A Disabled Swimmer’s Dream, a Mother’s Fight

From the New York Times: www.nytimes.com/.../18swimmer.html The article in the link seems to be another disturbing example of how the psychiatric profession may be getting out of hand. It says the child has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism, and more. This is a pretty big truck load of c_ _ _ to shovel and I would like to know how many second, third, fourth, or fifth opinions the mother of this child has obtained on her son’s condition. :doh: As being part of a military oriented family, I am quite interested with helping disabled veterans of the war in Iraq and Vietnam get accurate and qualified diagnosis of their conditions. I can tell you that the U.S. government is playing the “Mental Illness” card right and left instead of spending time to render anything resembling a legitimate diagnosis. :shakeshead: Way too often, the medical profession considers anyone with an abnormal physical condition to be afflicted with some kind of mental illness and they always have some kind of psychiatric label (______ Disorder) to slap on their quacky diagnosis. :shakeshead: If your child or another member of your family (especially a former member of the military) is showing indications of an obscure physical disability, be careful as a goat chewing on a thorny bush when it comes to accepting anything the medical profession says –especially if their “diagnosis” is that the person is experiencing a form of mental illness and recommending psychiatric treatment. :shakeshead: Dolphin 2

Hey Tjburk In fact, the risk of being injured (or possibly dying) due to a medical error is now even greater than a car wreck. It would take a whole lot of data and some impressive writing to convince me of this. Do you have any sources for this claim?

Hey everyone, Tom Cruise makes an appearance on our forum. Dolphin 2 has gone from talking about one topic he has no experience or knowledge of (swimming) to another (the medical profession). Stay tuned, next week he'll tell us all about nuclear physics because he owns a toy gyroscope. When you can google, who needs to go to skuul?

You can't really compare the aggregate (or average for that matter) number of deaths for those since there is no mention of the total number of drivers or the total number of hospital stays. The only valid statement you can make with the sources you provided is that more people died of medical errors than died in traffic accidents. The "risk" of dying from each cause is also a funtion of the number of participants in each activity.

Hey everyone, Tom Cruise makes an appearance on our forum. Dolphin 2 has gone from talking about one topic he has no experience or knowledge of (swimming) to another (the medical profession). Stay tuned, next week he'll tell us all about nuclear physics because he owns a toy gyroscope. When you can google, who needs to go to skuul? Don't you mean nuculer physics. Gyroscopes are cool. Sorry, I have a bad habit lately of thread-jacking.

Although I'm not a medical professional... Really? Shocking. Almost as shocking as when you stated you don't swim competitively, have never been in a tech suit in the water. But, wait, you know you'd be a good swimmer because your PE teacher in 1969 said you had a good sidestroke. Tom Cruise? Good grief man, next thing you know you'll be using Mel Gibson as your expert on religious tolerance. FYI - people who take anti-depressants are not interested in being "happy as a lark." That speaks to your fundamental lack of knowledge on this topic. If you've actually been around a person with severe depression you'd not say something as idiotic as this.

The vaccine/autism causation seems to be another label being promoted by psychiatry rather than the result of a scientifically legitimate analysis of the childhood patients. Here's another of your experts promoting this - Jenny McCarthy, the former Playboy Playmate. You left her out. She's not a medical professional either, like you. Knowing your love of the Google, turn off safe search and see her credentials to speak on the topic.

Hey Aquageek McCarthy would look great (in a bikini) -especially on a USMS team, however I'm not sure what her position really is on the subject of autism and vaccines. Same as yours.

...people need to understand the facts and not rely on just what they read in the tabloid media. Although not explicitly related to medical/health issues, your score on this simple quiz may indicate your level of vulnerability to being the victim of an incompetent doctor's opinion. Alternatively, it could indicated your predisposition to having the same beliefs on this topic as a Playboy Playmate. I see we are turning to energy now, since you have been roundly discredited on the medical aspect. Let's just get it out of the way, you have no knowledge, background or experience in the energy related fields. That will save us time up front.

I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought to this article. If the kid has been able to learn to swim (even at very basic level), he must actually have better cognitive skills than they are giving him credit for. Even for normal adults, learning "Swimming 101-A" can be a difficult challange. I am somewhat skeptical about the diagnosis of severe mental retardation/autism and maybe he could benefit from a warm social environment (with some compassionate mentoring) instead of more useless psychiatric labeling. Anyway, I’m glad that he has found a source of joy in his life through swimming. :wine: Dolphin 2