I'm took a sociology class on health care (basically, a class that talked about how bad the US health care system was and how most doctors aren't very good people)
Many sociologists believe medicine has replaced religion and law as the form of social control. Doctors have the power to decide/define who is healthy and who is ill. They define who has bad habits and who has good habits. Essentially, they get to decide what is healthy and what is deviant in terms of health.
Do you agree? Medicine is just another way for society to control people? Should there be limits? Or maybe the control is a good thing? It helps people make the right decisions and have good habits.
Examples of medicine as social control:
-Studies have shown that health professionals have a selective process for resuscitating ER patients. That is, people they deem worthy are more likely to get the emergency help they need in a timely matter. They resuscitate those they think are more morally upstanding/worthy. So drug addicts, drunk drivers, and the elderly, might not get as persistent resuscitation efforts as a housewife, young college students.
-Doctors can force women into prenatal care.
Full Version: Medicine as a Form of Social Control
that's wierd. 
I don't think that it is a form of social control because the doctors aren't directly controlling the people, the people are controlling themselves and decide an uncertain outcome when they take drugs and poison themselves with alcohol.
There's medicine that can in fact control society:
This is a threat to society.
QUOTE
Scientists believe a common heart medicine may be able to banish fearful memories from the mind.
The Dutch investigators believe beta-blocker drugs could help people suffering from the emotional after-effects of traumatic experiences.
They believe the drug alters how memories are recalled after carrying out the study of 60 people, Nature Neuroscience reports.
But British experts questioned the ethics of tampering with the mind.
Paul Farmer, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, said he was concerned about the "fundamentally pharmacological" approach to people with problems such as phobias and anxiety.
He said the procedure might also alter good memories and warned against an "accelerated Alzheimer's" approach.
In the study, the researchers artificially created a fearful memory by associating pictures of spiders with a mild electric shock delivered to the wrists of the volunteers.
A day later the volunteers were split into two groups - one was given the beta blocker propranolol and the other a dummy drug before both were shown the same pictures again.
The researchers assessed how fearful of the pictures the volunteers were by playing sudden noises and measuring how strongly they blinked, something called the "startle response".
Memories erased
The group that had taken beta blockers showed less fear than the group that had taken the placebo pill.
The following day, once the drug was out of their system, the volunteers were retested. Once again, those who had taken the beta blocker were less startled by the images.
Study leader Dr Merel Kindt explained that although the memories are still intact, the emotional intensity of the memory is dampened.
Dr Kindt stressed that using the procedure for complex conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder was still many years away.
Experiments on animals has shown beta blockers can interfere with how the brain makes sense of frightening events.
She told Nature Neuroscience: "Millions of people suffer from emotional disorders and the relapse of fear, even after successful treatment.
"Our findings may have important implications for the understanding and treatment of persistent and self-perpetuating memories in individuals suffering from emotional disorders."
But Professor Neil Burgess of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience said the research merely demonstrates that the beta blockers reduce a person's startle response, breaking the association of the spider to these unconscious responses.
And Dr Daniel Sokol, lecturer in Medical Ethics at St George's, University of London, said memories were important, for people to learn from their mistakes for example.
"Removing bad memories is not like removing a wart or a mole. It will change our personal identity since who we are is linked to our memories. It may perhaps be beneficial in some cases, but before eradicating memories, we must reflect on the knock-on effects that this will have on individuals, society and our sense of humanity."
John Harris, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester, said: "An interesting complexity is the possibility that victims, say of violence, might wish to erase the painful memory and with it their ability to give evidence against assailants."
The Dutch investigators believe beta-blocker drugs could help people suffering from the emotional after-effects of traumatic experiences.
They believe the drug alters how memories are recalled after carrying out the study of 60 people, Nature Neuroscience reports.
But British experts questioned the ethics of tampering with the mind.
Paul Farmer, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, said he was concerned about the "fundamentally pharmacological" approach to people with problems such as phobias and anxiety.
He said the procedure might also alter good memories and warned against an "accelerated Alzheimer's" approach.
In the study, the researchers artificially created a fearful memory by associating pictures of spiders with a mild electric shock delivered to the wrists of the volunteers.
A day later the volunteers were split into two groups - one was given the beta blocker propranolol and the other a dummy drug before both were shown the same pictures again.
The researchers assessed how fearful of the pictures the volunteers were by playing sudden noises and measuring how strongly they blinked, something called the "startle response".
Memories erased
The group that had taken beta blockers showed less fear than the group that had taken the placebo pill.
The following day, once the drug was out of their system, the volunteers were retested. Once again, those who had taken the beta blocker were less startled by the images.
Study leader Dr Merel Kindt explained that although the memories are still intact, the emotional intensity of the memory is dampened.
Dr Kindt stressed that using the procedure for complex conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder was still many years away.
Experiments on animals has shown beta blockers can interfere with how the brain makes sense of frightening events.
She told Nature Neuroscience: "Millions of people suffer from emotional disorders and the relapse of fear, even after successful treatment.
"Our findings may have important implications for the understanding and treatment of persistent and self-perpetuating memories in individuals suffering from emotional disorders."
But Professor Neil Burgess of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience said the research merely demonstrates that the beta blockers reduce a person's startle response, breaking the association of the spider to these unconscious responses.
And Dr Daniel Sokol, lecturer in Medical Ethics at St George's, University of London, said memories were important, for people to learn from their mistakes for example.
"Removing bad memories is not like removing a wart or a mole. It will change our personal identity since who we are is linked to our memories. It may perhaps be beneficial in some cases, but before eradicating memories, we must reflect on the knock-on effects that this will have on individuals, society and our sense of humanity."
John Harris, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester, said: "An interesting complexity is the possibility that victims, say of violence, might wish to erase the painful memory and with it their ability to give evidence against assailants."
This is a threat to society.
I think we have enough medicine or vaccine to control people. Not so related much, but one of the death penalties is being injected with a needle with some sort of medicine, thus slowly stops everything working in your body. Why can't we just avoid mind erasing medicine?
Yeah, it's one of them is also called the Flu Shot millions of people get every year around this time. After learning about this, I haven't had a Flu Shot in 3 years.
QUOTE(Tung @ Feb 23 2009, 11:09 AM) 
Yeah, it's one of them is also called the Flu Shot millions of people get every year around this time. After learning about this, I haven't had a Flu Shot in 3 years.
Could you re-word that in a non-fob format?
QUOTE(Tung @ Feb 23 2009, 12:09 PM)
Yeah, it's one of them is also called the Flu Shot millions of people get every year around this time. After learning about this, I haven't had a Flu Shot in 3 years.
lol I haven't taken a shot in many years either. And I haven't been sick for many years as well... I think it's been 6 years now since I've been sick.
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