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podcast friday
Jan. 27th, 2023 09:37 amThis is a dark one, folks. Dementia is probably my biggest fear. I have no reason to fear it more than the average person, it's just the average person seems to fear it far less than they should, I guess. So. Trigger warning ahead if this is also the case for you.
Imagine, if you will, in your not-very-populous country, somewhere between 48 and several hundred people suddenly develop severe dementia. This is in the middle of another raging pandemic, by the way. The victims range in age but some of them are very young, including a previously university-bound teenager who loses the ability to read and speak. They all live relatively close to each other in geography and initially this is reported as a possible new disease (remember, this is happening during a pandemic) and a "cluster."
Okay. Here is where my privilege comes into it. Because I have the same cynical analysis as any other leftist with regards to government, public health authorities, and the media. I have absolutely seen all of these entities fail spectacularly to protect the lives and health of its citizenry. I am old enough to remember Walkerton and Mad Cow Disease. I know about the lack of clean drinking water on reserves. I know that they did starvation experiments on kidnapped Indigenous children in residential schools. I know that they let Black people die of syphilis just to see what would happen. I know all this.
But in my stupid privileged heart of hearts I would assume that if a photogenic white girl was one of (lowballing here) 48 people whose brains turned to Swiss cheese as a result of something that is linked to a particular region of the country and thus, presumably, environmental in nature, that politicians, public health, and the media would be scrambling to get the word out and get to the bottom of what caused it and how to stop it. I would expect people to be as terrified as I was hearing about it. I would imagine it would be a really big deal.
Instead, the story was buried and no one is talking about it. Except Canadaland. And for all the problems that one can have with Canadaland, this is an important story and they've been like a dog with a bone and are the only media organization to delve into the coverup and make sure that this story doesn't die.
Medical Lies From the Maritimes is the latest of several episodes that explore the coverup. You can also read about the documents they unearthed here. It's important listening because these probably-hundreds of people deserve justice, the water or shellfish or whatever is causing the dementia needs to be made safe. They still don't know why this happened and that means that it could still be happening and we'd never know. It's important listening because many people in New Brunswick's government should, at the very minimum, be in jail serving multiple life sentences for murdering their citizens and trying to cover it up.
But it's also important because I think a lot of us are still trusting the media to keep us informed about public health threats, and medical and government authorities to protect us from them. Maybe not when we put on our logic brains and think about it. But in our hearts. Everyone should know that when you come down with a weird mystery disease, be it this or long covid or if the prion disease in deers hops to humans at some point, the people in charge of fixing it don't know how. They'll maybe "research" it, if you're lucky. You can be put on a waiting list for a clinic, which will help you psychologically adjust to your new condition. But your new condition will not be treated or cured; you will live the rest of your life as a person that other people try very hard to not think about.
Anyway this is a powerful, horrifying episode. Consider it a vaccine of sorts—not against individual dementia, but the collective dementia of living through multiple apocalypses that no one seems to want to reckon with.
And don't fuckin' eat shellfish okay? We weren't meant to. My people were right about this.
Imagine, if you will, in your not-very-populous country, somewhere between 48 and several hundred people suddenly develop severe dementia. This is in the middle of another raging pandemic, by the way. The victims range in age but some of them are very young, including a previously university-bound teenager who loses the ability to read and speak. They all live relatively close to each other in geography and initially this is reported as a possible new disease (remember, this is happening during a pandemic) and a "cluster."
Okay. Here is where my privilege comes into it. Because I have the same cynical analysis as any other leftist with regards to government, public health authorities, and the media. I have absolutely seen all of these entities fail spectacularly to protect the lives and health of its citizenry. I am old enough to remember Walkerton and Mad Cow Disease. I know about the lack of clean drinking water on reserves. I know that they did starvation experiments on kidnapped Indigenous children in residential schools. I know that they let Black people die of syphilis just to see what would happen. I know all this.
But in my stupid privileged heart of hearts I would assume that if a photogenic white girl was one of (lowballing here) 48 people whose brains turned to Swiss cheese as a result of something that is linked to a particular region of the country and thus, presumably, environmental in nature, that politicians, public health, and the media would be scrambling to get the word out and get to the bottom of what caused it and how to stop it. I would expect people to be as terrified as I was hearing about it. I would imagine it would be a really big deal.
Instead, the story was buried and no one is talking about it. Except Canadaland. And for all the problems that one can have with Canadaland, this is an important story and they've been like a dog with a bone and are the only media organization to delve into the coverup and make sure that this story doesn't die.
Medical Lies From the Maritimes is the latest of several episodes that explore the coverup. You can also read about the documents they unearthed here. It's important listening because these probably-hundreds of people deserve justice, the water or shellfish or whatever is causing the dementia needs to be made safe. They still don't know why this happened and that means that it could still be happening and we'd never know. It's important listening because many people in New Brunswick's government should, at the very minimum, be in jail serving multiple life sentences for murdering their citizens and trying to cover it up.
But it's also important because I think a lot of us are still trusting the media to keep us informed about public health threats, and medical and government authorities to protect us from them. Maybe not when we put on our logic brains and think about it. But in our hearts. Everyone should know that when you come down with a weird mystery disease, be it this or long covid or if the prion disease in deers hops to humans at some point, the people in charge of fixing it don't know how. They'll maybe "research" it, if you're lucky. You can be put on a waiting list for a clinic, which will help you psychologically adjust to your new condition. But your new condition will not be treated or cured; you will live the rest of your life as a person that other people try very hard to not think about.
Anyway this is a powerful, horrifying episode. Consider it a vaccine of sorts—not against individual dementia, but the collective dementia of living through multiple apocalypses that no one seems to want to reckon with.
And don't fuckin' eat shellfish okay? We weren't meant to. My people were right about this.
