Shaun Pennington, who founded the Source publications in 1999, always knew she was destined to write.
“From the time I can remember I dreamed of being a writer.” she said in a recent interview. “In fact, I always knew I would write a book but had no idea what it would be about.”
“The New Slavery: Sugar, Healthcare and the Medical Mafia,” is that dream and knowledge realized.
It was a chance conversation with Crucian entrepreneur Cherie Munchez, who was at the time operating her own marketing and public relations firm in Florida, whose clients included a plethora of substance abuse facilities that lit the bulb.
“We were having a conversation one day when Cherie drew the connection between addiction, healthcare and health insurance. She called it the ‘trifecta,’” she said.
It was in that moment, Pennington said, that she knew what the book she was going to write was about. She had been clean and sober for 33 years and had years of experience with getting off what she counts as the hardest drug of all, sugar. She was also intimately acquainted with what she calls the insurance “racket,” having worked in it for decades.
Pennington cleverly traces sugar and its origins in a brutal system of enslaved labor to the modern day, where it has become the foundation of a new kind of bondage — addiction that has turned sweetness into a chronic disease epidemic. An epidemic that has fueled the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
Woven throughout are starkly honest, intimate accounts by Pennington of her own journey through addiction and the lessons learned and knowledge gained about sugar’s destructive grip.
The book is divided into three parts, each woven with memoir, research and current events that make it an easy and pertinent read, given the state of America’s failing healthcare system.
A shipment of 200 books is expected by the end of next week and will be found riding around in the back of her car and, as of this reporting, at The Reading Room in Riise’s Alley in downtown Charlotte Amalie.
The e-book is available now at Barnes and Noble and the Kindle version at Amazon. The hard cover copy is also available at both places for pre-order, with a shipment date of April 24.
Pennington is available for readings and book discussions and can be contacted at 340-513-4719 or emailed at shaun.pennington22@gmail.com.
There are more details available at her website: shaunpennington.com
