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High Frutcose Corn Syrup scare as a prelude to quackery.

I didn't just wake up one day and decide to follow quack or CAM, complementary and Alternative Medicine. One major factor for me falling victim to quackery was the HFCS scare and my college. My college level nutritional teacher had us watch a documentary or something on HFCS Nightline or 60 minutes. I plan to re-watch the special news cast some time. Was around 2005-2008 can't remember exactly when I watched the video in class. Anyways, this made me think diet was more important than I thought.  I think this also opened the door to full blown quackery just a crack. By exaggerating the harm of high fructose corn syrup the media did a disservice, probably liberal media.  I also remember my college level nutritional teacher pointing to a libertarian website called consumer freedom and her calling the website awful. I remember reading an article I perceived as inflammatory. As I see it the liberal and conservative media failed in different ways. The liberal by exaggerating t...
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Future plans. Scientific based vegan website blog, webcomic, or something.

I doubt these plans will ever come to fruition. You know you've hit it big when you have your own web comic even if nobody reads it. I am fed up with all this health advice especially pertaining to diet. It feels like a bunch of rich white people have nothing better to do than to waste time and money on quackery. I detest quackery. Go to sciencebasedmedicine, quackwatch, or the skepdoc right now if you hate quackery as much as I do. I'm sure these people can explain better than me. Nevertheless, I have personal experience however weak evidence it is, people seem to care about it. Besides the personal experience is backed by science, it is plausible that I am telling the truth. By the way I welcome legitimate, scientific, constructive, and polite criticism. Not "hey you breath stinks and your a insert random swear word here." All the contradictions between diet really bothers me. Sure, there might be a few extremists that promote quack physical fitness. Yet, the ...
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A $7 faulty Thermometer cost me a $125 trip to urgent care.

My head felt a little chill so I took my temperature using an old thermometer around 10 years old and got a surprisingly low temp, around 94 degrees. So I talk to the pharmacist and she says they become inaccurate as they age, so I buy another Thermometer for $7. A Topcare brand at Wegmans. I think very similar if not exactly the same as the Amazon link below.  Anyways I get a higher temp, 96 degrees, this is still low. For several days I use the new $7 thermometer getting more and more scared. I read on webMd and Mayoclinic the dangers of hypothermia, a temperature lower than 95 degrees. In fact, Mayoclinic even states you should call 911 if someone has a temp lower than 95.  Here's the quote from Mayoclinc.com " When to see a doctor Call 911 or your local emergency number if you suspect someone has hypothermia." Mayoclinic  Finally, I break down after about five days and go to urgent care. I shell out $125 to find out my temperature is completely normal 98.5....
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Why I turned to quack doctors and quackery.

When we make a mistake it is often painful to analyze the error. We often chalk it up to "oh I was stupid, or I was young." This trivial non-explanation only obscures the problem making it worse. Today, I am taking a broader and deeper delve into why I turned to quackery in general, including anti-dentist,  anti-doctor, anti-flouride, and anti-vaxxer.  First, let's start with admitting that I was an anti-vaxxer but now strongly believe that vaccines save lives. First, is the idea of a gateway belief. In climate change belief in the 97% scientific consensus effects a wide variety of climate change beliefs. The same with being anti-dentist and anti-doctor. If you think that dentists and doctors are a waste of money, you are highly vulnerable to Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey's anti-vaccine quack propaganda. How does a person become anti-dentist and anti-doctor? Well for me the simple answer in my opinion is poverty. The more complicated answer is class oppression....
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The importance of flouride and random dental care.

First, this is a blog, I am not a medical doctor nor a dentist. Nevertheless, I tend to back up my claims with science as to avoid quackery. Please use science to verify any and all claims I make. I will try my best, yet as a human I am fallible. First, I will state that the poisonmongers did scare me. I fell for quackery in the past. Here is an article from quackwatch.org that explains how poisonmongers work. " Although fluoridation is safe and effective in preventing tooth decay, the scare tactics of misguided poisonmongers have deprived many communities of its benefits."[0] Here is rationalwiki's take on water fluoridation.  " Since its inception in the 1940s, the scientifically sound concept of fluoridating water has been a source of fear and suspicion in the minds of conspiracy theorists . Fluoride works by converting the outer layer of tooth enamel made of hydroxylapatite, Ca 5 (PO 4 ) 3 OH, to fluoroapatite, Ca 5 (PO 4 ) 3 F. The latter chemical ...
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Privacy is important.

Privacy is important, but in this age of computers maintaining privacy is becoming increasingly difficult. If your naive/ignorant, you've probably given away way too much information already. That being said, I like firefox as a web browser. Duckduck as a search engine, Privacy badger as an add on. I'm not sure how much this helps, but at least it sends a message I care about my privacy. On the other hand, advertisements are used to pay for websites. Many advertisers use tracking cookies to help with targeted ads. In other words we have two choices. A. The web is free of $$$, but costs privacy. B. The web is private, but every website you go to you must pay some sort of subscription. I'm not sure which is better, but contemporary culture definitely lean towards A. Some websites even go so far as to call me a freeloader for wanting to maintain my privacy and anonymity on the web. Would you really want to have to keep track of 30+ paid subscriptions, one for each we...
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