Idiocracy

If you read the reader comments on some news articles relating to health and science you can get to despair. The impression you get is that the general public are ignorant and stupid beyond belief. The strength of opinion expressed in favour of homeopathy, chiropracty etc, and the blind opposition to such things as vaccination and fluoridation simply make you throw your hands up. What is wrong with these people? Why do they have such ill informed views? What's happened to our education system that such ignorance about scientific matters is so prevalent. Why do these people delude themselves that they know anything about it.

It's not helped by our politicians. We have a health secretary in Jeremy Hunt who believes in homeopathy and seriously seems to think he's qualified to speak on clinical matters. What a twat. The fact alone that Cameron should think this fool a suitable person to appoint to run the NHS is proof enough that he's not a fit prime minister.

When scientists are left alone to get on with the job what they can achieve is outstanding. In this one week alone there are reported breakthroughs which may well lead to a cure for HIV, and the harnessing of nuclear fusion. I wonder if the general public realise the magnitude of these steps forward.

And yet, when you hand these things over to the politicians they can fuck it up so completely that we could be facing having the lights turned off for an inability to provide enough electricity. In medicine now we are gradually being totally stripped of our professionalism as the politicians and those gong chasing twats at the GMC collude to try and turn doctors into mindless automatons, blindly following the dictates of protocols and guidelines. The concept of clinical discretion and autonomy totally vilified. When will they learn that to get the best results out of scientists and professionals what is required of politicians is that they simply look on in awe at the endeavours of better men, and keep their meddling fingers out?