Recently, the former US Vice President Biden, who has been announced by many mainstream media in the United States to win the presidential election, began to prepare candidates for his COVID-19 expert team. However, one of the epidemic prevention consultants who was selected by Biden into the expert group was exposed by Fox News in the United States and said that “people who live to 75 are not worth living anymore.” Fox also emphasized “Biden is 77 years old” in the subtitle of the report.
The controversial expert named Ezekiel Emanuel (Ezekiel Emanuel) is the chairman of the School of Medical Ethics and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and has served in a research institution under the US Department of Health. Mainstream media such as the US “Washington Post” stated that the reason why Biden chose these experts, including Emanuel, was to better respond to the epidemic.
It is worth mentioning that Emanuel once caused controversy in American society due to some of the suggestions made by former President Obama during the medical reform. Some media even gave him the nickname “Dr. Death”.
However, the pro-Trump Fox News Network discovered that Emanuel wrote a controversial sentence in a 2014 article entitled “Why I Want to Die at 75”: “For most of us As far as people are concerned, by the age of 75, there is not much left in people’s creativity, thinking vitality, and productivity.”
Subsequently, Fox News highlighted the fact in the next paragraph: Biden is 77 years old this year.
Because Trump and his supporters have been talking about Biden’s age, lack of energy in the campaign, and frequent verbal errors, this is “very good” to Emanuel’s judgment on the elderly. Therefore, this report by Fox was regarded by many American netizens as a “face” against Biden’s team.
In response to this report, the author read the original text of Emanuel. From the perspective of an observer, this report by Fox News has played a literal edge to a certain extent.
As the title of this article is “Why I Want to Die at the Age of 75,” Emanuel’s article is more about his own outlook on life. According to the general idea of the article, he believes that after the age of 75, all physical functions of a person will be degraded, leading to a great decline in the quality of life. Emanuel believes that it is also a kind of “lucky” to “pass away” before facing this state.
Perhaps knowing that this topic may cause a lot of controversy, Emanuel emphasized many times in the article that he talked more about his own “expectations”. As for how long he can live in the end, he should go with the flow.
Although Fox’s report is suspected of playing word games, for some American people with strong religious sentiments, the point of attack in this report is not actually a rumor. This part of netizens believes that the length of life depends on “God’s will”, and it is already an “offensive” to talk about this as a “mortal”.
In addition to religious sentiments, there are also several types of rebuttals against Emanuel. One commenter pointed out that even according to Emanuel’s original text, the so-called “died at 75” argument is based on aversion to the decline in living ability, but in real life, many severely ill people with disabilities are also suffering. Torture in similar situations.
The commenter, who emphasized that he had read the original text of Emmanuel, said that this article is “contempt” and “disrespect” for the disabled and other groups who have lost the ability to take care of themselves.
A medical student also disagrees with Emmanuel, who is also a medical expert, making a similar statement, believing that a utilitarian view of “life and death” is not in line with medical ethics.
In addition, after reviewing Emanuel’s speeches on other occasions, the author found that criticizing him now does not count as “innocent” him. For example, in 2019, the well-known media “MIT Technology Review” recorded a conversation between Emanuel and reporters.
In the dialogue, Emanuel once expressed disapproval of the practice of “using medical means to prolong life” and called this state of existence “meaningless.” “Even if you die, the world will still be fine. Even great men like Newton, Shakespeare and Euler will die,” Emanuel said in an interview.
Picture taken from “MIT Technology Review”
According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are currently more than 10 million confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in the United States. The vast majority of deaths are concentrated in the elderly infected. Patients who have not yet recovered and are still waiting for treatment There are already millions.
Picture taken from the official website of CDC
The Biden team once stated on the official website of the campaign that it would “meet the medical needs of the American people at all costs” and actively save lives. So, if Emanuel, who has previously said that he is seriously ill and “lives meaningless” without the ability to take care of himself, can he agree with the Biden team’s phrase “at no cost”, and how would he treat those who have lost the ability to live. Critically ill patients?
The picture is intercepted from the official website of the Biden campaign team about the governance concept of “fighting the epidemic”
