Something good might come from yet another ridiculous attempt by James Taranto's Wall Street Journal's Daily Best of the Web newsletter and web page to trash the British National Health Service (NHS).
First, I'll explain the nonsense of Taranto's conclusion. Then, I'll explain the possible good that might come about. If you or someone you love has been unlucky you might want to look into donating a human brain for medical research. That's what I'm looking into, no joke.
Taranto's Trashing the NHS Doesn't Require Logic
James Taranto's daily Best of the Web from the Wall Street Journal loves finding articles in UK papers that he thinks he can use to trash the idea of government run health care. This time he uses the London Daily Mail.
Taranto follows the more popular than ever before conservative inductive reasoning rule that conclusions and generalizations don't need to follow from premises. This is a very simple story with nothing that links it to any particular health care system. Taranto either doesn't understand what he's reading or assumes his slavishly loyal sheeple won't notice or care about this minor problem.
With luck this story of the evil NHS can help make health care reform just a litle bit less popular. After all, Obama wants to take away our country, Everything possible must be done to stop the absolute evil of what Taranto calls Obamacare.
Taranto views becomes ever more damaging when you read the comments at the end of the Daily Mail article, many from people for whom brain donation is very personal and who've gotten over the initial discomfort. They can't understand what the fuss was all about in the first place.
The UK Articles
The Manchester Evening News originates a story about a local man under the headline Doctors wanted TV writer's brain. There are 12 comments, most of which criticize the doctor and hospital involved for insensitivity.
The tabloid Daily Mail then sensationalizes the Evening News story under the headline I only wanted to change the appointment': Dementia patient's wife asked to see doctor nearer home ... hospital wrote back asking for his brain for research. Here's my summary of their article. A popular British TV comedy writer developed a rare neurological condition. There's no treatment for it. Once a year he goes to a specialist a few miles from where he lives with his wife. His condition now is so bad that his wife phoned and told the hospital that she can't get him there. She thinks she's asking for a new appointment. They think she's told them that she's moving her husband's care elsewhere. The specialist sends a letter back saying they'd changed the records to indicate he wouldn't be coming there any more. The letter continues:
Having perused Mr Craig's notes I don't think that we ever discussed the brain donation research programme with you and your family.
I wonder whether it would be in order for us to contact you to discuss this issue?'
The wife gets really upset. She isn't against research but thinks this is terribly insensitive and says that brain donation issue should have been raised by phone or face to face.
The hospital apologizes and says it will never happen again. The NHS isn't mentioned in the article.
That's it.
Applying the No Need for Logic to Trash Government Health Care Rule
Taranto has this story about halfway down the page under the heading the heading Kerry Embraces Socialized Medicine. Taranto's conclusion is that this story helps disprove the nonsense of Paul Krugman and other NHS apologists:
Ha ha, you believed it! Actually, according to former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false."
So according to Taranto, this is a true scare story showing the failure of government run health care. But there's no sane logic that links the possible insensitivity of a single doctor at a single hospital to the fact that this hospital and this doctor are employed by a government run health care system. Even Glenn Beck doesn't believe that the best health care system in the world, the American one, can't deliver insensitive medical care.
Death Panels and Dr. Frankenstein
Maybe I've misjudged Taranto's intent. It isn't that a single letter is good evidence that government run health care is inherently insensitive. Rather, it's much more primitive. We're seeing yet another step in the eveoluton of the death panel meme. These evil government health care bureaucrats who come between you and your doctor can never be satisfied. Not only do they have death panels, but even in death you can't escape from them, these Dr. Frankensteins who want your brain.
There is something Dr. Frankensteinish about removing the brain before you bury the body. I think that's a lot of the reason why the wife and many of the Manchester commenters felt the letter was so insensitive.
Let's Ignore the Matter of Fact Daily Mail Comments
What makes Taranto's absurd view so very nasty is that he ignores the 24 comments at the bottom of the Daily Mail article, the latest of which was timed over a day before his Best of the Web was published.
Donating a brain feels very different from offering a heart for transplant. Once the heart was thought of as the location of what makes us human. The ancient Egyptians discarded the brain when creating a mummy. Nowadays, we know it is just a pump that moves blood. Instead, it's the human brain which Carl Zimmer calls the Soul Made Flesh.
Considering that is the donation of the brain there's very little squeamishness in the comments. Most are unsentimental. Many of their author's can't understand the fuss raised by Mike Craig's wife. Some of them have donated their loved one's brain for research.
And Then It Became Personal
I started writing a comment to add to the Daily Mail article about how this story was being dragged into the American Health care debate and how matter of fact the comments were about donating a brain. After a couple of paragraphs I wrote without really thinking about it, "I've got a brother who is in his 50s who has ..."
And stopped, because I'd just realized that researchers might want my brother's brain.
It's been less than 24 hours since I've first considered having my brother's brain removed from his body before he's buried. Perhaps it would feel less strange if he was going to be cremated -- but that's not going to happen. I'm upset with the whole idea. It feels so wrong.
They Probably Want His Brain
I did a bit of checking. According to a web page, there are researchers who get brain donations from patients with my brother's condition at the very hospital where he is being treated. I wouldn't be surprised if asking about brain donation is part of his doctor's routine.
In any case, I'll raise the issue when I can. I hope that it can be decided to get over the squeamishness, the soul made flesh feeling and the Dr. Franenstein meme. It won't be easy to follow the matter of fact example of these British and when the time comes have his brain used for research. Maybe his brain can help end future tragedies.
Conclusion
So you see, even the crappy, illogical rantings and distortions of the WSJ Best of the Web might lead to a better tomorrow.
Postscript: If You're Thinking About a Brain Donation
Thanks to the Daily Mail comment by Mary from Moultrie, Georgia, I've learned that a brain donation must be planned in advance. She wrote:
I'm reading this a week after my mother died with PSP, a Parkinsonian complex disease. Not only did we want to donate her brain for research, but the arrangements HAD to be made in advance... the funeral home needed to know where to take the body (to a pathologist already arranged), forms had to be signed in advance (by me, her oldest child), and it even effected our funeral plans.
With all we've had to do in the past week, believe me, we could not have dealt with a sudden request for brain donation. And incidentally, for the brain to be of use, it had to be removed correctly, following very firm guidelines, preferably within 12 hours and absolutely no longer than 24 hours after death.