Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!qantel!dual!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Credentials, State vs. private
Message-ID: <775@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 12:14:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.775
Posted: Wed Sep 25 12:14:06 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Sep-85 01:46:55 EDT
References: <4297@alice.UUCP> <1565@umcp-cs.UUCP> <126@l5.uucp> <760@cybvax0.UUCP> <141@l5.uucp>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 67

In article <141@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
> Remember, fraud is a big crime in Libertaria. I would like to take a
> hatchet to North American advertising because I think that it is
> mostly fraud.  The problem is that this level of fraud is tolerated
> in advertising today.  Suppose it were impossible to make outrageous
> claims - wouldn't this problem go away?  Are certification programs now
> fronts so that the level of lies in advertising need not decrease? Wow,
> this one will please those who see conspiracies everywhere....

North American advertising is FAR less fraudulent than it used to be.
But libertarianism would not solve the problem of fraud except where
both parties have explicitly listed results desired.  How can you do that
sort of thing for something that statistically cures?  "Oh, you were one
of the 1% that this treatment doesn't work on.  Go ahead, disprove that."
What expert will you rely upon to determine fraud?  You call a medical
doctor to say the treatment was fraudualent, and I call a voodoo doctor
to say the treatment was sound, though it didn't work.

> >Remove the restrictions on medical practice, and you open up a huge can
> >of worms of this sort.  People will choose the quack who makes them feel
> >best about their medical service; because he tells them "yes, take that
> >drug", 
> 
> I got news for you. Take a look at the figures on valium consumption. A lot
> of people choose their doctor *now* for precisely this reason!

Correct.  However because the doctor is limited to legal drugs and subject
to malpractice liability, the problem is probably less than it would be
were everybody to take the latest miracle cancer preventative described
in the National Enquirer ("America's Largest Weekly Circulation").

> >because he makes outrageous claims for their health if they follow
> >his advice, because he tells them their aura gets better and better every
> >time they visit.  And how could anyone sue for malpractice, without some
> >implicit standard of medical practice?  "You didn't diagnose that cancer!"
> >"That wasn't a cancer, it was an evil spirit, and the patients will wasn't
> >strong enough.  I can't cure everybody."
> 
> If you take out the bit about ``evil spirits'' and talk about ``diseases
> which are not responsive to medication'' and ``spontaneous remissions''
> you are describing what we have *now*.

Believe it or not, there are tests which can provide scientific evidence for
the presence of diseases.  (The course of a disease is a different matter.)
What is your evidence of the evil spirit?  How are you to resolve whether
it was a Satanic spirit or a spirit from some other mythos?

> People really do live and die for
> no discernable reason.  However, if I sell you a car that doesn't have
> a carburator you are free to sue me.  If I don't diagnose your cancer you are
> free to sue me for precisely the same reason -- fraud.

A car without a carburator does have a discernable reason.  That's not
analogous.  Non-diagnosis of cancer would only be fraud if my diagnostic
procedure is not up to standards.  In the absence of standards, there can
be no fraud.

> Of course, if
> I make no claims to diagnose cancer and claim to be a spirit healer, I may
> not be guilty of fraud -- but then you got what you asked for.

If I am asking for healing, and doctors, spirit healers, etc. all stand up
and say "we heal, choose us", then what I get will be considerably better if
I happen to get the doctor to treat (say) cholera.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh