(Brownstone)—In today’s open access to information, any amateur can stuff any claim with enough sweetened pie charts and cherry statistics to make any ideology appear appetizing. Truth has always been hard to come by, but nowadays is obscured by the relatively even ability of anyone with WiFi to pontificate publicly. And then, a pandemic. When the stakes are high, lives are on the line, and suddenly the blase allowance of conflicting ideas becomes a liability. People will die without accuracy.
And so, as legitimate fear seeks the comfort of direction, a new way of talking about medical information appears. Attach a prefix, dis- or mis-, and good ideas shall trump the bad. In a utopian world where absolute truth is decipherable, we are surely obliged to separate fact from fiction. But in a corruptible world, it’s worth remembering that medical patients (though not psychiatric ones) are encouraged to seek a second opinion in matters of life and death.
Human beings, no matter how credentialed, are fallible participants in the mysteries of life, and doctors institutionalized with narrow sets of knowledge can therefore make errors of judgment. Not because they’re evil, but because they’re limited. All of us, and our certainties, are subject to revision.
Given that, the question becomes, who is certain enough of their knowledge that they may damn medical information in prefixes for us all?
Major online content platforms have an answer. They defer to institutions authorized by government bodies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. These elite bodies of experts provide sets of standards that demarcate medical truth from falsity, which a hodgepodge of third-party fact-checking organizations then rely upon to hunt down bad information across the web.
Now, in the old days, censorship meant blacklisting (which still happens), but in an internet age where liabilities for unfairness are more visible to the public square, online companies more often engage in a soft censorship—allow the dissenter to speak, but lessen the chances they’ll be heard. As Facebook puts it, “Each time a fact-checker rates a piece of content as false, Facebook significantly reduces the content’s distribution so that fewer people see it…and we show strong warning labels and notifications to people who still come across it, try to share it or already have.”
Perhaps you believe that demoting bad medical information during a pandemic is a necessary strategy for saving lives. Surely there’s a compassionate case to be made that the common good is more sacrosanct than an individual’s liberty to vibrate their vocal cords in whatever contortions they want, wherever they want, no matter the ruin. The trouble is, new powers of authority rarely contain themselves. Instead, incrementally, they parasitize new territories.
So I was unfortunately unsurprised to see the New York Times—paper of record—publish an opinion piece titled “Joe Rogan is a Drop in the Ocean of Misinformation.” The authors, who worked on the imperiously–named Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges, insist we are living in a manipulated marketplace where specious cures for anything and everything find their way far too easily into ailing bodies. Their solution: the soft censorship of not just pandemic unorthodoxy, but bad information across all medical fields.
We must, they propose, regulate flows of information to ensure that whatever medical advice we encounter online is best for us. Of course, they fail to mention who will lead that discernment, but we can hazard a guess they’d prefer a cosmopolitan run–of–the–mill MD over your village witch, a psychiatrist over their client.
Let us apply these authors’ suggestions to mental health, now that the field has graduated in the public eye into a bonafide hard science worthy of the designation “medical.” How might the downgrading of dissent in mental health impact accessibility to knowledge?
Imagine a Facebook group called “Coming Off Antipsychotics,” thousands of members strong. A commenter claims antipsychotics cause brain damage, maybe coaches another member restrained by a court order on how to quit taking them without getting caught. Now imagine that group in the censorious crosshairs of fact-checkers following standards set by major psychiatric institutions.
Indeed, to a profession that regularly uses coercion and force to keep clients medicated, any information that’s dissuasive against treatment is hazardous. This is why, for instance, a peer support worker in a conventional setting might be eagerly invited to share their recovery process when it follows protocol, but discouraged when it includes non–non-compliance: Saying “I got better when I accepted my illness, went to group, and found the right med” is much preferred by the authorities to “I got better when I ditched Haldol, took up kratom and weed, hooked into poker night at the local bar and joined a cult that worships Bastet the ancient cat Goddess.”
I fear a public health approach to so-called mental illness in the internet age will soon entail demoting online talk of violating treatment. To get rolling, all that’s needed is one incident wherein a member of that aforementioned Facebook group quits medications and acts dangerously in public view, for force–supporting organizations lie in wait ready to capitalize on the public’s fear.
And let’s be honest, when prefixes land on mental health information, they’re going to tag alternative modalities like Reiki, claims against the damage of shock, unconventional theories of causation, criticism of diagnoses as bogus constructs, folksy herbal cures, and so on. Never mind that my own saving grace has been the renegade psychiatric survivor movement, wherein I’ve met others who speak on their own terms, who’ve helped me clarify mine, who’ve never read me through a hospital note but asked that I narrate my reality instead.
“Health misinformation,” such as the kind that challenges psychiatric orthodoxy, “is a serious threat to public health,” proclaims the US Surgeon General. “It can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people’s health, and undermine public health efforts. Limiting the spread of health misinformation is a moral and civic imperative that will require a whole-of-society effort.”
“Limiting the spread.” Apparently, misinformation is now a virus capable of inoculating vulnerable hosts with discursive toxins that “undermine” public health. The task upon us is “moral,” and we do our “civic” duty when ensuring people accept that doctor knows best.
For what it’s worth, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, welcomes prefixes on bad information. As Joseph Bernstein notes in his illuminating article, “Bad News: Selling the Story of Disinformation,” these companies’ bottom line, always cash, is not threatened by framing the problem as one of information itself. Such myopia ensures the trust-busters, who could use anti-monopoly powers to weaken social media’s sway, instead stay at bay, while allowing propaganda-producing algorithms to remain obscure to regulation and consumer control.
More importantly, it strategically obfuscates the structural reasons why people gravitate towards bad information—their economic lives are ruined, their communities have fallen apart, their religions are disintegrating, healthcare is bankrupting their families, drugs are destroying their neighbors, and their traditions are losing meaning. In the midst of such politically-induced rot, people quite reasonably distrust institutions and their sneering spokespeople who lied to them about WMDs, the 2008 financial crisis, the return of good jobs, the addictive nature of opioids, and on and on it goes.
So let me end with an anecdote—the mark of unscientific knowledge—for I’ve tasted my own flavor of rot: that of my body, decaying in autoimmune disease. When my spine was so bitten that I could no longer bend over to pull up socks, I too did something crazy (as pain will have you do). I sat down at my computer, googled “Ankylosing Spondylitis natural pain relief,” and through a series of meandering clicks, headed ever further into an unguarded dungeon where risky potions lie. Eat poop? Get bitten by the Mexican bark scorpion?
Nah, I settled on an industrial solvent, a purely chemical byproduct from large-scale wood manufacturing. Even though the product’s intended use as a skin applicant was deemed dangerous by credentialed sources, I went further. I popped open the cap, recalled my halcyon days with Mr Jack Daniel’s, flipped my head back and gulped down a bitter shot. Like everything else, authorized or not, it didn’t take away the pain. But I felt a tingling sense of pride, maybe a little free. The Surgeon General would’ve been horrified.
About the Author
Steven Morgan has worked in mental health peer support since 2005. Beginning in 2013, he worked for seven years with Intentional Peer Support as an international trainer and Operations Manager.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.
