Danny Hauser's doing well, and (as usual) Mike Adams is going off the deep end

By oracknows on June 14, 2009.

Last month, a frequent topic of this blog was the case of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy from Minnesota with Hodgkin's lymphoma who made the national news for his refusal (and his mother's support of that refusal) to undergo a second round of chemotherapy. Instead, he wanted to pursue "natural" therapy, including what sounded like alkalinization quackery. What was especially disturbing about this case was that he had a highly treatable form of cancer with close to a 90% expectation of long term survival with conventional treatment with chemotherapy and radiation. As with the cases of Abraham Cherrix and Katie Wernecke, the case of Daniel Hauser made national news and stoked a debate over parental rights to decide medical care for their children and what should be done when parents choose ineffective quackery (i.e., medical neglect) over effective scientific medicine, as well as the question of when a child is old enough to make such a decision for himself. Throwing a curveball into the mix were reports that Daniel is illiterate due to a learning disability.

The original reason given was that Daniel was a follower of a pseudoreligion called Nemenhah, which is led by a Native American wannabe who goes by the name of Chief Cloudpiler. Indeed, he even claimed to be an elder in the religion. This initially led me to conclude that this was yet another case of a child being sacrificed on the altar of irrational religious belief. Learning more led me to conclude that the case was a lot more complicated than that in that when he was very young apparently Daniel had watched his aunt die while being treated with chemotherapy, which had profoundly affected both him and his mother. When Daniel reacted very badly to the first round of chemotherapy, he became scared, and his mother freaked out, and I suspected that the claim that it's against Daniel's religion to undergo chemotherapy was more of a convenient excuse to justify the refusal of chemotherapy than due to a genuine belief in that religion. Whatever the reason, when the judge ruled that Daniel had to undergo chemotherapy, he and his mother went on the lam from the law, ostensibly to head for Mexico. Fortunately, eventually they came back, and Daniel's mother Colleen Hauser agreed to have him undergo chemotherapy. Since then, Daniel's case has been used as a rallying cry for quackery supporters about the supposedly intolerably overbearing "fascism" of the State of Minnesota.

During the two weeks or so that this case captivated the nation, I got tired of dealing with nonsense laid down by the many supporters (such as the aforementioned Mike Adams) and stuff like this:

Doctors have said Daniel's cancer has up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and/or radiation. Without those treatments, doctors say his chances of survival are 5 percent. Now I find those 90%-5% odds to be rather misleading. First of all, it's not actually a 90% chance of "survival" but a 90% chance that the tumor will shrink. (You can argue that the tumor shrinking equals survival, but only if the side effects of the chemo and radiation don't deteriorate his health even more).

The stupid, it burns. Or maybe I should say, the ignorance, it sucks all knowledge from the brain of those reading it. No, survival means survival. It means the percentage of patients who are still alive after five or ten years, and, as I described when schooling Daniel Hauser's lawyer. In any case, that's a taste of the medical misinformation I had to deal with, along with the usual claims of "suppression" of "alternative" cures and the context-free rants about how chemotherapy can predispose to second malignancies later in life. (Of course, never mentioned is that children with cancer who don't undergo treatment don't survive long enough to worry about those risks.)

In any case, it's been nearly three weeks since I last wrote about this case, and I was wondering how Danny's doing, since it's been over two weeks since he underwent his first round of chemotherapy. Fortunately, there was a report over the weekend in the Mankato Free Press that suggests Danny is doing as well as can be expected:

A recent X-ray of a 13-year-old Sleepy Eye boy with cancer who reluctantly agreed to chemotherapy shows the tumor has shrunk, a family spokesman said.
"There's quite a bit of reduction in the tumor," Daniel Zwakman, a Cottage Grove man close to the family, said of Daniel Hauser.

That indicates the tumor has not become resistant to chemotherapy. Hauser had a single chemotherapy dose in early February, and doctors worried the tumor would grow back resistant to the chemicals.

If that happened, his chances of survival would drop from about 90 percent to 50 percent, said doctors at the Mayo Clinic and Children's Hospital, who were cited by Brown County's child neglect petition.

This is good news. One of the fears that I had was that exposing the tumor to one course of chemotherapy and then letting it grow again for three months would select for resistant clones, resulting in a tumor much less responsive to standard chemotherapy regimens for Hodgkin's lymphoma. If that had happened, then Daniel's chances of being cured of his lymphoma would have gone way down. If this report is accurate and his tumors are shrinking rapidly in response to the first course of chemotherapy, that is good news indeed. Although it's no guarantee, it suggests that Daniel is likely to do well.

Of course, as expected, apparently Daniel and his mother are attributing how well he is doing not to the chemotherapy, but to the unspecified "natural" therapies that he's using along with the chemotherapy:

Zwakman said using alternative medicine with the traditional treatment has been beneficial. "We're looking at this as the reason it's responded as well as it has is the natural therapies that have gone along with it," he said of the tumor's reduction.

He said doctors are saying it's too soon to talk about Daniel Hauser's chances of recovering from his Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer.

Zwakman said the boy is still "very angry" about receiving chemotherapy, and is suffering through its side effects, including a very sore throat, a lack of energy, vomiting, dizziness and a lack of appetite.

But he said his gums are not swollen this time around, an improvement he attributed to the use of natural therapies planned by his mother.

I'm sorry to hear that Daniel is having side effects from the chemotherapy. I'm not surprised that he's angry. He didn't get his way. But at least he has a good chance at surviving. If he attributes his survival to the woo he's using instead of the chemotherapy or in addition to the chemotherapy, who cares? At least he'll be alive.

And no doubt that will allow everybody's favorite promoter of quackery, Mike Adams, the man who can bring home the crazy better than anyone else I've seen outside of the Time Cube guy, fodder for years to come. The result? Articles entitled USA Patriot Act Defines Chemotherapy Pushers, CPS Aggressors as Terrorists:

In observing the outrageous acts of doctors who have turned 13-year-old Daniel Hauser and his mom into "fugitives from the law" over their refusal to submit to toxic chemotherapy treatments, I began to wonder whether existing U.S. law covers the crimes being committed against the Hauser family. It turns out the U.S. PATRIOT ACT already defines these cancer doctors and Child Protective Services zealots as "terrorists."

What is a terrorist? A domestic terrorist is a person who engages in illegal acts that are "dangerous to human life" and which are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population (among other things).

I suppose I should be glad that Adams isn't calling oncologists and the State of Minnesota Nazis. By his standards, referring to oncologists as "terrorists" is actually exceedingly tame rhetoric. Actually, though, as is typical for Adams, he can't even get his definitions correct and he leaves out a very big point that utterly demolishes his analogy. Let's take a look at how the USA Patriot Act actually defines "domestic terrorism":

(5) the term `domestic terrorism' means activities that--

`(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

`(B) appear to be intended--
`(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
`(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
`(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

`(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.'.

Do you see the problem? What the State of Minnesota did was not a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state. Not that that stops our intrepid woo-meister from trying to get around little things like the law:

Chemotherapy is dangerous to human life. There's no question whatsoever about that. Even the cancer doctors will tell you chemotherapy is poison.

The fugitive manhunt for the Hauser family, along with the threat of arrest from Child Protective Services, was part of a campaign to intimidate or coerce a civilian population into bowing to conventional cancer treatments (a political and financial aim).

The kidnapping of Daniel Hauser by state authorities is a violation of United States law, not to mention the 4th and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

So we actually have all three elements here: Danger to human life, intimidation of a civilian population and the violation of law.

That makes this assault on the Hauser family an act of domestic terrorism!

Woo boy. Yes, chemotherapy can be dangerous, but so is the cancer that it treats. In Daniel's case, chemotherapy is potentially life-saving. As for "coercing" a civilian population, somehow I doubt that that even went through the judge's mind when ordering Danny to undergo chemotherapy. Indeed, his ruling was nuanced, and he appeared to bend over backwards to try to fashion his ruling to be as minimally coercive as possible. For example, he didn't take Danny away from his parents, which, ironically enough, was what made it possible for Colleen Hauser to run off with him. He told the parents to get Daniel effective treatment, in essence putting the responsibility in their hands to choose physicians who practiced within the standard of care. After Colleen Hauser bolted with Danny, it was made clear that there would be no repercussions if she just brought Danny back, and there weren't. How terroristic! How intimidating!

As for the 4th and 14th Amendments, as you might expect Adams is full of paranoid, conspiracy theory nonsense. The 4th Amendment is the guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures and searches of a person's property without a warrant issued for probable cause. I fail to see where Minnesota authorities searched the Hauser's property without reason or without a proper warrant. The 14th Amendment deals with several things, but I'm guessing the part that Adams is referring to is this:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Again, Adams can't explain how Daniel Hauser or his parents were denied due process of law or equal protection of the law. Indeed, the very purpose of the action taken reluctantly by the State of Minnesota was to protect Daniel's life. But, then, Adams never was one to let the facts stand in the way of a good conspiracy theory. Adams even goes so far as to ask why the cancer doctors and child protective services officers who acted to protect Daniel from quackery haven't been shipped to Gitmo, concluding that it's because states define "terrorism" as acting against the state. While there is a grain of truth in that, when applied to the Hauser case such rhetoric serves more to show just how far off the plantation Adams has wandered.

Never one to let a chance to go even further into the depths of crazy to pass, Adams can't resist generalizing from the Hauser case, labeling it as the enforcement of "conformity":

And yet I would argue that conformity is more harmful to children than living an "alternative" lifestyle. Conformity means feeding your children hot dogs, injecting them with over a hundred vaccines by the age of six (not a hundred individual shots, but a hundred vaccines combined into far fewer shots), exposing them to thousands of hours of television violence, taking psychiatric drugs and engaging in other destructive acts that ultimately harm children.

Healthy child rearing is, by definition, alternative in nature. Because most children (mainstream children) are not anywhere close to healthy. The truly healthy children are those raised by parents who reject mainstream junk foods (and medicine) and, instead, raise their children on real, unprocessed food made by Mother Nature.

Personally, I always laugh at the claims of "naturalness" that come from the likes of Adams. After all, how "natural" is pumping one's body full of various supplements? Yet that's what Mike Adams would recommend. How "natural" is it to pump various liquids up one's posterior in order to "cleanse" the colon? Yet Adams can do nothing but speak well of colon and liver cleansing. In fact, how "natural" are "bioidentical hormones," given that they are chemically synthesized from plant substances by pharmaceutical companies (just like a number of regular pharmaceuticals) and mixed by compounding pharmacies? Yet Adams castigates the FDA's attempts to regulate bioidentical hormones as big pharma assaulting "natural cures."

That is, of course, because to woo-meisters like Adams "natural" means whatever he needs it to mean. Right is left; up is down; and the world is upside-down. And Danny Hauser is nothing more than a convenient tool in Adams' endless campaign to bring quackery to the masses.

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Update: Daniel Hauser must continue chemotherapy

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I'm glad to hear that Danny Hauser's tumor is responding to chemo, after all it took to get him back into treatment.

My Google news alert sent that "USA Patriot Act" rant to my mailbox, and for a while I considered blogging about the nonsense contained therein. But the last two weeks have been busy with end-of-term stuff, so I let it pass.

So, thanks, Orac, for having the intestinal fortitude to tackle it. That whole rant was just begging for a fisking.

Can someone answer a question for me? Why do you call people you don't agree with "woo - meisters", and why is what they talk about called "woo"?
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Previous blogs mentioned us "woo meisters" as never providing evidence for our claims. That is not true.

The main focus of Happeh Theory is that masturbation will make a human being blind and crippled. A new ad is coming out featuring some guy that is posed laying down on his side with his right elbow propping him up.

Please look at the right hand of the man in the picture and see if it makes you think of anything. Ladies? You probably won't see anything. Also look at both of the man's eyes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/15/piers-morgan-burger-king-na…

Is it a coincidence that the man's right hand is clenched and held at his side in a way that resembles a hand clenched and held for masturbation, and his right eye is small, while his left hand is open and his left eye looks bigger than the right eye?

No it is not a coincidence. It is proof of the reality of the claim by Happeh Theory that masturbation will make you blind. Masturbation will shrink one of the eyes which will cause a deterioration of the vision.

It is also proof of the existence of the Yin part of the body. Yin Yang Theory can be used to explain why masturbation of the penis at the groin, will make one of the eyes in the head go blind.

You want evidence? I got months of evidence. Alternative medicine does offer health information that conventional scientists have not yet figured out.

From now on, if anyone cites something from Mike Adams and/or Natural News, I'm bringing this to their attention. Hopefully, most people would recognize the absurdity, apart from those deeply entrenched in conspiracy theories.

"And yet I would argue that conformity is more harmful to children than living an "alternative" lifestyle."

Hmm...I'm an autistic lesbian atheist vegetarian, and they're calling it conformist to agree with science-based medicine?! (I couldn't be a conformist if I tried...) People who rail against so-called "conventional" medicine seem to always include mention of junk food in their list of things to eschew, along with the things that really ought not to be eschewed (like, reason). What I like to remind people who like to "go against the grain" so to speak, is that the modern medical treatments and findings (that form the basis of recommendations) that comprise evidence-based medical practice were all new before, discovered by someone and no one else knew about it.

Sure, the vast majority of discoveries take a long time and are the culmination of the efforts of many hard-working scientists, but that didn't make them any less new or revolutionary at the time. After all, if such things as even germ theory hadn't once been revolutionary and new, then we would still be stuck balancing the humors as the best standard of care.

So glad to hear he is doing better.

Great to see Katie Wernecke doing so well, some 4 years later:

http://www.caller.com/news/2009/may/24/pairs-feat-out-of-this-world/

If one needs proof that Daniel Hauser either lacks the capacity for rational decision-making concerning his situation or has been "educated" into an irrational state of mind in that regard, all that is necessary is the family friend's description of him as "angry" in response to the news that his cancer is responding to chemotherapy.

So happeh-daze, is it ok to masturbate just until we need glasses?

What the hell are you talking about?

Melody - the difference between you and 'they' is that you are a RATIONAL non-conformist, whereas 'they' can only ever be described as irrational non-conformists!

Happeh,

Please tell me where you get theat sweet, sweet, chiba you are smoking.

How exactly does a random Burger King add prove your theory?

Speaking of the "depths of crazy", maybe Mike Adams feels a special obligation to plumb those depths now that another major source of alt med looniness and conspiracy theorizing has mysteriously vanished.

CureZone has been offline for weeks now. Anyone know what happened to it? Did it get pizened by chemtrails or kidnapped by the international bankers? Where can we go now to learn about urine therapy and purging ourselves of imaginary parasites?

I really, really wished I hadn't clicked on that link!

Don't see no Yin or Yang, just the weird!!!

Grendel, didn't know you were Australian. Hi there. I live in Melbourne, and have an Aspie blind son.

Holy crap, Burger King is selling perfume! Aaaahahahahaha!!!

@Happeh:

Is it a coincidence that the man's right hand is clenched and held at his side in a way that resembles a hand clenched and held for masturbation, and his right eye is small, while his left hand is open and his left eye looks bigger than the right eye?

No it is not a coincidence. It is proof of the reality of the claim by Happeh Theory that masturbation will make you blind. Masturbation will shrink one of the eyes which will cause a deterioration of the vision.

No, he's posing because the photographer told him to pose that way. And his eyes aren't different sizes; any appearance of difference in size is due to a combination of his head not being aimed directly at the camera, difference in the positions of the eyelids, and difference in the pattern of tensed and relaxed muscles surrounding each eye. All of these things are because of the facial expression that the photographer told him to make.

Additionally, if masturbation causes shrinkage and vision damage of just one eye, then optometrists all over the world would notice lots of people with one shrunken eye, yet I've never heard of such a thing. Your theory requires a worldwide optometrist conspiracy to keep the fact of shrunken eyes a secret from the rest of the world.

I always want to comment on Orac's analysis, but they're usually so long, I couldn't possibly do it justice. So, I'm glad that Daniel is doing well, but I hope that we're not getting filtered information from the family. Because of HIPAA rules, I doubt that Orac can call Daniel's physicians directly to get the facts, but I'm guessing that if things weren't going well, we'd hear about it from the family.

And why do you guys spend a nanosecond of brainpower and keystrokes to reply to Happeh? Don't you know that feeding trolls just makes them hungrier?

Man! That's some good stuff you got there, Happeh! Very funny.

My living will.

If I ever get a curable cancer and because of competition for scarce medical resources there is either woo quackery or proper medical care please can I please have what Orac and his fraternity of medically trained, qualified and experienced oncologists dish out and can the other person have the magic sugar pills, holistic qi energy rebalancing shakras and prayer.

Pretty please.

"Your theory requires a worldwide optometrist conspiracy to keep the fact of shrunken eyes a secret from the rest of the world."

How is that a problem for his theory?

"Is it a coincidence that the man's right hand is clenched and held at his side in a way that resembles a hand clenched and held for masturbation, and his right eye is small, while his left hand is open and his left eye looks bigger than the right eye?"

Man, that's some real research-grade evidence you've got there, Happeh. A photo from some ad.

Given that your theory is worthless for anything other than cheap laughs, I'm not surprised this is the evidence you have to support it.

Man, that's some real research-grade evidence you've got there, Happeh. A photo from some ad.

Well, as we all know, photos taken for ads are never, ever photoshopped or altered in any way.

Also, this site is full of evidence for Happeh Theory. Game, set, match, scientifericians!

Don't let the reports of the boy's anger fool you. The main reason they came back was that even he and his mom realized that the tumor was still growing despite the three months of woo, unsupported by chemo.

Meanwhile, I hope you won't the O/T nature of the rest of my comment, but I promise to be more rational than the resident thread troll.

Anyway, over at Oxdown we're having a discussion of malpractice suits, insurance, and policing of the medical profession. Right now the lawyers are dominating the discussion, but some doctors are scheduled to join in. Respectful insolence would be appreciated!

Orac: "pseudoreligion called Nemenhah"
Orac could you please tell me what the difference is between a religion and a pseudoreligion? Is it how long they have been around or how many followers they have?

#7: I wouldn't be reading that much into his anger. This is a 13 year old boy who wanted to do something dangerous to his own well-being, which he did not understand, and a bunch of adults came along and prevented him from doing it. I'd be more worried if reports were saying he wasn't angry.

sailor, the reason the Nemenhah "religion" has been dubbed a pseudoreligion is because it really doesn't have any actual tenets about the spiritual. It's more of a natural medicine club than a religion. It also has nothing to do with Native American practices. It's a bunch of stuff that the (Caucasian) founder claims his father came up with on his own, without the benefit of Native American wisdom.

What pisses me off the most is that while this group goes around encouraging people to ditch modern medicine in favor of something they claim is Native American, real Native Americans living on reservations (in as authentic a lifestyle as they can manage) are only avoiding modern medicine because they can't get at it in the first place -- and consequently die of preventable illnesses at a staggering rate compared to the general population. (Indeed, the male life expectancy at Pine Ridge in SD is the second worst in the Western hemisphere, behind only Haiti. Haiti, where people can't even afford to eat dirt.)

So "Cloudpiler" is not only profiting off of the unwary by promoting this "Indian wisdom" crap, he's also propagating a myth that Indians live in perfect harmony with nature and therefore don't need any assistance from the government. And that sort of thinking is why those tribes unable to find a nice revenue stream are currently in serious peril of extinction.

Good to hear the boy is doing well.
Soon enough the chemo will be over.
I hope his delaying treatment won't degrade his survival chances too much.

Three questions:

1)Will people never learn to not feed the happeh?

2) WTF does Mike Adams have against hot dogs?

3)In the post you say that after only one treatment there is a significant chance of cells resistant to chemo becoming dominant in the tumor, how do multiple treatments stop this from happening? And is this why the survival rate is stuck at 95%?

OT -hello to fellow women scientistas from Melbourne!

Secondly is this Mike Adams the same as the moron who writes for Clownhall or is there a link between naming your child Mike Adams and there subsequent total loss of reason and shame?

Paulie - "How exactly does a random Burger King add prove your theory"

Ummm. It is a picture of masturbation caused damage to the human body?
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Matthew Cline - "No, he's posing because the photographer told him to pose that way. "

What a disappointment. You finally sounded like a scientist in those other comments. Now you are back to being thick. Yes the photographer posed him that way. How does that have anything to do with the state of his body?

Matthew CLine - "And his eyes aren't different sizes;"

Now you are resorting to lying eh?

Matthew CLine - "any appearance of difference in size is due to a combination of his head not being aimed directly at the camera, difference in the positions of the eyelids, and difference in the pattern of tensed and relaxed muscles surrounding each eye. All of these things are because of the facial expression that the photographer told him to make."

You don't have a clue what you are talking about.

Matthew CLine - "Your theory requires a worldwide optometrist conspiracy to keep the fact of shrunken eyes a secret from the rest of the world."

Making large assumptions aren't you? What makes you think the rest of the world believes your stoopid western science? Shouldn't you be saying "The white population of the western world is in on the conspiracy"

Asian people know exactly what I am talking about. They ridicule blind white people all the time. I saw a black man on the TV the other day ridiculing a blind white man. The white man did not have a clue what the black man was saying.

You are so naive. There is a funny sticker that is supposed to be making fun of Asians. White people are so stoopid they don't realize the stupid face the Asians are making on that sticker is what Asians see when they look at a white person.

I want the intelligent scientist Matthew back. This thick one bores me.
------------

Once again the inhabitants of this blog prove that they are a clique whose purpose is to pour hate on alternative medicine.

Not one adult claiming to be a scientist or interested in science could even define what woo is when politely asked by a stranger.

Keep playing your child's ignoring game. I can talk for years. I am used to the ignorant sitting there with their eyes glazed over because they cannot comprehend what I say. It is my job to ignore the incomprehension and keep talking.

I can do that because I know the process takes 5 or 10 years. Anyone whose eyes glaze over when they hear what I say is going to take 5 or 10 years to reach the point where they can comprehend what I say.

So don't feel bad if you don't have the ability to understand me. There are not many people who can understand genius.

Happeh, not only are you right up there with Wile E. Coyote, super genius but your modest too boot...NOT.

Yes the photographer posed him that way. How does that have anything to do with the state of his body?

It doesn't, Happeh.
That's why the photo doesn't say a single thing about the state of the man's body that you say it does.

Because if anyone, no matter how healthy or unhealthy, as long as they weren't missing limbs or otherwise similarly grossly deformed posed that way, they would look that way, because that's what the effect of posing is.

Is this clear enough, Happeh? You do not understand the concepts of perspective or what a photograph is.

I am willing to wager that I could take two different pictures of the same subject in a period of about a minute, and you would claim that one picture shows the person terribly ill from a deficiency of Yin, and the other shows them to be perfectly healthy, because you literally do not understand the concept of posture.

Happeh, your derailing of the forum here is getting old.
You and Gene Ray should go camping sometime.

Which is what firefox + greasemonkey + killfile is for...

And it's great to hear the kid's pulling through

@Happeh:

Now you are resorting to lying eh?

No, I'm calling it as I see it. Make of that what you will.

What makes you think the rest of the world believes your stoopid western science?

Okay, lets break this down into non-medical sciences vs medical science. Amongst the non-medical sciences, what does the rest of the world consider "stoopid"? Newtonian mechanics? Quantum mechanics? Relativity? Evolution? Astronomy?

As for medical science, "masturbation isn't dangerous and there is no Yin Yang" isn't the entirety of Wester medicine. To name just a few things, there's the germ theory of disease, vaccines, antibiotics, insulin and chemotherapy. To my knowledge these things aren't rejected wholesale in Asia, and germ theory, vaccines and antibiotics especially are used just as much over there as over here. If you have evidence to the contrary, please point me in its direction.

Shouldn't you be saying "The white population of the western world is in on the conspiracy"

Okay, fine, lets grant your assumption. That's still a huge conspiracy (and it would include not just the whites, but blacks, Arabs, and Latin Americans, unless you claim that they all have their own version of Yin Yang Theory and it's only the whites that lack it). How come not one person in the conspiracy has ever gone whistle-blower?

Asian people know exactly what I am talking about. They ridicule blind white people all the time.

Is this something that they do out in the open, such they you could point it out to us? Or do they do it behind our backs, but you've wised up to them?

Also, in Asia there are schools for things like acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine which accept Western students, yet none of these Westerners have come back from studying Asian medicine and said "masturbation will make you blind, crippled and gay". Are the teachers not giving the Western students the whole story, and then secretly laughing at them for not realizing they've had stuff withheld from them? Or are there Western students of Asian medicine who agree with Happeh Theory (in which case you can point them out to us)?

There is a funny sticker that is supposed to be making fun of Asians. White people are so stoopid they don't realize the stupid face the Asians are making on that sticker is what Asians see when they look at a white person.

I have a friend from Asia. Is he not really my friend, and is laughing at me behind my back while withholding information from me that could improve my health? Or is he not a "true" Asian since he hangs out with the likes of me?

Michael Ralston - "That's why the photo doesn't say a single thing about the state of the man's body that you say it does."

Did you take the science class where they taught you to observe what you see? Not just look, but to observe what you see? Have you had your vision checked lately? Do you really believe that a photographer tells a subject how to hold every single muscle of their body, because that is what would have to happen for the entire pose of the subject to be only the result of the photographers instructions.
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Matthew Cline - "yet none of these Westerners have come back from studying Asian medicine and said "masturbation will make you blind, crippled and gay". Are the teachers not giving the Western students the whole story, and then secretly laughing at them for not realizing they've had stuff withheld from them?"

You do not know Asians or Asian culture. Asians do not like confrontation. They would tell a westerner that masturbation makes you blind and crippled, and then that westerner might react like people here. "You are a crazy woo meister".

Asians are not like me. They would not come back at you. They would let you believe what you wanted and walk away. It is not their problem if you are rude, aggressive, ingrateful, and do not want to know about reality.

Matthew Cline - "I have a friend from Asia. Is he not really my friend, and is laughing at me behind my back while withholding information from me that could improve my health?'

I could make many comments about this. I will be nice and say......that is what friends are for. To overlook your failings. Sort of like regular people having a person in a wheelchair for a friend. The person in the wheelchair limits the activities of the people not in the wheelchair, but the people not in the wheelchair are friends with the wheelchair person anyways to be nice.

You do not know Asians or Asian culture. Asians do not like confrontation. They would tell a westerner that masturbation makes you blind and crippled, and then that westerner might react like people here. "You are a crazy woo meister".

But the people going to study Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture are already opened-minded enough accept that they work. They already believe in things like ki/chi/qi and meridians, so why wouldn't they accept that masturbation could have negative health effects? And if you Google for "Traditional Chinese Medicine" plus "masturbation", you can easily find an article at acupuncture.com saying:

The weakening of kidney-qi is considered as the major pathogenesis of nocturnal emissions, which may result from the following causes:

Emotional upsets, sexual indulgence, overstrain and masturbation, causing imbalance of the heart-fire and kidney-fluid.

The same Google search shows plenty of other pages of English speaking TCM practitioners saying "masturbation is bad for you".

Happeh is sadly deranged. Saying the same things over and over again. Ignore them and maybe they will go away and get professional help.

Hmmm....

I must pay attention the next time I walk through Chinatown or go to an Asian restaurant with my blind white son.

Or maybe I should ask one the many Asian doctors that are part of his medical team.

@DebinOz:

I must pay attention the next time I walk through Chinatown

Be careful. According to Happeh, Asian sales-people use their knowledge of Yin, Yang and ki/chi/qi to mind-control white people into buying more expensive things.

Happeh: It hardly takes every muscle to get the effects you think are caused by Yin deficiency.

And last time I had my vision checked it was 20/40 in both eyes, just like it's been for years. No asymmetry there, despite the fact Happeh Theory would expect me to be highly asymmetrical.

But seriously, Happeh, I would strongly suggest you take a photograph of a healthy person, then ask them to lean a little bit and take another picture of them. Then take a picture of someone with a "Yin deficiency", then ask them to stand up straight and take another picture of them.

Then a week later, look at the pictures and try to remember which was which.

@Michael Ralston:

And last time I had my vision checked it was 20/40 in both eyes, just like it's been for years.

Your optometrist lied to you. S/he is obviously part of the Conspiracy.

Aha....

Is this the same concept as why Asian people have so much more yummier stuff delivered to their table in Asian restaurants than us white folks? And I would be double-damned because I am accompanied by a blind person!

I'm going to run this past my son's surgeon, Dr Chang, next week at my son's post-surgery check-up. OMG, I've just thought - maybe he didn't do his best work, seeing as he was operating on a blind kid!

Happeh-daze: do you see how ludicrous this is?

Yo Happeh's so narcissistic, he thinks the DSM-IV is all about him.

Thanks Calli, that answers my question.

Richard Eis - "Happeh is sadly deranged. Saying the same things over and over again"

I am at the right place then. Every day this blog and the people in it say "Alternative medicine is woo".

All of you are deranged too.

Happeh is a satire. He can't possibly be serious about any of this stuff. However, if masturbation causes blindness, how does that work in women? Also, why is that 99% of people masturbate and most of them aren't blind? Or are we all actually blind and just don't realize it?

You want evidence? I got months of evidence. Alternative medicine does offer health information that conventional scientists have not yet figured out.

Well, I have decades of evidence that masturbation does not cause blindness. I think most other people have even more evidence to add.

I've only tiptoed around so much of this verbiage; I've spent hours on the subject; my Dad had Leukemia and Melanoma and endured on-going chemo and meds and died an unhappy, depressed death after a totally vital life for 80 some years. My daughter was drugged with psychotropic salads et al being misdiagnosed, then dying more of fright from a brain tumor that was not treated. First, I see no mention of true spiritual beliefs or the facts of the the brain-mind-heart connection, (note Candace Pert's book Molecules of Emotion; she's a high end scientist). No mention of the role that chronic thoughts and feelings play in the manifestation of dis-ease. Sorry, but as an over 60 healthy gal who doesn't take an aspirin, I could have succumbed to several family deaths (and dying) if I did not have my natural healing/believing theories.

@catgirl: I'm not so sure you should dismiss Happeh's claims so quickly. You may not be aware of this, but recent studies have shown that upwards of 98% of the male population of the United States is legally blind by the time they turn 18, and something along the lines of 85% of the female population.

Of course, the researchers think the actual percentages may be even higher, because the social stigma attached to adolescent blindness could be causing people to lie even on the survey. It's impossible to tell for sure. But in any case, these numbers suggest that, despite objections from the visual conservatives and other members of the Religious Sight, blindness is an appropriate subject to discuss in Optical Education classes. Students should be taught that it is perfectly normal to go blind during early puberty.

You may not be aware of this, but recent studies have shown that upwards of 98% of the male population of the United States is legally blind by the time they turn 18, and something along the lines of 85% of the female population.

Wow, I'm surprised that 14% of women are liars!

Michael Ralston - "And last time I had my vision checked it was 20/40 in both eyes, just like it's been for years. No asymmetry there, despite the fact Happeh Theory would expect me to be highly asymmetrical."

You know what is funny about people like you? You are all extremely confident that you are right and I am wrong. Until I ask you to post a picture of yourself and let me judge whether you not you are blind.

In years of telling people to post a picture if they are so confident they are not blind, only one, just one of those hundreds of people had the courage to do it.

And he had signs of masturbation blindness. He wanted to argue about it, but he did.
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Catgirl - "However, if masturbation causes blindness, how does that work in women?"

Human beings are human beings. A penis or vagina does not matter. Masturbation will make you blind.

catgirl - "Also, why is that 99% of people masturbate and most of them aren't blind? Or are we all actually blind and just don't realize it?"

Yes.

I will tell you the same thing I told Mike. Post a picture of yourself. I will point out the masturbation blindness for you.

Happeh @ 49:

I ask you to post a picture of yourself and let me judge whether you not you are blind...I will point out the masturbation blindness for you.

Newsflash: a diagnosis of blindness is dependent wholly upon one's ability to see, not on one's outward physical appearance. You FAIL at understanding blindness and basic human physiology.

catgirl - "Also, why is that 99% of people masturbate and most of them aren't blind? Or are we all actually blind and just don't realize it?"

Happeh - "Yes."

Please define what you mean by "blind". We are all talking about the ability to detect light. What the heck are YOU talking about Happeh?

When he says "blind", he means "impaired visual acuity". He has to use hyperbole like that, or else we ignorant, stupid white people won't realize that we all have impaired visual acuity.

Or something like that.

Happeh: As I already stated, I have 20/40 vision in both eyes. That is, in fact, not blindness. I can't take a good picture of myself as the only camera I have is on my webcam, which is on my very tiny laptop.

However, given that you seem to be of the opinion that -everyone- you see pictures of has signs of blindness, even those whose vision is, in fact, testably ideal, well, what's to say except that you're crazy?

Seriously. Seek help.

Happeh, your argument rests entirely on the Bare Assertion fallacy-that you assume we're supposed to accept your claim as true simply because YOU say it is true, without any real evidence to back it up. The "evidence" you provide for your woo is nothing but wild, baseless conjecture and is actually more akin to those loonies who believe in the Illuminati and point to random geometric shapes in corporate symbols as "proof".

Happehs request for people to post pictures so he can 'prove' that we are actually blind is rather bizarre, not only would most of us have to have working sight in order to send him the actual pictures (screen reader technology is advanced on what it was, but is still quite limited when it comes to pictures), but he's basically asking us to prove we masterbate and then send him pictures of our eyes. A more suspicious person would suspect happeh of being a rather wierd fetishist.

Either that of Happeh has a bizarre and unsupportable definition of 'blindness'.

So Happeh, stop this childish assertion that you are a superior being, capable of proving or disproving entire fields of study just on you say-so.

Stop being an arrogant egocentric arsehole and start ponying it up or start shutting it up. You have failed in all attempts so far, and have instead spewed out insulting accusations of maas incompetance.

You should give some consideration to the idea that maybe it's you who are incompetant. This will inevitably go against your god-ego, but it's something us mere mortals do.

Happeh:

All your pictures prove is that you can't tell the difference between gay porn and an anatomical drawing. Which leads me to wonder why you don't regularly confuse your mouse for a foot pedal.

Facepalm - "Newsflash: a diagnosis of blindness is dependent wholly upon one's ability to see, not on one's outward physical appearance. You FAIL at understanding blindness and basic human physiology."

Sorry FacePalm. That is more of your stoopid western science speaking. I can easily diagnose relative visual ability by looking at a person. So can millions of Asians, Africans and Hispanics.

I would also advise against using the word "fail". It makes you sound like a mindless internet lemming.
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TheShiningFool - "Please define what you mean by "blind". We are all talking about the ability to detect light. What the heck are YOU talking about Happeh?"

Impairment of visual ability. Eventually leading to complete blindness like the blindness that Viagra can cause.
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Michael Ralston - "Seriously. Seek help."

There goes my respect for you. Not only do you make excuses about why you can't post your picture, you reply in the way the teenagers on Yahoo groups do.
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Laser Potato - "that you assume we're supposed to accept your claim as true simply because YOU say it is true, "

I feel despair talking to you people. You are supposed to be scientists. That means you are supposed to be smarter than everyone else. Yet every post shows that scientists are usually less smart than the average person on the street.

I bet that your ancestors made that exact response to the first man who said the world was round. Ponder that comment for awhile.
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Brian X - "All your pictures prove is that you can't tell the difference between gay porn and an anatomical drawing."

Another scientist in a scientific blog who would fail first year college science lab. First year science lab is "Write down what you see".

If Brian X was in chem lab and he saw a pink frothing solution with fumes coming off of it, Brian X would report his observations as "I saw a pink solution". Brian X would completely miss the frothing of the solution and the fumes coming off of it because he has no observational ability.

The vagina Orac is holding my posts for moderation? Jeez. Someone get that woman a midol
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