Ever have one of those moments when you’re just done? Completely, fully, earth-shatteringly OVER all the nonsense? It happens to me on an increasingly frequent basis as I age. It happened again tonight. My eyes fell upon this gem in my twitter feed:
It’s bad enough to have people parroting ridiculous garbage. It’s worse to have them do it by claiming to be a medical professional. It leads the gullible to believe these lies without question. This pitiful mouse of a man, Ryan Pacetti, had the unrelenting gall to spout anti-science tripe while claiming he was doing so as a “medical professional” at “the #2 childrens hospital in the world”. Of course, the list of top hospitals he likely used was a list of top hospitals in the US, not the world. I’m sure that hospital is exceptional, I just take issue with claiming to be the best in the world without including — ahem — the rest of the world in the equation, but I digress.
Infuriated as I was, I composed myself, and composed an email to Bluestone Communications’ corporate office. I didn’t spend much time on it as I was tired, angry, and heartsick. I don’t even think I proofread.
Imagine my shock upon receiving an email seventeen minutes later. It’s certainly short and sweet and vague, but I was pleased nonetheless.
I suspect he’s gotten enough emails that he has a template response by now, but I note this was sent from his iPhone so he’s presumably fielding these emails from his phone at night**. (**Corporate headquarters are in Deleware, though that’s no guarantee Mr. Gibbons is currently in the same time zone.) Let’s hope the meeting goes poorly for Mr. Pacetti tomorrow. I sincerely hope others will email Bluestone, Childrens Healthcare of PA, and Pacetti’s union IBEW Local 98.
Truth is, I need a win this week. The last two weeks included nightmare scenarios I’ve seen before but which are no less heartbreaking for their frequency. Neither were covid related, but both were disinformation-related. I’ve been rotated into Labor/Delivery & NICU this month so both were especially catastrophic. One young mother with gestational diabetes went into labor at 39 weeks and refused c-section even after 38 hours of labor. We knew from ultrasound her son would be quite large. Her GYN had encouraged induction or c-section weeks before. Her facebook “natural” support group continually encouraged her to be patient, her baby would “come when he’s ready”. Her baby didn’t make it. He weighed more than eleven pounds. He was beautiful. The second young mother was 28 weeks pregnant. Mom was severely hypertensive and baby wasn’t doing well as a result with baby’s heart rate dropping intermittently into the 50s. Mom refused c-section because everything she read told her to stand her ground, not to be bullied into a procedure she didn’t want. After fetal heart tones dipped to the 40s and stayed there, she agreed to the c-section, but it was too late. Her daughter was gone before she came to us to be resuscitated. She never regained a pulse despite a prolonged attempt.
Disinformation kills. It’s not just covid. It’s prevalent throughout social media and related to a variety of topics — from autism and vaccines to childbirth to covid to diabetes to cancer treatments. The public at large is far too comfortable claiming unearned honorifics to lend credence to their own beliefs and theories. It’s long past time they start suffering consequences for lying about credentials. It seems only right, given the suffering those lies cause.