User:PalMD/sandboxAAPS

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is an American medical-legal advocacy group. Its website declares:


 * The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a non-partisan professional association of physicians in all types of practices and specialties across the country. Since 1943, AAPS has been dedicated to the highest ethical standards of the Oath of Hippocrates and to preserving the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine. Our motto, "omnia pro aegroto" means "all for the patient."

Acitivities
Many of these activities appear to violate their "Patient's Bill of Rights", which, among other things, states:
 * (the right) to refuse third-party interference in their medical care, and to be confident that their actions in seeking or declining medical care will not result in third-party-imposed penalties for patients or physicians


 * AAPS files lawsuit against FDA to overturn approval of "Plan B" morning after pill for over the counter use by women over 18
 * Fight against "Sham Peer Review": The AAPS recognizes "sham peer review" as an abusive use of such entities as hospital by-laws and disciplinary committees to exclude physicians for other-than legitimate or the explicitly-stated reasons.
 * Defense of a physician convicted of improper narcotic prescribing while operating a clinic to treat patients with chronic pain
 * Fighting mandatory vaccination
 * Fighting against mandated mental health parity, which is advocated by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Medical Association , the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
 * Promoting contracting between physicians and patients without government or insurance company involvement.
 * Fighting socialized and single-payer healthcare
 * Fighting to debunk "Shaken Baby Syndrome", and to link it to vaccines rather than abuse.
 * Advocating for so-called "Freedom of Conscience" to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill lawful prescriptions. This would appear to interfere with a patient's right "to refuse third party interference in their health care".
 * Fighting abortion, not simply through moral objection, but also by attempting to link abortion to unrelated health problems, including breast cancer
 * Advocating against the sale of organs for transplant
 * Advocating against organ donation in cases where brain death is unclear.
 * Advocating against withdrawal of care, as in the Terri Schiavo case, including misrepresenting the results of autopsy in the case.

Publications
The AAPS publishes the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JPandS), until 2003 called the Medical Sentinel. The journal considered a valid, peer-reviewed journal for inclusion in major scientific databases, and has been listed by Quackwatch and the World Health Organization as a source of concern.

Conflicts
According to their literature:

AAPS members believe this patient-physician relationship must be protected from all forms of third-party intervention.
 * The organization, a third party to the Schiavo case, interfered in the relationship between the patient's advocate and physicians, even helping to bring the power of the federal government to bear on a single medical case.
 * AAPS advocates for so-called "freedom of conscience" where patients are denied legal drugs, treatments, and information based on the morals of the provider rather than the patient.
 * AAPS views patient advance directives designed for dignity at the end-of-life as a financial plot to kill patients in order to save money.