02/14/2025
Make American Healthy Again?
It's tough to know what to do with our new administration's Make America Healthy Again. I tried very hard to read it with an unbaised mind, and there is much in common with initiatives I support. More emphasis on health promotion and less on medications - check. Less influence from pharma - check. More attention to prevention - check. At the same time there are some worrying under-currents, like how much they seem to see the problem as too many diagnoses and too much treatment rather than seeing the underlying mental health problems as something to address. It is also hard to ignore the Olympic-levels of hypocrisy that can be present in our current leaders. Yes, pharma ties for a psychiatrist is a conflict but so is financial gain from suing vaccine manufacturers.
Always the optimist, I guess I hope that groups like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry show a willingness to play ball and help this group by guiding them about real science-based policy. There could be some actual common ground here. However, should the initiative prove to be a total sham to push through radical political ideology under a thin veil of fake science, we'll need to oppose this will all the strength we have.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.
