My sister is exactly like this with my nephew & she learned it from my controlling abusive father. He used to use all the propaganda about frivolous lawsuits to socially isolate me & my sister telling (yelling at) us about how our friends will sue him if they have the kind of normal bumps & bruises
Kids get. He'd accuse little kids of running a scam, ffs. He & my mom would constantly tell me & my sister that if we reported our abuse to the outside world that my mom would be deported. We were taught to fear the outside world of advocates, experts, support because they were all trying to get us
Now my unvaxed nephew is in an online school because he can't get into the regular ones & has few friends because his controlling, crazy mom scares them off when she isn't actively telling him he can't hang out with ppl (myself included) because of "shedding."
I’m not trying to give you a hard time, and I’m surprised you even cared to notice - it’s just that the way the right wing has used words like demonic and evil (to describe just about everything) has just left a weird taste in my mouth.
great comment as always, Jamelle. Worth noting: apricot kernels as a quack cure have been around for decades, first known as laetrile. It was nonsense in the 1970s and it's nonsense fifty years later.
I know who this criminally horrible mom is because my sister tried to get me to take it when I had cancer, along with coloidial silver. My doctor was not amused with the recommendations, to put it mildly. He said, "oh, we're doing the apricots again, huh?" & rolled his eyes.
If they can successfully spread their views to their friends and loved ones and community, assuming they're MAGA chuds, then they are doing the lord's work actually.
I wholeheartedly agree.
As a retired pediatrician who has seen the horrors of pertussis, measles, epiglottitis (a condition that even senior docs were scared of), I am horrified about the children who will die as a result of this misinformation.
What is the cause of this? Is it social media making everyone an expert? Such a destructive trend. People using advanced communication technology based on science to question basic biology and reject established science.
Rather older. The MMR vaccine-Autism link - now known to be fraudulent - was pushed by mainstream media outlets and commentators for some years. Until the truth came out. Many of whom are still considered respectable. Andrew Wakefield isn't in jail either, but has dated Elle Macpherson recently.
Perhaps their delusional fantasies have been inspired by the god-like force of 'Gaia', which has determined that the destruction of the human race is necessary to protect the rest of life on earth.
My sister survived Lymphoma due to medical science. I had friends who perished from Cancer because they didn’t have treatments. Now the felon snd Mr. RFK BRAIN WORM have cut funding to Cancer Research. Putin couldn’t be prouder.
awesome for your sister!!
i, too, survived Lymphoma due to medical science.
freely admitting that.
i did have a supportive community and inner will, but cancer cells really don't give a f**k about those.
Thank you. I have 8 grandsons and the baby girl. 3 currently serving in different branches of the military. The worry fear and outrage had us all suffering lack of sleep. It's intense.
I saw a pregnant antivaxxer on FB yesterday. I was direct about what kind of mother doesn't vaccinate their child. We need to start shaming these people. They're bad for the herd.
I'm so naive: when I finished treatment I thanked my oncologist for all she'd done for me. SHE THANKED ME FOR COMPLETING ALL MY TREATMENT. I said, "but doesn't everyone do that?" She rolled her eyes and told me about the people who say they don't want chemo or the ones...
This article is about chemotherapy, not vaccination, but it comes from the same fallacy, that some "natural" means will cure cancer better than chemo. Chemo can indeed feel worse than the disease--until the disease kills you. Chemo works and an 80% chance of cure is well worth it.
Antivaxxers are freaking idiots. I don't even get it. Getting a disease will trigger your immune system into making antibodies (and T-cells and other immune responses). A vaccine will do that without giving you the disease. Your immunity is still a natural body function, but acquired more safely.
I get what you mean, and this story is rage inducing, but rational people shouldn't employ terminology that implies entities such as demons demons exist.
I've done a great deal of reading about conspiracy theory beliefs over the last decade. Needs vary, but there is a thread of antagonism in denying proven science. Here, it's personal. For the Trump admin, it's cynical.
I am coming up on 3 years with Stage IV cancer. Many bouts of chemo and now doing immunotherapy. I am still on this earth and I am thriving. What a damned shame.
We are so far through the Looking Glass that we are looking back only to the past before these times when everyday was not 500000000 awful happenings before lunch.
an old acquaintance of mine started "assisting" in home births about a decade ago. When I asked her what happens when there are complications and you're all just randoms that walked in with wet towels she just shrugged and confidently said it's objectively worse in a hospital...
That's so crazy...I have a (now ex-) friend who was into that. She had 5 boys that way, with just her husband there, way out in the country off grid. One of them - her first or second, I don't remember - was stillborn. And she just kind of shrugged it off like, "shit happens." I cannot fathom that.
Kate Shemirani has publicly called for UK doctors and nurses to be hanged . She is a horrible person and it’s so sad that she has damaged her own family .
Social media companies should not be indemnified from spreading disinformation. But these “do my own research” people will always figure out how to have oppositional thinking. Some synergistic combination of paranoia and a need to have “special knowledge” will always drive these people.
It’s peak stupidity. I’m dealing with a similar situation with a friend. We finally got him to agree to traditional cancer treatment and he is finally getting better, expected to make a full recovery. Makes me so angry when I think about these people who con others into unhealthy behavior.
At the time, I thought that Jude Law's character in Contagion (2011) didn't make any sense. Would someone really attempt to cash in on a global pandemic even though they knew that their grift was killing people?
I was at my doctors and the nurse was telling me she never goes to the Dr, she won’t take meds and that her daughter said if she ever got cancer she’d never do chemo. She doesn’t want that poison in her body. Just eat right. So I guess , they’d rather die.
How about the tech companies like YouTube/Meta/Twitter et all who promote them for ad dollars? I mean the cult of tech has made people ignore that tech has made life worse and more dangerous for like 85% of people...But it sure did create a lot of mentally ill billionaires
I wouldn't call anti-vaxxers demonic. I call them lazy. They think by using the terminology of science they can pass themselves off as more knowledgeable than they are.
Verification becomes a matter of how many other people repeat it rather than efficacy.
I've personally me two people whose lives have been saved by chemotherapy. I have heard of one person that have lived long without chemo when they were supposed to die, but I have yet to actually meet someone who lived through it without chemo.
This story is evidence of the dangers of bending to the free speech zealots, this is a kind of evil that is almost impossible to quantify, knowingly killing vulnerable people for money is bad enough, but to take a leading role in the unnecessary death of your own child is unspeakably dark.
My friend's husband was diagnosed with melanoma and some folks tried to convince him to do Gerson therapy. He did chemo. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer my step siblings told my mom she would be cured by drinking baking soda water. Mind you, they wanted real medicine for their dad.
That’s insane. Did it never occur to them that if simply ingesting baking soda was the cure for cancer, there would be no cancer running rampant throughout modern society? They probably think doctors are in on the take for money.
Thank you, my mom had a terminal diagnosis and she passed away several years back. But I did have words for that family that baking soda is in our food and high school dropouts shouldn’t be giving medical advice lol.
How sad. Kate Shemirani should be barred from the internet and all her social media shut down. And everything she ever posted should also be bleached from the internet, make her disappear! 80% remission was hope for survival and her mother Kate Shemirani took that from her. Bitch!
The problem is exactly what's illustrated here. This woman indoctrinated her children with conspiracy crapola their whole lives. I doubt that poor young lady would've made those choices if her shitty abusive mom didn't sweep in when she's most vulnerable, socially isolate her, & offer her miracles
It has to either be a form of psychosis or they’re just straight up sociopaths, know what they’re doing, and just don’t give a fuck. Kinda like serial killers.
Completely agree. It also cannot be lost on how when an identity can be birthed through social media, giving way to a feedback loop of ever extreme views, that one can’t even see reality anymore, we as a society have yet to figure out how to filter this content properly for what it is.
Denialism about science (medicine, climate) can have dire & deadly consequences for individuals, and also for those who love them. So many snake oil salesmen out there preying on the gullible.
Different scenario, but the same attitude. Create a problem that finally affects you negatively and then blame the side with the brains for your self-inflicted wombs.
#FAFO
As a 12 yr cancer survivor who went through chemo and a stem cell transplant that saved my life, l say this with the utmost disrespect to these anti-vax loons, fuck all the way off. There aren't too many people I have more disdain for than these people and their warped narcissistic views
I agree 100 percent. I’m a 7 year cancer survivor with multiple myeloma. My hematologist saved my life twice with a stem cell transplant and a second line of chemotherapy when I relapsed. Science and expertise matter.
Thank you. Advancements in MM are amazing. I’m in a trial and I’m receiving the standard of care for first relapse not the new treatment. When I received my stem cell transplant the current standard of care, Dara, Pomalyst and Dex, was in trial. Research matters. The cuts to NIH are unconscionable.
Oh man... the cuts are a nightmare generally. I haven't looked yet to see how MM research is affected (scared to), but I'm sure it is. And it's only due to the research that MM and other blood cancers are so much more treatable now than even 10 years ago.
Also a MM survivor. Funny when I got diagnosed, I had never heard of multiple myeloma. Now it seems every time I hear that somebody has cancer, it's myeloma.
So great that the second treatment worked. I, too had a stem cell transplant. Recently read an article in BBC about a promising new treatment they’re trialing in England. I’m in Toronto, CAN, so don’t have to worry about direct research cuts but US cuts hurt the whole ecosystem of cancer research.
With the stem cell transplant I received five years of remission. I started on Daratumumab, Pomalyst and Dexamethasone in March of 24. The response is deeper than the stem cell transplant. For the first time I am Minimum Residual Disease negative at 10^6 level.
That’s interesting. I had Dex as part of my first treatment before the transplant. The others don’t sound familiar. I might be coming out of remission - certain blood numbers up. If so, my oncologist said she has a plan :) so we’ll see. 🤞🙂
Best of luck. In the US, this is the standard care for first relapse. I’m in a randomized study and received the standard care as the control group. The other arm involves BITEs - Bispecific T-cell engagers.
have an acquaintance who decided chemo was dangerous and that she could treat her cancer without it and one who took the chemo and every suggested medical intervention. The latter was well enough to come see us at (college) Reunions this year.
Some creative lawyer has to find a creative jury and create the concept of "information torts" holding people responsible for the damage done by their intentional or reckless disinformation.
It would require a standard of free speech that equates this to “yelling fire in a crowded theater” and I’m not sure (at least in the States) this content would meet that threshold.
It is definitely a change in the law. The decision needs to be associated with the extraordinary power of social media and the corrupting power of profiting from attention. The "fire in a theater" exception is 100+ years old and is ripe for an update. The principles are the same. +++
A crowded theater exposes hundreds of people to potential harm because of they will trample each other in response to the words. And the word(s) ("Fire!")are of the sort that will inspire a reckless reaction by the people, foreseeably causing the harm.
It is situational. The maker of a soapbox can't be responsible for what someone says while standing on it.
But on the other extreme, Musk bought a platform to change public discourse, and he manipulates algorithms to favor information, while posting nonstop. Don't protect that garbage.
But they are all very literate in the only thing society wants people to learn nowadays, algorithmic manipulation...Kind of a weird dichotomy when you think about it
No offense but obviously not when they rail against life-saving medicines. I had the measles in the 1950's before there was a vaccination. One of my worst childhood memories. They obviously have no clue of the horrors they choose to inflict on themselves, their kids and the U.S.
They know, THEY DO NOT CARE. Like most corporations/businesses, they found a path to wealth using minimal effort, and as long as they can't be touched via the law, they will profit by any means necessary, including if they kill thousands. We need to stop just blaming stupidity, in my view.
Huh? Thought we were talking about Wisconsin citizens. Big Pharma wants to sell vaccines.
However re: corporations, yes, you're right for the most part. Some do have integrity, and we don't often hear about it. But most I've ever seen are much like this criminal regime. Spin, misdirection and lies.
First, criminalize non-compliance for vaccinations.
If a minor dies because you choose, vitamins, herbs and/or a shaman, that's an automatic 20 years, no parole.
Sometimes you have to make people do basic things to help the society.
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I survived this exact cancer (based on the description) at 25. It's a variety that primarily affects young, healthy women and it's "the kind of cancer you want to have." Its treatment usually cures patients and is not likely to cause other cancers. What an absolute disgrace to deny someone that.
Watched "Apple Cider Vinegar" on Netflix, about the "wellness" scammers in Australia, and it's clear that many folks are going to die because of these assholes.
Antivax seems to be a cousin to the broadly widespread acceptance in our culture now of food as a kind of medicine, and vitamins and supplements as miracle enhancements.
Extreme advocates of “right” eating and supplementing are claiming unproven fixes for a multitude of ailments.
The sad thing is that this has probably further entrenched her in her nonsense beliefs because the alternative is accepting that she killed her daughter.
Unfortunately with cancer, you often have a short window to start treatment and “trying alternative treatment” first closes that window permanently. I’ve seen it a number of times with brain tumor patients. Misinformation kills
I'd go with alternative once the chemo killed the cancer and the scans were clear.
Both smoking and weekly drinking binges combined are a guarantee of cancer.
Volunteers, really.
The other day a woman was basically frothing in the mouth against sunscreen and when people pointed out that melanoma is no joke she started insisting how it's "proven" that melanoma is not caused by the sun. *sigh*
They are allowed to deny their children medical care, medically necessary therapies of any kind, and even kill their children through their insane ideologies!
And they do so with the blessings of the American government.
My stepsis died in her early 40s after she realized a holistic only approach to her cancer didnt work. When I was diagnosed I didnt blink on chemo. However, I made it halfway through chemo eating ginger products before I had to go on Zofran. My oncologist also said I could try chemo fasting. I did.
The mother needs to be charged with murder or manslaughter. Lord knows, had her daughter died at the hands of her mother due to Munchausen by Proxy, the mother would be charged with a crime. This is just as fucked up.
I have zero sympathy for them, if they want to alternative medicine themselves into the grave, they should go for it, but what I hate most about antivaxxers is that it's almost always their children who suffer. The kids shouldn't have to get ill and die because their parents are idiots.
She and the idiot who told her to do basically a juice fast therapy for HALF A YEAR before starting on chemo, he also said that her doctors were exaggerating the chance of success for chemo. As a two time cancer survivor, doctors DO NOT exaggerate when it comes to cancer.
That is better... But yes still incredibly stupid. Anti vax mom also shills apricot seeds (I know this because my anti-vax sis tried to peddle it to me when I had cancer). Which is also incredibly stupid to regularly consume in general, but especially if you have cancer.
My Trump-supporting parents weren't anti vaxxers, but both died of Covid in 2021. They believed Donald Trump and their Governor Ron Desantis and Fox News that the virus was a hoax and the vaccine was dangerous. They refused the vax, caught Covid at a church potluck, and died days apart. Yes, Demonic
Something that probably will be lost here in interpretations is you saying “professional”. I see that as people promoting ideas that lead to harm for profit and personal enrichment.
Very different from people who are everyday skeptics/scared. Professionals prey on normal curiosity and ignorance.
A lot of professional misinformation “influences” and “alternative scientists” start out with experiences where they feel like they found a better path outside of medicine backed by scientific evidence.
I think we need to do a way better job of catching people before they are too far gone.
Agreed. Once you confront these demons and they refuse to repent, they need to be imprisoned in a cement box in Central America, or they need to be slayed.
It's really, really hard to fight against the twin riptides of the deliberate flood of disinformation, and the magical thinking of "doing your own research."
Idk, plenty of poor folks know to get vaccinated. And a lot of rich folks are anti-vaxxers. The offspring of stupid individuals are less likely to survive in any scenario.
They're only "stupid" from a lack of education, from their parents as well as schools. We don't teach parents how to raise kids in this country, we just let them do whatever with no guidance at all
True. It's something that bothers me a lot - a lot of well meaning parents abuse their kids because they expect behavior that babies and kids just cannot do (e.g., expecting a toddler to sit quietly for hours). We should make parenting classes mandatory with pre-natal care.
Nature always finds a way. Even despite our vaccines and best efforts, you’ll still have a substantial portion of the population that insist on dying by natural selection, and they will often bring their kids with them
Two weeks ago, my fb feed started to get flooded with self proclaimed medical experts and their bs. Especially with „Dr.‘s“ citing „studies“ and you really have to dig to find the flaws. Like f.ex. „studies“ that show high numbers of death for certain vaccines. Rampant misinformation.
Well, i would like to empathize with this young woman, but I find it very hard to do. For all the finger pointing, and believe me her mother is a monster, she ultimately had responsibility for her decisions and her life. She was not a victim, she made her choice.
I get wanting your parents to be with you during such a vulnerable time though. It was cruel of her mother to extract such a steep price for her “support.”
The truly demonic are the execs at Youtube, Instagram, Tictok, and Facebook who give these liars a platform. How do they sleep at night? (On a big bed of money.)
I’m in an online FB support group for the type of breast cancer I had. Last week someone asked about treating their cancer with supplements & diet changes instead of surgery & radiation.
My mother died of cancer two years ago, I believe, due to her refusal of medical treatment. Instead she was sold outrageously expensive homeopathic cures like “blessed” herbal water. Heartbreaking to see her improvement on traditional treatments vanish when switched to alternatives.
Antivax (+ colloidal silver & other questionable remedies) was creeping into mom Facebook groups 10 years ago and I didn’t realize how seriously it would be taken. Probably because healthcare is so dang expensive that moms were left to “research” online. Affordable healthcare is the root problem! 😣
I really feel like all of the demonizing, while it may feel cathartic, misses the bigger picture of a broken healthcare system. “I can’t afford to see a Dr so I’ll rely on my slightly crazy Facebook moms group” was an actual way to get healthcare for some.
I don't have an opinion on designating it a disorder, but I do think it should be considered child abuse, & if it results in death, a crime, just like starving a child to death would be.
My sister has BPD & she sounds so much like this horrible mom. She uses her anti-mrd conspiracies for control, too, it's one of the many ways she controls the ppl in her life. She also is very good at swooping in & taking advantage of vulnerability to manipulate ppl & socially isolate them
My nephew will probably end up like this poor young woman, dying of treatable/preventable illness (he isn't vaccinated, like my bitch ass sister is) because he grew up being brainwashed by my sister & his shitty grandparents who went along because they knew she'd yank their grandchild if they don't
He wants to build robots to go into space, way into science. I hope that he goes to college & has enough science nerds & beloved profs tell him his mom is full of shit that he deprograms. It looked like this young lady was on the same path, but cancer made her scared & vulnerable, & mom pounced
I'm so sorry about your sister. It really does tear families apart. Between her & my parents (also abusive & controlling), most of my family is cut off because they are part of the flying monkey system. I wish I could do something for my nephew, though, I tell him I'm here & out of the drama.
Such a sad story. My heart breaks for her brothers. Her mother is a toxic narcissist and should be in jail for selling “treatments” without a medical license.
She has to bleach her hair because she knows she'd never be accepted by her fanbase if she were too visibly Ethnic. That and she's going for the Marjorie Taylor Greene Aryan balloonface look.
No accountability means no problems eh? Back to the dark ages for fun and profit; everything is acceptable collateral damage as they destroy those around them.
My niece (who lives in FL) just came to visit with her 5 and 2 year old daughters, and when she told me the girls are both up to date on their vaccinations I broke down in tears of joy. How crazy is that?!? It should be normal and routine!
"On her website, she sells apricot kernels for their 'potential health benefits'"
N.b.: she's selling amygdalin, which pseudoscientists falsely call "vitamin B17". Amygdalin is a cyanogenic glycoside; when your body digests it, deadly cyanide is released. It's everything they accuse chemo of being.
I had a coworker in FL who kept bags apricot kernels, claiming it was some cure-all miracle eschewed by traditional medics. She gave a friend and I some when we visited. Also an anti-vaxxer, he insisted she was brilliant. Bitter, nasty stuff, I did my research and tossed them. She died of cancer.
Yeah, one of the breakdown products of amygdalin is benzaldehyde. In small quantities it gives almonds their characteristic flavor and aroma. At higher levels it's bitter, and that's the plant's way of warning you that the seed you've just bitten into is going to poison you if you eat it.
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As a retired pediatrician who has seen the horrors of pertussis, measles, epiglottitis (a condition that even senior docs were scared of), I am horrified about the children who will die as a result of this misinformation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/us/i-feel-like-ive-been-lied-to-when-a-measles-outbreak-hits-home.html?searchResultPosition=1
i, too, survived Lymphoma due to medical science.
freely admitting that.
i did have a supportive community and inner will, but cancer cells really don't give a f**k about those.
Antivax sorts itself out when there's no grandchildren.
Yet, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone who has a life line wouldn't take it.
I've read a lot about it in the past year and yes, they do just opt to die.
Question: What do they call "alternative medicine" that has been shown to be effective?"
.
Answer: Medicine.
.
Academia and Big Pharma both look pretty hard, trying to find alternative/traditional medicines that are actually useful.
They’ll never let themselves acknowledge what they’re doing because then they’d have to reckon with what they’ve already done.
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/06/why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories
We are so far through the Looking Glass that we are looking back only to the past before these times when everyday was not 500000000 awful happenings before lunch.
Real nightmare shit.
Once I saw that, I knew exactly where this story was going.
Maybe worth giving @mariannaspringbbc.bsky.social a follow if you found this tragic story of interest…
It did age her , as before people would think she was in her 60s.
The side effects were much less than I expected.
Not having this treat,emt for a cancer that is curable is criminal .
In retrospect, it feels too on the nose...
Verification becomes a matter of how many other people repeat it rather than efficacy.
I hope your mom found relief and remission.
Wishing you only joyful memories of your mom.
Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis.
https://www.conspirituality.net
#FAFO
They call fall back on it being a performance
Telling millions of Twitter followers +++
The idea is to create consequences for lying.
But on the other extreme, Musk bought a platform to change public discourse, and he manipulates algorithms to favor information, while posting nonstop. Don't protect that garbage.
However re: corporations, yes, you're right for the most part. Some do have integrity, and we don't often hear about it. But most I've ever seen are much like this criminal regime. Spin, misdirection and lies.
Let’s see how many jump on the band wagon when they’re held responsible for their childs death.
If a minor dies because you choose, vitamins, herbs and/or a shaman, that's an automatic 20 years, no parole.
Sometimes you have to make people do basic things to help the society.
Extreme advocates of “right” eating and supplementing are claiming unproven fixes for a multitude of ailments.
Both smoking and weekly drinking binges combined are a guarantee of cancer.
Volunteers, really.
She was all in for shark cartilage to treat her lung cancer.
While she was messing around, it metastasised to her brain.
It was too late for standard protocol at that point.
And they do so with the blessings of the American government.
What a terrible waste of a young life. I hope Paloma's brothers find peace.
Very different from people who are everyday skeptics/scared. Professionals prey on normal curiosity and ignorance.
I think we need to do a way better job of catching people before they are too far gone.
Buyer beware
just because opinions are free doesn’t mean it’s a good opinion or even legal
Not excusing this, just a perspective.
The mother was a nurse. The daughter got in at Cambridge! But their grasp of disease processes is that of a medieval monk's:
"Gabriel says ... his sister said she could not go out because of the 'bad air'."
N.b.: she's selling amygdalin, which pseudoscientists falsely call "vitamin B17". Amygdalin is a cyanogenic glycoside; when your body digests it, deadly cyanide is released. It's everything they accuse chemo of being.