Disabled need help living, not help dying

AS NEW HAMPSHIRE considers legalizing assisted suicide, also referred to as medical aid in dying (MAID), I would like to draw attention to the potential impacts this bill could have on disabled and other marginalized residents.

I was 19 years old the second time I attempted to die by suicide. I had just been diagnosed with a chronic but not life-threatening illness, I had rapidly lost about 70% of my hearing in the middle of completing a music degree, and I was struggling with untreated anorexia that was taking a serious toll on my health.

At my intake appointment with a new therapist a few days after my attempt, I explained my situation and the hopelessness I was feeling. She nodded along, then looked me in the eyes and said something I will never forget:

“I would probably kill myself if I were you.”

She wasn’t the first person to say this to me as I started becoming more noticeably disabled, but she was probably the last person I expected to do so. Now that I work in disability policy, nothing surprises me. I hear stories from other disabled people about doctors pressuring them to sign DNRs because they are assumed to have a low quality of life due to their disability. I get messages on social media from people asking me how to advocate for appropriate pain management when their doctors don’t believe the amount of pain they’re in. I pore over story after story of people like Michael Hickson and Tinslee Lewis having treatment withdrawn, withheld, or threatened because of the pervasive view that it’s better to be dead than disabled.

Jules Good: Disabled need help living, not help dying

The Failed Serotonin Theory of Depression: A Marxist Analysis

By Carlos L. Garrido – Sep 9, 2022

A recent study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry sent shockwaves across the scientific community and popular outlets as it disproved the predominant “serotonin hypothesis” of depression. In just two weeks since its publication it has been accessed by nearly half a million people and the subject of dozens of subsequent articles. The researchers analyzed a total of seventeen systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and other large studies focused on the following six tenets pertinent to the “serotonin hypothesis” of depression:

The Failed Serotonin Theory of Depression: A Marxist Analysis

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea): Full Text of Kim Jong Un Speech On Nuclear Weapons Policy

We are pleased to present to our readers a very significant policy speech given by Kim Jong Un, the General Secretary of the Korean Workers Party and President of State Affairs. In this speech, he clearly warns the United States that he and his government are prepared to defend the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, known in the US as “North Korea”), including the use of nuclear weapons if the DPRK is faced with an invasion from the USA, the South Korean puppet regime of the US, or both.

The context of the speech is important. As we wrote in the previous article to this one, the United States has engaged in decades of deadly provocations against the Korean workers state in the form of constant “war games” in preparation for initiating an attempt to overthrow the DPRK and restore capitalist exploitation to North Korea. However, in the past several years, the United States has started to openly proclaim its intention to “decapitate” the leadership of the DPRK in a massive attack from South Korea which may include the use of nuclear weapons to destroy the defensive underground bunkers which the workers of the DPRK constructed to survive the massive bombing campaign the US launched against them in the Korean War, killing an estimated 3 million North Koreans. In response, North Korea has – in spite of crushing US sanctions that have caused immense suffering for the workers of the DPRK – embarked on a crash program to develop a nuclear arsenal capable of defending their country. We wholeheartedly agree with this heroic attempt by North Korea to defend itself from the psychotic warmongers of the US imperialist capitalist class and their murderous gangster regime in Washington. The US government is the #1 terrorist threat in the world today! Defend the DPRK! End All Sanctions Against the DPRK Immediately! US Out of the Korean Peninsula Now!

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea): Full Text of Kim Jong Un Speech On Nuclear Weapons Policy

Rat Out Your Doctor: Biden’s Surgeon General Calls on Informants to Report Use of Generic Drugs

Rat Out Your Doctor: Biden’s Surgeon General Calls on Informants to Report Use of Generic Drugs

The purpose of the RFI is described as being to help the authorities understand the effect of pandemic “misinformation” on such areas as “health decisions and outcomes, direct and indirect costs, trust in the healthcare system and providers, and healthcare worker morale and safety. It is also intended to help them ascertain its impact on “access to trusted and credible health information, particularly during a public health emergency” and on “lifesaving health decisions such as an individual’s likelihood to vaccinate, and to “prepare for and respond to future public health crises.”

The RFI, which covers a period extending from January 2020 to the present, applies to general search engines, content sharing platforms, social media platforms, e-commerce platforms, crowd-sourced platforms, and instant messaging systems, and includes “research, case studies, data sets, images, data visualizations, interviews, and personal testimonies.”