I am not medically qualified to speak to the subject of heat and its effectiveness in polio treatment. What I do know from your OP is that (1) many professionals who
were qualified to evaluate the matter regarded Kinney's treatments as dangerous and that (2) I am in
very bad hands with the author of this OP. You are strongly biased in Kinney's favour, eager to spin the story with prejudiced terms and unsupported accusations, and unwilling to consider all the possibilities.
Hoot:
Now, the medical establishment in Sister Kinney's own country hated and vilified her.
You never establish grounds for your accusations of hate. You establish only that her
activities were criticized by medical professionals. You choose to
present this as personal hate rather than consider all the possibilities.
You quoted Wikipedia:
In 1938 the Health Department of New South Wales subjected her work to a medical Royal Commission whose findings condemned her unorthodox procedures as 'dangerous', 'damaging', 'costly', and 'cruel'.
The article mentions no personal attacks. It describes 'findings'--that would refer to
research, yes?--about Kinney's 'unorthodox procedures.'
Evaluation of medical procedures by medical professionals is not hate. It's fair game.
Please address the findings.
The medical establishment in the United States also hated her,
No supporting evidence. Until you have it this is unwarranted slander, Take 2.
I note that you speak of Kinney as a distinct person but routinely represent health professionals in her day as a faceless 'medical establishment.'
As it happens, those people were real, too. And in the 1930s they were busy. Polio was a scourge and many of the patients they treated were penniless. Few could afford to travel much and most were did well to keep already existing clinics financially afloat, even with substantial government support. Research institutions were knocking themselves out to find new treatments.
sniping at her credentials
You mean they called attention to something amiss?
Was something amiss?
and discouraging her approach to treating polio.
Most medical professionals do discourage their patients from seeking ineffective treatments research shows to be dangerous, damaging, costly and cruel. They're funny that way.
And you think those findings were misleading because... why?
Instead the US medical establishment
(Cue ominous minor chord in the trombones)
joined up with the US pharmaceutical establishment
(Enter booming timpani and basses)
to lead the fight against polio and find a drug to cure it or develop a vaccine.
Oh MY GOD--They
DIDN'T!!!!
The bastards.
Of course this was an epic milestone in sainthood of American medicine.
Which obviously doesn't deserve its halo. The nerve--developing a
cure for polio that puts saints like Sister Kinney out of business!
And yet, as a biologist, I have to ask a simple question: Why isn’t it entirely possible that the polio virus could have been attacked timely with heat?
And yet, as a thinking person
I have to ask a simple question: do you really think nobody asked this until you did?
You just quoted an article that mentioned
findings from a Royal Commission study. And there were other studies and hearings. Somebody
was asking.
As well they should, quite aside from the urgent humanitarian concerns. Deliberate suppression of a potential cure for polio would be grounds for a
class-action lawsuit of historical proportions.
Obviously, the virus could not withstand Sister Kinney's timely heat treatment, and this was tested over and over in different countries.
Your own account makes it plain that the merits of Kinney's treatments were not universally obvious.
(Yeah, but who's going to make any money on heat?)
Ms Kinney, from the looks of it.
She didn't travel around the world and set up all those clinics during a global Depression using Art Linkletter money. You tell us yourself that the New South Wales findings condemned the 'cost' of her treatments.
How much did Ms Kinney charge her patients for a house call?
Why wasn’t Sister Elizabeth Kinney exalted instead of scorned?
Why wasn’t her treatment encouraged at that critical time of our history?
Looks like she got a fair shake. If the response was not everything you wish it was, perhaps it's because some research findings suggested her unorthodox treatments to be damaging, costly, dangerous, and cruel to polio sufferers.
Just a possibility.
Now here's a question back: why didn't Kinney just issue a press release telling everyone in the world how to cure polio at home with heat applications and no medical training?
(btw: I also I grew up in that frightening shadow of polio.)
This mawkish attempt at drama is neither here nor there on the subject of Kinney. At best it just reminds everyone that people were scared and many would likely try anything.
And more to the heart of the matter: Has the medical/pharmaceutical complex (not to be confused with the military/industrial complex)
Of course we're supposed to confuse it with the military-industrial complex. That's why you introduced the term. You are drawing a cartoon.
You still have not addressed the research findings you brought up yourself.
truly served the cause of relieving human suffering?
Most people would say a cure for polio counts for something in 'truly serving the cause of relieving human suffering.'
But what about Kinney? Why didn't she issue that press release I just mentioned? Didn't
she want to relieve more suffering?
Or has it served the treasuries of capitalism, thus becoming a commodity rather of a service?
Your readers are now invited to vent their spleens about the state of American health care in 2007 while Ms Kinney slips out the back door of the 1930s with her black bag.
Not so fast.
You brought up the subject of Kinney and Alda and polio. Let's stay with that subject you raised.
You have characterized Ms Kinney a martyr and flatly stated that medical professionals in two countries acted out of personal 'hate'. Yet you have failed to support these statements. And you have not considered every possibility.
It's possible--just possible--that some medical professionals of Kinney's day conducted research on Kinney's treatments and were genuinely appalled.
Please address this possibility.
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