Alan Alda's polio

How do you get "personal hate," as you put it, from an establishment? Here's what I said in the OP in Message 1: How can you assign "personal hate" to an "establishment"? I assigned the psychological metaphor "hate"”commonly used in ordinary discourse”to what an establishment clearly showed, not to what any individual person declared. And I personally witnessed that institutional "hatred." Were you you there? What did you witness?”HM

Yikes! That's exactly what the neo-Nazis are saying to the Holocaust vicims.”HM

But, jar, I can't disagree with that. Who could? I'm sure sanitation causes does more good things than bad to public health. I'm saying that sometimes bad things happen to public health as a result of good intentions. Endrin, DDT, tributyltin, et al. were all introduced with good public-health intentions...and good commercial intentions, as well. "Better things for better living through chemistry." And now the bald eagles are coming back and our children are eating less dirt contamninated with said same polloutants. And once upon a time the parmaceutical cure for polio may have unwittingly set off another epidemic for the drugs companies to profit from. Medicine is not science; it often blunders ahead violating its own principle: "First, do no harm."And on that principle I measure the relative value of America's medical establishment. But what can it really do about my complaint in a society driven by capitalistic principles? Doctors are not to blame, not most of them. It's the driving principles of our social order that deserve our scrunity. And so I remember Sister Kinney with her cheap hot blankets and physical therapy”a simple bush nurse who made no contribution whatsoever to the AIDS epidemic.”HM

There was enough controversy over Sister Kinney and her struggle for acceptance by the American medical establishment back then for Hollywood to poke its nose into the affair. As you know, Hollywood is a distorted mirror unto America, but its highly biased products are nevertheless reflections of certain attitudes of the time. Not everyone's attitude, mind you. But the sentiments were there, and I was there, and I believe Sister Kinney was often despised by the medical establishment.Exhibit A: On September 30, 1946, TIME magazine printed this movie review of "Sister Kinney", played by Rosalind Russell. Read it and you can see what one critic saw in this "propaganda" film. I never saw the film. But I remember the controversy and scorn of Sister Kinney at a time when American medicine was aligning itself with drug companies and showed remarkable success with antibiotics. We all were grateful for those. More and more, drugs were becoming the answer. And Sister Kinney was regarded as dangerously old-school and out of fashion with this amazing new promise of shots and pills.Now, I know you'll say Exhibit A is not good enough evidence. It's only a movie with a bucksome babe in it to titallate us more than educate us. Sure it is. But, damn it, some of us got titallated and some of us got educated.If you reject my personal testamony as evidence, Ringo, then you would likewise reject Anne Frank's.”HM

Ah, you're much too predictable, jar. I knew you'd say that. Which is evidence of your refusal to see my point. Whether you agree or not, there was an attitude issue at the time that piited the American medical establishment against Sister Kinney. Maybe those who made propoganda films about it were wrongly biased against the medical establsihment. But it was still real back then. "Practically all orthopedists" don't add up to the Amerrican medical establishment. And the latter statement is even less convincing: "$2 million...including the Kinney technique..."? That's not much of an endorsement from the rich American medical establsihment.”HM

Well, OK, then. Would you accept an excerpt of a biography of Sister Kinney from the Spine Hall of Fame?

quote:

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Her theories regarding the treatment of children afflicted with polio were brilliant for their time and diametrically different from those of mainstream medicine. For this she was vilified and continually attacked as being a fraud by the medical establishment. Her therapies designed to rehabilitate impaired muscles and to retrain the nervous system were, however, based on careful observation, deduction, and a willingness to listen to her patients. It took great spirit for Sister Kenny to maintain her integrity while under constant attack by the establishment. In 1938 at the behest of Australian physicians a Royal Commission condemned her work as being "unorthodox" and her procedures "dangerous, damaging, costly and cruel."

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"...fraud...villified...constant attack by the establishment...unorthodox...dangerous, damaging, costly and cruel..."?Come on, Ringo, what more do you need? They hated her!”HM

To wit: Message 50.”HM

Sorry, jar, but you can't trump the Spine Hall of Fame with that. And if you think the answer to good health and sound mind comes in pills then you should keep on reading those 800-numbers at the bottom of your TV screen. I'm arguing that special forces exist in capitalism to nourish the profitable and starve the cheap. Sister Kinney bears witness to that, proving that cheap, hot, woolen blankes, when timely applied, will obstruct the cause of the drug industry.And even today nearly all of those drugs and salves and supplements do nothing at all for you but lighten your wallet. Really, you ought to think about it. Even eating at Mcdonald's is a form of Kool-aid drinking. And then ask youself: Why don't they teach that in high school. And, you know, you can take vitamin C 'til the cows come home and it won't do a goddamn thing for you. Why don't they teach that in high school, too?I think our public high-school curriculum should include courses on:1. How to stay away from doctors, and why.2. How to stay away from drugs, and why.3. How to find natural and free ways to relieve stress.4. How to recognize those who would profit from your bad health.5. How to recognize those who would profit from your good health.6. How to recognize those who would pee on your shoe and tell you it's raining.”HMEdited by Hoot Mon, : spelling

My contention all along is that the medical establishment, aligned with the pharmaceutical establishment, has other things on its complex mind than making people healthier. I used key aspects of the polio epidemic as examples. I showed you a statement that appeared in Spine Hall of Fame as evidence of the medical establishment's early attitude against Sister Kinney:

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Her theories regarding the treatment of children afflicted with polio were brilliant for their time and diametrically different from those of mainstream medicine. For this she was vilified and continually attacked as being a fraud by the medical establishment. Her therapies designed to rehabilitate impaired muscles and to retrain the nervous system were, however, based on careful observation, deduction, and a willingness to listen to her patients. It took great spirit for Sister Kenny to maintain her integrity while under constant attack by the establishment. In 1938 at the behest of Australian physicians a Royal Commission condemned her work as being "unorthodox" and her procedures "dangerous, damaging, costly and cruel."

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But none this is good enough for you. What more evidence do you need? Where's yours? And, please, don't pass the Kool-Aid my way.”HM

Sister Kinney cured polio patients with hot wollen blankets long before Salk and the drug companies developed a vaccine. From my own personal widow on that history, starting about 1943, I saw two things:1. There was memorable opposition to Sister Kinney in my childhood during the polio epidemic.2. No kid I knew about who got polio was ever treated using Sister Kinney's technique.”HM

OK, you win. I'll withdraw the word "hate" and replace it "despise." That should clear up your problem.”HM

jar, you need to get a new argument. The old one is threadbare and your noodle is showing.btw: Where were you in the 1940s? Do you have personal experiences of the polio epidemic that trump my own?”HM

So then you rely on what, exactly, to form your opinions? The personal experiences of others? Then you're a candidate for Kool-Aid therapy. How 'bout volunteering for service in Iraq? Kool-Aid is served up daily over there and in the White House."Texas!!" Now I get it.”HM

Well, we have a difference of opinion on this. I know you will reject this as evidence, but it is evidence nonetheless, even if it is trivial and popular evidence: Hollywood became involved with Sister Kinney's early rejection by the medical establishment by producing a movie, albiet a biased movie, about her life. You can say what you like, but there was clearly a clash between Kinney and the medical establsihment early on, and then the meds caught on.So, I ask you, What about all those kids who didn't get Sister Kinney's treatment because of the medical estblishment's early resistence to her methods?”HM

I've established that I personally witnessed that. But, no, that's not good enough for you. I'll admit it was an ambiguous thing in that scary time, and it was probably parochial throughout the insular Midwest. That's where I came from. Even today, the progressive sub-cultures of coastal America, where I live now, are measurable ahead of many Midwest mindsets.So it may have been where I lived at that time. Sister Kinney never came through our neighborhood, as she did in Alan Alda's. There was no talk at all that I can remember to encourage her methods for treating kids my age who were stricken with polio. But I can remember talk against it.”HM