Manufacturing consent to normalized harm.
There was an NPR story written by a high risk disabled person’s spouse. I don’t recommend reading it. It starts out with “I was pregnant when I got covid” and right out of the gate the author minimizes covid while pregnant as “a mild case” when we know pregnancy is a high risk category itself.[1] Of course it’s written by the spouse of someone immunocompromised. The narratives in the media tend to focus on the great “burden” that is being the spouse or family member of someone ill or disabled, and the critique of this is acknowledged and lamented in this NPR piece! The fact that the author of the piece says that the immunocompromised partner has “recovered” from Long Covid does not put me at ease because I know all too well that disabled people are incentivized to find strategies to cope & hide problems so as not to inconvenience those around us or bring on resentments. Many humans feel compelled to hide illnesses even in the U.S. government,[2] much like cats.[3]
There will always be some “expert” willing to come forward and say the disabled person’s immediate physical danger should take a back seat to someone else’s “valid” expression of mild discomfort or a little FOMO. This is because fully engaging in The Economy is the default desirable state for the hoi polloi, and when that isn’t happening fully enough lots of industry oriented people notice it,[4] and the money out there promotes people who are willing to carry their messages.[5] There has been tons of money sloshing around since the very beginning of the pandemic from the fossil fuel[6] and travel[7] industries to push “back to normal” and stuff like the “get back out there engaging in the economy or you’re nuts” narratives.
It occurred to me that perhaps my sympathy for the partner of an op-ed writer is misplaced because there may be incentives undisclosed — we just don’t know. PR placement op-eds have been rampant for years,[8] after all. And a lot of the information landscape these days involves indirect and untraceable benefits.[9] There are also those who are willing to embrace “safety for me but not for thee”[10] too. So many people in the gig economy pivot easily between media roles and marketing.[11] Journalists, pundits, influencers, advertisers, artists and even neuroscientists selling wellness products, like Andrew Huberman.[12]
There have been doctors who advertised cigarettes as beneficial.[13] The neuropsychologist quoted in that NPR piece actually suggested the immunocompromised person should be, and this is a quote: “acquiescing to eating indoors sometimes” at restaurants as a compromise. Would this neuropsychologist also suggest that people should acquiesce to not using a condom sometimes with partners with HIV? Would anyone suggest that a smoking spouse should be allowed to smoke indoors around the baby sometimes as a compromise? Why does someone have to risk suffering or death just to go to a restaurant? And why would their spouse ever want a compromise that could needlessly leave them bereaved? Making sure it’s “science that is contributing to beliefs around covid precautions” should apply to the person saying “go get covid” to other people.
The real damaging and disturbing propaganda is characterizing avoiding illness as “fear of covid” when nobody would say that about cancer, second hand smoke, or about allowing a toddler to run loose near the edge of a cliff. If someone was pointing a gun you wouldn’t say you’re “dealing with fear of guns” after all.
Ironically, if the disabled person has a mental health issue, that is also expected to take a back seat to the able-bodied person’s discomfort. Minimizing the real threat as mere “fear of covid” that “truncates” going to concerts and restaurants, while simultaneously raising up the value of “mourning” of travel and big parties. It has internal logic when you realize it’s all just oriented toward prioritizing economic engagement. This cognitive tactic has a name, and it’s called woke-washing, and it’s a favourite of climate contrarians and covid deniers.[14]
Political abuse of psychiatry has repeatedly appeared in the pandemic.[15] The use of mental health as a weapon to gain compliance over people is entrenched in our society and in our healthcare system in the U.S. as exemplified and directly communicated in the shift from calling the field “mental health” which was supposed to be about relieving suffering, and changing it to “BEHAVIORAL HEALTH” — which denotes that the point is to get suffering patients, no matter what’s happening to them or how they feel about it, to BEHAVE the way they’re “supposed to” behave, to conform and comply with what those superior to them want, and so as not to inconvenience the other worker bees in their social network who also are expected to fully engage economically to keep the system propped up. The concept of Drapetomania was discredited — the “mental illness” attributed to Black people who wished to flee slavery before the Civil War in America.[16] But is this nonsense gone? The mental health field is financially, and often ideologically, oriented away from just treating the patient for an illness, and instead has the primary goal of getting the patient to comply with the economic system in the interests of the powerful and super rich.
And much of the rest of healthcare is oriented toward misdiagnosing physically debilitating ills that are not expeditiously and easily cured as “merely” psychological problems. So if you think they stop at mental health, think again. The stigma around mental health is very convenient this way. But the brain is a physical organ. There really is no difference between physical health and mental health unless you’re superstitious and believe in demons or the supernatural. The truth is that the people who want a compliant population toiling — to build for the wealth of “their betters” — don’t care about what is holding you back from “productivity” they just want to get rid of that problem expediently. The human cost doesn’t matter to the corporate bottom line and the ultra wealthy because ordinary people are ultimately replaceable objects to discard when deemed “broken” by those embracing the pseudoscience of eugenics and seeing us all as just breeding stock.[17]
People in positions of power may in some cases be required by law to maybe possibly consider removing pointless barriers if deemed “reasonable” accommodation. This is only possible because of political action in the past. And so the only way out of this is through — politics. Sadly too many of the “experts” and medical professionals view “getting political” as beneath them, and too many others are all too willing to take the money and say whatever awful thing some industry or politician wants them to say. That means ordinary people do need to fully engage — in politics.
American Journal of Public Health — LAW AND LEGISLATION — JAMES A. TOBEY, LL. B., DR. P. H. Pass the Parker Bill — 1928 (NIH.gov) Though the Parker Bill by the amendments lost a certain effectiveness, it is still a very important measure, especially in its provisions for allowing the detail of U. S. Public Health Service personnel to other government bureaus; in granting a commissioned status to sanitary engineers and other scientific personnel of the service; in providing for a Nurse Corps; and in setting up a national advisory health council. Sanitarians are still interested in this excellent measure and keenly desirous that it be passed now. If it is not, the bill must be reintroduced and passed all over again in the next Congress. It would be helpful if sanitarians would communicate with their United States Senators and Representatives regarding this important matter. Do it now.
References:
[1] Evidence mounts that Covid in pregnancy can cause health issues in babies Babies born to mothers who got Covid while pregnant had “unusually high rates” of respiratory issues, according to a new study. Jan. 25, 2024, 5:59 PM EST By Aria Bendix Just over four years since Covid emerged, it has become increasingly clear that infections in pregnant mothers can lead to serious health risks in infants. The latest finding: Babies born to mothers who had Covid during pregnancy had “unusually high rates” of respiratory distress at birth or shortly thereafter, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications. The authors defined respiratory distress as having at least two out of four symptoms: a slow breathing rate, pale or bluish skin, flaring nostrils or a retraction of the chest with each breath.
[2] Business Insider : Former GOP Senator James Inhofe retired because of long COVID symptoms. Other colleagues have it but keep it secret, he said. by Isobel van Hagen Feb 26, 2023 He said “five or six” other political colleagues have long COVID, “but I’m the only one who admits it.” Inhofe left office before the end of his term last February, and Senator Markwayne Mullin took his place. The 88-year-old repeatedly voted against COVID protections for Americans during his time in office. In March 2020, Inhofe voted against the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which broadly expanded benefits for those affected by the pandemic. In 2021, he also voted against the American Rescue Plan — which included a $1,400 stimulus check, improved vaccine distribution, and extended unemployment benefits. He did, however, vote in favor of the CARES Act — which offered a $1,200 stimulus check — and generally offered conflicting opinions on the pandemic during his time in office.
[3] Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences — When is your cat hiding illness or injury? — September 14, 2017 We do our best to take care of our feline friends, but sometimes signs of pain and sickness go unnoticed. Dr. Stacy Eckman, clinical assistant professor at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, described feline behavior that could mean a cat is hiding an illness, injury, or other underlying health issue. “Cats tend to hide their symptoms, which is probably due to survival instinct,” Eckman said. “Most signs of illness or injury are subtle, including sleeping more than normal; not getting up to greet you, if that is normal behavior; or laying and sleeping in the same position for long periods of time.” Other changes pet owners should be aware of include the cat withdrawing or being reluctant to be petted. Changes in litter box habits and vomiting can also indicate underlying issues.
[4] MarketWatch — People are ‘long social distancing’ due to COVID-19. Economists say that’s contributing to a drop in labor-force participation. By Zoe Han, December 2022 Knowing that COVID-19 has not gone away, some people are not yet prepared to let their guard down, according to a working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Some 13% of U.S. workers said they will continue social distancing as the economy opens up and cases fall, and another 45% said they will do so in limited ways. Only 42% said they plan a “complete return” to the activities they participated in before the pandemic. The study, titled “Long Social Distancing,” estimated that unwillingness among workers to be in close proximity to others — which in many cases is prudent, especially for those who have underlying conditions or elderly relatives — reduced labor participation by 2.5 percentage points in the first half of 2022 compared with what economists would normally expect to see. That translates to $250 billion in potential annual output, representing a drop of nearly 1 percentage point.
[6] CMD — How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid By Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch | December 22nd, 2021 Lockdown measures drove down cases in the U.S. and likely saved millions of lives globally. But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover. One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing. Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open. “We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” it read. A month later, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a business lobbying group partially funded by Koch Industries, published a letter calling on President Donald Trump to enable states to reopen.
[7] Tubb & Lang, Email Subject RE Red Dawn Rolling, April 2020: Managers wanted the CDC to help them avoid liability for worker safety. — Chloe Humbert — March 5, 2024 Richard Tubb is a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general who served as a White House physician in the past, and at that time worked for a Danish company specializing in disinfection, and appeared on CNBC Squawkbox on Valentine’s Day in 2020 to talk about the damage to the cruise ship industry already underway because of the SARS-COV-2 outbreaks.
[8] Toxic Sludge is Good for You, 2002 documentary “Currently according to some estimates, more than 50% of what we think is news is actually instigated by the public relations industry. PR professionals measure their success in terms of how well they can insert their clients’ messages into the continuous flow of news and information while their own activities remain out of view.”
[9] MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy — Thinker-Fest: Session 1 — Fireside Chat — How to Fix the “Splinternet” Mar 3, 2023 There are also indirect economic benefits. These are people that create content farms so for example there are businesses who are just invested in getting people to click regardless of what side. We see this a lot in the political sphere where you’ll have the same company creating extreme right-wing and extreme left-wing content with a goal to monetize the clicks and the revenues. And then you also see hidden benefits and this is where it gets a little tricky these are companies that benefit from the discourse in ways that are slightly removed. So for example the latest conspiracy theory of 2023 which is the “15-minute City” conspiracy which we can talk about that is, that gives a lot of benefit to oil. And that is being perpetuated by Big Oil influencers which I’m sad to say actually exist. And so that is something to look at, that all of these end consumers are being accessed, or being manipulated, by very specific economic agendas.
[10] Safety for me, but not for thee: CHOP’s Dr. David Rubin — Chloe Humbert · Apr 22, 2023 Doctor David Rubin himself directly contradicted the PolicyLab official public stance of promoting children spreading the virus in crowded classrooms while cases are high, when speaking of how he would behave to protect himself from crowded indoor situations — he would avoid such situations, he said.
[11] The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War by Mark Galeotti — Feb 2023 This may be the age of multinational corporations, mass social movements, and powerful governments, but a coincidence of technological, social, and political change means that it is also the age of the individual, and many of them are for hire. Suddenly the world is full of people who seem to be doing the work of states. Yet not as direct employees, nor even out of ideological commitment or patriotic passion. Journalists hired to write hit pieces. Scholars saying the right things for a grant. Think tanks producing recommendations to order. There may be no geopolitical equivalent of Uber yet, but lobbying, strategic communications — were I a cynic I would suggest this is what we call propaganda when we do it ourselves — and similar consultancy and service companies often act as the middlemen.
[12] McGill University — Office for Science and Society — Andrew Huberman Has Supplements on the Brain Neuroscience professor Andrew Huberman hosts one of the most popular science podcasts. So why does he love dietary supplements so much? Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. | 7 Apr 2023 Even though his podcast is firmly rooted in the masculine space of “body optimization” that has grabbed hold of large swaths of the tech sector, Huberman is a lot less “bro-ey” than his fellow influencers. There’s a real gentleness and care to his delivery. The packaging is less aggressive, but the content does not stray far from Silicon Valley’s love affair with the tweaking of healthy human biology. Right from the start, The Huberman Lab was sponsored by companies offering questionable products from the perspective of science-based medicine.
[13] Gardner, Martha & Brandt, Allan. (2006). “ The Doctors’ Choice Is America’s Choice”: The Physician in US Cigarette Advertisements, 1930–1953. American journal of public health. 96. 222–32. 10.2105/AJPH.2005.066654. In the 1930s and 1940s, smoking became the norm for both men and women in the United States, and a majority of physicians smoked. At the same time, there was rising public anxiety about the health risks of cigarette smoking. One strategic response of tobacco companies was to devise advertising referring directly to physicians.
[14] Anti-mask Woke-washing. The moral distortion of social justice. CHLOE HUMBERT AUG 31, 2023 Woke-washing is a divisive tactic and a cognitive attack of gaslighting1 where the perpetrator often employs disinformation and a tactic known as DARVO (deny, attack, and reverse victim / offender), in order to silence the targeted victim, or to attempt to delegitimize the target in the eyes of allies, peers, or others.
[15] Pandemic Political Abuse of Psychiatry by: Chloe Humbert 2022–05–09 This story where the school itself is calling for “Exposure Therapy” to force children back into school with no mitigations or protections to get covid looks like Political Abuse of Psychiatry. New York State Office of Mental Health is coaching people to view a potentially deadly disease the same as safe and fun activities like reading a book.
[16] PBS — “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” by Dr. Cartwright (in DeBow’s Review) DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES TO RUN AWAY. It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers… In noticing a disease not heretofore classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a new term to express it. The cause in the most of cases, that induces the negro to run away from service, is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule. With the advantages of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many negroes have of running away, can be almost entirely prevented, although the slaves be located on the borders of a free state, within a stone’s throw of the abolitionists.
[17] Eugenics as an ideology. Legal and political agendas have motivations to make semantic arguments that obscure eugenics and maybe that’s why we don’t have a separate word for eugenics as an ideological belief. CHLOE HUMBERT NOV 30, 2023 The point is to stop any intervention that would save people they think are “weak” or “undeserving” in some way as inappropriately countering the superior “nature” to do its thing. This includes resistance to all public health measures like masks, vaccines, food assistance, healthcare equity, or even disaster relief and universal education in public schools. Never mind that interventions are natural too, because humans do them, the same way birds build nests, but clearly people draw the line on “natural” wherever it’s convenient to their purpose.
