Rape and other sexual assault idiocy

[Aggie]

And yet ... there must  be options beyond yanking everyone from class who can't perform to [normal] expectations, and expecting their unlucky-in-the-genetics-lottery parents to bear the entire financial, emotional, and physical burden. I don't know what those options are, though.

In my high school, we had a special education learning centre and teachers to work with the students who couldn't comfortably perform up to [normal] standards.  AFAIK, those students were taught through the usual 5 years of high school, and graduated with special ed diplomas.  The class held students with a wide range of capabilities, but seemed to work well enough (lots of 1 on 1).  They were able to go to school with everyone else and mingle with the student body, but didn't need to have attention diverted to them in a general classroom setting.

Gifted students at my school, OTOH, were booooored.  We just plotted mayhem and destruction from the back row of Physics class.  

[Opsa]

Zono, you did not offend me. I agree with you that some people over-protect their children, and run the risk of having them ill-prepared for the cold, cruel world. I know some people like this, but it's their kids, and they'll probably fight through it sooner or later.

In my case, I felt that th'Olette needed a more positive first year in school. Since then she has had teachers that have been everything from brilliant to helpless, but I wouldn't pull her out, now. She understands that that's how it goes. I was concerned that if she had to relate her whole school experience to this one teacher, it might be discouraging for her. I went and visited the class many times ( as volunteer class helper), and I saw how this teacher was, and I too was impressed by how unapologetically awful she seemed to be, even with a parent in the room. She was unnecessarily rough, barked orders, complained about administration out loud to herself (with the kids there), and was unpleasant all around. It was when she suggested that the kindergarteners use a horse hypodermic needle to punch holes in the holiday ornaments they were making that I knew I had to get my kid the heck out of there.  I wasn't going to leave my five year old with someone of such questionable judgement. (I did step in and offer to punch the holes for them, using a ballpoint pen, which worked just fine.)

The principal didn't believe me when I told her about that incident, even though I was right there when it happened. She said that the teacher was fine and maybe there was something wrong with my kid. She said that no-one else had complained about this teacher. I found out later that many had complained about her. The system could not fire her, so it defended her.

[pieces o nine]

...
The system could not fire her, so it defended her.

And yet ... there are many stories about the system figuring out a way to fire "good" tenured teachers who run afoul of the wroing good ole boy.   

[Swatopluk]

Not exactly on topic, just 'sex-related'
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/658903/u.s._gov._secretly_infected_thousands_of_guatemalans_with_stds/
In these cases there is not even the Tuskegee excuse that the doctors were just lying to the guinea pigs while not personally infecting them.
Can't say I am actually surprised. The US track record on things like that has been abysmal for ages. To be sarcastic: where was the need to import and shield nazi scientists that conducted lethal experiments on KZ inmates? There obviously was a more than sufficient supply in-land.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Old news in the complete sense of the term, the case is frequently mentioned with the similar abuses done to african americans in the US some years earlier IIRC.

There is no such thing as The Good Guys^TM 

[Opsa]

It's really weird that any of those projects were allowed to go forward. Where was the objector?

In contrast, I wonder how much of this sort of carp gets sidelined and we never hear about it?

[Swatopluk]

I only noted after posting that this special case got out last October.
I have encountered people in discussion that excuse Tuskegee with "Hey it was not US that infected them (we just made use of the fact)". That would not work in this case (except for the Cheneys of this world that would say "Hey, those were not US citizens and thus don't count').

[Aggie]

Third-world drug trials are still a reality and unfortunately common, AFAIK.  To do a double-blind study on a disease-burdened population, you need to leave part of the study group untreated.  It's a catch-22 - if the treatment works, you've allowed the disease to propagate in the other half, and if it has grave side effects, you've spared half but harmed the other half. You may be sure deaths and disabling side-effects are well buried when the overall result is not favourable.   

When the studies are focused on prevention of disease transmission, as with AIDS trials, it's a morally tenuous position.  It's likely for the greater good, but you need to find a population that is not using effective modes of prevention (condoms, for example) to run the study, and their participation in the study may give them the false impression that they are being protected to some degree.  Testing may lead to effective modes of prevention, but there already exist methods that would work if some of the cultural and religious barriers could be removed (thankfully, there is work going into that side of things, as well). 

[Swatopluk]

There is still a bit of a moral difference between drug testing, not treating people while pretending to do so and actually infecting them without their knowledge (and then treating or not treating them). All of these can be criminal and/or loathsome but there is a sliding scale of evil.

[Aggie]

Yes, these days they really do try for sensible evil, compared to the senseless evil of the past.  Sometimes the outcomes are similar, though, and a big part of the reason these tests are being carried out overseas is that they wouldn't fly at home (@US pharmaceutical industry).

The domestic strategy, I should think, is to use alternate methods of cranking up the nation's anxiety levels. The market for treating anxiety disorders in the US is $46 billion dollars per year....  if the pharmaceutical industry isn't actively working to increase that market, they are stupid (if they are, they are evil). If say, $100,000,000 was spent annually across the industry to increase that market by only 2%, they'd be getting better than a 900% return on their money. $100,000,000 buys a lot of influence with media and government, I suspect.  The money is being sucked more or less out of government, especially if the US ever gets decent health care in place, and out of businesses and wage-earners in form of the rising cost of health care benefits/insurance.

[Griffin NoName]

I heard of a drug trial which showed such positive results half way through that they stopped the trial and treated the control group. Unfortunately can't remember any other details.

Re. cranking up anxiety, people get anxious about whether they should take medication to reduce anxiety

[anthrobabe]

Great reply's.
No offense taken with any of them.
I too am on the fence-- we can not coddle children but I feel there are some who are so profoundly disabled (or criminally disruptive) that they can not main stream-- maybe if the teachers were not overwhelmed it would help in that all the children would be exposed (not a good word but ?) to all types of people and learn that the world is so much bigger than 'my family'-- and interaction is wonderful for ALL children.
I had several college class mates with a great deal of physical limitations due to cerebral palsy but to me they were just other students and luckily for me now my friends.

And as to the gov't tricking and infecting. Well they are bastards.