You can’t make this stuff up.
Aviva Romm, MD has thoughtfully taken a break from her 30 day series on “Preventing Unnecessary Cesareans,” to inform us that she is shocked, shocked that some women are being shamed for their C-sections:
Day 7: Take Back Birth: Preventing Unnecessary Cesareans
Today I am making a departure from cesarean prevention to talk about SHAME prevention… Let’s talk about birth and shame. The fears of “failing” because of the pressures to go “au naturale” whether around birth, breastfeeding, or how we raise our kids. How we can better support each other to have the healthiest, safest, most empowering experiences possible?
How? Come closer, Aviva and I will whisper just one teensy, weensy little way that you might take the first step toward better support other women:
END YOUR NONSENSICAL, ANTI-SCIENTIFIC SERIES ON PREVENTING “UNNECESSARY” CESAREANS!
Romm’s series in a object lesson in the subtle cruelty of natural childbirth shaming.
Day 1: Start with self-serving hypocrisy:
My goal is not to make anyone who had a cesarean feel badly about it. We all do what we have to do in complex situations.
English to English translation: If only you had been smarter, you wouldn’t have had a C-section.
Day 2: Justify your own refusal to take responsibility by practicing obstetrics deciding which C-sections are necessary.
When applying to medical residencies, I considered becoming an OB-GYN, thinking this would be an extraordinarily subversive and effective way that I, as a midwife, could influence change in hospital birthing practices. Then I visited residency programs where I was confidently informed that I would get PLENTY of surgical training because there would be no shortage of cesareans!…
See, Aviva can’t take any personal responsibility for preventing unnecessary C-sections, because she might have had to perform a lot of C-sections in order to gain the qualifications to determine which C-sections are unnecessary, and she didn’t want to do that. Get it? Me, neither.
Day 3: Tell a whopper!
Your body should be your business not big business for someone else.
Thus saith Aviva Romm, whose entire career is a giant business, from midwifery, to books, to newsletters, to seminars, to bamboozling people by practicing “functional” medicine. 100% of Romm’s income depends on your body being a big business for her.
Day 4: Lie about the scientific evidence
Here’s a tip you might not have realized is ok and even beneficial: Eat during labor.
No, there is NO scientific evidence that eating in labor is beneficial. It’s not like the issue hasn’t been studied; it has been studied repeatedly. Each study has utterly failed to show any benefit to eating in labor, only risk. That risk being the risk of aspirating the food that you have eaten into your lungs.
But claiming that it is beneficial is delightfully subversive so Aviva indulges herself.
Day 5: Bash technology:
… [T]echnology and natural birth aren’t a great mix. So when I was pregnant I asked myself: How can I birth naturally? I studied how women birthed traditionally. I studied native birthing practices around the world through anthropology. Here’s what I learned and did: Walking, laboring with women friends and relatives there for support, eating when I was hungry, drinking when thirsty, staying upright for labor, pushing when the instinct overtook my body, squatting for birth. While you don’t have to do all of these, taking birth lying down and assuming technology knows our bodies better than we do are some of the ways we’ve gotten into this 34% cesarean rate!…
Me, me, me! Look at me! Follow me! Copy me! I’m awesome and if you try hard enough you can be like me, me, me!
Day 6: Today’s tip is tough but important. Be careful whose opinions and beliefs you “let in” to your personal emotional space while you are pregnant and in labor. Science shows us that who we surround ourself with affects our health. For example, if our friends are overweight, just by the social connections we have a 50% chance …
WE INTERRUPT THIS POST FOR AN IMPORTANT BULLETIN! AVIVA ROMM JUST RETRACTED HER 30 DAY SERIES ON PREVENTING UNNECESSARY C-SECTIONS! She removed each and every post from the series.
But I didn’t even get a chance to copy Aviva’s words on not socializing women who are overweight or women who have had C-sections, lest we become “infected” with obesity or Cesareans by them, before she deleted them.
As usual in the world of NCB, deletion is a sign of guilt. No sooner did Aviva notice that we were discussing her hypocrisy on the Fed Up Facebook page then she realized that we were right and moved quickly to erase the evidence … of course, without bothering to offer an apology for her smarmy tactics.
Looks like she took my advice even before I gave it, since I was going to say:
Aviva Romm, when it comes to preventing shame over C-sections, physician heal thyself!
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How I was able to get my husband back from those home breaker
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DO YOU NEED HELP TO GET PREGNANT OR SOLVE INFERTILITY PROBLEM
I am Sandra Gaul from USA, I have been trying for 5years to get pregnant and needed help! i have Been going to the doctors but still nothing. The doctor said that me and my husband are fine and I don’t know where else to turn. Until one day my friend introduce me to this great spell caster who helped her to get back her lost husband back with love spell and also made her pregnant, So I decided to contact this spell caster Dr Brave on his EMAIL:bravespellcaster@gmail.com after interaction with him he instructed me on what to do, after then i should have sex with the my husband or any man I love in this world, And i did so, within the next one months i went for a check up and my doctor confirmed that i am 2weeks pregnant of two babies. I am so happy!! if you also need help to get pregnant or need your ex back please contact his email address: EMAIL:bravespellcaster@gmail.com or through His web address http://enchantedscents.tripod.com As HE did it for me, I am now a mother of twins. He will also do it for you. THANKS.,,,
I am an American man, and I have decided to boycott American women. In a nutshell, American women are the most likely to cheat on you, to divorce you, to get fat, to steal half of your money in the divorce courts, don’t know how to cook or clean, don’t want to have children, etc. Therefore, what intelligent man would want to get involved with American women?
American women are generally immature, selfish, extremely arrogant and self-centered, mentally unstable, irresponsible, and highly unchaste. The behavior of most American women is utterly disgusting, to say the least.
This blog is my attempt to explain why I feel American women are inferior to foreign women (non-American women), and why American men should boycott American women, and date/marry only foreign (non-American) women.
BOYCOTT AMERICAN WOMEN!
http://www.boycottamericanwomen.com
. , ,..
On behalf of all American women, thank you.
How nice for you. And for us!!!
What does this have to do with anything at ALL?
And I guess you are suggesting that all American men don’t cheat, work hard, aren’t criminals, are mature, selfless, chaste, and are all around moral, good guys? Really?
I know some guys in my neighborhood who married foreign women while in the military, and they are some very sad stories. But I wouldn’t say all foreign women are bad because some were bad. You sound like someone who had a bad experience and is just bitter. Good luck with your “misery loves company” website.
Thank you for the public service announcement!
Well I hope you and your right hand are very happy together.
LMAO!
Hello, unhinged omega man.
I’m sorry you feel threatened by strong women.
I’m sorry you don’t know how to cook or clean or look after yourself, and so require someone to do it for you.
I’m sorry you’re using your personal inadequacies to perpetuate harmful racist stereotypes about subservient Asian, African and Eastern European women.
I’m sorry you don’t see how problematic your entire misogynist viewpoint is.
What I’m not sorry about is how freely you feel able to share your worldview. It’s so much easier when the people that don’t warrant time or attention identify themselves straight off the bat.
what intelligent man would want to get involved with American women?
I don’t know why you would ask this question when it’s so clearly not applicable to you. But thanks for the laugh!
Slightly more seriously, my first thought was “why does this idiot think his pathetic blog is relevant here?” Then it hit me: he’s making exactly the same error as Romm! He’s conflating all “non-American” women into a single category and declaring them good just as Romm conflates all “native” women into a single category which she declares good in comparison to the ebil western women and their use of technology during birth. Well done alpha. Or, may I call you Poe? I do hope you’ll allow me to call you Poe.
Could you boycott all Australian, British and other caucasion women while you’re at it, save us all some time.
Mind the door doesn’t hit you in the arse on your way out!
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume that’s not your real profile picture…
Haha! Only in his dreams…
Sounds like a win for the American female population!
My name is maria johan from malaysia. My boyfriend left me a month ago and he was leaving with another woman who is 10 years older than him,i feel like my life is completely over. I read over the internet how a spell caster have help several people to get there love back. I have been depress for the past one month and what i need is to get him back and live with him happily. so i decided to give it a try so i contacted the spell caster called Dr.Trust and explain my problems to him and he cast a love spell which i use to get my boyfriend back and now my life is complete and both of us are very happy with the relationship. and i am throughly grateful to this man,his contact email is ultimatespellcast@gmail.com or ultimatespellcast@yahoo.com Thank you very much and i am extremely greatful Tel: +2348156885231.And there is know evil attach to his spell.it will only make your relationship very stronger. …
Not sure if I posted this right, but she is posting an article on her fb linking c-section with autism now. Le sigh. Why do I feel like confounding and correlation vs causation is at play here? Why so sensational, doc?
The actual study, for those interested. I’d love to hear your take… http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.12351/full
I had to deal with stuff like this all the time when I lived in the Bay Area. There’s such a disconnect from the fact that this ideology in itself is not supportive. There’s this pervasive attitude that women who have c-sections have to navigate of, “Wow, c-sections are so overdone, so traumatizing, and such an inferior start for your child…natural birth is empowering and beautiful and makes you feel so confident as a mother and it’s every woman’s right, especially if she and her attendants are amazing and knowledgeable. Western medicine just makes women feel so bad when really they should have natural births so they can feel powerful and ecstatic! But anyway, of course all births are different and all mamas are equally awesome, how can I support you after your c-section? Have you thought about VBAC next time?”
Facepalm.
So it’s beneficial to eat and walk around during labor according to Romm? Why is it that so many natural birth advocates assume that whatever worked for them works for everyone or that hospitals are preventing women from doing any of these things? I wanted to eat during labor. I was starving and the hospital nurses gave me lots of options for food. Unfortunately I vomited EVERYTHING; even ice chips made me nauseous. Despite my experiences I wouldn’t insist that other women not eat during labor. In addition no one tied me down during my 24 hours of labor that ended with a c-section. In fact, the hospital’s midwives encouraged me to try walking and different positions to ease the pain of contractions. I feel sorry for first time moms who may not know that the scary stories of many NCB advocates are simply false. How are these pregnant women to choose the best care for themselves without facts? I thought natural birth was supposed to be about empowering women, but scare tactics don’t empower women to make their own health care choices.
“How we can better support each other to have the healthiest, safest, most empowering experiences possible?”
Well, for a start, she could get off the anti-cesarean ideological hobby-horse and back to real health care.
Live tweeting of Sleepy Hollow, starting now, as promised.
https://twitter.com/TeamCrankypants
Just looked her up. She is not an OB so she has no business defining or attempting curtail what she views to be unnessecary C-sections. But she did win an “Herbalist Insight Award” in 2011! Yay!
So far, every country where traditional birthing practices are practiced instead of actual medical care in the hospital seem to have pretty appalling neonatal and maternal mortality rates. Major OB emergencies can’t be fixedby walking, eating, and relaxing.
How can we prevent unnecessary c-sections? Well, first, we’d have to identify them. Simply saying “30% is too high” is not enough. First off, what evidence is there that 30% is too high? How do you know it’s not right or too low even? What defines an “unnecessary c-section”? How do you predict which c-sections are necessary and which aren’t? Until these questions can be answered, any attempt to reduce the c-section rate will be worthless at best, dangerous at worst.
OMG, Dr. Romm is like the bizarro world Dr. Amy. How can people actually get through medical school and emerge as quacks?
What do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of his/her medical school class?
“Doctor.”
Memorize and recite on exams without actually believing the parts that conflict with preset worldview, I’d imagine.
I studied native birthing practices around the world through
anthropology. Here’s what I learned and did: Walking, laboring with
women friends and relatives there for support, eating when I was hungry,
drinking when thirsty, staying upright for labor, pushing when the
instinct overtook my body, squatting for birth.
Is this even accurate? I’m not an expert in traditional birth practices by any means, but I had the impression that practices varied widely by culture. What “native” culture is she talking about where women walk, labor with friends, etc? Zulu? Inuit? Maori? Aztec? Scandinavian? It’s just kind of hard to say.
For example, consider the traditional experience in a culture I am familiar with and have seen several times: The woman who is about to give birth goes to a special place where she will be cared for by traditional attendants. The attendants each have their own role and work together to help the woman’s birth be safe, healthy, and memorable. She may be accompanied by her partner, her mother, or other support persons of either gender. Or she may be alone. If she is alone, the attendants may have special rituals they use to ensure that she does not feel isolated or frightened in the unfamiliar environment. This is part of their training and is considered a major role for some of the attendants. Others concentrate on the health of the mother and the baby. Still others perform other functions or simply wait in readiness if an emergency occurs.
Once she is at the traditional birthing place, ritual objects are placed on her. The belief is that these objects will help the attendants understand how her labor is progressing and strengthen her for the ordeal. Other rituals are offered for the purpose of relieving the pain of labor and the decision of whether to use these objects and rituals as well as when and how to use them is made by the mother after advice from her attendants. The position during labor varies. Usually, it is simply based on what the mother prefers, but a few rituals require specific positioning.
When the baby is born, attendants whose only job is to take care of the newborn take it, warm and clean it, and make sure it is healthy. Special substances are given to the newborn to strengthen it and prevent complications. The newborn is then brought to the mother who holds it and bonds with it for as long as she desires. Knowing that many women are exhausted after giving birth, there are usually special attendants available who will help the newborn during its first hours while the mother naps. Other family members, often including siblings, can now greet the newborn. When both mother and baby are ready, they leave the place of birth and go back to their homes. This may mean staying at the place of birth one day or many: care is individualized. Over the first few months, they will return to the attendants several times to ensure the health and well being of mother and baby.
Yeah, of course I’m talking about how middle class US-Americans give birth.
Aaaannnnd….win.
This might be my favorite comment in months.
Jared Diamond writes in one of his books about a village he visited (South America?). Women labor and birth 100% alone. He recalled hearing a first time mother in labor, then screaming for help because the baby was breech, then stuck. By morning they were both dead. Everyone heard her. No one helped her. Because it was the “native tradition”.
Fuck that.
That’s how “survival of the fittest” works. Women who cannot deliver vaginally never deliver again…and they exit the gene pool.
What would have happened to Diamond if he had tried to help her?
Because unless he was being threatened with bodily harm or being physically restrained, he’s just as culpable.
Stacy was misremembering, it was Diamond who wrote about this happening to another person. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/books/review/the-world-until-yesterday-by-jared-diamond.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Thanks Trixie. My apologies. It’s been a while since I’ve read this. The story really stuck with me though. Why should anyone fawn over “native practices” just because they’re “native”? Nature is brutal and sometimes so are “native” practices.
From the linked article, the next example after the one Stacy used: “The anthropologist Allan Holmberg was with a group of Siriono Indians of
Bolivia when a middle-aged woman grew gravely ill. She lay in her
hammock, too unwell to walk or speak. Her husband told Holmberg that the
tribe had to move on and would leave her there to die. They left her a
fire and some water and walked away without saying goodbye. Even her
husband had no parting words for her.”
This reminds me of a family story in my mother’s family. The story goes that one of our ancestors living in northern Mexico in the 18th or 19th century was kidnapped by a band of Apaches. They adopted most of the children they kidnapped but thought he was too small to survive so when they went from their summer to their winter camp left him at the summer camp with an old woman who was thought too ill to survive the winter. As it turned out, he was older and stronger than they thought (my family’s always been short, apparently) and the old woman was stronger and savier than anyone thought* and so between them they survived the winter. The kid was later reunited with his family or at least his ethnic group (not sure if any actual family members survived), but remained friendly with the old woman, who he considered his grandmother and helped her live much longer than anyone ever thought possible.
The moral? Screw “tradition” and “survival of the fittest”: two “weak” people working together are at least the equal of one “strong” person who will take no help from anyone. Even in a marginal society.
*Rumor is that she was a bit caustic and it may have been that the tribe was hoping she wouldn’t survive rather than expecting that she wouldn’t survive.
Wow, what a great and crazy story!
http://www.drb.ie/new-books/the-world-until-yesterday
WTF
It’s because this was a tribe living on the edge of subsistence. If a woman didn’t birth easily and required a lot of time to recover from a hard birth, she was a potentially fatal drain on resources for everyone else.
It sucks. It’s painful. It’s a choice no group of people should ever have to make. But given the situation for everyone, it was probably the least bad one available.
As Stacy said, fuck that.
Indeed. Explanations are not excuses. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to understand what happened and why.
Oh I completely understand the brutal, evolutionary “explanation”…but it’s still horrid and nothing that modern society should emulate. Aviva aspires to “native” birth practices – let’s see her advocate THIS.
It’s too bad she wasn’t there. She could’ve simply explained to the laboring woman, through an interpreter, that her body wouldn’t grow a baby it couldn’t birth, and that breech is a variation of normal.
That was awesome.
Awesome guest post material!
Love it!
Doesn’t matter. They’re just “traditional.” All those cultures look the same when you’re so busy appropriating them.
Most traditional birthing practices arose from lack of medical care.
There are lots of things that are “traditional” that are stupid considering modern capabilities.
Shoot, even my wife laughs at Harry Potter and their use of the owls to deliver messages. She is like, wouldn’t it be a lot easier and faster just to send a text or call on the phone?
In the old days, mail was not delivered by pony express because it was a great way to do it, but because it was the best they could do considering their circumstances. However, as soon as the railroad came through, they quit running horses and put the mail on the train. And then on mail trucks. And then on airplanes. And jets. And then we’ve abandoned most of it and send messages electronically.
Because we can.
Just because some cultures used smoke signals to send messages*** doesn’t mean that it was a good idea, or anything we should try to emulate.
***Was there any actual culture that used smoke signals or is that just mythology?
To reply to myself, we even have it here. Why do we do c-sections? Because we don’t have the technology to beam the baby out star trek style. Etc.
I would like to be the first to sign up for the Star Trek beam birth.
They did it on Star Trek:Voyager. The baby’s head spines would have ripped up her human mother, so the EMH beamed the baby out.
I bet that wasn’t a home birth!
Correct in one. It was in Sickbay.
Well, the Catholic church still does use smoke signals when they’re choosing a new pope.
Ancient Romans used signal fires, which is close.
Yes … smoke rising from a burning ranch was how the Apaches let the cavalry know they had been there 🙂
You can get some limited information across, but it’s mostly of the “when you see black smoke rising, attack”.
Awesome post. 4th to last paragraoh shout be “socializing WITH women.”
I’m having my second child in slightly more than 3 weeks, a scheduled C-section. My first was an emergency C-section. I had been considering a VBAC. My OB/GYN was relieved when I changed my mind (I think I was too). Needless to say, I was not the ideal VBAC candidate. I realized this as my pregnancy progressed. For the most part, my pregnancies have been healthy and normal. However, my first child never dropped during labor even though I was fully dilated. I was in a hospital being monitored by a nurse who might have been a nurse midwife but I don’t remember. Eventually my doctor joined us and stayed to monitor me herself. I guess she was getting concerned. Anyway, after about 18 hours of labor by my estimate, my daughter turned sideways which made it impossible for her to be born naturally. The C-section probably saved both of us. Was my C-section unnecessary? Would my child have turned around if I had trusted birth? If you think the answer to this is yes I’m going to assume you are either a lay midwife or you buy into way too much woo. By the way, my daughter and I have had no issues bonding and while I breastfed, or nursed her as I prefer to say, I also gave her formula when she drained me dry. I was not going to have her hungry because my body did not make more milk fast enough! I intend to do the same with this baby. Anyone who thinks my scheduled C-section is unnecessary can bite me.
I agree that I find one of the most insulting parts about Dr Romm’s tirades is her claim that she could have been the most Magical OBGYN Ever, driving C-sections to historic lows whilst followed by adulations from women who had no epidural, spontaneous vaginal deliveries. Yet, she did not become an OBGYN or a family med doc with an OB fellowship because she would do C-sections (oh woe! How surprising! Dear me!)
Even more amusing that she is the Best Midwife Ever but doesn’t act as a midwife.
Better to lecture about unnecessary c-sections from the hardworking, well trained OBGYNs of the world while charging $1500.00 for an office visit, not covered by insurance, am I right? And $3k-$6K for lab tests.
Conclusion: being a Magical OBGYN is too difficult and requires too much complex decision making for Dr Romm.
“one of the most insulting parts about Dr Romm’s tirades is her claim that she could have been the most Magical OBGYN Ever, driving C-sections to historic lows”
Ain’t that the truth! From Aviva Romm to Marsden Wagner, it’s always non-OBs who are oh-so-certain exactly what the optimal CS should be and are oh-so-sure that their own rates would be even lower than that (if only there hadn’t been some pesky technicality that kept them from being OBs themselves).
Wait, what? That’s what she charges?
Yeah, I can believe it.
Yes, it’s on her website.
Whoa. Crazy like a fox, huh Aviva?
I suppose per minute (it’s for an 80 minute consultation) it’s not that much more expensive than most doctors. (I’m seeing according to Google the average doctor visit is 7 minutes.) And that’s only for the initial visit, then it drops down to $400 for 50 minutes. What a deal! I still think it makes her a huge hypocrite though.
WTF do basically healthy people talk about for 80 minutes? And I would assume that given her practice is cash only and expensive, she mostly caters to wealthy basically healthy people.
I saw a senior specialist with a complicated rare immune system issue (so there were many odd symptoms to cover and things to check and a complicated family history). We spent an hour going over everything. At the end of that appointment I felt relieved that my symptoms were being taken seriously and that the doctor had gone through everything thoroughly and explained everything for me. Another twenty minutes would have devolved into awkward small talk I’m sure…
In my field, we sometimes call these folks “the worried well.” Scrutinizing every little sensation and experience, having a professional devote time and attention… it’s almost like a form of pampering.
For the highest level of new patient office visit, Medicare reimburses about $200.
As a small business owner, I always smile wryly when people trust small business to be more honest, transparent and fair than big business. In small business, you can pretty much say what you like (so long as you’re careful), do what you want (so long as your clients keep coming back, or new ones come on board) and have really very little scrutiny.
In small business a winning manner is a huge asset, regardless of what lies beneath.
Big business has to publicly report, they have crs and triple bottom line, internal policies about how they behave, reasonably serious risk management etc and run the risk of being recognised all over the front of the local paper.
I’m an ethical business person not because I say so but because I’m honest with my clients, I fix things that need fixing whether or not I broke or overlooked them, and I charge a fair price. And my clients keep coming back.
There are plenty of incompetent or corrupt small business people with confidence-inspiring faces who wouldn’t last 5 minutes in the corporate world. Or in real medical practice either.
And yes I do know what’s wrong with the corporate world-I spent years in the thick of it-but this isn’t one of those things.
And the people who act like small business doesn’t have a profit motive. Really? I think everyone in business has a profit motive. And doctors would like to make a living too.
Seriously. The only entities without a profit motive *as part of their doing business* are nonprofits. But even in service professions people still need to pay their bills.
For example, I’m a public school teacher. I actually have no idea what I make– I know roughly how much my paycheck is, and my husband and I check the account a few times a month to make sure there’s enough in there to pay the bills, but beyond that, nope, no idea how much I’m bringing in. But if I were suddenly expected to work for free, I’d have to quit.
From my time in banking, I’d have to agree with you.
I was just making this comment yesterday. Why do people put more trust in businesses that have a lot less scrutiny over their practices?
When I was younger I always thought small business was the way to go for employment. I did it for years, until eventually I had a couple of stand-downs with my employers over their tax evasion tactics (at my expense) among other things.
This is what terrifies me about the raw dairy movement in my state. It’s bad enough that they want raw milk sold on the open market, but they want little to no state regulation of said raw milk, because people should just “trust farmers.” Sorry, farmers are businessmen, and like other businessmen, they will do whatever it takes to make money, even if that means cutting corners or lying.
Before the Chunnel opened in the late 1990s, most of the milk sold in the UK was not pasteurized, but it was very, very strictly regulated.
It’s like the idea that “organic farmers’ are some noble bunch who are just trying to make life better for us all.
I happen to know a couple of “organic” dairy farmers (a couple of cousins do it). Why did they get into organic? Because of the great health benefits? Nah. It was because they couldn’t manage a conventional herd, where the profit margins are really tight, and saw the bigger bucks potential by going organic, which gave them more leeway. Slap an organic label on it, and people will pay a premium for it.
All about the cashe…
Admittedly, they are also loons overall. My cousin claimed that antibiotic use caused mastitis. Might explain a little why they couldn’t manage a conventional herd.
There are issues with conventional agriculture. The solution is not to “Buy organic,” since organic farming ignores or even worsen some of those problems and adds expensive artisanal requirements that are environmentally irrelevant. The solution is to actually regulate the more damaging practices.
One of the major problems with conventional agriculture is the treatment of workers: exposure to pesticides without proper training, low safety standards, low pay, abusive environment. Organic agriculture does little to nothing to address those concerns. Many of the biggest organic producers use pesticides that were grandfathered into the label and, as far as I am aware, have no incentive to treat or pay their workers any better than conventional farmers.
I would really like to see these issues addressed by progressives instead of the food purity focus that seems to be in vogue right now.
“as far as I am aware, have no incentive to treat or pay their workers any better than conventional farmers.”
Some of the luminaries in the field use unpaid “interns” who are there to imbibe the wisdom and lower the costs.
“There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.” — Lady Catherine
Jane Austen, man. She knew of what she wrote.
Terrifying character, Lady Catherine. Though I always have wondered what would have happened if she and Mrs. Norris ended up in the same room together.
I don’t know where she practices, but someone should look at her license. I am really surprised. As an MD I am certain she has seen her fair share of life-saving C-sections, but she appears to judge those situations as the mom not doing enough. Glad she got nervous enough to remove her info.
She in western Massachusetts. There’s also something on her website about being people’s doctor via phone and internet after only one in-person consultation. That’s not sketchy or anything.
Wow! What a sleazeball!