THE PEDIATRICIAN AND THE PUBLIC

Abstract

I can draw no other conclusion from this report than that the results of our survey, with which nearly every one of us cooperated wholeheartely and honestly, are immediately being perverted, distorted, twisted, and prostituted to the frank, bold, shameless, support of an idealogy as foreign to everything which has gone to make American medicine what it is today—to make America what she is today—as were the tactics and philosophy of Hitler and Mussolini. This report, which would picture the medical care of American children as grossly inadequate, can only be drawn by comparing our present real status with an ideal, unreal, Utopian, starry-eyed-dreamer's view of a never-yet-attained state of perfection. The real fact of the excellence of life for America's children and the enormous expansion of America's child care compared with that of any other country is completely ignored! The authors of this report must be either stupid, or visionary, and our Executive Board, which approved the report, must suffer from one or both of the same disastrous defects. It is up to us, the common members of the American Academy of Pediatrics, to make ourselves heard in the high places of our organization immediately and with such vigor and unanimity that this report in its entirety will be disapproved and heartily condemned, and another committee appointed which will approach this problem realistically. The approval of this damnable report by the Executive Board of the American Academy of Pediatrics places us squarely in the disgraceful, unenviable, and intolerable position of being the first organized group of reputable and honorable American physicians to endorse officially a report and recommendations which are as unAmerican as the machinations of the Kremlin. This insult to ourselves, to our fellow American Physicians, to this great free nation of ours—this desecration of LIBERTY must be promptly, decisively, and completely wiped from our record or I, for one, shall resign from the Organization. Fellow member of the once American Academy of Pediatrics, we have been most disgracefully betrayed! For all of you who see the full and hideously dangerous implications of this report I suggest the following procedures: (1) Write your opinion immediately to your District Chairman, to our President, or both, demanding an immediate emergency meeting of our Executive Board to rescind its approval of the report and then pass a strong resolution of total condemnation. (2) Send a copy of your letter to me and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons will give nation wide publicity to the tabulated results. (3) Inform your colleagues (members and non-members of the Academy) of the nature of this report, discuss it, and publicize as widely as you can its total condemnation. For those of you who may not sense the full importance of the report I append a bibliography for your further study and enlightenment. Obtain and read this material promptly, then send in your letters as soon as possible. You may receive promptly the entire bibliography (except books 7 and 8) from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, 360 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, at a cost of $1.35. For those of you who will not think or act I can do nothing except to hope your numbers are few and that your awakening will not be long delayed.