[nabs-l] FW: ALERT! Sign-On to Letter to Congressional LeadershipConcerning Health Reform and Vision Loss]

[mworkman at ualberta.ca]

Jim,

I won't speak for Jedi, but I tend to agree that blindness is typically
primarily a social issue and not a health care issue, and so I'll explain
why I think this.

I too have RP, and I haven't seen a doctor about this in at least five
years.  While I was seeing a doctor, there wasn't much he was doing for me,
increasing my prescription was about it.  If you consider the main barriers
associated with being blind (e.g., lack of access to information, lack of
proper trainging and rehabilitation services, negative misconceptions about
blindness held by the public, discrimination by potential employers, and so
on and so on), short of curing the blindness, there isn't much that a doctor
is going to do to alleviate these problems.

So you're right that my resistance to calling blindness a medical issue has
to do with the fact that my form of blindness is incurable and untreatable,
but this is not exactly an unwillingness to admit my blindness is the result
of a medical condition; it's simply a recognition that everything that
matters about me being blind has to do with social conditions (e.g.,
government policies, environmental design, people's attitudes, etc).

To further complicate things, I will also point out that many medical issues
are themselves socially caused.  You and I may have genetically-caused
blindness, but many people go blind as the result of bad living conditions.
Take the case of river blindness for example.  This form of blindness occurs
mainly in poor african communities and is the result of a parasite that can
relatively easily be treated through the use of drugs.  So it's true that
this form of blindness is treated through administering drugs that act on
the body, and this looks like a medical treatment, but if you want to
address the root cause of this form of blindness, you need to consider
global economic disparities, trade relations, the history of colonization,
drug patent regulations, and many other factors that are decidedly not
medical.

So my point is that the medical cannot be separated from the social as
neatly as you suggest.  For most blind people in western countries, people
whose blindness is incurable and untreateable, blindness definitely seems to
me to be primarily a social issue of an economic and educational nature.

Best,

Marc

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org]On
Behalf Of Jim Reed
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 1:49 PM
To: NABS mail list
Subject: [nabs-l] FW: ALERT! Sign-On to Letter to Congressional
LeadershipConcerning Health Reform and Vision Loss]


Jedi,
You said, "First, blindness is not necessarily a health problem. If
anything,
blindness is a social issue of an economic and educational nature
rather than a health care problem." I have to completly disagree.

I support the NFB's philosopy that with training, blindness can be reduced
to a mere nucance, but there is a difference between optimisim and
ignorance. At some point we have to be realistic as to what blindness is.
Blindness is the result of a medical disorder, disease, or trauma. No amount
of training is going to change the fact that I have a genetic eye disease
called Retinitus Pigmentosa that is treated (or atleast monitored) by a
doctor. I am sorry, but I don't go to a doctor to be treated for a "social
issue of an economic and educational nature"; I go to a doctor to get
medical treatment for a medical deseaae/disorder. If I wanted to be treated
for a "social issue of an economic and educational nature", I would go see a
therapist, a preist, a teacher, or a librarian, not a doctor.

It is true that "blindness" itself is not a disease/disorder, rather
blindness is a symptom of many different diseases/disorders. But, just
because blindness is a symptom, rather than a cause does not give blindness
some sort of special, non-medical classification. You cannot seperate the
medical diagnosis from the symptoms is causes. For example, unquestionably, 
diabeties is a medical condition, but what about the low blood sugar it
causes? Is low blood sugar also a "social issue of an economic and
educational nature", or is low blood sugar a medically relivant side-effect
of diabeties?  What about diabeties-related blindness? Is the side-effect of
"blindness" a medical condition or a "social issue of an economic and
educational nature"? Why is there a difference between diabeties's  side
effect of low blood sugar, and its side-effect of blindness?

I wonder if there is a relucance to call blindness a medical condition
because for the most part, blindness is untreatable/uncureable? I wonder if
more forms of blindness were medically treatable and cureable, would more
blind people be willing to admit that their blindness is indeed a medical
condition?

Thoughts?
Jim


Homer Simpson's brain: "Use reverse psychology."
 Homer: "Oh, that sounds too complicated."
 Homer's brain: "Okay, don't use reverse psychology."
 Homer: "Okay, I will!"



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