Although, there are patterns of behavior that are common, everyone’s personal story is different.

- CJ Social Worker

If I were a patient, I think it would be kind of scary to know that my doctor who I am seeing has a gun in his office. I think it would be scary not because of the gun itself, but because of the fact that the environment could actually warrant firearms.

If the environment is dangerous to warrant the kind of protection a firearm provides, then the doctor is negligent in NOT having a firearm. I’m trusting the doctor with mt physical safety by going to see him or her when I’m ill, expecting him or her to cure me. Is it that so far different from assuming that he can provide me a safe environment underwhich the examination can take place?

Stimulants speed up the internal stimulus which comes to competitively dominate over the external stimulus. This is sort of like driving faster prevents you from noticing you could have made a left or right turn as you drive through the blocks - you’re going too fast to notice them. The fact that most pre-treatment/pre-diagnosed adult ADD/ADHDers self medicate with caffeine and are prone to “abuse” of illicit stimulants seems to support this idea.

Now, some believe SSRI’s eventually modulate dopamine. And stimulants would eventually modulate serotonin?

A common belief is that the brain of an AADD sufferer is not fully awake, and stimulants help with this.

You showed a complete misunderstanding of my comments. But yet you attack me.

I wonder if it has something to do about UNhealthy children encountering problems with vaccinations - whereas healthy children usually have no problem.

Well, now that is just ridiculous!

Individual people have individual bodies - and sometimes those bodies react differently. Kids who are sensitive to immunological overload or to foreign chemicals aren’t necessarily “unhealthy.” (Those same kids may be sensitive to other stimuli in ways that can be quite beneficial - the great chefs, the master musicians, etc.)

As for Estherar’s comments: I’ll tell you, it is really tough for me to trust medical professionals when they are disrespectful. And so, I agree with JR White’s thoughts on mutual respect. Fortunately, my son’s current pediatrician is pretty good about acknowledging concerns, but I still have fear.

For my son’s first pediatrician, I asked my questions from a scared place, not a hostile one. I understand how the questions can become tiresome from the doctor’s pov, but assuming that it is all “misinformation” is dangerous. We are human - we are not perfect - and the information that we have is always evolving and changing. Assuming that a child’s body today is the same as it was a decade ago is risky: we *do* have more chemicals around, there *are* kids who have had some unfortunate reactions to vaccines.

It would be great to find an objective answer to everything, but we know that each individual is truly an individual! And so, if I already know that my child will regress for a week or so after a vaccine, I think it is natural for me to worry about it. No, my son hasn’t skipped any vaccines, but each time I worry that he won’t “come back.”

Fear is not stupidity. And yes — fear can create unsafe situations, but it also can create innovative ones.

After all, I do realize that propaganda does exist… but at least I acknowledge that it’s present on both sides of the debate.

YES, exactly! Like any “debate” there are radical viewpoints on both sides, and that is why it makes it so hard

Years later, after she slowly regained her functioning (after numerous frightening mental “black-outs” when she couldn’t recognise anything - not even her own street and home!), she recounted some of it - of being strapped down to the bed, stuff stuffed in her mouth and being tortured with electrocution till every cell in her body and brain shook etc. Absolutely horrific. Very much like the movie. Sickening. Like torturing prisoners, except there’s no escape.

Whenever I hear anyone talk about it, it gives me goosebumps. If in any way it is reputed to “treat” depression - well I guess it’s hard to be depressed if you can’t even remember who you are!! How it hasn’t been banned yet, I’ll never know. Yeah… medicine etc - just like they used to treat people by bleeding their blood, leeches and maggots in the old days - we obviously haven’t progressed very far!!

I think any doctor, before administering it, should go through a course of ECT themselves, and see what it’s like!!! I’m sure it would make them re-evaluate!

As a physician, I see myself in the role of a consultant, not the paternalistic figure of yore. Luckily for me, I don’t get this conversation a whole lot as I’m not directly involved in giving most childhood vaccines (in Israel, they’re given at gov’t-run well-baby clinics attended by nurses), though I deal with similar issues.

However, if a parent were to approach a doctor in a not-so-veiled hostile manner (and I am definitely reading hostility between the lines of your article) and ask questions with the assumption that the answers given are those of a paid government/pharma shill, can you understand why they might be terse and impatient? I’m not saying it’s right to do this, but it’s a fairly natural human reaction on the part of the doctor, especially if s/he’s heard the same spiel 20 times before, has 10 minutes per patient and several others in the waiting room. The irritation is not necessarily aimed at you, mind; it could also be at the people who instilled these doubts and fears into parents’ minds.

If I were having this conversation with a patient, I would be very interested to know the sources of information that made them doubt the government’s schedule and the underlying assumptions the parents are working from (in your case, the fear the HUGE number of vaccines is something children’s immune systems can’t handle, and that vaccination is somehow responsible for “other problematic childhood epidemics”). It’s much easier to counteract misinformation when you know who’s providing it and what, exactly, it is.

I know it’s fashionable to ‘question authority’ and all that, but it might be prudent to consider that whose who provide alternative information might have even greater ulterior motives than the government to peddle untruths. Andrew Wakefield certainly did!

There are a lot of reasons that doctors and health experts are giving bad advice. Sometimes they are forced by insurance, by their licensing boards, sometimes ignorance, sometimes by drug companies, sometimes by political agenda.

Although I have not followed the vaccination arguement - I wonder if it has something to do about UNhealthy children encountering problems with vaccinations - whereas healthy children usually have no problem.

Kids can have reactions to most anything. Perhaps vaccinations are just one more thing to add to the list.

Keep fighting the good fight!

Keith

but since you are not handicapped it is easy to act like you would not do something…… arent we brave?

Perhaps you believe the photo is one of a doctor carrying a gun. If so, it is fitting, but incorrect. If you are attempting to potray people who carry guns as lunatics, the photo is a good indicator of that intent. If that is not your intent, you need to change it. It would still be incorrect.

Want to know what people who CCW look like? They look just like you, or the person next to you. They look like your best friend. They look like normal, everyday human beings, not a person in post-Katrina New Orleans tryting to protect their property. Oh, yes…….that is what your photo depicts.

Chapeau!

Well done.