Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1487971
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 DECEMBER 2022 OPINION 11 'abortion') so that doctors who perform emergency, life-saving pregnancy-ter- minations, are no longer threatened with an (entirely inhumane) prison sentence of up to four years. And the same goes for women caught up in those unfor- tunate situations, too…' (Honestly, though: how much more 'about abortion' can this amendment possi- bly be?) But, well… you can just imagine the reaction, had any Maltese politician (of any party) ever said some- thing as fundamentally self-evident, as that. 'So, you admit that you're in favour of abortion! That you're a murderer! A baby-killer! The reincarnation of Han- nibal Lecter! Etc., etc.' By the same token, you can also easily understand exactly WHY no Maltese politician (with one or two exceptions recently: all, I need hardly add, female) has ever plucked up the courage to openly 'discuss the issue of abortion', in this country: no, not even when they themselves are pushing legal amendments, to the country's only abortion law. Because this 'Beavis and Butthead' effect… this au- tomatic, knee-jerk reaction, that instantly classifies ALL opinions on the subject into either 'pro-life' (i.e., 'cool!'), or 'pro-abortion' (i.e, 'sucks!')… it's not limited only to random questions at press-conferences, here and there. It's also implicit in anything every 'President Emeritus' we've ever had – and I could extent that to every Prime Minister; every opposition leader …. heck, pretty much 'everybody, FULL-STOP!' - has ever said, in every 'abortion dis- cussion' we've ever had. That is to say: nothing at all, that has any relevance whatsoever to the actual medical issue at hand; and everything under the sun, about the word 'abortion' itself… and how very 'scary' it is. It has, in a nutshell, be- come utterly impossible to have any form of rational discussion on this topic, at all. And to be brutally hon- est: it wouldn't even bother me, so much… if it wasn't also beginning to impact my own work. Right: I've left myself with too little space, to do what I usually make a point of 'never actually doing'… that is: 'dissecting one of my own interviews, on the same day that it appeared in print'. So I'll leave you read my inter- view with Chris Fearne, in today's issue, for yourselves. All I'll say, for now, is that…. at one point, I con- fronted the Health Minister with the fact (in different words, naturally) that he was only ever interested in addressing the 'Beavises and Buttheads' of this debate; and that all his answers, to all my questions, were invariably geared towards what he himself described as 'the people out there'. But never, not once (or at least, not explicitly) did the Health Minister actually pause to address anyone, in the entire country, who might actually have a basic understanding of the fun- damental health issue that is at stake, in this particular debate. Now: as with all those other government MPs… it is not exactly very hard to understand WHY Chris Fearne responded to my questions, the way he did (and also why, for that mat- ter, I didn't press him as hard as I probably should have: given that he was lit- erally contradicting himself, with almost every sentence). It was abundantly clear, right from the first question, that even the Health Minis- ter (no less) has become so conditioned by the 'Beavis and Butthead' effect… that he, too, is incapable of seri- ously discussing a medical procedure that is consid- ered – by all international health authorities and insti- tutes, worldwide – to be a fundamental component of contemporary healthcare. And if not even the Health Minister can bring him- self to use the dreaded A-word… when he himself insists, in the same inter- view, that his own amend- ment actually represents the 'right thing to do'… I mean: what hope could there possibly even be, of ever having a 'debate about abortion', that doesn't sound exactly like: "Dude, he said the A-word! Har, Har, heh, heh, hur, hur…"? Cyrus Engerer A roof on your head is a right, so is affordable housing Cyrus Engerer is a Labour MEP (S&D) THE way that society has tradi- tionally approached mental health over the years is also flawed. To avoid any form of misunderstand- ing: I have full and total belief in modern day medicine, in commu- nity-based care, in therapy – cog- nitive, behavioral, psychoanalysis and the like, in psychiatry and especially in the social sciences surrounding mental health – psy- chology, social work, care work and nursing. But little innovation in the mental health sector has flourished over the past years, and this is worrying. In the past years in particular we have seen the recurrence of men- tal health as a cause for concern for the general public. Figures relating to self and intervention reporting have increased expo- nentially and it is estimated that around 1 in 4 of us will experi- ence mental health issues at some point in our lives. This figure, ex- acerbated by a global pandemic which increased our susceptibili- ty to mental health challenges, is a global challenge and can only be tackled with global solutions. Re- search and development is most definitely one of these solutions, and yet little has been done in the field. Until now. Traditionally, we have always viewed mental health challenges as something that people must live with. Unlike with other diseases, we have not looked for cures. At the risk of sounding very contro- versial, when it comes to mental health there are pills to pick you up, pills to bring you down, pills to make you sleep, pills to make you eat, pills to make you go quiet and others to make you speak up. But there never seems to be a pill which helps you understand why all of this is happening our minds. Until now. This is where the use of psyche- delic healthcare comes in. Multiple trials, taking place in various parts of the world, are currently using MDMA, Psilo- cybin, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and Ketamine to treat PTSD, major depression disorder, alcohol abuse and anxiety disor- ders. Two of the most promising of these trials, one which seeks to treat PTSD with MDMA; and a second which seeks to treat treat- ment-resistant depression with Psilocybin, are in a phase three trial stage. The results are so promising that even US President Joe Biden confirmed that it is an- ticipated that psychedelic thera- pies will be given FDA approval within the next two years. The reason why I want to make the case for psychedelic health- care, is because the results com- ing out of those clinical trials show that psychedelic healthcare may possibly be the pill that final- ly helps us understand. The ther- apies are helping patients unlock parts of their psyche which stores trauma and suffering, and allows them to address those issues without the traditional feelings attached to assessing such trauma – such as fear and discomfort. In a controlled and clinical setting utilising psychedelic, in order to access the root of the challenges, is revolutionary because what is being done here is something that traditional mental health science said was not possible: finally a cure is being created. And thus, we mmust catch up. European Union funding oppor- tunities under the Health Chapter of Horizon Europe, for example, must be expanded in order to al- low more funding into such clin- ical trials. Currently Horizon, the EU's leading funding programme for innovation, has already fund- ed innovation in the field of de- pression treatment utilising ket- amine – however, the number of projects under this remit must expand. But to do this, we need to push boundaries. And yes, it takes guts to push boundaries. It takes courage to take a top- ic which has always been viewed as a taboo and still speak about it publicly when you know that the current is against you. But with the science and evidence overwhelmingly showing us that psychedelics work in the treat- ment of various mental health illnesses and as part of end-of-life care – bringing up these topics is not just about courage, it is about being on the right side of history.