There was once a time, when I was younger, that making decisions for the communal good seemed to be easier. Science appeared to move forward with clarity and precision, without the type of debate regarding personal choice and freedom that we are seeing during the COVID pandemic.
Historical Perspective
Nurses may remember stories of medications that were devastations, whether it was the thalidomide embryopathy that led to shocking birth defects in over 10,000 newborns between 1957 and 1962, or the Vioxx recall after an alarming incidence of heart attacks and strokes. Medication recalls and changes seemed to move forward with ease and rapidity, as did science.
Whether it was adapting the speed of moving vehicles, or the ease with which we accepted the use of seat belts to decrease vehicular injury and death on roadways, humans accepted modification with alacrity.
But now we have hesitation, anger, debate, even rage and distrust of the very experts who should be guiding us.
Similar Societal Issues
When the US Surgeon General determined tar in cigarette smoketo be a carcinogen and secondhand smoke to be equally harmful, smoking was banned in restaurants and bars across the United States. I remember smokers being displeased with the change, but I do not remember people being shot when asked to extinguish a cigarette, as we have seen regarding the
