In this video Jordan Peterson says the following:
Do you know that it is now illegal for physicians to list starvation as the cause of death for a Venezuelan child in a hospital. That's how they're dealing with the fact of starvation. You just make it illegal to have that diagnosed as your cause of death. That'll solve the problem.
I know Venezuela is in an economic crisis at the moment, and starvation is a serious problem. It's reported all over the place. What I couldn't find was exactly an answer to whether the government made it illegal for physicians to list starvation as a cause of death for a child.
I find a Reddit question asking the same thing, where there is a link to a New York times article which includes I think two relevant parts:
The Venezuelan government has tried to cover up the extent of the crisis by enforcing a near-total blackout of health statistics, and by creating a culture in which doctors are often afraid to register cases and deaths that may be associated with the government’s failures.
and
Doctors are censored in hospitals, too, often warned not to include malnutrition in children’s medical records.
“In some public hospitals, the clinical diagnosis of malnutrition has been prohibited,” Dr. Huníades Urbina said.
But doctors interviewed by The Times at nine of the 21 public hospitals said that they had kept at least some count. They encountered nearly 2,800 cases of child malnutrition in the last year alone, with starving children regularly brought to emergency rooms. Nearly 400 of the children died, the doctors said.
The reporting from this article suggests that physicians may be discouraged, or maybe feel threatened to officially list such a cause of death, however I don't think it answers the question of whether it was made illegal.
In an Irish Times article I found the following of relevance when talking about two infants:
But in the case of Kenyerber and Kleiver, a rare situation occurred for Venezuela: Severe malnutrition was listed as a cause of death on their death certificates.
Dec 19, 2017
Is what Jordan Peterson said correct? Is it possible to find out given the Venezuelan government's secrecy about this topic. It seems from the information I've read that in at least two cases severe malnutrition was listed as a cause of death for children, and the rest of the information says that in certain hospitals physicians are either censored from reporting the true cause of death, or are in fear of doing so. But I feel this is different from saying that the government made it illegal, which is what I take Jordan Peterson to be saying.
