"Who are you to make such claims?" Complaints Bloggers (I) Receive

Sometimes in posts on this blog, I want to warn people with small children about dangerous diseases and illnesses that can be prevented easily. But sometimes people will write thing like, "Who are you to make such claims?" Or like in yesterday's post, a comment like this, "You seriously are comparing the worst nuclear disaster ever, to flu shots. (sic) You are a sick individual." 

I get lots of hate mail especially when I compare the risks of everyday occurrences with a media sensationalized story like Fukushima.

Challenges. Those are comments that I often get... Along with invective and personal insults. I try not to insult these people back. I like to think that the big electrode, God, Buddha, Zig Zag, what-have-you, in the sky put these people on the earth to teach me patience and how to be a better person.

Kindness to people works wonders!

My third daughter Wendy.  Some say she is handicapped. 
I say she is "just perfect!"

The most recent attacks I have received are because I have warned parents about serious problems, diseases and illnesses that can affect their children and I use Fukushima sensationalism as a comparison. People will grossly overreact to Fukushima, over a hundred miles away, but when serious causes of diseases (that get little media attention) are right under their noses, they are oblivious. 

To pat myself on the back (once again) as a mass media professional for over thirty years, I know what kind of BS goes on with news reporting and sensationalism as I have seen it from the inside. And, with four kids, I hope I know a bit about raising children. In fact, because of 4 kids, and one of them defeating a rare, deadly childhood disease - yet remaining handicapped for the rest of her life - I know more than most parents would ever want to know about raising kids and diseases like childhood cancer.

Many times I have pointed out that we cannot believe what we hear on the TV news and even so-called alternative media. The sensationalism sells advertising. That's the point and, in this day and age, it astounds me that most people today say they know that, but when it comes to something like Swine Flu or Fukushima, they seem to forget it. I am beginning to think that this selective response is due to some childhood phobias. Please refer to: Japan Nuclear Disaster Update & Strong Criticism of Western Media Sensationalism:

Actually, it astounds me that people do accept what what the media says as gospel truth. Don't forget that this is the very same media that told us 3 years ago that Swine Flu was going to kill more than 50 million people worldwide. This was the same media that told us that the USA had to invade Iraq because of Saddam's nooklar weapons. This was the same media that told us that SARS also was a killer virus that was going to wipe out entire populations. This was the same media that told us that Bird Flu was going to do the same.

As of today, worldwide  deaths from Swine Flu: 82. No nuclear weapons for Saddam (if he had any, do you really think we would have invaded Iraq?). Worldwide deaths from SARS: 100. Worldwide deaths from Bird Flu: 80. Don't even get me started on Man Made Global Warming!

Fact of the matter is that this is the same media who constantly exaggerates stories in order to sell advertising space to an extremely gullible public. When will people ever learn? If history is any example then the answer is: Never. They'll never learn.

Just wait a year or three for the next killer disease and we can start all over again.  

So, I write posts like the above pointing out problems with the media. Then I write articles alerting people to serious cancer and disease causing problems that, while not trendy, nor spectacularly newsworthy, are actually much more dangerous to our children than Fukushima will ever be. For one example of that, please refer to: 

Benzene in Cars! This Will Kill More People Than Fukushima Will 

Do not turn on A/C immediately as soon as you enter the car! Please open the windows after you enter your car and do not turn on the air-conditioning immediately.

According to research done, the car dashboard, sofa, air freshener emits Benzene, a cancer causing toxin (carcinogen - take note of the heated plastic smell in your car). In addition to causing cancer, it poisons your bones, causes anemia, and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure will cause Leukemia, increasing the risk of cancer. may also cause miscarriage.

Acceptable Benzene levels indoors is 50 mg per sq. ft.. A car parked with windows closed will contain 400 - 800 mg of Benzene. If parked outdoors, under the sun, at temperature above 60 degrees F (15.5 C), the Benzene level goes up to 2000 - 4000 mg, 40 times the acceptable level... And the people inside the car will inevitably inhale an excess amount of the toxins.

It is recommended that you open the windows and doors to give time for the interior to air out before you enter. Benzene is a toxin that affects your kidney and liver, and it is very difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.

Or even my most recent post: 

Massive Cover-up! Worse Than Fukushima? Japan (and the World Over) Danger Levels at More Than 250 X Safe Limit!

Here are the facts: 300 death claims from flu vaccine. And Flu vaccines and neurological problems (caused Guillian Barre Syndrome in over 500 people). These two links show over 800 deaths and nerve damage vaccine related illnesses from, you guessed it, flu shots in one year alone! So far deaths or illness from Fukushima: Zero. 

Because of these posts, though, I will get attacked by people who ask me what right or authority I have to mention anything about diseases like this or children's cancer. Perhaps I am confused, but here is where I think my authority lies. My authority lies in my dearest third daughter whom I love deeply and will spend the rest of my life caring for and trying to help other parents (and their children) to prevent a similar struggle. 

So let me give my qualifications. First, my darling daughter, Wendy. One day, when she was age 1 1/2, she suddenly could not walk anymore. It was very strange. One day she was running around, the next day she couldn't stand. Soon after, she was diagnosed with 4th stage of a rare form of children's cancer called Rhabdomysarcoma. The doctors said it was incurable and her diagnosis was poor. She, like all children diagnosed with this horrible disease, was only expected to live for 2 ~ 6 months. 

As some may know, 4th stage cancer is the worst and final stages. The doctors at Setagaya Children's Hospital told me that she had virtually no chance. But I fought back. We fought back. 

I fired those doctors and hired the #1 expert in Japan (and top doctor in the world for this type of cancer - Dr. Mugishima at Nichidai hospital in Itabashi Tokyo) to handle my daughter. I fired the first group of doctors because they said, "Virtually zero chance." Dr. Mugishima gave us a 7% chance. Good enough. Better than zero. If your doctor doesn't think you have a chance, then that's not good. Fire them.

As part of the new doctor's regime, my then wife had to move into the hospital with my daughter 24/7 and that left me at home with two small girls to care for by myself and to try to hold down a job too! In spite of that, I took care of those two girls, and visited my daughter and wife in the hospital everyday religiously for nearly two years. 

The hospital cost me an impossible amount to pay. It was well over $5,000 a month every month for those 2 years (insurance doesn't pay for private hospitals and choices) and yet I paid it out of my pocket with no loans (Heck, I was a foreigner in Japan, my wife was in the hospital with my daughter, I had no assets, who's going to give me a loan? No one.) Yet, even with all this, I held down my job, paid for everything, cooked and cleaned and we came out victorious in a war with a deadly disease. 

When my daughters cancer was declared in full remission she was released from the hospital with one big caveat: Because of the treatment, her immune system was so damaged that she was not allowed to live with other children for six years because she would be catching all sorts of illness (from her sisters who played with other children at school who caught colds all the time). And those illnesses might kill her. 

After two years apart in the hospital and then another six years apart (at least) for the future, and me with a 11-year-old and a 9-year-old from a previous marriage, my wife and I decided it was best to get a divorce. In over 80% of all cases where a child in Japan gets cancer in Japan, the parents wind up in divorce. The pressure and stress are too great.

My daughter is now a high school student and looking forward to college. She is wheelchair bound for life but one of the happiest and most positive people you could ever hope to meet. I wish my other daughters were so happy!

Japan has a population of about 130 million people. Only about two or three children per year get this rare form of cancer. Nearly all of them do not survive. My daughter was only the second one in history of Japan, since it started cancer study with Germany and the USA in 1971, to do so.

These are my qualifications. I don't think they are so bad. 

UPDATE: People need to get their priorities straight. For example, did you know that: In the U.S., the odds of being killed by conventional medicine are almost 20 times (2,000%) greater than being killed in an automobile accident and almost 30 times (3,000%) greater than being killed by a gun. - From Confessions of a Drug Industry Insider.

*If any parents have such a challenge to deal with, please write to me and perhaps I can give some advice that may be helpful... I will try.