Infantilizing patients, stigmatizing language and pthe roblem with scientific proof

Open Letter:

Dear Barbara Ehrenreich,

In your recent book, entitled, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, you point out how the teddy-bear movement in the pink world of the breast cancer movement, may infantilize people with breast cancer.

I want to thank you for highlighting how nonprofits may infantilize the very people they are supposed to serve.

As an MS (Multiple Sclerosis) doctor, I have watched young representative of nonprofits speak in a condescending manner to highly intelligent people, who just happen to have MS.

I hope that your fresh look at what has been bothering many of us, will be eye-opening (and cause soul-searching) for those who are attempting to serve others.

My only fear is that your insights don't encourage people to swing the other way and use stigmatizing language when referring to various diagnoses. A person is not diabetic, but a person with diabetes. Just as someone who has been in a car accident, is just that, a person who has been in a car accident.

Also, you commented, on NPR, that it has been scientifically proven that positive thinking does not help people recover faster. I would caution you, however, from making bold claims of scientific proof, as we know that half of what we know in medicine, will be reversed in 20 years.

The only problem is, which half?

- Dr. Daniel Kantor, MD BSE
Medical Director
Neurologique

info@neurologique.org
www.neurologique.org