Well, this is depressing
In an attempt to standardize how doctors make the difficult decision of who should receive treatment during a pandemic or disaster, several task forces have worked together to identify which patients should not receive extraordinary care in situations where resources must be doled out among large numbers of casualties.
On the list of folks who don't make the cut: "Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes"
So, if the idea of complications hasn't scared you into controlling your diabetes on a daily basis, you might consider this a new motivator.
Read the whole story here: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/apmethods/apstory?urlfeed=D90FH1C00.xml
posted by Kassie @ 3:12 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I just read that story too. How scary.
I read the article from the science press. My only question is are they going to be doing HbA1c's to determine who's poorly controlled when making that determination of whether someone should receive care or not?
The journal article is not yet available, but I would venture to guess that the authors, who are chest physicians, haven't really thought about that not-so-little detail. I would guess they are suggesting that they should let us all die, but it would be worth asking the author how they plan to make such a determination (their correspondence address will be available in the journal "Chest" http://www.chestjournal.org/ .
That's kind of creepy. People who have those conditions want to live just as much as anyone else. For them to know that no one will spare them...or are last on the list to be treated is horrifying to say the least.
As for figuring out who has poorly controlled diabetes, I would imagine they'd identify those who have complications. But that's a wild guess on my part.
That's depressing-reminds me of the Nazi eugenics where they killed all the elderly,infirm, children, mentally handicapped, etc. (not quite the same..they won't be actively killing but deciding who lives and dies by basis of being the most perfect human specimen is pretty close in my opinion)
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