Collected Item: “Vera Sharav Oral History, 2021/02/25”
Title
Vera Sharav
Who conducted the interview? List all names, separated by comma.
Kit Heintzman
Who was interviewed? List all names, separated by commas.
Vera Sharav
Email Address(es) for all interviewers. Separated by comma.
kheintzman@gmail.com
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your oral history. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#ableism, #activism, #activist, #advocate, #AndrewCuomo, #AnthonyFauci, #biggovernment, #BillGates, #billionaires, #CDC, #classism, #consent, #conspiracytheories, #democracy, #ethics, #eugenics, #Fauci, #fear, #government, #H1N1, #Holocaust, #HolocaustSurvivor, #hygiene, #humanrights, #hydroxychloroquine, #individualism, #informedconsent, #Italy, #ivermectin, #Jewish, #masks, #medicalethics, #mentalillness, #military, #mother, #NaziGermany, #NewYork, #NeilFerguson, #nursinghomes, #OSHA, #pharmaceuticals, #publichealth, #research, #rights, #vaccination, #vaccine, #WHO, #WorldBank
What is the format of your recording?
Video
In what ZIP code is the primary residence of the interviewee? (enter 5-digit ZIP code; for example, 00544 or 94305)? In what city/town/village does the interviewee live? In what country does the interviewee live? All comma-separated.
New York City, New York, USA
What is the age of the interviewee?
75 or older
How does the interviewee describe their race or ethnicity? Be sure to allow interviewees to self-identify their race/ethnicity in the pre-interview or interview. *Do not assign a racial or ethnic identity to interviewees.*
Jewish
Describe the oral history.
Self-description:
“I’m a child survivor of the Holocaust, so my perspective brings into the current situation a very relevant background. I find this very very difficult to acknowledge, because I never thought that I would have to speak about that in the here and now. I’ve been involved as a public advocate for ethical research in medicine. It began when my son, my older son, got sick. He got mentally ill. He had schizophrenia. So, I had to do a lot of learning about the field, what could be done to help him. I both learned, and I had to bury my son. Okay. He was put on a medication that was promised to be the end-all and be-all. It was just going to be great. It killed him. Okay. Before that, during his sickness because I had to start learning how to maneuver the mental health system, which is about as bad as it can be.”
Some of the things we discussed included:
Childhood experiences of the Holocaust.
Recent examples in American history of medical abuse and comparisions to Nazis.
Forming the Alliance of Human Research Protection.
The Nuremberg Code’s relevance today and its origins.
The importance of voluntary-informed consent.
Doctors as government agents.
Individualism vs. the greater good.
What information is necessary for “informed consent”.
Profit driven healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry.
Atrocious management of mental health/illness.
Billionaires and oligarchs, biocracy, technocracy, digital surveillance, censorship.
Not being able to see husband in a home with dementia, who died 12 April 2020 (not of COVID).
Governor Andrew Cuomo as a mass murderer for his COVID policies.
The absence of liability for doctors and nurses.
Day-to-day living as depressing and shocking.
American funding of Gain of Function Research.
Changing masking CDC guidelines: double masking, masking inside and outside, using pantyhose.
Masks as dehumanizing.
OSHA studies on masking vs. COVID policy guidelines.
Suspicion that “flu” deaths are being mislabeled as COVID-deaths, driving up the numbers.
The value of viruses to ecology.
Scientific method, the Falsification Principle, evidence, anecdotes, statistics
Small businesses
Suicides among performing artists
The difference between quarantining the sick and quarantining the healthy.
Comparisons between how the USA is handling the pandemic and COVID treatment in contrast to Tanzania and India.
A friend deciding to get vaccinated.
Taking back democracy.
Military involvement of vaccine distribution.
Losing access to methods of self-care, such as going to walks.
Living medicine-free, homeopathy.
The importance of joy.
Other cultural references include:
a 1987 article in the American Journal of Psychiatry, “L-dopa Challenge and Relapse in Schizophrenia” (https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.144.7.934), Bayh-Dole Act, Aktion T4, Amazon, Milgram Experiment, 1918 influenza, BSE, Ezekiel Emanuel, ObamaCare, Pandemrix, iPhone, JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1949)
See also:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/107626
https://ahrp.org
https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt0908-965
“I’m a child survivor of the Holocaust, so my perspective brings into the current situation a very relevant background. I find this very very difficult to acknowledge, because I never thought that I would have to speak about that in the here and now. I’ve been involved as a public advocate for ethical research in medicine. It began when my son, my older son, got sick. He got mentally ill. He had schizophrenia. So, I had to do a lot of learning about the field, what could be done to help him. I both learned, and I had to bury my son. Okay. He was put on a medication that was promised to be the end-all and be-all. It was just going to be great. It killed him. Okay. Before that, during his sickness because I had to start learning how to maneuver the mental health system, which is about as bad as it can be.”
Some of the things we discussed included:
Childhood experiences of the Holocaust.
Recent examples in American history of medical abuse and comparisions to Nazis.
Forming the Alliance of Human Research Protection.
The Nuremberg Code’s relevance today and its origins.
The importance of voluntary-informed consent.
Doctors as government agents.
Individualism vs. the greater good.
What information is necessary for “informed consent”.
Profit driven healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry.
Atrocious management of mental health/illness.
Billionaires and oligarchs, biocracy, technocracy, digital surveillance, censorship.
Not being able to see husband in a home with dementia, who died 12 April 2020 (not of COVID).
Governor Andrew Cuomo as a mass murderer for his COVID policies.
The absence of liability for doctors and nurses.
Day-to-day living as depressing and shocking.
American funding of Gain of Function Research.
Changing masking CDC guidelines: double masking, masking inside and outside, using pantyhose.
Masks as dehumanizing.
OSHA studies on masking vs. COVID policy guidelines.
Suspicion that “flu” deaths are being mislabeled as COVID-deaths, driving up the numbers.
The value of viruses to ecology.
Scientific method, the Falsification Principle, evidence, anecdotes, statistics
Small businesses
Suicides among performing artists
The difference between quarantining the sick and quarantining the healthy.
Comparisons between how the USA is handling the pandemic and COVID treatment in contrast to Tanzania and India.
A friend deciding to get vaccinated.
Taking back democracy.
Military involvement of vaccine distribution.
Losing access to methods of self-care, such as going to walks.
Living medicine-free, homeopathy.
The importance of joy.
Other cultural references include:
a 1987 article in the American Journal of Psychiatry, “L-dopa Challenge and Relapse in Schizophrenia” (https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.144.7.934), Bayh-Dole Act, Aktion T4, Amazon, Milgram Experiment, 1918 influenza, BSE, Ezekiel Emanuel, ObamaCare, Pandemrix, iPhone, JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1949)
See also:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/107626
https://ahrp.org
https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt0908-965
On what date did you record this oral history?
2021-02-25T12:12