Page 46 - IMCJ April 2020
P. 46
BACKTALK
Thinning the Herd
Bill Benda, MD, Associate Editor
I had been thinking about composing this particular tipping point, and she now finds it to be time, in stock
piece for over a decade, and was going to entitle it “The market terms, for a “correction.” Nothing necessarily new
Editorial I Never Had the Courage to Write.” But I simply - it’s happened before, usually in the form of a plague of
never found the courage to write it. However, Covid-19 some kind, but as there are more of us she is going to be a
has changed this, as it has changed so many once politically bit more aggressive.
correct behaviors, and likely will change many more Anyway, that is my theory. Humanity is simply
before it is done with us. Today is April 5th, and our another herd to be thinned from time to time, and this is
current situation is likely quite different now then it will be one such time. Presumably this will not be at the meteor/
when you are reading this. As I type, New York is dinosaur level, at least not yet, perhaps because Mother
recruiting medical students and dermatologists to help in Nature actually possesses some strange affection for us,
overflowing and understaffed emergency departments and hopes we might see the error of our arrogant ways and
and intensive care units, and here in South Florida we are manage to make better choices (personally, I am not as
watching the viral tide hit our now-deserted beaches like a hopeful, but I am merely a pathogen without the wisdom
tsunami. I have a clear view of the front lines, and things of eternity to draw from).
are not looking good. The question is, will we ever come to accept the truth
Our hospital beds are pretty much empty, as all about our place on this planet? Deprived of our frontal
elective surgeries and procedures have been cancelled, cortex and opposable thumbs, we become slow, clumsy,
except for the ICUs, which are packed with patients on or hair and toothless creatures who can’t see in the dark; in
soon to be on ventilators. The latest news is that a husband other words, food. Other animals are far more intrinsically
and his wife of 53 years just died six minutes apart, and the intelligent. “In a world older and more complete than
saddest part of this whole thing is that people have to die ours,” says Henry Beston, “they move finished and
alone, as families are not allowed in, nurses cannot stay to complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost
hold a hand, and there is not even an uncovered human or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.” We
face to see for the final time. It’s a mess. are only at the top of the chain because we have created
So what on earth is going on here? How is our technology, but technology is not part of Nature’s plan. If
advanced medical system, our technology, our renowned it was, she would have created it.
computational capacity failing us? So we are a part of Nature; she is not a part of us. We
I think I know, and here is where political correctness have become spoiled, recalcitrant children, used to getting
heads out the window. We find ourselves here because we our way through bullying the planet and its creatures. But
humans, not Corona or Clostridia or Cholera, are the bullies stop when someone larger stands up to them.
actual pathogens on this planet. We propagate Enter Corona.
uncontrollably and exponentially, injecting our industrial Here is how I imagine a conversation between humans
genetic code into our host to force creation of more of our and Mother Nature went about six months ago:
kind, stripping away vital organs and connective matrix,
and leaving nothing behind but our toxic waste. I’m sorry Humans: “Yeah, well whatever. We’re in charge now.
to say it, but we have met the virus, and it is us. What are you going to do about it?”
You see, we weren’t in Mother Nature’s plan, at least
not like this. She spent billions of years perfecting her Mother Nature: “Here, hold my beer . . .”
balance of life and death, often cruel, but infallible in her
symbiosis of predator and prey, growth and decay. She
even tolerated us for a few million years, as long as we
followed her rules. But a few millennia ago we ate from
the tree of technological knowledge, and began to force
our own flawed intentions and desires into her master
plan. She let us play god for a while, as long as she could
continue to process our waste and regenerate her
atmosphere. But the past hundred years or so became the
44 Integrative Medicine • Vol. 19, No. 2 • April 2020 Benda—BackTalk