Let Them Snort Salt
In yet another step in the government's march to take over the rearing of children from their parents, the evil FDA is about to order toddler's cold medicines off the shelves, in the interest of protecting little children from the bungling stupidity of the adults who gave them life. According to a story in the Modesto (Stalag California) Bee, cowardly attorneys for drug makers are pulling the medicines off the shelves now, preempting FDA action.
Why, you might ask? Because an FDA report found 54 reports of child deaths linked to decongestants and 69 to antihistamines from 1969 to 2006, many of them younger than 2. That's a total of .... let's see....carry the one....123 dead babies in....um....37 years. While one must grieve the early death of even one youngster (unless it's a noisy one in a theater), where's the perspective? How many toddlers drowned in the bath in 37 years? A lot more than 123, I'll wager.
A more important thing to note is: how many toddlers have been helped by these medicines? A second thing about which to pay attention is: How many of the parents of the unfortunate babies were actually following the manufacturer's instructions? And a third: Just how much of the responsibility for bringing up our children are we willing to cede to a bungling, wasteful organization whose members' most urgent mission is to work as little as possible and retire with as large a pension as possible?
The solution offered? Stuff a rubber syringe full of salt water in the little tyke's nose to either drown him, collapse his lungs or rupture his bronchial tubes.
Fortunately, Modesto-area parents interviewed by the Bee's reporters seem to be more skeptical of this foolishness than, for example, people who live in El Pueblo de Los Angeles.
Granted, parents should carefully choose a pediatrician (I always get this mixed up: is a pediatrician a foot doctor?) and follow his advice. Some doctors believe these patent medicines are ineffective. Perhaps some of them are, but I'd rather the parents make the choices than Washington bureaucrats two intellectual steps away from the post office stamp window.
They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
4 comments:
Col., you make some good, commonsense points as usual. I wonder if the government is regulating over the counter drugs so that we have to be running off to the doctor all the time for things that we should just be able to purchase over the counter.
You know what i'd like, non-child proof bottles, when you're sick and aching like anything all over and every movement is a pain, the last thing you need is to use more force to open a damn bottle.
Why can't they just offer both, i mean, given the low birth rates around the planet, there are bound to be people with no children. We've been on this planet for thousands of years, suddenly we're all too stupid to look after our own children.
By the way, you're right about the pediatrician, a foot doctor is a podiatrist, i got it via dictionary.com, just between you and me, if it wasn't for dictionary.com, i'd be making a complete ass of myself every day with my ignorance and poor memory.
:)
Aurora,
I could be wrong, but I don't think physicians figure into this too much (though there's a certain kind of ethics-free doctor that might favor this trend). America's leftist politicians are engaged in a war against the drug manufacturers. Using the evil FDA as a tool, leftists are harassing these firms at every opportunity.
They've even floated trial balloons about regulating vitamins and other food supplements. We have to thank researchers Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw for helping stop this nonsense.
According to the news story, FDA doesn't recommend going to the doctor, they suggest cleaning out Baby's nostrils with a saline solution--fine, if one knows how, but it seems a mite dangerous to me. Squirting salt water into Baby's nostrils? Sounds like a recipe for drowning.
FDA needs to be abolished. There is no Constitutional authority for such an agency.
MK,
So far, here in the US, we still have a choice. One can ask for easy-open tops on your prescriptions--and just maybe you'll get them. Sometimes.
The old joke about arthritis-suffering grandpa handing the bottle to his little grandchild to open it for him is very often true. But, on paper at least, we have the choice.
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