How to Deal with Our Current ‘Death Spiral,’ Session 3

Special Topics in One World or None

*The Zoom Link for today’s live session is far below.

In 2025, we are closer than ever to a precipice of human disaster. The extreme dangers of nuclear, biological, and space warfare continue to escalate, while global climate destruction is no longer a distant concern but an immediate reality. And the risk of global pandemics is more urgent than ever, while scientists developing artificial intelligence have raised alarms about the dangers of their own creations, much like the atomic scientists of the past. In addition, we currently have a “leader” who took over the longest continuous democracy in the world—and an inspiration for the rest of the world—and destroyed it in 100 days.

Even if our world avoids the worst outcomes, humanity must urgently unite its knowledge, expertise, and resources to address these supreme dangers. We can no longer wait for the next World War to prompt the creation of a new, life-affirming World Order. In the past, atomic scientists led the charge. Now, scientists and healers of the human mind must step forward.

There is precedent. I consider myself immensely fortunate to have met the late Dr. Bernard Lown, a renowned Harvard cardiologist who invented the defibrillator. In 1980, at the height of the Cold War, he decided that, as medical professionals, he and his colleagues had to act urgently to prevent nuclear disaster. He felt the need to get the message out that no medical care would be of use after a nuclear war, since nearly all advanced life forms would have perished. In response, he founded Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and later the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which grew to 135,000 members in sixty countries within five years and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. A few years before his passing in 2021, he gifted me a copy of his book, which I have cherished since: Prescription for Survival: A Doctor’s Journey to End Nuclear Madness.

Hence began the idea of a “Prescription for Survival” series, and in the past two sessions, we went over the World Mental Health Coalition’s original “Prescription for Survival” during the Covid-19 pandemic, “Prescription for Democracy’s Survival” after the U.S. Capitol attack, and “Prescription for Survival 2022” as global wars restarted. Now, we unveil:

PRESCRIPTION FOR SURVIVAL 2025

When the World Mental Health Coalition issued our first “Prescription For Survival” five years ago, the Covid crisis was just beginning, and we immediately realized that the dangerously mentally-disturbed President of the United States was unqualified, unfit, and unable to deal with it properly and scientifically. A few years before, we had become nationally known when we collectively, under the leadership of Dr. Bandy X. Lee, published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. That book became an instant New York Times bestseller and propelled the issue of the President’s psychological dangerousness to be the number one topic of national conversation.

Our national and global situation in 2025 is now far more ominous, and yet a dangerously mentally-impaired person has once again attained Presidential powers and is vigorously pursuing destructive policies whose ramifications will prove disastrous if not blocked and reversed. Now we urgently speak up again not for political reasons, but as Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts who are uniquely positioned with the knowledge, experience, and ethical obligation to educate and warn society in order to protect public health.

PANDEMIC THREATS. There is a real and serious possibility of another pandemic that could even be far worse. And yet, unbelievably, Donald Trump has ordered major funding and personnel cuts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—the three primary institutions that monitor viruses and prepare to deal with and minimize pandemic spread. Trump has even ordered the U.S. to terminate all connections with the World Health Organization (WHO), further declaring that all U.S. government officials must cease to have any contact with that crucial organization.

CLIMATE DESTRUCTION. The climate crisis is accelerating. The extreme weather experienced worldwide—the unprecedented ocean temperatures, the more frequent and intense extreme weather events, the rapid rise in sea levels, and the increasingly ominous warnings from scientists—are all manifestations of this dire situation. Yet, unbelievably, Donald Trump has ordered that the U.S. withdraw from the critical Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 and has also ordered substantial cuts, and in some cases closures, of U.S. agencies dedicated to dealing with the climate destruction already taking place, literally before our eyes.

WORLD WAR DANGERS. International agreements to curtail the development and deployment of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, treaties, and procedures for disarmament that should have been urgently enhanced and expanded, are instead being systematically dismantled. The dangers of some form of either slowly expanding or explosive World War III, which in some countries is already underway in proxy form, are extremely serious. Psychologically, we have been conditioned to accept the casual use of the term “World War III” and the extraordinarily dangerous actual preparations to fight and “win” such a war. Politically, we are ill-equipped to deal with the dangerous psychology of Donald Trump, which will always be attracted to violence, war, and even nuclear war, regardless of his public statements.

THREE PRESCRIPTIONS – FOR IMMEDIATE USE

· The U.S. must immediately rejoin the World Health Organization. All employees of the CDC, NIH, and HHS, especially those who were working on infectious diseases and pandemic containment, must be immediately brought back, and any additionally required funding and personnel must be implemented without delay, along with increases in university research grants pertaining to pandemic prevention and containment, as well as vaccine development.

· The U.S. must immediately rejoin and help reinvigorate the Paris Climate Agreement and pursue, on an emergency basis with all international bodies and institutions, everything possible to minimize further climate destruction.

· The fact that the official establishment Doomsday Clock now counts down in seconds rather than in minutes, as it always had before 2020, should be understood as an urgent and unprecedented call to action that these crucial issues be immediately dealt with scientifically—or the metaphorical stroke of Midnight may be unavoidable. We must realize that the current President is in such a mentally-troubled state, that he cannot be allowed to make crucial decisions without constant and substantial oversight. Through one means or another, he should be subjected to a fully independent and verifiable, comprehensive mental health evaluation, for which there are standard, well-established guidelines.

We must repeat, remind, and emphasize that we Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts are not speaking up for political reasons. From the beginning, with our initial Ethics Conference at Yale School of Medicine that resulted in our bestselling book later that first year of the Trump Presidency, we acted on our professional societal responsibility, as outlined in the Declaration of Geneva and all our other Codes of Medical Ethics, to protect society. Without diagnosing—which is neither necessary nor possible to do from a distance—we have observed Mr. Trump’s dangerous mental unfitness, extensively in great detail over long periods of time, with countless collateral reports under sworn testimony, far more than almost any of us have ever had for a standard evaluation of dangerousness or unfitness. And, unfortunately, there is no other conclusion we can draw; the evidence is overwhelming, and unlike a diagnostic assessment, a dangerousness or unfitness evaluation can and should happen at arm’s length, by independent professionals who are not his personal treaters.

We are therefore speaking up now as we have from the beginning, because we are now at a severely progressed, existential state that needs professional medical input.

Years ago, the most knowledgeable and responsible atomic scientists, including Albert Einstein and J.R. Oppenheimer, realized it was their responsibility to take the lead in warning humanity of the dire implications of their scientific discoveries. In 1946, they held an emergency Conference, quickly published a book, and produced a short movie both with the title, “One World Or None.” It was at that time that they also established the Doomsday Clock.

Now, we Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts must help bring back to public consciousness what the nuclear scientists rightly began before they were unfortunately sidelined.

We have concluded that only a major rethinking of the dire global structures that have brought us to a Doomsday Clock counting down in seconds will save us from being the first species on earth to bring about its own extinction. As Einstein told us long ago, we will not be able to solve the current problems plaguing humanity with the same ways of thinking that have brought about these problems in the first place. And as he also warned, he was not sure which new weapons would be used for World War III, but he was sure that World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones.

It is these existential considerations of the greatest consequence that bring us to our decision to expand our efforts significantly by creating a new worldwide organization, Physicians for Global Survival, which will urgently focus on the critical issues outlined in this new, PRESCRIPTION FOR SURVIVAL 2025. Those interested in joining with us and making this new organization possible and impactful, please email: Bandy@BandyLee.com.

*Please also feel free to encourage your friends and colleagues to join in the discussion! To do so, simply forward this Newsletter, or the link, http://bandyxlee.substack.com. All paid subscribers will receive a Zoom link on Friday mornings before each session.

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