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An Open Letter To Oprah Winfrey
I am appalled by your uncaring, criminally negligent promotion of any charlatan that crosses your path. I am holding you personally responsible for the upcoming death of Kim Tinkham. She took your recommendation for The Secret and other medically unsound advice, and is now dying of a cancer that could have been prevented.
You should feel ashamed and guilty at the part you played in her death. You are the most powerful woman in the world; what you say, your readers take as Gospel; what you endorse, your readers accept as Truth, trusting you to have done the proper research before presenting it to them. They are not stupid, make no mistake that I am insulting their intelligence. They are human, and people trust important celebrities like you to not deceive them when they present pseudoscience as science and lies as fact.
You have had Kim Tinkham on your show and I will give you credit for looking uncomfortable when she admitted to eschewing all proper medical attention for her cancer. But you continue to promote The Secret, which is directly responsible for her decision to do so, and you promote hucksters like John of God, with his obviously fake parlor tricks that have been revealed and denounced decades ago.
Kim Tinkham is responsible for her own decisions, and her "doctor", Robert O. Young is not just criminally negligent, but criminally murderous for his role in Kim's (and others') case. But you are responsible for encouraging and spreading the types of lies and myths that result in otherwise intelligent and educated people like Kim pursuing these quacks and snake-oil nostrums. You have such a broad reach, that one whisper from you is like that fateful butterfly whose wings cause a breeze that results in a tsunami on the other side of the world.
As trite as it may seem, coming from a comic book movie, "with great power comes great responsibility". You, Ms. Winfrey, have great power to influence millions of people. You are not living up to your responsibility. If you can't handle this kind of responsibility, if you can only palm it off on your audience by leaving it up to them to do the research your money and staff should have been doing before you promoted the quackery you did, then you do not deserve your power.
Do the honorable thing and possibly redeem a portion of the respect that the legitimate science community has lost for you by retracting your support for The Secret, John of God, and the other quacks who convince your audience that wishful thinking can cure their cancers or that the "medical establishment" is "out to get them". You have the power to actually influence the tide of public opinion in this country, and you could contribute to the improvement of health of the entire nation if only you wielded your power for good.
Do the right thing.
(posted as an Open Letter on my blog at http://joreth.livejournal.com)
(Want to write a letter to? Want to know what this is all about? http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/12/let_oprah_know_that_kim_tinkham_is_dying.php)
You should feel ashamed and guilty at the part you played in her death. You are the most powerful woman in the world; what you say, your readers take as Gospel; what you endorse, your readers accept as Truth, trusting you to have done the proper research before presenting it to them. They are not stupid, make no mistake that I am insulting their intelligence. They are human, and people trust important celebrities like you to not deceive them when they present pseudoscience as science and lies as fact.
You have had Kim Tinkham on your show and I will give you credit for looking uncomfortable when she admitted to eschewing all proper medical attention for her cancer. But you continue to promote The Secret, which is directly responsible for her decision to do so, and you promote hucksters like John of God, with his obviously fake parlor tricks that have been revealed and denounced decades ago.
Kim Tinkham is responsible for her own decisions, and her "doctor", Robert O. Young is not just criminally negligent, but criminally murderous for his role in Kim's (and others') case. But you are responsible for encouraging and spreading the types of lies and myths that result in otherwise intelligent and educated people like Kim pursuing these quacks and snake-oil nostrums. You have such a broad reach, that one whisper from you is like that fateful butterfly whose wings cause a breeze that results in a tsunami on the other side of the world.
As trite as it may seem, coming from a comic book movie, "with great power comes great responsibility". You, Ms. Winfrey, have great power to influence millions of people. You are not living up to your responsibility. If you can't handle this kind of responsibility, if you can only palm it off on your audience by leaving it up to them to do the research your money and staff should have been doing before you promoted the quackery you did, then you do not deserve your power.
Do the honorable thing and possibly redeem a portion of the respect that the legitimate science community has lost for you by retracting your support for The Secret, John of God, and the other quacks who convince your audience that wishful thinking can cure their cancers or that the "medical establishment" is "out to get them". You have the power to actually influence the tide of public opinion in this country, and you could contribute to the improvement of health of the entire nation if only you wielded your power for good.
Do the right thing.
(posted as an Open Letter on my blog at http://joreth.livejournal.com)
(Want to write a letter to? Want to know what this is all about? http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/12/let_oprah_know_that_kim_tinkham_is_dying.php)