Sex education should address the intersection of biology, interpersonal relationships, and society with a backing of solid science. It should and can be sex positive without promoting irresponsible behavior – indeed quality sex education leads to more responsible behavior. Quality sex education can also be aesthetically pleasing, as Carlin Soos demonstrates with “AP Sex Ed”.
That is the question Tara Haelle, the American Academy of Pediatricians, and the Brady Center for the Prevention of Gun Violence want you to ask when your child goes to play at someone else’s home.
Is there an unlocked gun in your house?
I live in South Carolina, which has a pretty solid culture of guns and hunting. Many of our friends and neighbors are gun owners. Most of those are responsible gun owners. Accidents still happen. Fair warning to parents of my kids’ friends. I will be asking.
Tragically, I can avoid the social awkwardness of asking with a bit of personal history. A childhood neighbor of mine accidentally shot and killed a friend of his making it socially acceptable for me to fret.
It is all about managing real risks for my children. If you have a pool, I’m going to evaluate your home’s safety differently. If you have guns, same thing. Hell, I own big dogs. You should probably ask about them before sending your kid over here.
I suspect that people at our pool judge me for being that parent that’s too distracted watching his kids. It makes me an even worse conversationalist than usual. The social norm is that the kids play and the adults socialize, after all, there is an admirably diligent lifeguard. I am a quadcopter drone of a parent at the pool and beach for two reasons. One, I like playing with my kids (they are more interesting than you – I have data). Two, drowning doesn’t look like drowning:
The Instinctive Drowning Response—so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. – Mario Vittone
Sarah Michelle Gellar (aka, Buffy the Vampire Slayer1) is the celebrity ambassador for the Sounds of Pertussis vaccination campaign from the March of Dimes and Sanofi Pasteur. She recently published an editorial at CNN encouraging adults to get their pertussis vaccination in order to protect infants from this potentially fatal disease (aka, whooping cough).
Although we typically associate celebrity medical endorsements with disproven woonackery or dangerous foolishness, that is a bit unfair. We’ve always been able to recruit celebrity spokespeople for important public advocacy campaigns. In 20122, Amanda Peet made a splash for her advocacy in favor of vaccinations as a counter to Jenny McCarthy.
The Sounds of Pertussis campaign has clearly been learning from the successes (vaccination rates are down, infectious disease outbreaks are up) of the enemies of sound medical science, good public health, and social ethics. Continue reading “Buffy the Pertussis Slayer”
Dr. Oz likes to defend his promotion of woonackery on the grounds that he is trying to be encouraging and provide motivational crutches via unproven alternative therapies to supplement health treatments that actually work (like, reducing calories and exercising for weight loss). He claims to be very offended when scam artists use his actual words to sell the unproven cures he promotes. You see, Dr. Oz doesn’t directly sell snake oil, nor does he endorse specific brands, directly.
What he is really saying is that the cost of providing inaccurate and deceptive medical advice is a worthwhile sacrifice if it allows him to be rich and famous. I mean, come on, y’all, according to CDC statistics you were probably going to get fat and stay fat anyway. Why should he suffer?
In a rare bit of wonderful from a Congressional committee, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) calls him on his “blarney”:
“I don’t get why you say this stuff, because you know it’s not true,” said McCaskill. “So why, when you have this amazing megaphone, and this amazing ability to communicate, why would you cheapen your show by saying things like that?” – “Dr. Oz Grilled by Senator Over ‘Miracle’ Weight Loss Claims” by Chris Morran – The Consumerist
The Finch and Pea 