Annikki
Senior Member
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- 146
The show on HBO called, "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver," aired a 22 minute segment on the problem of how bias against female patients has led to women being refused medical treatment:
For those of you who've read, "Doing Harm," by Maya Dusenbery, you'll notice he used material directly from her book. He didn't mention ME/CFS, nor did he discuss "contested diseases." He did make it very clear that there is a serious problem with implicit bias towards female and African American patients.
His show has made a huge dent getting attention to our plight. That Youtube video of his segment has 5 million views. Because of that show, more mainstream news journals, including the Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine are discussing the problem of biased, negligent doctors.
My only problem is that he never mentioned that most of his material came from Maya Dusenbery's book. Also, most of the articles about his show cite him as the source of it, and not Maya Dusenbery. This also means anyone who saw this isn't likely buy the book, and thus read the chapter on ME.
One way to handle it would be to write the journals which has done articles about Oliver's show and tell them that"Doing Harm" is the original source. Or I'd recommend posting comments on articles about Oliver's show that inform readers that "Doing Harm," is not only the source of the material but worth reading in it's own right. Maybe mention ME, too. Still, I'm very glad he did this. It means it will put the plight of ME patients in the spotlight. I've been eager to see discussion about ME go viral. Hopefully it will.
For those of you who've read, "Doing Harm," by Maya Dusenbery, you'll notice he used material directly from her book. He didn't mention ME/CFS, nor did he discuss "contested diseases." He did make it very clear that there is a serious problem with implicit bias towards female and African American patients.
His show has made a huge dent getting attention to our plight. That Youtube video of his segment has 5 million views. Because of that show, more mainstream news journals, including the Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine are discussing the problem of biased, negligent doctors.
My only problem is that he never mentioned that most of his material came from Maya Dusenbery's book. Also, most of the articles about his show cite him as the source of it, and not Maya Dusenbery. This also means anyone who saw this isn't likely buy the book, and thus read the chapter on ME.
One way to handle it would be to write the journals which has done articles about Oliver's show and tell them that"Doing Harm" is the original source. Or I'd recommend posting comments on articles about Oliver's show that inform readers that "Doing Harm," is not only the source of the material but worth reading in it's own right. Maybe mention ME, too. Still, I'm very glad he did this. It means it will put the plight of ME patients in the spotlight. I've been eager to see discussion about ME go viral. Hopefully it will.
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