Drinkers with a Satanic Cult Problem?

Hashers will recognize the symbol in the screengrab above.  It got Flying Booger’s attention; after a few minutes’ googling, he found some wackjob website that tried linking cancer researchers, etc. to devil worship or some such nonsense.  Said website raised his hackles a bit…can’t say I’d blame him, especially with one of his fellow Tucson hashers having recently gone into hospice care without anybody even knowing that he’d been sick.

This Saturday, it’ll be one year since my wife passed after putting up a hell of a fight against cancer.  Her doctors tried every treatment feasible, including some experimental treatments.  It was one of the rare cancers…probably something most of you wouldn’t have heard of.  We hadn’t either, until we received the diagnosis after having been married all of two months.  About all the docs could do was try what had worked with somewhat similar cancers in the past and hope for the best.  At first, things looked promising, but the first course of treatment wasn’t sustainable over the long term due to cardiotoxicity and subsequent treatment regimens weren’t as successful at turning back the tide.  All that said, I think everyone involved in my wife’s cancer treatment gave a best effort.  It’s just such a damn tricky disease that a fair bit of the time (and more often than not, with this particular cancer), the best effort in the world still comes up short.  I could be angry with the docs for that, but that would be counterproductive.  It won’t bring Tabitha back, and it won’t help the docs help other patients avoid her fate.

The quacks and pseudoscience fearmongers (or “shit-stirrers,” as Flying Booger called them) who would send cancer patients off on wild-goose chases for “cures” that won’t do them any good (and would possibly do them harm) can go take a long walk off a short pier, as far as I’m concerned. Keeping a positive atttitude is one thing, but eschewing tested, peer-reviewed treatments for what some huckster on the radio at 2 AM is pushing isn’t going to do anybody any good.