#biased healthcare

[mahamatra-cyno]

Is gay marriage legal in Sumeru? Would you face any issues with the Academiya for dating or marrying a man?

Sumeru is a nation focused almost entirely on the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. As such, it is well within our interests as a nation to reject nonsensical traditional views and policies. Especially now, with the corrupt sages removed from power, that has been realized in its entirety. Akademiya is expanding to the desert, healthcare is free, artistic expression is encouraged. Even then, all of the previously existing stereotypes and biases have stemmed from academic disparities, misconceptions, and influence from the people in power—rather than mass discrimination for sexuality or gender, like some other nations might face. This is not to say that some people don’t experience those biases on an individual level—they just aren’t systemic. The discrimination against desert dwellers, on the other hand, are an entirely different issue, and will likely take years to deconstruct.

In terms of gay marriage, I cannot recall such a preventative law existing in the time that I’ve been General Mahamatra, but if it had, I have no doubt that either Lesser Lord Kusanali or Alhaitham himself would have eradicated it from our legislature by now. You are free to marry who you want in Sumeru.

[neighbourhoodtwo]

saw this on twitter and it really sums up the how the cass report gets away with so much under the guise of professionalism lmao. like this should go without saying but a) you can spend a long time on something that is bad and b) being a professional doesnt make you immune to ideology.

[coochiequeens]

Yes it's form a conservative source. But it's one of the few articles that doesn't focus on reproductive purchasers who felt entitled to a child.

by Emma Waters, @EMLWATERS

Olivia Maurel was 30 years old when an ancestry DNA test confirmed what she had known all along: she is the product of a costly commercial surrogacy contract. In Olivia’s case, the woman that her parents paid to gestate and birth Olivia is also her biological mother. 

In a recent article with Daily Mail, Olivia shared how “becoming a parent myself — entirely naturally, in my mid-20s — has only crystallized my view. The sacred bond between mother and baby is, I feel, something that should never be tampered with.” After going viral for her testimony before the parliament of the Czech Republic, Olivia now campaigns for the universal abolition of surrogacy. 

In the United States, only three states prohibit or do not enforce commercial surrogacy contracts. One of the states, Michigan, is poised to overturn their ban on surrogacy-for-pay through a nine-bill “Access to Fertility Healthcare Package.” Legislators are tying their efforts to the national conversation on in vitro fertilization in hopes of garnering additional support. I detail the concerns with this legislation in detail here, but suffice it to say it undermines motherhood by reducing the intimate relationship between a woman and the child she carries to a highly-lucrative rental agreement. 

Several well-respected researchers and pundits claim that surrogacy does not harm children. Yet we know very little about its long-term impact on a child’s psychological well-being. 

Most of those who assert that surrogacy is psychologically harmless rely on a longitudinal study by Susan Golombok, Professor Emerita of Family Research, and former Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of We Are Family (2020), a synthesis of 40 years of research on non-traditional family structures—same-sex, single parent by choice, and the use of all forms of assisted reproductive technology, including third-party conception. She concludes that such arrangements pose no additional harm and can benefit children.

Professor Golombok’s “Families Created Through Surrogacy” study began in 2003 and assessed parental and child psychological adjustment at ages 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, and 14. The impact of this single longitudinal study on both public opinion and policy cannot be overstated. To date, it is the only study that specifically examines the surrogate-born child’s psychological adjustment, as well as the only study to do so over an extended period. It is also the only research on child psychological well-being that policymakers in New York used to argue for the legalization of commercial surrogacy. 

Professor Golombok’s sample of surrogacy families comes from the General Register Office of the United Kingdom for National Statistics (ONS) and from the UK’s “Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy” (COTS) agency. The original sample included 42 surrogate-born children but declined to a mere 28 children by age 14. The study relied on a group of families formed through egg donation and children born of natural conception to serve as the comparison groups. 

With such a small sample size, and some families participating inconsistently year-to-year, the study itself runs the risk of selection bias and non-representative outcomes. The study lumps both children born through gestational surrogacy and traditional surrogacy together, too. This means some surrogates are both the genetic mother and the child's gestational mother. 

Additionally, only altruistic surrogacy is legal in the UK, so these arrangements do not involve surrogates who legally receive an additional sum of money, beyond generous reimbursements. For context, surrogacy-for-pay brings in an additional $25,000 to $70,000 in the United States, which may affect how a child views his or her conception, gestation, and birth. 

In each study, the scholars rely on the mother’s own assessment of the child’s well-being. It is not until age 14 when scholars begin to directly ask children questions to assess their self-esteem.

Overall, Professor Golombok concludes that children born from surrogacy agreements of any sort do as well, if not better, psychologically than their natural-born peers. 

For ages 1, 2, and 3, Professor Golombok finds that parents in surrogacy families showed “greater warmth and attachment-related behavior” than natural-conception parents. One explanation for this, as Professor Golombok’s notes, is that “parents of children born in this way [may] make a greater attempt than parents of naturally conceived children to present their families in the best possible light.” Such a bias seems likely, given that parents may feel the subconscious desire to justify their uncommon path to parenthood. 

By age 7, both surrogate-born children and donor-conceived children in the control group were doing noticeably worse than their natural-born counterparts. This is the point when many children learned of their biological or gestational origins. The scholars note that this corresponds with adoption literature as the period in a child’s life when they begin to comprehend the loss of one or both biological parents. What goes unnoted, however, is that unlike adoption, surrogacy is the intentional creation of a child for the express purpose of removing the child from his or her gestational and/or biological parent(s). 

Beginning at age 10, scholars report that the child’s psychological adjustment returns to a relatively normal state compared to the natural-born children, but the study itself reports little data compared to previous papers. By age 14, when the study concludes, the remaining 28 children seem to fare about the same as natural-born children, despite slightly more psychological problems reported. 

Despite these methodological limitations, Professor Golombok’s data from this longitudinal study remains the basis of child psychological adjustment research on surrogacy. Examples of this may be found in prominent pieces such as Vanessa Brown Calder's review of surrogacy at the Cato Institute or Cremieux Recueil's widely shared Substack with Aporia Magazine. Their conclusions that surrogacy confers “no harm” to the psychological well-being of the child are premature, to say the least.

In Calder’s article, she cites three studies in her discussion on the psychological well-being of surrogate-born children. A quick review of each study shows that these authors rely solely on Professor Golombok’s longitudinal study data to draw their conclusions. 

In Recueil’s Substack, "Surrogacy: Looking for Harm," he primarily relies on Golombok’s work to claim that “psychological harm appears to be minimal.” Again, this statement is premature and formed on limited data primarily from her longitudinal study. The other five citations in the “Psychological Outcomes for Kids” section tell us little about the psychological well-being of surrogate-born children. 

Recueil twice cites “Are the Children Alright? A Systematic Review of Psychological Adjustment of Children Conceived by Assisted Reproductive Technologies,” from 2022. Of the 11 studies that examine the intersection between surrogacy and child psychological outcomes, they fall into three categories: 

the longitudinal study by Professor Golombok 

child outcomes compared with other children born from assisted reproductive technology, not compared with natural-born children 

studies that examine the impact of non-traditional parenting types, such as lesbian mothers or gay fathers, on the well-being of the child. The impact of surrogacy is not directly assessed; it is simply mentioned as a requirement for male-to-male family formation. Of these three categories, the only studies that directly address the claims that Recueil makes are the research of Professor Golombok, which he already cited before these additional studies. 

Hence, the widespread claim that surrogacy does not harm the psychological well-being of children primarily relies on a single longitudinal study of 42-to-28 surrogate-born children by the intended mother’s own assessment. That’s it. 

This isn’t to say we should discard Professor Golombok’s study. But honest scholars and lawmakers should be far more modest in claiming that surrogacy does not harm the psychological well-being of children. 

The most accurate conclusion regarding the psychological adjustment of surrogate-born children is that we do not have enough data to draw a conclusion either way, especially not in favor of surrogacy itself. When the well-being of children is at stake, lawmakers and researchers should employ the utmost scrutiny before advocating for any form of childbearing. 

Children rightly desire to please their parents, and there are few conversations more complicated than questioning the method one’s parents chose to bring one into the world. There is reason to believe that many surrogate-born children will not have the emotional or mental maturity to understand their conception and gestation until they are much older.

There is a huge difference between no harm and no known harm. Regardless of one’s stance on surrogacy, we should be able to agree that we need more data and reporting requirements to enable researchers to assess the impact of surrogacy contracts on the well-being of children. In my view, a single six-part longitudinal study does not justify this practice. 

Emma Waters is a Senior Research Associate for the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at The Heritage Foundation.

[oranberrie]

Ah the autistic experience of randomly remembering a situation from your childhood and realizing things

[pritvolny]

say what you will but the djats aurora album is a banger

[ygsunflower]

Watching the recent Grey’s Anatomy & Station 19 abortion clinic storyline and reading wrackwonder’s Jamie fiction (Head Above Water & From The Ashes), they gave me so many emotions… without giving too much away from the fic, the threats to doctors storyline brought up so many past and current memories and fears… Because of my upbringing, I’ve been exposed to this type of harassment and violence since I was very little. I remember one specific instance where people holding signs & posters crowding and literally jumping and banging on my dad’s car as we drove out of the hospital garage. The protesters/demonstrators didn’t care about who was driving the car or if the people inside were the ones they were protesting against. Things were also thrown at us… We were targeted simply because we drove out of the hospital staff parking garage. I remember I curled up in the back seat staring out the window and the sunroof (yes, thanks to my dad insisting on getting the sunroof so I was able to witness people laying on top of our car screaming. Not terrifying at all).

It was all too confusing yet petrifying to me. Throughout my childhood, both my parents were threatened and even physically harmed as a result of people dissatisfied with my parents’ professions/work. I’ve also heard many scary stories about harassment and violence against their colleagues. Growing up, I could not wrap my brain around why healthcare professionals, the people who work so hard to save people and make people get better, were targeted and attacked… to be honest, I still can’t until this day. I don’t know since when, but in the back of my head, I always have this fear that one day my parents would be harmed and fell at the hands of the extreme violent people who disagreed with their profession/work. Now with me myself starting in this field that’s been subjected to all types of threats and harassment since the pandemic, this topic just frustrates and angers me even more.

Anyways, all my chaotic vents are just to say, good job fanfic author, and also good job Grey’s Anatomy & Station 19 writers, thank you for choosing this touchy topic and keep things real. Obviously, the topic around harassment & violence against healthcare professionals is deeply personal to me, so I appreciate the writers are using their platforms to bring this topic to light to a wider general audience.

To be clear, I’m not commenting on if people should protest against healthcare professionals/systems etc. nor am I suggesting whether or not their demonstrations were justified. I’m just talking about my experience as someone who witnessed and indirectly affected by these aggressive actions. The whole issue runs deep and everything is complicated, but I’m just not a fan of choosing violence as the solution (even when arguably violence was the “only” way).

[autumnoakes]

i hate how much is related to fields of business just because of the money in it all like?????

[aanews69]

**Why Black Women Face DEADLIER Breast Cancer Odds**: Delve into the staggering world of breast cancer disparities, where black women face a 40% higher morta...

[ihavehisdvds]

You go to the doctor. You are prescribed refills for “controlled medications”, you’ve taken for over 6 years. You sign the contract. Even the contract is biased. Because, if you need to use controlled substances, you’re an addict. Even if the pharmacy employee diverted my pills (years ago), I was treated at drug seeking.

Controlled substance use even when used as prescribed = drug addict.

With the system and the inherent bias even among practitioners, even if you are prescribed and never have sought treatment outside of that agreement = drug addict.

TLDR: stop the bloody judgement.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

P.S Also, it’s past time to throw out BMI. I can be at a weigh that shows ribs (on my way back to it since I lost almost 15 pounds in 3 months), I’m going to be morbidly obese.

[beckitty]

Also, worth knowing: if you are black and in hospital, and you feel short of breath, but the nurse says not to worry because the finger probe (pulse oxometer) shows your oxygen levels are ok, point out this article that talks about the fact that pulse oxometers are calibrated for white people and don't work as accurately on black people. (I used this article because it also discusses the kidney function adjustment mentioned above).

Feel free to do this by printing a copy and slapping them with it if they aren't listening.

There's a saying that circles in healthcare it's worth knowing, in case anyone doesn't want to put things in writing: if it's not written down, it didn't happen.

This saying is not a way for healthcare workers to hid the evidence, it means if you don't write down what you did, you did nothing, which in most cases would be negligence. So feel free to break this one our if they are being particularly twattish about giving you written copies of their decisions.

[thombyxbe]

Diagnostic Challenges for Men with Fibromyalgia

Diagnosing fibromyalgia in men presents unique challenges that can lead to under diagnosis or misdiagnosis. Here’s an investigation into these difficulties, including potential biases in healthcare: 1. Gender stereotypes: – Fibromyalgia is often perceived as a “women’s disease,” leading to potential oversight in male patients. – Healthcare providers may be less likely to consider fibromyalgia as…

[mosspapi]

Whyyyyyy is my doctors office trying to get me to do my mental health assessment intake form thru an AI program. I don't fucking want this. What the fuck.

[toni-onone]

👀

Racism in healthcare? Yes, unfortunately!

[cokakoala]

For context: There’s been real competitive pressure brewing in the insulin market recently. Just last summer, California announced it would start its own cheaper insulin production.

“The reason more companies haven’t entered the insulin market is because if they did, the established manufacturers would just undercut them”

Unlike a startup or nonprofit, the State of California is able to stay afloat against predatory price-setting. California also buys insulin as part of their state health plans, so a lower cost overall will be a benefit anyway.

This means that costs were already bound to come down, beyond Eli Lilly’s control. They’re losing their monopoly on insulin and they know it.

“Lilly is trying to get out ahead of the issue and look to the public like the good guy”

Final note: This is excellent news, just adding context because it’s not just that “they got bullied on twitter” — they got bullied at the state level, bullied by social healthcare, and by patent expiration dates.

[gravityofsouls]

Everyone loves the edgy alternative queer look until they have to face the fact it's not just a look and I'm a radicalist in basically all forms, then they have a problem.

[suppenzeit]

my favorite part about the trans clinic aside from constantly feeling like no one there believed me was when i was told that T will instantly ruin your entire life and itll take months for anything good to happen