The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Thoughts, prayers and a queasy feeling
Some months ago, after some prior scene of masscasualty mayhem and bullet-riddled bodies, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof argued passionately and persuasively for addressing gun violence within the context of public health. He elaborated the nonpartisan commitment to reducing deaths in car crashes, and suggested we might do the same for bullets crashing into bodies.
I have taken a similar approach to the even far greater toll of profit-driven obesity and chronic disease, and done about as much good as Mr. Kristof. At least I am in good company. I am inclined, then, to do to his argument what I have done to my own: flip it around. We are, obviously, not going to treat guns as a public health imperative in America. So what if instead we treated every public health imperative like guns?
I’m not sure why, but what first comes to mind is the opening scene in the movie San Andreas, the daring helicopter rescue of a driver dangling in a car on a canyon wall, staring down at certain death. In the movie, of course, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and his crack crew risk their own lives to save the young woman in dramatic fashion. But the “let’s treat it like guns” version of the movie has them hovering well above the danger of the narrow canyon, and concentrating hard, if only for a moment. They send down thoughts and prayers, then fly away.
I worked for some years, as many physicians do early in their careers, as an emergency physician, so now I have that often-chaotic scene in mind. I am picturing, for instance, our radio station, where calls would come in from EMTs and paramedics. The call might be for status epilepticus (i.e., uncontrollable seizures); an acute stroke; a heart attack; or respiratory failure. We always issued initial instructions, while awaiting the patient’s arrival. I am picturing us just asking the EMTs to convey our thoughts and prayers to those on the scene, and calling it a day.
My thoughts turn to the beach, perhaps because that’s where I have situated my arguments about obesity. I see a swimmer flailing and desperate, caught up in a rip tide and the lethal combination of exhaustion and panic. The lifeguards — again including Dwayne Johnson for whatever reason — don’t get wet. They apply a bit more sunscreen, while sending out their thoughts and prayers.
You get the idea. If we treated other imperatives of modern epidemiology as we treat guns, we would have neither seat belts, nor polio vaccines, nor angioplasty balloons. We would not study ways of reducing harm, saving lives, or preventing injury. In fact, we would conduct no research at all; we would ban it. We would ignore the origins of unnecessary death and disability altogether, and make no effort to address them. We would think and pray, however.
So here we are. Our government has been unable and unwilling to address the shameful toll of gunrelated mortality since long before sinking to anything like its current depths. So obviously, no one should expect anything to change now. I’m sure Mr. Kristof doesn’t. I do not.
Accordingly, I am not bothering to propose any change in policies. I would simply like to suggest what we might think the next time our illustrious leaders send “thoughts and prayers” in the aftermath of eminently preventable carnage: “We are sending our cowardly capitulation and profitable pretense. We are thinking about this for about as long as it takes to tell you so, and then we will be thinking about something else. We are kicking the can up to a higher authority, totally secure in the knowledge that he — and yes, we know it’s a he! — will do nothing about it either. But not to worry — next time, and yes we certainly know there will be a next time, we will have more thoughts and prayers, because we never run out!”
That’s what I think about those thoughts and prayers. I don’t expect it to change a thing about guns and bullets and bodies blown asunder. But maybe a change in our collective understanding could spare us all the festering insult of feigned compassion. I invite you to join me in thinking about that.
Put another way, the next time prevaricating politicians dispense thoughts and prayers to a scene of bodies ripped apart by projectiles from semi-automatic weapons, it should induce projectile vomiting. In my case, it already has; that’s just what this is.