Previous Post It can be rough at times. I had big issues the other day with it. I would agree with you the bleach aspect is an extreme example that would be an easy outlier. I included it because based on the summary provided in the article the person could not lose certification for such things. Seems, at least in terms of professional advice on medical matters, physicians should be guided by the standard of care unless it is a very unusual case and even then they should be guided by as much research as possible on a subject matter. Taking shots in the dark is not good. Although some of those folks will point to studies that were not peer reviewed, not well done and so on. Those sorts of studies when they are found to be flawed should not be included in decision making anymore, but they tend to linger and are held up as folks getting silenced.

It should go without saying, but I'll say it:

Medical practitioners should be swayed by nothing but science, the wisdom of their own experience, the biological particulars of the patient, and the Hippocratic Oath. If a practitioner can be shown, with evidence, to have been swayed by politics or religion in any way, to even the remotest extent, then he or she should lose the license to practice medicine and face the possibility of lawsuits for malpractice. Zero tolerance for politics or religion in the doctor's office!

And by the way, here we have an instance where an omnipotent, unassailable Supreme Court is likely to rule in a way we don't like, and base it on the words, "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Textualism would unfortunately support their conclusion, but originalism probably wouldn't, because it's highly doubtful the Framers had any intention of letting the bible dictate medical procedure. Still, an amendment would be best.

The Medical Practice Amendment

Neither religious scripture, doctrines, or decrees, nor political manifestos, policies, or pronouncements, shall be permitted by Congress to legally justify medical practices out of step with the best science of the day.