I'm afraid that you have Type 1 Diabetes. Have you tried a leech on your pancreas?
Before I get into it, today. I'd like to address the lovely comments and discussion that surrounded my last blog; The Path To Pumping Pt.1 Over 1,500 of you have read that and I'm astounded by that figure. I really will be following that up in the coming months.
Alrighty then! It's 2021 and Quackery is alive and well. It might even be thriving! Last week, my blog was spammed a total of 18 times from an individual in Ghana who promised cures for pretty much everything, ranging from Herpes to HIV. Diabetes got a mention, of course. Fast-forward to today and something involving salmon placentas and stem cells arrived in my inbox. Those aren't the only incidents, either. Throughout my time using the Internet, some 26 years, that kind of quackery has been an almost constant event.
I think I'm well enough informed to never have fallen for such nonsense even in the early days. It's persistence and longevity does worry me, however. If there was never a buyer for such ridiculous advice then there wouldn't be a market. Since the dawn of the Internet, I wonder how many desperate people have become seriously ill or died from the advice of Quacks? It's terrifying to consider.
Not all advice is quackery, of course. Mansplaining, for example isn't usually a money making exercise. A keyboard and an urge to feel important and knowledgeable is enough motivation. Incidentally, men rarely mansplain to me. Make of that what you will. Advice, even in well meaning forms can be a dangerous thing. As Diabetics, we administer dangerous drugs to ourselves and just a small miscalculation can have dramatic, perhaps fatal, results.
When it comes to the Internet, especially social media it's still the Wild West for medical advice. There are warnings on some platforms when keywords are picked up. Covid is a great example and Facebook appears to be taking some notice to SOME problems surrounding dangerous advice. Twitter is not and that's really disappointing. It's easy to report tweets and accounts for lots of terrible things but when it comes to dangerous, misinformation around health? Nothing. It's left to us as Twitter users to decide on what is correct and good information and what might put us in our graves. That needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Stronger content policing would serve social media platforms and the users well but if that will happen is debatable. Why? Well, content means views and views mean ad' impressions. Impressions mean income. Are the social media platforms really interested in taking care of us or taking care of their shareholders?
I feel the eyes of the Freedom Of Speech brigade, muttering something about the "Thought Police" because they can't grasp how their bright ideas expressed through the Internet might damage others. They likely never will. Did anybody change their opinions and admit to being wrong on the Internet?
I think the Internet and social media are great places to get wonderful information and support. They're imperfect, of course and so is general society. I encourage treading carefully when it comes to your health and online advice. Would you listen to a stranger in the park in regards to your insulin dosage? I didn't think so. What's different to the stranger on Twitter?
I feel like this little blog has become a public safety information message which the majority probably don't need. If nobody was buying those pancreas leeches, though...
Thank you so much for reading this blog. I do appreciate your visit and your support. As you might know, I LOVE COFFEE! So I've teamed up with a thing called Buy Me A Coffee. If you enjoy my content and appreciate the time it takes to create such things then you can buy me a coffee! If you leave your Twitter @ name when you buy me a coffee, I will personally thank you. If you'd rather be anonymous then that's totally cool. Thanks for the caffeine!
