This website is designed to be a clearinghouse for scientific information. Unless explicitly stated, no content will be based upon opinion, emotion, or anecdotal data. For too long, parents have been held hostage by a medical industry that purports to adhere to evidence based practices and demands informed consent for procedures and treatment, but the information provided at this site will unequivocally prove that to be a lie.
What Is Informed Consent?
According to the American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 2.1.1, “Informed consent to medical treatment is fundamental in both ethics and law. Patients have the right to receive information and ask questions about recommended treatments so that they can make well-considered decisions about care. Successful communication in the patient-physician relationship fosters trust and supports shared decision making.” I doubt any medical provider would quibble with this definition, not realizing how they subvert this concept on a daily basis.
For a patient—or a parent—to give informed consent, they must be provided with sufficient information, in a manner that they can understand, to comprehend not only the risks and benefits of a procedure or treatment, but also to compare that procedure or treatment with alternatives, even if the alternative is refusing care altogether. Make no mistake about it: outside of specific cases delineated by law in a minority of states, you always retain the right to refuse care, and in the case of our children, that includes any procedure or treatment performed upon them. For experienced parents, think back to your hospital birthing experience or your well child visits … did you feel that you had the right to refuse the recommendations of your providers? Were you pressured into decisions that you didn’t understand based upon their experience and expertise? Have you ever heard something to the effect of “Trust me, this is why I went to school for over 8 years!”? If so, your right to informed consent was undermined.
The truth is that most of the procedures and treatments that physicians and nurses recommend for the most vulnerable members of our society—our children!—are not based upon evidence based practice. For example: both physicians and nurses are taught about the basic theories behind vaccination, but when it comes to the vaccines themselves, they learn nothing more than to follow the CDC schedule. They aren’t taught about side-effects beyond a bit of soreness and possible fever. They aren’t taught about adverse reactions beyond the “fact” that they’re vanishingly rare. Most physicians and nurses have never once read a single scientific paper on any single vaccine they routinely administer, blindly trusting the opinion of the CDC that vaccines are “safe, effective, and necessary”, yet don’t feel conflicted telling parents that have thoroughly educated themselves through scientific literature that they are ignorant.
This website is designed to insure that if you consent to treatment, you are giving informed consent. In healthcare, this is your most fundamental right.
Topics Covered
As previously stated, information will be provided about numerous topics related to pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing. These topics will include vaccination, circumcision, standard birth procedures such as vitamin K injections or eye ointment, and nutrition. While the editors of this website have clear opinions on each of these matters, information will be provided from sources on both sides of each issue. We feel that in order to become educated on any topic, all sides of the debate must be understood without misrepresentation.
It is likely that the information provided here may provoke intense feelings of regret, conflict, or anger. In psychology, this is referred to as cognitive dissonance, and often provokes a reaction called the backfire effect. I challenge all readers to keep an open mind about the information provided: you and your children deserve at least that much.
