Dear Allan,

Have you been able to not wear a mask inside a medical facility? I have to take my son in for a routine physical at [Name of Big Name West Coast HMO Redacted], and I do not want to be forced to wear a mask!

Any way around this? We have a legal right to be seen by a doctor. I seriously get anxiety now if I am forced to wear one.

Thanks for any suggestions.

— Mother Of Two 

——

We are in a different stage in the game. It is not 1992 anymore.

If you believe in freedom, HMO's are probably out of the question at this point.

Dropping by the doctor because of sniffles is probably out of the question too.

Getting the doctor to give your child antibiotics for a common cold, just so you feel better about having gone to the doctor, is probably out of the question, as well.

The last one I threw in there to drive home what a different time we are in. Of course, you would not do such a thing, but you really need to consider not doing any of the other things either. Thirty years ago, you might have taken antibiotics for the flu without having thought twice about it, because trust the white coat.

Today Is A Different Story 

Today is a different story. Today, around 80% of the people I speak to have a home pharmacy stocked with black market prescriptions and can practically defend a dissertation on the proper off-label use of pharmaceuticals and supplements. Three years ago, that was not the case.

Backwoods medicine is back.

That is the medicine that the overwhelming majority of human history was filled with — Local botanicals, tried and true remedies, and giving birth at home.

Nothing about that equation was developed in 18 months and rushed to market. More like 1,800 years. Nothing newfangled about that method, which is exactly what you want when you are dealing with something as steady as the human body — time tested and trusty remedies.

The Professionalizing Of Medicine 

Sometime, less than a century or so ago, humanity generally began to move away from that view of medicine and allowed it to become professionalized. Healing had long been a field set apart, but the professionalization of the field was a whole new extreme. Young men who attended lectures on the topic of medicine and who read occasional scientific journals were deemed more prepared than the old woman who lived down the way who learned by actually practicing this stuff hands on.