Inflammatory disorders, pain & chronic illnesses- Capitalism's impact on our bodies

Climate disasters, widespread depression & anxiety, COVID-19, increasing rates of chronic inflammatory diseases, pain & chronic illnesses in general— do we really think all these simultaneously escalating problems are distinct, unrelated issues occurring in their own vacuum, independent of each other? There is a common cause driving the chronic illnesses manifesting in human bodies and the ecological illnesses manifesting in the Earth’s body.

If the medicalized jargon & language of “diagnosis” has helped you make sense of your pain at some point, then the appropriate diagnosis for our collective maladies should be systemic, not individual.

The diagnosis (root pathology): Capitalism/ Colonialism

Let’s take a huge step back- what does “health” even mean? What do we need to be healthy? Have any of us ever truly been healthy in the fullest sense if most of us have never had the right to live under capitalism (never had guaranteed food, water, shelter, care)? What is considered “normal” & “abnormal” health in an exploitative, brutal society? People who conform, obey, fit in & assimilate are often considered “healthy”— but are they? Is it a badge of honor or a mark of “wellness” to be well-adjusted to this profoundly inequitable, oppressive, sick society?

Are modern medicine & science really objective, benevolent, humanitarian, innovative systems "saving lives"? Are these systems even designed to combat both worsening health outcomes and environmental crises?

For paid subscribers: The video above is a recording of a recent keynote I gave to student & community organizers at McGill University. I added a link to the powerpoint at the bottom of this newsletter. This is an introductory workshop (future ones will expand on it).

Workshop Title: Decolonizing Healing & Medicine, Re-imagining Community Care

Description: From mental health crises to COVID-19 and chronic illnesses-- capitalism/ colonialism are making us all sick in different ways and destroying the planet at large. We've been taught to think about our health & wellbeing in a vacuum. Our health is tied to the health of our community, the land, flora, fauna & every part of our ecosystems. We're part of nature, not separate from it. How do we address our distress through a political, collectivist lens and step away from individualistic, pathologizing, colonial, profit-driven models of "healing"? What do we need to truly be healthy and how can we build those networks of interdependence & mutual care? How can we take care of the land so it may care for us?

We deserve better care. The planet deserves better care.

There has been a wave of fascist state bills in the United States like those banning abortions or criminalizing any reproductive & gender-affirming care. In the aftermath- many times, doctors have been hailed as heroes in the frontlines of the fight for bodily autonomy. The reality of what medicine is designed to do, however, is a lot less rosy & heroic. Similarly, modern mental healthcare (from psychiatry to therapy) is often touted as a life-affirming answer to our distress or a more benevolent alternative to prisons & police. “Everyone should go to therapy” is a standard, common, supposedly radical, leftist take even though it doesn’t question the history & foundations of mainstream therapy. The “goal” of therapy just like the ultimate purpose of medicine is to get people back to work, not to heal us or free us. Many people spend years in therapy not being helped and their problems escalate because therapy can often be similar to colonial “re-education schools”. These systems are state tools of population control designed to uphold & maintain the status quo— the same status quo that is making us sick. Deep breath. Understanding exactly what these systems are allows us to engage with them critically while building & practicing alternatives to heal collectively.

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I’ve seen the damage on both sides— in the hospital, research lab & as a patient

I’ve been trained in academic medicine and research as a clinical microbiologist specializing in the diagnosis of infectious diseases. I’ve traversed these systems, interfaced with many specialties or parts of capitalist healthcare systems & learned about how they profit off of sickness. These systems have also destroyed my body & wrecked my health, rendering me a patient just like anyone else. These struggles have ignited a flame in me to dream BIGGER. What CAN medicine or science look like if they truly aimed to care for people by caring for every part of our ecosystems?

COVID-19 brought to the surface (or rather made more obvious) the consequences of the exploitative, oppressive systems that we live under. If we’ve never had systems that valued, preserved & sustained life, we cannot create them smack in the middle of a pandemic (which is an end-point manifestation of much deeper social diseases). Given that our health is directly tied to the health of the land & all the flora/ fauna/ microbes on it… how can we practice medicine in a way where human health is inseparable from ecosystem health? How can we take diverse approaches to healthcare that include spiritual, traditional, land-based practices & be aware of the limitations modern “evidence-based medicine”?

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Over-active immune & nervous systems— oppression causes inflammatory disorders

This collaborative work by Dr. Rupa Marya (an internal medicine doc, activist & musician) and Raj Patel (food sovereignty & environmental activist, academic, film-maker) uses inflammation as a case study to identify colonial capitalism as the root cause of all our pathologies.

Inflammation is the body’s natural immune response against harm, illness or distress. It is a defensive, critical, life-sustaining, necessary healing process. Disorders emerge when inflammation occurs repeatedly & chronically persists as our bodies constantly have to respond to ongoing, never-ending damage that occurs under oppressive systems.

Inflammatory disorders include a wide array of conditions- some have been more extensively named in mainstream medicine like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases including hypertension, autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or Crohn’s disease, endometriosis, asthma, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, liver diseases etc. Then there are other inflammatory diseases that are more shrouded in mystery as medicine has failed to understand them or adequately conceptualize them. These are loosely labeled under buckets like “chronic pain” or “chronic inflammation” or even categorized as mental illnesses which translates to “these conditions are clearly caused by complex sociopolitical factors that medicine cannot understand & is fundamentally unequipped to address”.