‘Conspiracy theories’ on Covid-19 come from BRAIN DAMAGE? Questionable science is being used to pathologize real dissent
‘Conspiracy theorists’ who refuse to wear masks and embrace lockdowns are the victims of their own scientific illiteracy, which has fundamentally damaged their brains to such an extent that they cannot understand the science of Covid-19, claims neurologist Bruce Miller from the University of California, San Francisco, in a paper published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Miller leverages his formidable credentials – he’s both director of the Memory and Aging Center and co-director of the Global Brain Health Institute at UCSF – to legitimize a baseless and frankly dangerous theory that could potentially be used to lock those same “conspiracy theorists” away in psychiatric facilities indefinitely. His questionable paper takes the pathologization of dissent even a step further than recent bogus “anti-maskers are sociopaths” studies, to a very dark, totalitarian place – ironically, the exact same endpoint feared by the conspiracy theorists he so glibly patronizes.
Dissent = brain damage?
Miller equates “anti-mask behavior,”
“anti-vaccine beliefs,” and “conspiracy theories about the origins of
Covid-19” with “denial of science,” blaming the whole package on low levels of
science literacy rooted in poor-quality education. While the quality of US
science education is certainly dismal, Miller’s reductionist viewpoint leaves
no room for the many intelligent, educated people who hold these views. His
area of expertise may be in delusional disorders, but writing off informed
dissent as delusion born of ignorance is, well, ignorant and delusional.
It’s not that Miller himself isn’t a scientist – indeed, it’s his prestigious credentials that make him all the more dangerous, as the same scientific illiteracy he complains about makes people much more likely to be duped by his tactical deployment of neurological jargon. However, like most specialists, his expertise in neurology doesn’t necessarily translate to a deep understanding of politics. Or respiratory diseases, for that matter - he pooh-poohed the dirt-cheap malaria drug hydroxychloroquine despite scores of studies upholding its effectiveness in treating Covid-19, apparently believing every last one of them was conducted by delusional quacks (unlike, presumably, those that say it doesn't work).
But what about the conspiracy theories?
There are
dozensmore, though most relate to other respiratory viruses and mask-wearing. Some have
been
mysteriously deleted
for being “no longer relevant in our current climate” – a chillingly Orwellian
explanation that has nothing to do with science and everything to do with
control.
And vaccine hesitancy? Vaccine frontrunner Moderna claims
its jab is 95 percent effective, but the company has not released the results
of its latest clinical trials – and the last time it did, the
data revealed
that all participants who got two shots of the highest dose experienced side
effects, many of them severe. Even with the Pfizer jab, there are reasons for
caution, especially with the UK Labour Party preemptively calling for blanket
censorship of all “anti-vaccine” content. The
last time
the UK rushed a vaccine to market in the middle of a much-hyped “pandemic,”
thousands of people were permanently injured, and some died. Meanwhile, UK
Health Secretary Matt Hancock refuses to rule out making the jab mandatory,
and several countries have floated making it a requirement for travel. Sound
kosher?
More than just public shaming
Miller’s paper goes one step
beyond the usual establishment sneering, however. Tracing the origin of
“conspiracy theories” to an organic brain defect reeks of the Soviet
weaponization of psychiatry, a dark chapter in history that seems – if papers
like this and another recent “study” out of Brazil are any indication – poised
to repeat itself. During the 1960s and 1970s, the USSR weaponized psychiatry
to institutionalize political dissidents, diagnosing them with mental illness
– because after all, one would have to be crazy not to embrace communism! –
and locking them away. The practice served to neutralize the targeted
individual, marginalize others who shared his opinions, and terrify the rest
of the population into keeping their doubts about the system to themselves.
The parallels to 2020 are impossible to ignore. If Miller’s scientifically
baseless theory that belief in conspiracies represents an organic brain defect
is embraced by the medical establishment (and there’s no reason to suspect it
won’t be), dissidents could find themselves locked up indefinitely as
incurable “cases.” Those who dismiss such a possibility need only look at the
comparatively recent removal of homosexuality from the DSM-IV psychiatric
manual. Many of the mindsets we now take for granted have been pathologized,
and many which were once seen as normal (“oppositional defiant disorder,”
“attention deficit disorder”) were created only recently.
Countries are also changing their laws to make it easier to institutionalize
targets. One of the changes to UK law rammed through in its emergency
legislation package reduced the number of medical professionals signing off on
the decision to “section” (institutionalize) an individual from two to one.
And now, American doctors are licking their lips at the possibility of
sidelining those troublesome conspiracy theorists once and for all.
Are these the behaviors of governments that have nothing to hide?
How long will it even be permitted to ask such a question?
Source:
rt.com
Comments