There were three seemingly unrelated stories in the news this week. A Miami Dolphin player was carried off the field on a stretcher, a NY Times article of a clinic outside Tijuana Mexico, and a school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. The common thread is the brain. Yes, that 2.6 to 3.1-pound organ that uses its 86 billion neurons to allow us to function as human beings.
While we normally value our brains, we seem willing to risk damage for financial or other rewards. In last Sunday’s game between the Dolphins and the Texans in Houston, a Dolphin player suffered a helmet-to-helmet collision with another player and had to be treated on the field for 12 minutes while the TV stations filled the time with commercials. The Miami Dolphins are no stranger to brain damage as their star quarterback has suffered several concussions and has missed part of the season.
In the NY Times article, there was the story of a van filled with U.S. Special Operations veterans crossing the Mexican border to receive treatment. They were seeking relief from the physical and emotional scarring they suffered as a result of their post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury symptoms. The treatment they sought is not available in the U.S. That treatment involves the unlikely use of a psychedelic extract from a West African shrub known as ibogaine which is followed by smoking the poison from a Sonoran desert toad.
As unlikely as it may seem, the treatment appears to work. A Stanford University follow-up of 30 veterans who were so treated, found a 90% improvement in their PTSD symptoms and depression and also noticed improvements in their cognitive performance and their ability to learn and remember.
There is not much to say about the Wisconsin school shooting as it is just another normal day in America. To quote President Biden, "From Newtown to Uvalde, Parkland to Madison, to so many other shootings that don't receive attention — it is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence." We only know that the shooter this time was a 15-year-old girl. One might reasonably assume she was suffering some emotional upset that triggered her deadly outburst. Decades of “thoughts and prayers” have failed us once again. Go figure.
On the playing field, those in peril are paid large sums of money to risk their most important organ for our viewing pleasure. On the battlefields and training fields, our soldiers are subjected to repeated brain injuries from the countless large artillery explosions and from rapid-fire smaller weaponry for little reward. For the thousands of soldiers who have to trek to Mexico for treatment for the damage they received fighting our government-directed battles, we should be ashamed. For the 50 million U.S. school children who must prepare to shelter and cower in place hoping to be saved from perhaps one of their own who “went over the edge” and also had access to a firearm, we too should be ashamed.
For those of us with still functioning brains, it should be clear that these are all problems that can be addressed. Perhaps some of our politicians should visit that clinic in Mexico. Who knows what benefits might be found in a little African tree bark and from smoking “some toad.” One Green Beret was quoted as saying that he saw tiny hummingbird elves that healed his body while the spirit of his grandmother flowed into his soul. The next day he said he had just slept well for the first time in years.
To quote the 1972 campaign slogan used by the United Negro College Fund, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Perhaps we should value this precious human commodity more highly. The problem may lie in the fact that those who might be able to take some action to “make America better,” don’t yet have the right financial incentive.
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