself, I can't shake a sense of bitterness: I write about a better world, but it's one that I only get to view from afar.Substance Use Disorder Treatment and GeographyIn 2017, I wrote an article for OZY about the general disparities between addiction care in red states and blue states. I was living in Seattle, Washington, at the time but I'd had some experience trying to get help for addiction in Florida—so I knew how backward providers could be. For example, when I gave birth to my daughter in Palm Beach while on prescribed methadone, hospital staff refused to let me breastfeed her. She was treated for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) and pediatric staff claimed that enough methadone would be passed through my breast milk to potentially harm her. In reality, numerous studies have found the exact opposite to be true and breastfeeding is now recognized as one of the most effective balms for NAS, due to the maternal contact and general health benefits of breast milk. The amount of methadone passed through breast milk is too negligible to help or harm.As I wrote in the OZY article, Democratic-ruled states are more likely to offer Medicaid coverage for methadone and buprenorphine, while Republican states are less likely to even offer the medications themselves, much less cover them. People in red states also face harsher penalties for drug crimes and are less likely to be allowed to continue a methadone or buprenorphine prescription while incarcerated. (Though this is a nationwide issue, blue states are leading the reform.) But writing the story from Seattle meant writing from a place of comfort: I was living among the reformers—walking within the pages of history that will be attributed to the good guys. I was able to take my buprenorphine every day because my state insurance covered it. I was surrounded by intelligent, informed people with whom I could speak honestly about my decision to engage in non-abstinence-based recovery. When I wrote about the issues in the system, I wrote from a place of distance. Of privilege.I did not appreciate how lucky I was until I dove headlong into the true trenches of the Drug War. In Recovery and Losing CustodyIn Broward County, Florida, my children were removed from me because of unsubstantiated accusations of drug use. When my first slew of drug tests returned negative, the opposition began slinging whatever they could think of in my direction, hoping something would stick. Most of it revolved around the fact that I was poor—but ignorance about mental illness and addiction reared its ugly face yet again. The opposition cited my prior child welfare investigation in Florida—the one that was triggered by my daughter's NAS. It was a routine investigation that had been deemed unsubstantiated. These types of investigations are typically labeled "harmless." I had been in compliance with my methadone program, and my daughter's doctors had no concerns—but five years later, the opposition used that prior methadone prescription as a basis for deeming me an unreliable witness: the dirty, lying junkie. When I was asked under oath whether I had spoken with one of my husband's siblings about possibly purchasing marijuana, I admitted that I had. Clinicians in addiction treatment recognize that drug cravings are normal and applaud us when we admit that we think about buying drugs but then decide against it. But the guardian ad litem attorney—the counsel whose job it is to protect my daughters' interests—argued that by considering using marijuana, I placed my sobriety and therefore my children at risk. It didn’t matter that I canceled the purchase and honestly acknowledged that I’d thought about it. The judge called my process of considering marijuana but then deciding against it "drug-seeking behavior." She gave custody of my daughters to my husband's parents.The terribly irony underscoring the entire proceeding is that if I were still living in a state that embraced the most current research on addiction, I would never even have been in a courtroom. The accusation against me stated that I left my daughters in the care of their grandparents for three days while I used drugs outside of the home. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "drug tests do not provide sufficient information for substantiating allegations of child abuse or neglect or for making decisions about the disposition of a case." Drug use on its own, away from any children, is not child abuse. A parent who leaves their child with a family member to go to a bar for an evening is generally considered to be engaging in responsible substance use.The federal government recognizes that child abuse cannot reasonably be defined as placing a child with a trusted caregiver, leaving the home for a couple days, and returning sober. It doesn't much matter what went on during those two days. True or false—the accusation against me never described child abuse. A more enlightened jurisdiction would have recognized that. The separation trauma that my children and I have endured over the past nine months is completely attributable to our location.I used to write about addiction and drug policy from a place of privilege. Now I am writing from the deep trenches. I feel as though I am performing a kind of literary necromancy whenever I publish—except that instead of communing with the dead or demonic, I am writing from within that unillumined place, hoping that, by disseminating research, facts, and the words of distant experts, I can summon reason back into my life.

[emlydunstan]

Florida Versus Evidence: How I Lost My Children Because of Past Drug Use

I am living in two worlds. One is a world populated by doctors and advocates, run on the tenets of research and science and reason. It is a world in which addiction is treated with medicine, and where there's no question that people who use drugs deserve to be safe and free of avoidable infections and diseases. In this world, nobody hesitates to administer naloxone if the occasion calls for it. In this world, people are not afraid to touch the bodies of drug users, and we all understand that if you can self-administer naloxone, you don't need naloxone. I experience this world through phone lines, e-mails, and social media. I write about this world; this world is my template for how all worlds should be.Addiction as Moral FailureThen there is the world where my life takes place. In this world, having an addiction is a moral failure. Drug use is met with punishment. Judges replace doctors and toxicologists, making medical decisions and determining the results of drug tests with reckless abandon. In this world, abstinence is the only route to health. In this world, a hit of pot is just as chaotic as compulsive, daily injections of heroin. In this world, there is no sterile equipment; in this world, everyone is sick. Here, you can be sentenced to death just for being the friend of someone who overdoses. This is the world I touch with my fingers and teeth—the world where I walk, and eat, and breathe. This is the world where I live.I became involved with the Florida Department of Children and Families in April 2018. I was never charged with a crime or afforded the presumption of innocence, evidentiary standards, or jury decision that would have accompanied a criminal charge. Instead, one judge—virtually accountable to no one and equipped with full immunity—deemed my husband and me guilty of some nebulous pre-crime like the woeful characters in Philip K. Dick's short-story-turned-film "Minority Report." Apparently, I am guilty of the possibility of neglecting or otherwise harming my children in the future because I have a diagnosed substance use disorder.Since that decision, I have been forced to obey the mandates set forth by my county's child welfare authorities in an attempt to win back custody of my girls. So far, not a single mandate has been evidence-based.I love writing about harm reduction, evidence-based addiction care, and trauma-informed mental health practices. I enjoy staying informed about best practices in addiction medicine. I am proud that I get to help demystify and destigmatize addiction and mental illness, and I am honored to have the opportunity to speak with the researchers who have dedicated themselves to driving us out of the dark ages of addiction medicine. But now that I am living in those dark ages myself, I can't shake a sense of bitterness: I write about a better world, but it's one that I only get to view from afar.Substance Use Disorder Treatment and GeographyIn 2017, I wrote an article for OZY about the general disparities between addiction care in red states and blue states. I was living in Seattle, Washington, at the time but I'd had some experience trying to get help for addiction in Florida—so I knew how backward providers could be. For example, when I gave birth to my daughter in Palm Beach while on prescribed methadone, hospital staff refused to let me breastfeed her. She was treated for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) and pediatric staff claimed that enough methadone would be passed through my breast milk to potentially harm her. In reality, numerous studies have found the exact opposite to be true and breastfeeding is now recognized as one of the most effective balms for NAS, due to the maternal contact and general health benefits of breast milk. The amount of methadone passed through breast milk is too negligible to help or harm.As I wrote in the OZY article, Democratic-ruled states are more likely to offer Medicaid coverage for methadone and buprenorphine, while Republican states are less likely to even offer the medications themselves, much less cover them. People in red states also face harsher penalties for drug crimes and are less likely to be allowed to continue a methadone or buprenorphine prescription while incarcerated. (Though this is a nationwide issue, blue states are leading the reform.) But writing the story from Seattle meant writing from a place of comfort: I was living among the reformers—walking within the pages of history that will be attributed to the good guys. I was able to take my buprenorphine every day because my state insurance covered it. I was surrounded by intelligent, informed people with whom I could speak honestly about my decision to engage in non-abstinence-based recovery. When I wrote about the issues in the system, I wrote from a place of distance. Of privilege.I did not appreciate how lucky I was until I dove headlong into the true trenches of the Drug War. In Recovery and Losing CustodyIn Broward County, Florida, my children were removed from me because of unsubstantiated accusations of drug use. When my first slew of drug tests returned negative, the opposition began slinging whatever they could think of in my direction, hoping something would stick. Most of it revolved around the fact that I was poor—but ignorance about mental illness and addiction reared its ugly face yet again. The opposition cited my prior child welfare investigation in Florida—the one that was triggered by my daughter's NAS. It was a routine investigation that had been deemed unsubstantiated. These types of investigations are typically labeled "harmless." I had been in compliance with my methadone program, and my daughter's doctors had no concerns—but five years later, the opposition used that prior methadone prescription as a basis for deeming me an unreliable witness: the dirty, lying junkie. When I was asked under oath whether I had spoken with one of my husband's siblings about possibly purchasing marijuana, I admitted that I had. Clinicians in addiction treatment recognize that drug cravings are normal and applaud us when we admit that we think about buying drugs but then decide against it. But the guardian ad litem attorney—the counsel whose job it is to protect my daughters' interests—argued that by considering using marijuana, I placed my sobriety and therefore my children at risk. It didn’t matter that I canceled the purchase and honestly acknowledged that I’d thought about it. The judge called my process of considering marijuana but then deciding against it "drug-seeking behavior." She gave custody of my daughters to my husband's parents.The terribly irony underscoring the entire proceeding is that if I were still living in a state that embraced the most current research on addiction, I would never even have been in a courtroom. The accusation against me stated that I left my daughters in the care of their grandparents for three days while I used drugs outside of the home. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "drug tests do not provide sufficient information for substantiating allegations of child abuse or neglect or for making decisions about the disposition of a case." Drug use on its own, away from any children, is not child abuse. A parent who leaves their child with a family member to go to a bar for an evening is generally considered to be engaging in responsible substance use.The federal government recognizes that child abuse cannot reasonably be defined as placing a child with a trusted caregiver, leaving the home for a couple days, and returning sober. It doesn't much matter what went on during those two days. True or false—the accusation against me never described child abuse. A more enlightened jurisdiction would have recognized that. The separation trauma that my children and I have endured over the past nine months is completely attributable to our location.I used to write about addiction and drug policy from a place of privilege. Now I am writing from the deep trenches. I feel as though I am performing a kind of literary necromancy whenever I publish—except that instead of communing with the dead or demonic, I am writing from within that unillumined place, hoping that, by disseminating research, facts, and the words of distant experts, I can summon reason back into my life.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 https://www.thefix.com/florida-versus-evidence-how-i-lost-my-children-because-past-drug-use

[alexdmorgan30]

Florida Versus Evidence: How I Lost My Children Because of Past Drug Use

I am living in two worlds. One is a world populated by doctors and advocates, run on the tenets of research and science and reason. It is a world in which addiction is treated with medicine, and where there's no question that people who use drugs deserve to be safe and free of avoidable infections and diseases. In this world, nobody hesitates to administer naloxone if the occasion calls for it. In this world, people are not afraid to touch the bodies of drug users, and we all understand that if you can self-administer naloxone, you don't need naloxone. I experience this world through phone lines, e-mails, and social media. I write about this world; this world is my template for how all worlds should be.Addiction as Moral FailureThen there is the world where my life takes place. In this world, having an addiction is a moral failure. Drug use is met with punishment. Judges replace doctors and toxicologists, making medical decisions and determining the results of drug tests with reckless abandon. In this world, abstinence is the only route to health. In this world, a hit of pot is just as chaotic as compulsive, daily injections of heroin. In this world, there is no sterile equipment; in this world, everyone is sick. Here, you can be sentenced to death just for being the friend of someone who overdoses. This is the world I touch with my fingers and teeth—the world where I walk, and eat, and breathe. This is the world where I live.I became involved with the Florida Department of Children and Families in April 2018. I was never charged with a crime or afforded the presumption of innocence, evidentiary standards, or jury decision that would have accompanied a criminal charge. Instead, one judge—virtually accountable to no one and equipped with full immunity—deemed my husband and me guilty of some nebulous pre-crime like the woeful characters in Philip K. Dick's short-story-turned-film "Minority Report." Apparently, I am guilty of the possibility of neglecting or otherwise harming my children in the future because I have a diagnosed substance use disorder.Since that decision, I have been forced to obey the mandates set forth by my county's child welfare authorities in an attempt to win back custody of my girls. So far, not a single mandate has been evidence-based.I love writing about harm reduction, evidence-based addiction care, and trauma-informed mental health practices. I enjoy staying informed about best practices in addiction medicine. I am proud that I get to help demystify and destigmatize addiction and mental illness, and I am honored to have the opportunity to speak with the researchers who have dedicated themselves to driving us out of the dark ages of addiction medicine. But now that I am living in those dark ages myself, I can't shake a sense of bitterness: I write about a better world, but it's one that I only get to view from afar.Substance Use Disorder Treatment and GeographyIn 2017, I wrote an article for OZY about the general disparities between addiction care in red states and blue states. I was living in Seattle, Washington, at the time but I'd had some experience trying to get help for addiction in Florida—so I knew how backward providers could be. For example, when I gave birth to my daughter in Palm Beach while on prescribed methadone, hospital staff refused to let me breastfeed her. She was treated for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) and pediatric staff claimed that enough methadone would be passed through my breast milk to potentially harm her. In reality, numerous studies have found the exact opposite to be true and breastfeeding is now recognized as one of the most effective balms for NAS, due to the maternal contact and general health benefits of breast milk. The amount of methadone passed through breast milk is too negligible to help or harm.As I wrote in the OZY article, Democratic-ruled states are more likely to offer Medicaid coverage for methadone and buprenorphine, while Republican states are less likely to even offer the medications themselves, much less cover them. People in red states also face harsher penalties for drug crimes and are less likely to be allowed to continue a methadone or buprenorphine prescription while incarcerated. (Though this is a nationwide issue, blue states are leading the reform.) But writing the story from Seattle meant writing from a place of comfort: I was living among the reformers—walking within the pages of history that will be attributed to the good guys. I was able to take my buprenorphine every day because my state insurance covered it. I was surrounded by intelligent, informed people with whom I could speak honestly about my decision to engage in non-abstinence-based recovery. When I wrote about the issues in the system, I wrote from a place of distance. Of privilege.I did not appreciate how lucky I was until I dove headlong into the true trenches of the Drug War. In Recovery and Losing CustodyIn Broward County, Florida, my children were removed from me because of unsubstantiated accusations of drug use. When my first slew of drug tests returned negative, the opposition began slinging whatever they could think of in my direction, hoping something would stick. Most of it revolved around the fact that I was poor—but ignorance about mental illness and addiction reared its ugly face yet again. The opposition cited my prior child welfare investigation in Florida—the one that was triggered by my daughter's NAS. It was a routine investigation that had been deemed unsubstantiated. These types of investigations are typically labeled "harmless." I had been in compliance with my methadone program, and my daughter's doctors had no concerns—but five years later, the opposition used that prior methadone prescription as a basis for deeming me an unreliable witness: the dirty, lying junkie. When I was asked under oath whether I had spoken with one of my husband's siblings about possibly purchasing marijuana, I admitted that I had. Clinicians in addiction treatment recognize that drug cravings are normal and applaud us when we admit that we think about buying drugs but then decide against it. But the guardian ad litem attorney—the counsel whose job it is to protect my daughters' interests—argued that by considering using marijuana, I placed my sobriety and therefore my children at risk. It didn’t matter that I canceled the purchase and honestly acknowledged that I’d thought about it. The judge called my process of considering marijuana but then deciding against it "drug-seeking behavior." She gave custody of my daughters to my husband's parents.The terribly irony underscoring the entire proceeding is that if I were still living in a state that embraced the most current research on addiction, I would never even have been in a courtroom. The accusation against me stated that I left my daughters in the care of their grandparents for three days while I used drugs outside of the home. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "drug tests do not provide sufficient information for substantiating allegations of child abuse or neglect or for making decisions about the disposition of a case." Drug use on its own, away from any children, is not child abuse. A parent who leaves their child with a family member to go to a bar for an evening is generally considered to be engaging in responsible substance use.The federal government recognizes that child abuse cannot reasonably be defined as placing a child with a trusted caregiver, leaving the home for a couple days, and returning sober. It doesn't much matter what went on during those two days. True or false—the accusation against me never described child abuse. A more enlightened jurisdiction would have recognized that. The separation trauma that my children and I have endured over the past nine months is completely attributable to our location.I used to write about addiction and drug policy from a place of privilege. Now I am writing from the deep trenches. I feel as though I am performing a kind of literary necromancy whenever I publish—except that instead of communing with the dead or demonic, I am writing from within that unillumined place, hoping that, by disseminating research, facts, and the words of distant experts, I can summon reason back into my life.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 https://ift.tt/2TPskZS

[spiritmender]

Integrating CAM therapies with modern medicine: In pursuit of the best medicine, let’s take intuition, experience AND science.

I can remember a time when I believed that vaccinations were not necessary. 

The fuss about them felt like paternalistic browbeating by a biased medical community. 

This was a pretty common belief where I grew up. My family was no exception in their suspicions of modern medicine. This wariness was just how people in my community interacted with physicians. One of my fondest memories of this involves the time a family member refused to take prescribed ibuprofen as part of a carefully drawn post-surgery regimen, instead coming home with a vial from our local health food store. 

She proudly and unselfconsciously proclaimed to me that “the woman in the supplement aisle” had recommended emu oil instead. 

Yes. Emu oil. She would rather rub emu oil on her face than expose herself to a “chemical,” and rather take the advice of the woman in the supplement aisle than her own surgeon.

Fast forward a decade later, and now I am a physician. 

But, I remember what it was like to travel in those circles and not even realize I was part of a circle. 

I spent 5 years in the alternative medicine community in the time before medical school. I earned a Masters of Science in Oriental Medicine and practiced as a licensed acupuncturist during that time, working alongside homeopaths, chiropractors, herbalists, shamans, energy healers, sound healers, naturopaths and more. And I will say, from experience, that the anti-science viewpoint in the alternative medicine community is in most cases hard-earned. 

Many of my colleagues and all of my patients had seen physician after physician for complex medical issues and were either mistreated, misdiagnosed, or sent away without a diagnosis or explanation. 

This is absolutely happening, and it is common. Any physician worth their salt will tell you that modern medicine does not treat everything well, and most will agree that we simply do not know how to treat everything. There are abdominal pains of unknown origin that no number of laparoscopic surgeries, ultrasounds and MRIs will diagnose or solve. There is the elusive irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, but also some concrete and scientifically identifiable issues like some cancers that we simply do not know how to address. So yeah, a lot of people do not get their issues treated appropriately, and in some cases, the physician, after spending years in school to treat people, doesn’t know what to do when they don’t have a treatment. 

And through this opening complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has in many cases rightfully and helpfully grown.

—————————————————————————————

Many CAM treatments come from wise and time-tested traditions, like Chinese medicine or Ayerveda. By the time we encounter them in this day and age, they are complete and fairly static systems. I can deepen my understanding of Chinese medicine for the rest of my life and still have more to learn, but the medicine itself isn’t changing much. 

Modern medicine is not only fairly new, its foundation is science which creates constant change and growth. What we learn in medical school is up to date only as of that moment. Research is constantly being done in order to verify old answers and ask new questions, and as a result, our knowledge base grows and changes. 

So the most valuable thing I learned in medical school wasn’t the medicine, it was Science. 

The individual pieces of information that we have gleaned from science - like the presence of mitochondria in our cells, or even the most up-to-date treatment guidelines as of today, April 22, 2017, for stroke is the product of scientific thinking and it evolves. The most valuable part of medical school was actually teaching me how to think critically and evaluate information so I can keep up with this evolution. I thought I already knew how to think critically - I spent a decade teaching prospective law students how to take the law school admissions test! But medical training takes this to a level I didn’t even know existed.

Here is part of what I learned. 

Reading headlines is easy. Figuring out how good the information that the headline is based on - that’s the hard part. 

I am not going to lie, it is usually a tedious process. How do I integrate my friend’s-cousin’s-daughter’s experience that one dose of prozac “ruined her brain” into all the other information available? For instance, what is my own experience with hundreds or thousands of patients? Even more importantly, what are the experiences of large numbers of patients across different parts of the country or world? There is a lot of bad information out there, and it is especially sneaky when that information is presented as Scientific Research. Who doesn’t want to just read a headline, trust that it’s “Science”, get the gist and move on? 

But no study is perfect. No conclusion is irrefutable. You can (irresponsibly) use Science to support any conclusion you like, but that doesn’t invalidate the idea that there is useful information embedded in research. 

It’s all in the intent of the reader. Are we reading critically, or to push an agenda?

The biggest difference between me as an acupuncturist and me 10 years later as a physician is this: I know the likelihood that something is going to work for my patients. I know the likelihood of side effects. I know what order to rank the recommendations I give my patients, and often those recommendations include CAM approaches like acupuncture, herbs, supplements or lifestyle approaches. But, I actually know who to recommend acupuncture to now. And how long to try it before giving up. And what conditions it is most likely to work for. Because there are actually a lot of studies on acupuncture. I didn’t know this before, and I certainly wouldn’t have known how to evaluate the studies back then if I did. It was actually a really challenging process learning how to read the research. I was frustrated and confused much of the time in those early days of medical school. But, I know these things about acupuncture now, rather than believing or thinking them, because I learned to critically read the research. I have something bigger than my own belief or experience to base my recommendations off of: the experience of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of people in more controlled conditions than my clinic. 

Is it perfect? Far from it. Am I wrong sometimes? Definitely. But, I do give better care and get better results now. And ethically, it feels much better to me to have something besides belief - my belief, my circle’s belief, to offer my patients.

————————————————————————————-

So when a good friend from the old circle, who went on to study chiropractic medicine, shares that she is looking for research that supports the idea of not vaccinating your otherwise healthy children (“the more scientific the better”), I get twitchy. When her response to my comment “I don’t think there is any” is, “there is loads of data!” - adamant, self-assured and forceful, I get troubled. And when her proffered “proof” is one informal survey sponsored by an anti-vaccination group with a clear agenda, and a PDF document written by a licensed acupuncturist compiling a few anecdotal stories of horrible vaccine outcomes that were then cured with homeopathy, I get sick to my stomach. I am imagining the families in the South American country where she is practicing, taking the “data” offered by the foreign doctora as encouragement to not vaccinate their children and having them die or be maimed by otherwise preventable diseases. When she tells me “I too have read the research and we will need to agree to disagree,” I am at a loss.

How can you agree to disagree when you can’t agree upon what constitutes facts or how to formulate an argument?

I wanted to understand. I am open to the idea that I haven’t seen all the data, that data is necessarily flawed and that there are many many things we have not yet learned how to study or may never be able to study. I may be a physician, but I believe in Qi and research acupuncture! But the illogic of this conversation ABOUT SCIENCE is so confusing to me.

And then I remind myself. This isn’t a debate. The merits of data are not important here. My friend lives in a circle that she cannot see her way out of. She believes she sees a bigger picture, but she simply wasn’t trained to do so. Almost no one is.

This is not an ode to the supremacy of science. 

Science is not everything. It does not explain everything. Maybe you believe it should, or maybe you believe it never will. But, even as science is not everything, it does exist. It is part of our existence here. There is gravity. We don’t fly off the face of the planet. No one ever does. No exceptions. It is a foundation from which to build ideas, formulate opinions and care for people safely. This foundation is tested and re-tested. The truth does not change, but scientific thinking causes our understanding of it to change and grow.

I am reminded of my first oath as a physician. First do no harm. I hold every provider, alternative medicine practitioners included, to this tenet, but I remind myself they did not make this oath. I did. They were not given the tools to do so. But, if someone is practicing medicine and using Science to justify their beliefs, shouldn’t they? Is it ok that some people can call themselves “doctor” and treat people’s medical issues without understanding something so foundational?

As our culture for the moment is drifting away from facts, from science, from an idea of truth, I do not know if most people will even value the question. But, I hope we can bring a love for science back. Not to bludgeon people with. 

Science can bring a false sense of certainty, so we must always remember what we do not know. 

But, I wonder what we could all do with a healthy respect for the unknown (and perhaps unknowable) balanced with a recognition of what science has to offer. At the very least, there could be better medical care all around if modern scientific medicine felt a little less certain about facts, and alternative medicine a little more so.