Health and Medicine

Ethics Hero: Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Perez, a 37-year-old auto shop owner, second-term congresswoman and co-chair of the center-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, horrified colleagues on both sides of the aisle by offering an amendment to the “Legislative Appropriations Act”, H.R. 4249. Her addition would have required Congress to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to serve the public “unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.” The amendment was unanimously rejected, but she is not giving up. In a poll of the 230,000 people who subscribe to her newsletter, more than 90% supported the proposal. Perez says her constituents raise the issue frequently, and their belief that elected officials are frequently too impaired by age to be effective is causing spreading distrust of our government.

Gee, I can’t imagine why they would feel that way…

…but I digress.

Rep. Perez noted that she found it disturbing that among the oil paintings of the past chairs of the powerful Appropriations Committee is a large portrait of Kay Granger, the former Republican congresswoman from Texas who suffered from mental decline for years when a conservative news outlet found her, at the age of 81, living in an assisted living facility that included a memory care unit while she still held office.

There are now more members of Congress age 70 and above than ever before, while the second oldest President ever to serve is in the White House. Perez insists that there should be standards that prevent members from serving past the point where they no longer have the capacity to cast votes and do business on behalf of their constituents.“It’s a question of whether the elected member is making the decisions,” Rep. Perez said. “It’s really not about a single member; it’s about a systemic failure.”

Bingo.

Geewhatasurprise: Hospitals Harvest Organs From Living Patients

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Waaay back in 1978, the film version of physician/novelist Robin Cook’s science fiction novel “Coma” (above) gave audiences the heebie-jeebies about being operated on. An “ends-justifies the means” chief of surgery had devised a diabolical way to have fresh organs ready to become life-saving transplants: one specially rigged operating room turned healthy-ish patients into brain dead victims (A young Tom Selleck was one of them!), and they ended up in a storage facility where their bodies were kept fresh and breathing until hearts, lings, livers or kidneys were needed.

Haven’t you always assumed that hospitals sometimes took essential organs from organ donors who were still alive, if barely? I have friends who aren’t organ donors specifically for that reason, and, yes, most of them remember “Coma.”

From an HHS press release this week:

Continue reading →

The Smearing of the President

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

…or, “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” Or, “THIS is CNN…”

Apparently the Axis media has made the considered decision to continue its unethical behavior from the first Trump term by employing any means necessary to create distrust in the elected President. This strategy, which is not only unethical journalism but despicable citizenship that is dangerous to national stability, also deliberately exploits and aggravates Trump Derangement Syndrome, which I now genuinely believe needs to be recognized by the American Psychiatic Association as a mental disorder. Because it is: the things many of my otherwise intelligent, educated and rational friends are posting on Facebook this year are heartbreaking. For example, several once-rational friends think this is a trenchant meme:

Morons. I’ll write a post about this current delusion later today, but it illustrates the point.

Continue reading →

Now THESE Are Unethical Doctors….

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Bart Writer, 56, died shortly after undergoing cataract surgery at Colorado’s InSight Surgery Center on February 3, 2023. The reason? The two doctors performing the operation were distracted by playing “music bingo” and failed to notice that he had stopped breathing.

A lawsuit filed by his widow claimed that the “the distraction of the music bingo game … contributed to the operating room staff’s failure to monitor Mr. Writer’s vital signs during the procedure” and ultimately led to his death. The game involved listening to ’70s and ’80s songs and linking band names to the letters B-I-N-G-O. Dr. Carl Stark Johnson, the surgeon, and Dr. Michael Urban, the anesthesiologist, regularly played the game during operations and admitted this in their depositions.

The lawsuit was settled, but now the two doctors swear the distraction had nothing to do with their patient’s death. Well, to be more specific, the two doctors are blaming each other. Johnson, who has performed over 25,000 cataract surgeries, blames Urban for silencing critical monitoring alarms without informing the surgical team. “I know that he wasn’t paying attention to the vital signs and doing his job,” he said. Urban, who is now practicing in Oregon, stands by his care and disputes Johnson’s version of events.

Writer, meanwhile, like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, is still dead.

Questions: Why is that surgery center still treating patients? Why hasn’t it been razed for a parking lot?

_________________

Pointer: JutGory

Biden’s Doctor Claims Privilege and Takes The Fifth

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Former President Biden’s White House physician, Kevin O’Connor, refused to answer questions for the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the White House and Democratic cover-up of Biden’s mental decline and disability. News accounts from the Axis keep stating that Biden’s condition and a cover-up are “alleged” only, but res ipsa loquitur: what we already know, have witnessed and heard tells us all we need to know except the who, how, and how long. Biden was (is ) suffering from dementia of one kind or another. His condition was carefully, if insufficiently, hidden from the public. The fact that his power had to be exercised by unelected figures using the President as their agent, puppet or beard constitutes at least as great a scandal as Watergate, and perhaps a more substantial attack on our democracy.

This betrayal of the public trust requires at least as thorough an investigation as that definitive scandal in the Nixon White House received. Democrats, however, unlike the Republicans of the Watergate era, are refusing to do their duty and assist in the inquiry, probably because they have metaphorical blood on their hands. They were complicit. They were guilty. The House inquiry includes questions about whether Biden’s staff used the autopen to illegally carry out official actions in Biden’s name. One would think both Democrats and Republicans would be concerned about this. Apparently not. Make of that what you will.

Continue reading →

“The Ethicist” Answers the Dumbest Question Yet…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Sure, Prof. Appiah answers the question from “Name Withheld” correctly, because if he didn’t, the New York Times would have to send its long-time author of its weekly ethics advice column to Madam Louisa’s Home for the Addled and Bewildered. But why did he feel he had to answer such an easy question at all? Slow week for the ol’ mailbag, Kwame?

A wife worried about the fact that her husband is sedentary, fat, and getting fatter asked if it was wrong to try to get him to take affirmative steps to lose some weight. “As we both approach 50,” she writes, “I worry that his B.M.I., which is 30, and his B.R.I. (body roundness index, a measure of abdominal fat) are high (he can’t even button some of his shirts around the middle), which could lead to other health issues. I’ve already tried encouraging him to move more and eat better, but I can’t schedule every one of my workouts for us to exercise together, and he dislikes some of the routines I do, anyway. He’s also very sensitive about his weight.”

“Is it wrong for me to try to get him to take Ozempic?,” she finally asks. “I’m hoping that losing weight will help boost his energy levels, which might lead to more self-care. I know it’s not my body, and I’m not his doctor, but as his wife I also know it will fall to me to care for him if health issues arise.”

Ignore her concentration on Ozempic; she’s not asking about the risks involved with that medication or about the perils of quick fixes. She’s asking if it is wrong (this is The Ethicist she’s writing to) for a spouse to try to get the man she has vowed to love and to cherish to be responsible and take care of himself before it’s too late. Ozempic, Weight Watchers, jogging, whatever: how can a wife’s diligent efforts to somehow convince her husband to get healthier be wrong, as in “unethical”?

Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The 100-Year-Old Psychotherapist

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Yes, this topic again: the aging professional who lacks the courage, integrity and common sense to “hang it up” before too much harm is done.

Ethics Alarms had explored the issue with judges (Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, among others), baseball players (Albert Pujols, for example), lawyers (Rudy Giuliani), actors (Bruce Willis), singers (Joni Mitchell, and so, so many others) and Presidents of the United States. It’s always the same tragic tale with different details: someone who has always been remarkable at a difficult, powerful and often high-profile job can’t bring herself or himself to retire with dignity, even when it should be obvious that age is leaching their abilities from them.

Continue reading →

“Oh, And We Have Deadly Snakes In Our Yard…”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The Ethicist (Kwame Appiah to his friends and NYU students) gets a lot of questions about a common dilemma: what kind of things does a selling homeowner have an ethical duty to inform a potential buyer about? My favorite version of this issue—because you know how I am—involves houses where horrible murders have taken place, or ones that are rumored to be haunted.

Most of these non-horror movie situations are solved by a strict adherence to the Golden Rule. Would you want to be told that a property has X? If so, tell the potential buyer. Yeah, being ethical may cost you some money, or even a sale. Nobody ever said being ethical was easy or always beneficial to the ethical actor.

Last week Kwame was asked by condo seller of she was bound to tell a potential buyer that the condo association uses “pesticides, herbicides and other chemical treatments” that environmentalists regard as harmful, even though they are legal. The seller has been part of a group trying to force the association to go “green” without success. The Ethicist’s answer was reasonable: if the condo association was obeying local laws and ordinances, the dispute was none of the purchaser’s business until after the property was transferred. “[W]hen it comes to selling your unit, your responsibility doesn’t extend to reshaping a buyer’s worldview,” he wrote. “Those who dissent should make their case for reform, but disclosure is usually reserved for departures from what is recognized and approved — from what a reasonable person would anticipate. You’re free to voice your concerns. You’re not required to.”

Continue reading →

Now THAT’S an Unethical Doctor!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

That’s Jorge Zamora-Quezada M.D., 68, of Mission, Texas above, who was sentenced this week tten years in prison and three years of supervised release for perpetrating a health care fraud scheme involving over $118 million in false claims. More than $28 million was paid out by insurers because he falsely diagnosed patients with chronic illnesses to bill them for tests and treatments that the patients did not need. Zamora-Quezada also falsified patient records to support the false diagnoses.

Yikes.

The Justice Department press release reveals that Zamora-Quezada falsely diagnosed his patients with rheumatoid arthritis and administered toxic medications in order to defraud Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. His patients were told that they had incurable conditions that required regular treatment at his offices, where Zamora-Quezada administered unnecessary drugs and ordered unnecessary testing. These included injections, infusions, x-rays, MRIs, and other procedures, risking harmful and in some cases deadly side effects. Then the doctor fabricated medical records and lied about the patients’ condition to insurers.

Among the debilitating side effects suffered by his patients were strokes, necrosis of the jawbone, hair loss, liver damage, and crippling, chronic pain. “Constantly being in bed and being unable to get up from bed alone, and being pumped with medication, I didn’t feel like my life had any meaning,” one patient testified. Others described abandoning plans for college or feeling like they were “living a life in the body of an elderly person.”

At trial, the more ethical rheumatologists in the Rio Grande Valley testified that they saw hundreds of patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis by Zamora-Quezada that did not in fact have the condition. Meanwhile, he was an abusive, dominating supervisor to his medical staff. Former employees said Zamora-Quezada imposed strict quotas for procedures. He threw a paperweight at one employee who failed to generate enough unnecessary procedures, hired staff he could manipulate because they were on J-1 visas and knew their immigration status could be jeopardized if they lost their jobs. Zamora-Quezada also took ultrasounds of employees and used those images to falsify patient records.

Following a 25-day trial, a jury convicted Dr. Zamora-Quezada of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, seven counts of health care fraud, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. To go with his prison term, Zamora-Quezada was ordered to forfeit $28,245,454, including 13 real estate properties, a jet, and a Maserati GranTurismo.

My question: why only ten years in prison for such conduct? He should have been sent away for life.

“The Ethicist” Faces The Ultimate Ethics Test…and Flunks

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The topic is abortion.

This is discouraging, if not unexpected. After all, “The Ethicist,” aka. NYU philosophy professor Kwame Appiah, works for the New York Times, Where Ethics Go To Die. Nonetheless, the clueless certitude of his latest column is as offensive as it is indefensible for someone in the ethics field.

An inquirer asked The Ethicist “Does My Spouse Get a Say in Whether to Carry an Unplanned Pregnancy?” That framing alone was foreshadowing for what was to come; notice that the issue is a “pregnancy” and whether it is wanted. and not the snuffing out of a nascent human life, which is where this ethical conflict becomes difficult to resolve.

This time, I’m going to do running commentary on both “Name Withheld’s” query and Prof. Appiah’s answer. First, the question:

“I’m 46, unexpectedly pregnant despite having entered perimenopause, with three children already (the youngest is 4).” COMMENT: And your age and the number of children you have affects the right of an innocent life to continue how?

“My husband calls this a “disaster,” and believes abortion is the clear choice because we didn’t want another child or plan on this pregnancy.” COMMENT: Ending a human life is only a “clear choice” for psychopaths.

Continue reading →