Sunday, August 25, 2002

The problem with pediatricians is that today they want to wear 3 hats:


  1. Physicians, who diagnose and treat disease.
  2. Safety counselor, who quizzes parents about potentially unsafe practices and advises accordingly.
  3. Policeman, who snitches to law enforcement whenever he suspects improper child care.


Roles (2) and (3) are fundamentally incompatible. People are not going to trust pediatricians to tell the truth, as long as pediatricians refuse to maintain confidentiality and threaten to report parents to Child Protective Services.

Physicians are just trained in health matters anyway, not safety matters. Opinions on safety are much better obtained from other sources. Even the leading pediatrician organization, the AAP is unreliable and unscientific in its opinions.

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