by Aaron Sibarium
Med school talk glorified self-harm, violated CDC guidance, experts say
UCLA medical school’s psychiatry department hosted a talk earlier this month that glorified self-immolation as a form of “revolutionary suicide,” raising concerns from prominent doctors and deepening a public relations crisis that has embroiled the elite medical school.
The talk, “Depathologizing Resistance,” was delivered on April 2 by two psychiatry residents at UCLA, Drs. Ragda Izar and Afaf Moustafa, under the auspices of the department’s diversity office and UCLA’s Health Ethics Center, according to slides and emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The remarks centered on the suicide of Aaron Bushnell, the U.S. serviceman who set himself on fire in February to protest U.S. support for Israel—or, as Izar put it, “indigenous Palestine.”
Bushnell had shown signs of mental distress before he died, according to a police report, and was widely seen as a casualty of mental illness. The presentation argued he could also be considered a “martyr,” a man in full control of his mental faculties who had responded rationally to a “genocide” unfolding thousands of miles away.
“Yes, he carried a lot of distress,” Izar said, according to audio of the talk reviewed by the Free Beacon. “But does that mean the actions he engaged in are any less valid?”
Isn’t it normal, she continued, “to be distressed when you’re seeing this level of carnage” in Gaza?