Another fat woman left to die. The shade of Kitty Genovese haunts this tale of contagious indifference, and so do the the lesser known tales of women who have died while ambulence workers mocked and refused to care for the women in their charge: Tyra Hunter and Sandra Teague 
 
Sandra Teague: 
 
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/06/mysterious-case-of-men-strickened-by.html 
 
"Angry John Teague has claimed that ambulance paramedics left his wife to die after joking that she was TOO FAT to lift. Mr Teague, 58, alleges that the ambulance crew sneered that they would need a fire crew to lift seventeen-and-a-half stone [244 pounds] Sandra Teague, 52..." 
 
Tyra Hunter: 
 
http://www.gpac.org/archive/news/notitle.html?cmd=view&archive=news&msgnum=0050 
 
"Tyra was knocked out by the crash, but by the time the firemen arrived, she was conscious but dazed, and developing airway trouble from teeth knocked into her mouth. Tyra looked female at first glance, but in their initial injury assessment, a fireman discovered Ty's male genitals, uttered the epithets ("This ain't no bitch. It's a nigger. He's got a dick and balls"), and ceased treating her. They failed to clear her airway for some period of time while they laughed at her as the crowd yelled at them to get to work." 
 
I am a genetic woman who does not color her hair or shave her armpits. Tyra was more womanly than I. I weigh more than Sandra Teague. Sandra lived in a nation with NHS.  
 
We need an NHS, desperately, and remember that we will have to be vigilant that such a system be based on science and compassion. In the UK, folks are being denied hip and knee surgery because they are "too fat" and these notions are not based on science but fatphobia. http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/05/our-future.html 
 
Here in the US, the "obesity epidemic" is a moral panic. I am often surprised by how readily otherwise skeptical readers accept the pronouncements of a corporate media when it comes to fatness, i.e., ANY deviance from a genetic rarity (BMI of 20 or so). And we are willing to sacrifice children to this panic. For their own good, of course. http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/06/doctors-forced-into-becoming-lifestyle.html 
 
Bigotry is a human failing, it does not respect national boundaries. And it is contagious. Fortunately, so is compassion. And we are "genetically hardwired" for compassion as much as for following the pack. So I have hope.

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