Skip to main content

On Miracle Cures and Hope






In today's culture of paranoia and fear, I genuinely believe that what I'm going to write about may actually be important. Of course, that might just be the folly of a teenager trying to make his blog work, take it as you will.

Of all the recent fads and phenomenons, the one that has bothered, bugged and baffled me the most is vaccine hesitancy, the anti-vaxxers as they are commonly known. 

A quick history lesson, the sentiment of "vaccines are dangerous" started in 1998, when British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield decided that the MMR vaccine predisposed children to "behavioural regression and pervasive development disorder". Autism. This is where the idea of vaccines cause autism came from, and with the development of the internet and quickening of the spread of information, the MMR vaccination rate genuinely began to drop. Andrew Wakefield lost his medical license the following year.

But of course, the damage had been done, and the movement is stronger than ever. Yippee. I myself have had many internal debates as to whether there's genuine concern about vaccine safety or if these people are just nut-jobs. 



Yeah. Definitely nut-jobs.

Of course this is old news, what really inspired me to write this article is something I read about recently, and it’s related to the topic of miracle cures, a product called Miracle Mineral Supplement.

After researching the topic I’m not even sure where to begin on this product, its creator and its proponents. Why don’t we start with the fact that the original proponent of MMS, Jim Humble, believes that he is a “billion-year-old god from the Andromeda galaxy”.



Kinda want to let that sink in for a little bit. And I thought the people in the video above were lunatics, this guy just raised the bar, ironically, to the moon.

MMS is essentially sodium chlorite in distilled water, which when mixed with citric acid forms chorine dioxide, or in layman’s terms, industrial strength bleach! Now this would be fine if they were selling bathroom cleaner or disinfectant, but no, the real kicker here is that they claim it cures HIV, malaria, autism and of course, cancer among many many more. What's even better is the exorbitant prices they ask you to pay, disguised as donations to the Genesis II Church.

It’s ridiculous and very, very dangerous. Of course, the claims have all been disproven as the only ‘proof’ of this working is anecdotes from the billion-year-old god’s book, which is…untrustworthy to say the least. There have been multiple cases of patients becoming violently ill, and the worst part of it all, they tell the patients that that is supposed to happen. They tell them that after taking your dosage of bleach, you will be sick and you will get better afterwards. One of those is a lie, I’ll leave you to figure that one out.

So why do people trust these movements and products? Why is it that they turn away from modern medicine and gravitate towards unproven methods of treatment? The bottom line is, people believe in these things, the refusal of vaccines and the acceptance of alternative, unproven forms of medicine, because they can't handle the cards that life has dealt them, and they want, rather need to believe that there was some reason for it happening, or that there's another way to prevent it. They hope. They hope that the 1 in a million chance of something working will be them. They hope that there is a definitive reason why their lives were unjustly altered. And that hope is what keeps them going, and will never leave them. Or maybe they’re crazy. We’ll never really know.


Pandora sends her regards.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Moments and Memories

Dear Reader, I would like to ask you some questions. Have you ever stopped, and questioned what’s happening around you, your surroundings, the thoughts flowing through your mind? Have you ever mentally removed yourself from a situation and wondered, how did I get here? If you answered ‘yes’ to the previous questions, I would like to ask one final question. Have you ever wondered if you will ever be able to relive that particular circumstance?  This line of questioning is not unlike the grossly over used proverb “stop and smell the roses”, a saying that, until recently, I have been unable to fully comprehend. However, the start of a new chapter in my life has forced me to pause and smell the proverbial roses, and has also made me realise that I have failed to cherish certain moments in my life, moments that I will never be able to relive, and this realisation is one that will haunt me for years. My inability to see the “bigger picture” got in the way of me creating memories

On Ignorance

“Ignorance is bliss”   - Thomas Gray “Better be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of misfortune.”   - Plato So, which one is it? Would one do well to squeeze their eyes shut, stick their fingers in their ears, and pretend something does not exist? Or is the correct approach to face it head on, and pray that the new knowledge does not become an unwanted burden? Of course, there is no single correct answer. Each context requires its own response, that has had an appropriate amount of time, and sufficient thought given to it. In the medical field, we have been blessed with an abundance of available resources and knowledge, graciously bequeathed unto us by some of the brightest minds of their time. These pioneers dedicated decades, or even their whole lives to provide us with this information, for it to be neatly condensed into a few lines in our textbooks, the student completely unaware of who it was that procured this knowledge, and how they managed to get it. The ‘how’ is

On Expression

How far can a person go, before it is considered "too far"? How much can a person do or say, before it is considered "too much"? This invisible line, which each and every person has their own perception of, is what I would like to touch upon in this piece, after an extended absence from writing. Meet Mark Meechan, known by the alias 'Count Dankula' on YouTube. Not the prettiest face to look at, but bear with me. This mans claim to fame is essentially making his girlfriend's dog a Nazi. He said, and I quote,  "My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a N azi ." Among other things in the video, he conditioned the dog to give the Nazi salute and react to the phrase "Gas the Jews". Tasteless and disgusting, I know. This man should've been made an example of, been shunned from society for doing suc