[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to disability empowerment now. I'm your host, Keith Mavidi Ghinsini. Welcome back to another special report. I'm joined by my very good friend kridz.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Hey, Keith. Good morning. It's great to be with you. How are you?
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Good.
So this will become a regular segment on the show, apart from the show because it's the times we live in and we cannot avoid talking about politics. I wish we could. This originally was envisioned as a political podcast, political video cats.
But the issues we all face are way too important not to talk about. So the listener and the viewer that doesn't know who you are.
Who are you kids?
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Great question. Who am I? Well, my name is Chris Desbro. I have an. I have both a bachelor's and master's from Arizona state school of social work here in Arizona. Living in Tucson. I do work in politics. I work for a member of the city council, Paul Cunningham, city of Tucson, Ward 2. But it's important to note that today we're doing this on a Saturday. I'm representing myself and me alone. I'm not representing the council member. I'm not representing the office. I'm not representing the city. It's me and me alone. I represent me, myself and I. And all views, thoughts and opinions are that of me and me alone. They should not and do not reflect the opinions of the city of Tucson or council member Paul Cunningham. They have their own mechanisms to speak for themselves. I am speaking for myself today, but as a blind member of the workforce. And I also have hearing loss. So I have combined vision and hearing loss. To your point that you touched on right at the open of there, Keith, we've got a lot to talk about because there's a lot going on in the country today when it comes to politics that could have drastic and dire effects on our community, people with disabilities. And it's not just, oh, it's a blind thing, it's a deaf thing, it's everybody thing. It's going to affect everybody in the disabled community and even people not in the disabled community. So there's a lot to touch on and a lot to get into today.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: And today we're talking ably so about health care.
O f k junior was confirmed as the health and human secretary.
Yeah.
And there's a lot to get into there. I forwarded you an article not too long ago that laid out his broad scope of what he wants to do and he's releasing statements about autism.
He's a noted anti vaxxer despite getting all of his Kids vaccinated.
He wants to look at the possible harmful effects of hsi, selective serotonin inhibitors, also known as most antidepressants.
And there's so much more, and we're only a month in to this new administration.
Kritz, what do you got to add to that?
[00:05:23] Speaker A: There's a lot to add and you touched on some, some really important things there. Kids.
I think what's alarming, and I'll double back on something that I said last time we met momentarily, but I think what's alarming is his approach when it comes to, you know, people who may be experiencing challenges, challenges in their life and may need to use an antidepressant to just kind of help them navigate stuff. It's very concerning.
What the Secretary for Health and Human Services wants to do is basically get rid of all those antidepressants, get everybody who's on antidepressants and put them into welfare farms is what they're being called. Personally, I would call them something else. Just go back in history and, and look at what those.
That idea was called back in the 30s and 40s, but he wants to put everybody into these welfare farms to basically have them detox off these antidepressants, have them work for free and have them dig a little deeper because they'll end up being better people for it. Now, I know doctor, right? I'm a social worker. I have a bachelor's and master's in social work. I. I'm no doctor. But what I don't mind disclosing is I use a low grade antidepressant. No problem. What I do know from my doctor and from other doctors is when you decide the time is right alongside a medical doctor that you want to reduce and come off your antidepressant, it has to be done gradually, it has to be done slowly, and it has to be overseen by a doctor because coming off these things called turkey is as difficult or even harder than coming off a hard drug like heroin or cocaine.
So the side effects of coming off a drug just cold turkey with no medical supervision is incredibly, incredibly concerning. And if I were to look at this and go a bit deeper, if I were to, say, apply it to me, I work full time, I work 40, 45 hours a week. I'm on an antidepressant. If you want to take me off an antidepressant and put me in a wellness farm and have me work for nothing, you're taking me who, someone who is earning money, someone who is contributing through my, you know, payroll deductions and taxes into the economy. You want to take me out of that job, not have me work to then go into this wellness farm to get well under supervision. That doesn't make any sense. And more the point from a litigation standpoint, if you start, and I'm no lawyer, I'm only guessing and I'm only doing this through a lens of social work, common sense. But if you take me out of the workforce, you put me into one of these wellness farms, you take me off a drug, off an antidepressant that is harder to get off than say heroin.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Say something were to happen, say all of a sudden I can't cope the withdrawals so bad, I end up taking my own life to me and I know nothing. Surely there's a lawsuit waiting to happen against the federal government and anybody else who participated. So when you just look at it just at that level, it's like, you know what? Good luck making that happen. And then if you look at the political level of it, which I also look at, it's a case of who runs Congress, it's all the special interests, it's big pharma, it's these multi billion trillion dollar companies. If you turn around and basically say, right, RFK Jr. Is banning all these anti, these SSRs and SSRIs and all this other stuff, you turn around and ban them, that's then going to leave a gaping hole in the finances of the pharmaceutical companies. And you honestly think Donald J. Trump is going to want to go up against the pharmaceutical companies and the special interest it puts in directly head on. So you look at this and although, and this goes back to a point I made when we met last week, don't react to start with, but you know, and wait and see what the actual actions are. It's easier said than done because when I read the article and read the statements about what RFK Jr. Was looking at doing, I totally reacted. But then I sat there and then I calmed down and I just applied a common sense filter through this argument, through these points which I've just articulated. And I'm sitting there now and it's like, you know what? Good luck trying to make that happen.
Try and make that work. It's not going to work, but have fun trying to make it because I cannot see how the federal government and the political, political lobbyists and the billion dollar pharmaceutical companies will allow this to happen. So good luck trying.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah. It's important to note that mental health and mental illness particularly should not be conveyed as a perceived personal Failing.
No one chooses mental illness. No one. It's. And to see that you can send people to wellness farms or whatever, the catchphrases and take away their screens and just have them work off their mental illness and their perceived personal feelings. It's so wrongheaded and absolutely absurd that it boggles the mind trying to rap one said around it. You're right, it's not going to work. They're not gonna get anywhere close to it working.
And I mean, you brought up. You just have to look at history.
You don't even have to go back a hundred years, years, a century to see how Vids woods tried, how eugenics was tried, how it failed spectacularly, how it is a stain not just on Germany, but on the United States, who tried to implement eugenic health measures before the Nazis did, and it didn't work.
It was.
That got way too out of control.
And I mean, not even a century ago. Not even a full century ago.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. And to your point, you're absolutely right. And I just want to touch back on what you were saying about this. You know, stigmatizing those who may be having challenges psychologically, you know, mental illness and stuff. There should never be a stigma around that. You don't choose to end up battling with issues surrounding your mental health. It's not a conscious choice. You don't make a choice to do that. And what. You could also make the point when it comes to RFK Jr. For example. And if I were to apply a social work lens to this, you could turn around and make the point that RFK Jr. Could be having traumatic.
Could be having issues with his own personal trauma because of everything that's happened with his family and the tragedy surrounding his uncle and his father and everything that we all know about the Kennedy family. So the likelihood is he is suffering from a form of mental illness when it comes to unresolved trauma and the fact that he isn't able to even recognize his own, potentially recognize his own trauma, but once then put other people through increased trauma, it just boggles the mind.
I really can't understand it. There's no logical lens of reason that you can apply to this for it to make sense. If someone could articulate and put together a sound argument and reason as to why this makes sense, I'm prepared to listen to that argument with an open mind. But so far I can see no rationale behind what RFK Jr is suggesting at all. And there's no one has been able to put forth a logical rational argument as to why it's a good idea. So, you know, if they can't even articulate it other than, oh, it's a nice slogan. Let's make America healthy again.
That's, it's a lovely catchphrase. Well done. But that's all it is.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: It's better than make America great again.
I mean it. Because, look, we live in a society that is both uber obsessed with health and uber obsessed with food.
I mean, but healthy looks different for everyone. It's not about trying to re parent the person so that they can get over their perceived failing with little hard work, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and moxie. It just doesn't work. There is no common sense in this plan. And I mean, it's from a rep.
I kind of wish it was from the Onion of the examiner or the Inquirer. I mean, then it would be flat out funny until, I mean, good job, Good job. You really nailed the humor of the situation. Could you imagine if they were really proposing that? But the assertion that antidepressants are addictive drugs and getting off them, it's worth getting off heroin, it's so beyond anything.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: It's. I know. And when, when, for example, I know someone who uses an antidepressant not because they're depressed, but because the doctor recommended it to them as because of the how it's made and what's in it and all this kind of stuff, it actually is quite good for some people to help them sleep. And it's a less abrasive way than using the controlled substance, like a, you know, a proper sleeping pill or something. It's a way of not having someone use one of those. So what now happens? Say, for example. Yeah, they may pull a list and your name's on that list. Oh, you're on this antidepressant. Off you go, pull your bootstraps up, give up work. You're going to, you know, dig a little deeper and you'll become normal again.
If you're taking them because your doctor prescribed it, because it's going to help you sleep.
Where do we go with that? It's one of these things in which we, this administration has come up with all these ideas, all these ideas, and we're going to executive order our way all the way through everything. Yeah, but there's no thought behind it.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: No, no, you're right. And Trump is trying and so far succeeding at bypassing Congress.
Even though the Republicans control both houses of Congress, he would rather just rely on executive ordered that his team writes for him and that he doesn't view before. It's just like, yeah, I mean, elite people know what, at least the term healthy is more definable than the term great.
So Make America healthy again is a great slogan, but if there's nothing to back that up, then absurd ideas like this one are claiming falsely that antidepressants are very addictive, are not adorable.
It's not controlled speed.
Most antidepressants affect your sex drive in a negative sense. I don't know anyone, anyone who looks or hears a side effect like, like that and says, you know what, that sounds great, sign me up for that.
It moats weight gain, mood changes. I mean, the lid goes on and on and on. Yeah, it's addictive.
Controlled substances can be addictive.
Edge, edge. All eyes are not addictive.
Certainly not in the way he thinks they are.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Exactly. And I think what's important here as well is, you know, going back to the great marketing slogan of let's Make America Health Union, the concept isn't a bad concept, not a bad concept at all. Because when you look at death rate, obesity rate, and all the other stuff that, you know, we, we know about, look at where we as a country and a population set when it comes to our obesity and death rate through heart disease, diabetes, all this other stuff, we're pretty high up that ladder. So to make America healthy again is a great concept. Getting rid of some of the crap that we put in our food that the FDA does here, but the rest of the world bans is not a bad idea. That's fine. But come on, man, let's, let's, let's put a little bit of common sense, let's get a bit of thought behind the slogan and what we want to do before turning around an executive ordering all this, all this rubbish and go, yeah, well, I've written executive order, just, oh, Look, I've written 300 executive order. That's fantastic. It just shows you're good at signing your name.
The ideas, some of the ideas are find no thought put into this. And until there's a little bit more thought and until there is a willingness from people making these decisions to pump the brakes and actually engage with the scientific community when it comes to this and take the advice from the people who do this for a living, who have studied it at college, who know what they're doing, pump the brakes and take the advice. And then, and only then, can you make an informed decision as to the best way to move forward. But until that stage, pump the brakes, calm down, and get a brain.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we were talking offline over the phone and you brought up a very interesting point that RFK is useful and he's just in the wrong job.
It's like, I mean, you said he's a passionate environmentalist, only she's more passionate about the environment than health care. I mean, it's like he's more pageant and he more qualified to do that job. I mean it.
And no one heads it out for rfk.
I mean, it's like everyone had skeletons in their closet. It's what he's proposing, what he wants to do. His definition of health and how one gets there is the issue RFK Jr. Personally, no problem with as a person. It's what he represents and what he wants to do to all of us.
That is the systemic problem here.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: And that's, that's a really, really good point. And to RFK Jr. You know, yeah, as we, you know, discussed offline on the phone, he would be much better off when it comes to environmental issues because he cares about that and he knows he has a pretty good knowledge behind him. So put him there. He's now in Health and Human Services and he's an anti vaxxer. And to your comments at the top, he's an anti vaxxer that had his kids vaccinated. And it's a case of if you're an anti vaxxer, that's your choice. You have your own right and own choice to decide if you want to be vaccinated against anything or not.
That's fine, but don't force that one viewpoint on the masses. Give people choice. It is my choice. If I choose to get vaccinated, it's not up to the government to choose for me. It's up to me to make that decision. And what we see with this is what the government tried to do when it came to abortion access for females. They decided it was right to get in between a decision that is made between a woman and her doctor and ultimately falls down on the woman to make. They felt it was right to get in between that. Fortunately, when he got sent back to the states, there were plenty of states like here in Arizona, said, hell no, you don't have that right to choose. It should and must always be a woman's right to choose done. It's embedded in the state constitution now. But there's a pattern in which government thinks they can interject into medical decisions that only I have a right to make based on the guidance of a healthcare professional, not based on the opinion of a guy who's running Health and Human Services, who is better placed to be running the Department of the Department of Environment.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Yeah, he would be great there. It would also be great if he had any, Any medical knowledge, any medical doctorate, any medical degree. He had none.
None. And it's like, I knew he would get confirmed.
I just didn't know how people would confirm him. I mean, there should be at the gold standards, a doctor or someone in the medical community should be in that form.
That. Yeah, that should that to be common sense.
It's like.
And I, I mean, it's such a weight, because I'm sure he has a lot of talent in the areas he's passionate about. And I'm not trying to say he's not passionate about health care, making Americans healthy again, he just doesn't have the qualifications.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: And to that point, you're 110% right on that one. And it would also appear, at least from what I've been able to observe, and if I'm wrong, I'm happy to come back on here and go, yeah, I was completely wrong. But it would appear that he has reluctance, unwillingness to want to engage or take the advice of those who are qualified and do know what they're talking about. And that is incredibly alarming, because if.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: You are a leader, not only is it incredibly alarming. Crits. Sorry to interrupt.
It's also extremely dangerous as well.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Absolutely. And it is dangerous. And if you're a leader, a good leader will surround yourself. A good leader will know what they know and will know what they don't know. And a good leader will then plug the knowledge gaps that that leader has and fill themselves and surround themselves with people who know stuff far more than the leader knows. And then you defer to the experts in the room. Okay, tell me what you think. Give me the pros and cons. But it would appear there is no desire to want to do that. There's no desire to want to listen to the experts. And it's quite simple. It's quite easy these days. We can go online and we can find any research from anywhere that will support our point of view, what we need to support. So he can, he can go, oh, well, here's this survey and this survey which basically contradict everything else, but that's easy.
And, you know, as much as he can find that that will contradict mainstream science, we can go online and find stuff that will contradict the alternative science that he wishes to settle. So it's just, we're just Going back into a world, we're just going back into chaos again. And we need to be sure that we're very alert, we pay attention, but to also exercise strong boundaries that we don't get. We don't allow the chaos to impact us every single second of the day because if we allow it to impact us every breathing second that we're awake, we're not going to survive the next four years. We'll all end up with heart attacks, high blood pressure and death.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Yeah, alternative science is like alternative facts.
It's.
I mean, comedy's a great tool.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: There are yet, and I'll never dispute that, but there we have to be vigilant. As much as we don't react to every flood, state or red herring, these people, the heads of agencies, are in very real positions to radically affect people's lives and the savages they get or don't get. And so it's walking a balance, almost like walking a tightrope of.
You don't react to everything because to go off your point, you can and stay healthy and stay objective, but always have in the back of your mind this vigilance of staying on top of things and issues that really matter to you and your community and your friends and family. Family.
It's very critical to do that. And there is self care. Self care is going to become all the more important over the next four years as a survival technique, because we're gonna need a way to survive.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: Absolutely. And it's interesting that you use that word self care because certainly for those of us who are social workers or anybody who's in what is known as the helping profession, you know, social worker, therapists, all that kind of stuff. We talk a lot about how important it is to exercise good self care and to keep very strong internal boundaries. And self care is the key to being able to survive the four years. But I just want to just touch, very briefly, we were talking about RFK and all that kind of stuff.
If he wants to turn around and blow up the health care system, blow up the health care system. But what I would say is this.
I'm a big believer in, you know, natural remedies in. In, you know, vitamins and supplements and stuff. I'd like to hear if you want to go ahead. If he wants to go ahead and, you know, do stuff, let's find a way that natural medicine can coexist and complement, you know, regular medicine and vice versa. Let's not. Let's not just turn around and trash everything and go, yeah, well, you don't do that. And we'll go back to the days of Queen Victoria, because, you know, I'm originally from England and it was a case of back in Victoria time, Victorian times, into the 30s and 40s. It was a case of keep a stiff British upper lip, pull yourself together. It's not depression, man. You know, pull your bootstraps up, put your head down, get on with it. Yeah, that's sarcaic. It's outdated. It didn't work then and it's not going to vote, it's not going to work now.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: It's not only archaic, it's completely unrealistic. And it always had been into stuffing, trauma, depression or whatever, down, down, down, down, ignoring it. Because if you just ignore something, it will eventually go away.
And that's the valency with emotion.
Because all they want to do is to be heard and understood. And if you try to put them down, push them away, all they're going to do is get louder and louder and louder until they are heard.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: No, absolutely.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: I want to thank you for coming back on this episode, this reoccurring segment of Disability Empowerment Now, Krins, I hope you will join me for episode three three or part three or whatever comes next.
I'd love to, because you're a wealth of knowledge, my friend, and we need more people like you speaking out on these very important issues and I'm sure that will touch on health care again very, very soon. Chris, thank you so much for coming back.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Thanks for having me, Keith. It was great to be with you.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: You have been listening to Disability Empowerment Now. I would like to thank my guests. You are listener and the Disability Empowerment team that made this episode possible.
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