A California mother exposes it:
In fewer than 300 days, based on a set of superficial and shifting thoughts about my gender and my “embodiment goals” triggered by the mere mention of “gender” in a form letter from my primary care physician, and driven by what could only be described as minor discomforts, Kaiser Permanente’s esteemed “multi-disciplinary team” of “gender specialists” was willing, with enthusiasm—while ignoring mental health concerns, history of sexual trauma, and rapidly escalating surgical requests—to prescribe life-altering medications and perform surgeries to remove my breasts, uterus, and vagina, close my vaginal opening, and attempt a complex surgery with high failure and complication rates to create a functionless representation of a penis that destroys the integrity of my arm or thigh in the process.
This describes the supposedly meticulous, lengthy, and safety-focused process that a Kaiser patient must undergo to embark on a journey to medically alter their body. No clinician questioned my motivations. No one showed concern that I might be addressing a mental health issue through radical and irreversible interventions that wouldn’t address my amorphous problems. There were no discussions about how these treatments would impact my long-term health, romantic relationships, family, or sex life. I charted the course. The clinicians followed my lead without question. The guiding issue was what I wanted to look like.
No other medical field operates with this level of carelessness and disregard for patient health and welfare. No other medical field addresses issues of self-perception with surgery and labels it “medically necessary.” No other medical field is this disconnected from the reality of the patients it serves.
Kaiser has traded medicine for ideology. It’s far beyond time we stop the ruse of considering “gender-affirming” interventions as anything approaching medical care.
We are living in the Crazy Years.
Like “recovered memories”, “medical marijuana”, lobotomies, homeopathy, blood-letting, forced sterilizations, phrenology, it’ll be regarded as pseudo-scientific quackery in the not too distant future.
(And if the transplant surgeons want to get involved, they just need to match up male-to-female and female-to-male patients and swap out various body parts.)
Beneficence, the principle of doing no harm, is part of medical ethics….not performing unnecessary surgery was one of the examples when I studied this in medical school.
And who, exactly, will be paying for this unnecessary surgery? Money that KP spends on this sort of waste is money that will raise the premiums of it’s members (KP is an insurance program)
Every two or three years, I have had a case of bronchitis that lasts weeks to months. The only thing that has ever stopped it cold, almost immediately, is a strong antibiotic coupled with a steroid such as prednisone. Half of the doctors I’ve seen during these horrible bouts have refused to prescribe an antibiotic, because they maintain that what I have is viral…and that if I took an antibiotic, I might breed a resistant bacterial strain. Those two concepts don’t go together, btw.
The problem has become life-threatening in recent years, but fortunately I have found a primary care physician who isn’t afraid to deal with the problem. Further, she is aware of the fact that there are antibiotics with antiviral properties. But there are doctors who would let me die rather than prescribe an antibiotic. That just makes the whole free-wheeling gender business look more insane.
Right after New Year’s I came down with pneumococcal pneumonia, that according to the immediate care doctor I went to see (after my third day of illness and my temperature shot up to 102) said was viral triggered. He put me on a mix of Z-Pak and amoxicillin. After two days my fever completely dissipated and I started feeling much better.
It seems to me that makes a great case against exclusive or treatment.
ChatGPT agrees with my I.C. Doc:
You:
Can viruses trigger bacterial lung infections?
ChatGPT
Yes, viruses can contribute to bacterial lung infections. This is often referred to as a secondary bacterial infection. When a person is infected with a virus, such as influenza (the flu) or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the respiratory tract can become compromised. The virus can damage the respiratory epithelium, disrupt the normal defense mechanisms of the respiratory system, and impair the mucociliary clearance, making it easier for bacteria to invade and cause a secondary bacterial infection.
In the context of the flu, for example, the initial viral infection weakens the immune defenses of the respiratory tract, allowing bacteria, often Streptococcus pneumoniae or Staphylococcus aureus, to infect the lungs. This secondary bacterial infection can lead to more severe symptoms and complications, such as pneumonia.
It’s essential to note that not all viral infections lead to secondary bacterial infections, and the severity of the bacterial infection can vary. Vaccination against common viruses, such as the influenza vaccine, can help reduce the risk of secondary bacterial infections by preventing the initial viral infection. Additionally, proper hygiene practices and good respiratory etiquette can play a role in minimizing the risk of both viral and bacterial infections.