Opening Insights: Can't Win
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
ALDOUS HUXLEY, ENDS AND MEANS
Prominent Canadian free speech advocate, clinical psychologist and bestselling author Jordan Peterson got a full dose of the American healthcare and recovery systems earlier this year. He was prescribed drugs to treat clinical depression from existing conditions which left him battling a severe addiction to the drugs.
The American healthcare system, which is highly influenced by pharmaceutical companies, nearly killed him repeatedly through misdiagnosis and through the prescribing of even more drugs to offset the reaction and damage cause by the principle treatment.
Peterson had to quit using the drugs he became addicted to but due to the nature of some pharmaceuticals if he was to simply stop using them it would have killed him. To receive the procedures and care he needed in order to medically detox from the prescription drugs, his family had to take him to another country, Russia, and enter into a medically induced coma while his body recovered from the physical addiction.
The socialized healthcare system in Canada and the failing healthcare system in the United States were both ill-equipped to deliver the care Peterson needed. In fact, healthcare has become the third leading cause of death in the US due to preventable medical errors.
Now, under the care of doctors, and while receiving treatment in a Serbian hospital, Peterson contracted COVID-19.
Failure after failure of medical systems and addiction recovery programs across the globe point to an inescapable reality: what we're doing isn't working. There has to be a better way.
Informational Insights: Failure, A Gateway to Change
The following article was published by National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc., "one of Canada’s largest news networks.” It was written by Tyler Dawson, "Alberta correspondent, National Post."
The controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has contracted COVID-19, his daughter told the Sun, a tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom.
“He’ll get better, but he’s definitely taken a step back and it’s just really unfortunate … it’s been a disaster,” Mikhaila Peterson told the newspaper.
Jordan Peterson, who skyrocketed to prominence over his protests regarding Bill C-16, which added gender identity to Canada’s human rights and Criminal Codes. He has long been a prominent speaker on YouTube, the bestselling author of the self-help book 12 Rules for Life and has been published extensively in the National Post.
Peterson dropped from public life earlier this year, travelling to Russia to seek treatment for reliance on benzodiazepines, a class of prescription drugs used commonly to treat anxiety and insomnia; the most common brands are Valium, Ativan and Xanax. Mikhaila Peterson had said he was using them to treat an autoimmune disorder and anxiety.
At the time the elder Peterson was flown out of country for treatment, Mikhaila Peterson told the National Post father was put in a medically induced coma because Russian doctors have “the guts to medically detox someone from benzodiazepines.”
Mikhaila Peterson said her dad caught COVID-19 in a Serbian hospital, where he’d been recovering from treatment, and had also caught pneumonia.
“He was put on a whole bunch of, kind of preemptively, he was put on anti-virals and things,” Mikhaila Peterson told the Sun. “I don’t know if that was necessary, because his symptoms weren’t that bad — he didn’t have a cough, he had a mild fever, but they just put him on everything.
“And so now we’ve had a step back in his recovery. Life is just not good, things are not good right now,” she said.
• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson
https://nationalpost.com/news/things-are-not-good-right-now-jordan-peterson-battling-covid-19-u-k-paper-reports
This article originally appeared on August 7, 2020 in THE NATIONAL POST: 'Things are not good right now': Jordan Peterson battling COVID-19 — U.K. report
Possibilities for Consideration: Fight for Our Lives
Jordan Peterson had to step away from A World Turned Upside Down to heal himself. Eventually he will return to the intensifying battle of resisting the systematic institutionalization and dumb-ing down of the world's population, but for now his battle is with broken systems of healing and recovery.
Peterson's story is shared because of his prominence, but what of those whose lives are torn apart every day as a result of these broken systems?
Learn more about Peterson's fight for his life:
https://nationalpost.com/en/news/jordan-petersons-year-of-absolute-hell-professor-forced-to-retreat-from-public-life-because-of-tranquilizer-addiction/wcm/41660c97-f35a-453e-878e-3cb24c331e6a/
Add Your Insight
Take a moment and examine…
- As you reviewed the material above, what stood out to you?
- What is the potential impact, economically and/or socially?
- What action is needed to stop or support this idea?
- You may want to consider whether you:
- want to be aware of,
- should become supportive of,
- would want to be active in this topic?
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Being willing is not enough; we must do.
LEONARDO DA VINCI