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People should be free to choose what is best for themselves as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same. I created this blog to discuss issues I have with big government, liberal media,and to talk about my support for capitalism and the Iraq War.
14 comments:
Seriously how is this story about anything other than this parent not being wise enough to make sure her children are brushing their teeth.
By stating that, are you implying that the field of Dentistry is a scam? If all it took was regular brushing, we would have no need for dentists. No matter how diligintly you take care of your teeth, you are still susceptible to cavities.
I'm not saying this mother was a great mother and made sure her kids were brushing their teeth after every meal. Hell, you're probably right, her kids probably didn't brush all that often. But the fact of the matter is, cavities do occur no matter how well or how often you brush and when you're poor, a trip to the dentist (I assume) is not very high on your priority list.
If this parent had known that her kid would die from this, I'm sure she would have brought him in sooner regardless of her monetary situation.
The severity of the medical case strongly implies a chronic lack of teeth brushing as the most likely reason for the death. Basic tooth hygiene prevents extreme cases like this from occurring while additional dental care will help manage other less critical problems.
The article certainly had a tone in which the system was to blame for the child's death. The extent in which the story faulted the death on the system was not commensurate with the role it actually played in the fatality relative to failure of the parent to insure good dental hygiene.
Does the fault lie with the system or the parent? Remember the child was in the care of the parent for most of the time the child failed to perform basic dental hygiene. The system had very little access to the child. If I was going to write a story I would focus on the parent failing to enforce good dental hygiene. But then again, that would be a very different theme then the one featured in the story. The parent responsible theme would not be as appealing both to the left leaning disposition of the publishing company and its audience.
"The severity of the medical case strongly implies a chronic lack of teeth brushing as the most likely reason for the death."
No, the severity of the medical case strongly implies that the boy was not brought to a dentist in a timely fashion.
"Basic tooth hygiene prevents extreme cases like this from occurring while additional dental care will help manage other less critical problems."
No, regular visits to the dentist prevent extreme cases like this from occurring.
"The article certainly had a tone in which the system was to blame for the child's death."
I agree with you here.
"The system had very little access to the child."
I think the article was implying that the child had very little access to the system. It also was saying how messed up the system is with dentists and oral surgeons not wanting to take on patients who have medicaid because of the paperwork and other hassles.
I'm not arguing your point that the kid probably had pretty poor dental hygiene habits and that the child and parent are probably equally to blame. What I'm arguing is that this is not as simple as saying if the kid brushed every day, there wouldn't have been any problems. If the kid had been to a dentist on a regular basis, the dentist (or oral surgeon) could have extracted the tooth. Brushing only goes so far.
I havent even see a dentist in probably 10 years. I havent had substantial work done on my teeth in probably 15 if not 20 years.
I do brush my teeth just about every day.
Im not dead.
Do the math.
Congrats, you just came up with one (possibly extreme?) case just like the story came up with one (possibly extreme?) case.
We should commission a study and expose the scam that is dentistry. To think people actually make a living "cleaning" teeth.
I had a suspicion you would respond by arguing that my example is extreme. But then one could esaily argue that what happened to the kid was extreme. If this is the case then you would have to agree that covering the story as if it was the system's fault instead of making the story about a freak occurence is irresponsible of the news coverage. Furthermore you would agree with me that the unfortunate death of this child is acutally about a freak occurence rather than a failure in the system.
That appears to be game - set - match
I believe the larger context of the article is that families on medicare or medicaid whichever one it was have difficulties finding access to a dentist/oral surgeon.
Sure the hook that brought people in to read the story (Diatribe) was that of a child dying because of lack of access to a dentist. News organizations (or MSM if you would like) do this all the time. In a competitive business they'll use sensationalism to help sell their story.
If you'd like, you can go ahead and blast MSM for writing an obviously biased story, but if your argument is all he needed to do was brush, then that's faulty.
Out of curiosity, if the child and parent had issued a statement saying they would never brush the kid's teeth and the medixcal community agreed it would definitely kill him, how would you have felt bout courts stepping in to force the kid to brush?
My comfortableness with state intervention is commensurate with how convincing I find the medical communities argument for certainty in death.
Ok. I think the medical community was pretty sure that one kid's cancer was going to kill him when he was denying treatment, and you were against stepping in then if I remember correctly. Any thoughts?
“Ok. I think the medical community was pretty sure that one kid's cancer was going to kill him when he was denying treatment, and you were against stepping in then if I remember correctly. Any thoughts? “
First it was an infection. Second nobody is disputing that fact that a serious brain infection will result in death. Once the boy was found to have this problem the system took action. The dispute is what condition was most directly responsible for the freak occurrence of a brain infection? Given the fact that me and Nuclear both see it as a freak event it doesn’t make sense to parse out responsibility. The random occurrence of events that have no cause happens all the time.
In regards to the article, the narrative theme was certainly suggesting failure of the system to protect the indigent as the cause of the child’s death. However, if were going to play the blame game then lets place the blame in the hands of the agent most likely able to control the problem. In this case the mother seems at fault for failing to insure that her son was performing basic dental hygiene.
One final note: I think this story really reflects what is meant by liberal bias. In this case there are many facts to the story some regarding parental failure while others concerning system failure. For a large pool of facts a reporter can select those facts that match the narrative theme he has chosen for the story. In this case the reporter selected those facts that support the idea that the system failed while at the same time ignored the facts that parental responsibility was lacking. Is this story true? Sure. Is there a different way to write the story so that its true but has a different narrative theme. Absolutely.
The problem in the MSM is that most reporters and their editors lean to the left so they naturally select narratives themes that support their dispositions. Thus we get many true stories with facts arranged to support their theme. In the aggregate that gives the MSM a distinctly left leaning bias while at the same time provide factually correct stories.
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