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by eesmith 2940 days ago
"Deeply evil"? Is this based on ideological considerations which reject any sort of government oversight?

We have experience of what sort of quack "medicine" appears when unscrupulous people take advantage of the hopes of the terminally ill for personal gain.

Is that what you want us to return to? Or do you have a way to prevent it?

2 comments

Don't worry, the free market will take care of it by killing patients who choose unwisely.
If I am dying, what right have you to tell me what experimental treatment I can take or not, if I otherwise have no hope to live? You would condemn me to no hope at all in order to save me from what you consider to be unproven or possible quackery.
We are all dying. We are all condemned. So if you're going to use such emotional words, at least ground it in real-world examples.

Here's a real-world example - https://www.livescience.com/4040-dying-desperate-lure-quack-... .

People in the US in the last months of their lives, in desperation, go to Mexico for "treatment" by methods which have never ever worked.

> One hospital we visited offered homeopathic treatments. (Homeopathy is a form of quack medicine essentially based on the mystical principle of "like cures like.")

> Another, respectable-looking hospital offered such "alternative" treatments for cancer as shark cartilage, mega-doses of vitamins, and "prayer therapy." The hospital also offered Laetrile, a notorious cancer treatment discredited by repeated scientific studies.

> ... Donsbach's clinic had a reputation for providing questionable medical procedures, including "ultraviolet blood purification," colonics (a potentially dangerous colon-irrigation therapy), and the use of microwaves to "heat" cancer cells.

This is what you want, everywhere, yes?

I believe in the right of individual self determination in matters of life and death, even to the point of foolishness, yes.
It would have been easier if you had said that my first statement was essentially correct - your belief is based on an ideological consideration which rejects government oversight on the broad topic of "life and death."