M LaVora Perry
Aug 28, 2017 · 2 min read

I’m correcting my statement that Amen doesn’t share his research because, in fact, he does, freely. What he doesn’t share are the hundreds of thousands of brain images of his patients that he’s collected. According to him, being able to compare these is what has enabled him to recognize patterns and identify markers of the brain that individual mental illnesses have in common.

However, the fact that he won’t share these images — which I think is unethical — doesn’t negate the more important fact that his methods have been effective for people who’s illnesses were unresponsive to traditional treatments. According to him, his methods have a significantly higher success rate that conventional psychiatry when it comes to effectively treating mental illnesses.

The medical field is rife with all kinds of breaches if ethics. I don’t say this is right but it is true. If Amen manages to help large numbers of patients who were untreatable before encountering his methods but refuses to make his collection of brain images accessible to all, how is that less ethical than elitist hospitals deciding who can and can’t receive life-saving treatments — who lives and who dies — based on a patient’s financial status? This injustice occurred red flags being waved about it.

As I said, consider the source when reading negative opinions of Amen. There is what his patients say about him and there is what those in the medical establishment say. If medical researchers want to test his theories by conducting their own large trials based on his detailed instructions on how to implement them in practice, nothing is preventing them from doing so — surely money isn’t because there is no lack of funding for research when the powers that be want it done.

But who gains and who loses if a significant number of mentally ill people — many of whom are low income — become well? This is the more pressing question to ask, not whether or not a single physician — Amen — is right or wrong for not providing his colleagues access to his collection of brain images.

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M LaVora Perry

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I'm a mother, actor, and author of “Taneesha Never Disparaging,” a humorous book about a black Buddhist 5th grader| ig, tw, li @mlavoraperry mlavoraperry.com

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