I think something that a lot of people don't know is that they set themselves up for targeting for health information, and well, actually fraud.
It all starts because your friend Billy shares a post on social media titled "Mac & Cheese is causing cancer in 80% of children". You click the link and it may or may not show much helpful health info, but what it almost surely will include are ads, ads, and more ads galore.
The ads are the problem. This is just a tell-tale sign that the person is more interested in making money than they are in improving your health. The problem is now you have been identified as someone who clicks on links for things like this and a cookie is going to track you around the internet. Some might call you gullible. Some might identify you as susceptible to buying products based off incomplete information. Either way you are now going to be targeting for health info and health products that are less than honest.
This is my issue with Mommy Bloggers. There are straight up fraudulent people targeting Mommy Bloggers with products promising to cure this and that, and they know how to appeal to these Mommies.
So watch out! Here are the lessons to learn
Don't click on "sensational" sounding things.
If you click on something hoping for some good, unbiased health information and the page is loaded with ads, be careful! It doesn't automatically mean the page is full of untruths, but it is more likely.
When it comes to my health, and the health of my family, it is important to me that I have reliable, factual information. So based on the principles of Part One I feel the following sources provides this:
My personal primary healthcare provider (thanks Kristin!)
Professional Medical Organizations (American Heart Association, Red Cross, etc.)
Who/what do I generally mistrust for health information:
News organization, especially those known to politically weaponize health information or who sensationalize things
"Mommy Bloggers" and/or the individuals who target "Mommy Bloggers" - You know that person in your neighborhood dubbed the "gossip queen?" She always has lots of "friends" because she needs people to tell her gossip too. Now put the queen and her friends all online and make it a worldwide connection with other queens and her friends and things get very scary. They don't necessarily have to be mothers or even female, but I feel this is the briefest way I can communicate those that make up this group.
Statements of a single "Dr" that I do not personally know
Statement on health that use the following buzzwords: "easy, fast, revolutionary, brand new, alternative, the best way..." or any other marketing sounding words.
Websites that use a mocking tone that believing such and such is crazy
Most memes
Some friends I know feel their are people in the government conspiring for power and money. It is possible that some people are, but overall government health agencies actually have a pretty good track record of improving our health. Sure, you could find mistakes health agencies have made, biased people, and probably the occasional corruption, but compared to what they have gotten right I feel it is more likely you will find good health advice from the government than from other sources. Why? Because they sue the scientific method and employ similar requirements as those in my Part One post.
Sure it is possible evil people have infiltrated the government and 1,000s of people are in on some kind of secret to make us all unhealthier. If the conspiracy is so bad that evil people have taken over, then none of us really stand a chance.
Or maybe it could it be that good-meaning people in health agencies have accidentally been blinded and that is preventing them from seeing the good in "alternative" health practices. To this I answer with "I think not." This is based on that fact that places like the NIH will accept health science studies from all kinds of sources.
(Please note - I intentionally chose to leave the spiritual/religious out of this post. I do believe in the power of the spiritual, including guidance from modern and ancient prophets on physical health, but for brevity reasons chose to emphasize other things.)
Who you trust is critically important. In a world of abundant amounts of information it has become almost necessary to find shortcuts to process and summarize data, so that you have time to take in all the information you want to process.
Sound bites, memes, TikTok video clips, and similar stuff have become huge sources of "life hacks" AKA shortcuts of learning. (Ironically, many people will never read my thoughts here because this is too long to spend time reading. Ha ha ha.)
But can you trust this information?
It is a fact that information can only be one of two things: factual or false. Yes a sentence can include two claims and one of them is factual and one is false, but each idea individually is one or the other; it can't be both! If something is 98% true and 2% false, then it is still false in my book. When facts and falsehoods get mixed it is particularly dangerous. Mixing the two can either be done purposefully or innocently, and most times it is not clear which is the case.
So we come back to the question of trust. How do you figure out what to believe and not believe?
Here are guiding principles I have chosen to follow when examining information. These are somewhat in the order.
UNSENSATIONAL - Does the claim seem to good to be true or to be sensationalized? Then it probably warrants a deeper look.
RELIABLE SOURCE - Does the source have a good track record for providing accurate info?
AUTHENTIC SOURCE - Is the fact really the thing it purports to be and by the source it claims to be from? (This one is a HUGE red flag for me. When someone says my friend's friend heard...)
ACCURATE - Can the claim be corroborated with other reliable sources? (i.e. peer reviewed)
FAIRNESS - Is the info represented fairly and not taken out of context?
I have several good friends that use "follow the money" as a litmus test for a source's credibility. I do think this is wise advise, but just because someone funds something that could potentially benefit them doesn't mean the results are always skewed. In a capitalistic society it would make sense that those who fund something, like a health study for example, would be someone who could benefit from the results of the study. So I don't feel good about throwing out the results of a study based on the funding source alone.
(This story is not about my life.) Imagine your life is humming along. You are in your thirties and have 3 kiddos and a good life. Then a few short years later you find out one of your kiddos has a rare form of cancer. You go through the struggle and pain of helping him. Next your husband leaves and divorces you. You can't seem to catch a break but then a wonderful organization surprises you with a getaway to a cabin in a beautiful resort town. Your elderly father joins you and your 3 kiddos and you arrive on Christmas Eve to a gorgeous cabin. Your cancer surviving boy has been feeling sick, but a conversation with the doctor ends with instructions to keep an eye on him and if he doesn't improve by morning to take him to an ER to get checked out. You spend a wonderful Christmas eve together and then head to bed. You decide to let your sick child sleep in your bed so you can keep an eye on him.
About 5:30am your oldest child comes in to wake you so they can open Christmas presents when you notice your sick child feel cold and is not responding. He is not breathing. You panic and call 911. EMTs are awoken by the page out for a juvenile boy unconscious and not breathing. They rush to the rental cabin to find there is nothing that can be done. It is obvious he passed away earlier in the night.
This was my ambulance call this Christmas morning. The scene was 100 yards from my home. This is every parents literal worst nightmare. Just a few weeks ago I was worried about my child's breathing and tried to decide if I should take him to the ER or not. I chose to stay in his room and woke every few hours to check his breathing but I was constantly worried he'd stopped breathing and I'd be asleep, but everything ended up okay and he got better.
I left the scene and got home as my children were waking. I painted on a good face and tried not to feel terribly guilty enjoying the squeals of excitement coming from my kiddos as they opened Christmas presents, while 100 yards away a single mother was sitting in utter disbelief talking to the medical examiner about her sons passing.
Words can't really express all the thoughts and feelings. After our kids were done unwrapping gifts I went and laid on my bed. Eventually I decided to walk back over to the house to see if I could help them pack up as I knew they decided to head home. Luckily the property managers came and they all the help they needed so I went home still feeling terrible.
This past Spring, with the encouragement from some wise people, I decided to seek out a counselor/therapist to talk to about some of the PTSD from being a emergency responder. I am not sure where my head would be right now if I had not received the help I've received this year and been taught some tools to deal with medical calls like this. While I am still in a lot of pain and my heart breaks for this family and honestly I am grieving the passing of this child, it is also accompanied with a hope for healing. I don't believe that hope of healing would be there without the counseling I have received.
The two most important beliefs my counselor helped me learn are:
I can hold myself appropriately responsible.
I may not be 'enough', but WE (Christ and me together) ARE ENOUGH. He literally fills all my gaps.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is real and peace is possible in Him. I was even reminded of that this morning when this faithful mother in her desperate despair asked if me and the other EMT in the room were latter-day saints and could give her a priesthood blessing. Talk about a tough blessing to give. What blessing do you give to a mother that is holding in her arms her dead child? I desperately didn't want to say the wrong thing. But the Spirit filled the room and words came out of my mouth. I don't remember what I said, but I do remember that they were not my words, because I would never have thought of the phrases and words that I said.
My heart will ache for that family and I will probably think of this medical call every Christmas morning, but I believe there is literal peace in the Prince of Peace, whose birth we celebrate this day.
Two days ago, The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a message regarding the COVID-19 Vaccination and wearing masks. It seemed like no big deal to me as the counsel was in line with other messages from these inspired leaders. I realize now it was no big deal to me also because it was in line with what I believed.
However, for those that believed differently, this is probably a challenge. I originally thought "well, this will set the record straight and for anyone who believes these men are prophets, will correct their ways." Not the humblest of thoughts I do admit. However, there are a lot of people struggling with this message.
Some random thoughts.
1.) I have not yet had a major struggle with anything the First Presidency has said. I count myself blessed, because it could easily happen. It would be very difficult if I believed one thing and then to have inspired men say the opposite. I know several friends who have had this happen to them. Some of them followed the prophet and some did not and they "went another way." With all the opinions and misinformation that exists in our world, I worry that the day may come when I will have my trial of faith on an issue.
2.) I can't help but think that the current issue regarding masks and the vaccine is a very real mirror of Israel and the Brass Serpent. A quick study of that story in Numbers and a reading of Alma 33 in The Book of Mormon and I think the parallel is obvious.
3.) My dad always said "it comes down to this: Who do you trust?" I think this is totally true. It is hard. Especially the world we live in with the ease of communication. I think it is ironic that misinformation used to be shared and passed on for generations (i.e. Old Wives Tales") because someone believed something and it would take a while to get an idea corrected because information was slow to get passed around. Now we have the chance to quickly get accurate information out to correct bad information, however, that is not what is happening. Instead it seems bad information spreads faster than good information because the bad information gets put in a way that sounds more exciting. It has a "shock factor" to it and thus it gets shared more, especially in a world of memes and sound bites. Take the following meme for example. Which of the following memes do you think is more likely to get shared?
Eating veggies and exercising??? I tried that last Thursday and I am still not healthy and strong ;)
In the long run, I hope this is something that won't really matter. Life goes on . I will try to make good informed choices, but the reality is that it is difficult to do that these days. I will trust that I will just do the best I can and put my faith in God.
I have a friend that is a good person. She goes to church on Sunday; partakes of the sacrament; wears her temple garments. She seems like your good average LDS member...on Sunday. However, during the week she breaks the word of wisdom, has a colorful tongue, etc., but is still a good person and is nice to people.
Friend #2
I have another friend that is a good person. He helps a lot of people in need; volunteers a lot; just a good person you can count on to help when you are in a pickle...but he very rarely goes to church (like maybe once a year) and if he does it is to sacrament meeting only. He has a testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored church but he basically feels like you can just be a good person and that is good enough.
Which is worse?
I ran into both of the individuals this week and so this morning I was thinking about them. I was thinking to myself "which of these friends are doing worse in the Lord's eyes?" I might have been doing a little unrighteous judging, but I'd like to think I was just trying to think of these individuals with love and how I might help them. I know that living the gospel can bring peace and happiness. I was also just trying to think about the situations in theory.
I'd be willing to bet (oh shoot! that isn't allowed😊) that if you were to pose the question of which friend is worse to the average LDS member they would conclude that Friend #1 is slightly worse because they are being deceptive, while the other is not. However, after pondering this for a long time this morning I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter in the sense that there is absolutely no reason to try to figure out which one is worse. We are all sinners and we can all do better.
I feel like words are failing me. This was an "aha!" moment for me, but now that I type it, it sounds more like a "duh!" moment to me.
I guess my point is as someone with a testimony of Jesus Christ, with an understand of the plan salvation, and a love for their fellowman, we should be doing all we can to help encourage one another (with the Spirit and in a helpful manner) to do a little better than we are doing now. Everyone has their agency, but I think if we really love these people we would do what we could to help. I would hope that throughout my life there are people around me that love me enough to give me some gentle nudges in course correction and that I am humble enough to receive this correction.
For both friends I want to seek to understand first, and then to be understood. They obviously feel like they are okay doing the things they are, and I obviously feel like they could do better, and again, I'd like to think that I want them to change because I love them and I know it will improve their life and their life to come.
In summary, have a pure heart, love others, do the best you can, and help others do the best they can.
This past winter I had a very distinct impression that I was supposed to become an EMT. If it wasn't
for this feeling I would never have done it because I knew how busy my life already was. But in the spring I started the 3 month EMT school. It was very intense and I learned a ton. I previously had little to no medical training. So it was interesting to reflect on past medical situations and realize what was actually happening and what I should have done.
I've been acting as a ride-a-long on the local ambulance and I have learned to appreciate what these EMTs sacrifice to help others in the area. It can take up a lot of time, but has been very rewarding. My wife and I have always dreamed of owning a charity and serving others in foreign lands, but we are still a few years away from being able to really take off and do those things, but I've realized that running with the ambulance is serving people too (EMS is all completely volunteer in our county) so this is like my interim charity work.
This week though I lost my first patient and it has been a little tough. She was college aged and worked for some friends of mine, although I'd never met her personally before meeting her on scene of her car accident. We called in a chopper and had her stabilized. Her injuries were internal so we weren't sure what all was wrong. But after being in the hospital for two days she had a brain herniation and they know she'll pass away.
I called my wife to tell her, because the news had made me sick to my stomach and I wanted someone to talk to. I asked her if she thinks that "I'll get used to this" and not be so affected with future similar cases, but then I started thinking "Do I want to get used to this?" On the one hand by separating myself will help me psychologically deal with things either, but on the other I don't think it is healthy to be so emotionally detached that things like these don't bother you. I guess only time will tell. I am comforted though to know that "it was her time to go" and "God is in control."
