True struggles were finally outed for embattled Inner-western suburbs university student and influencer, Ketchup Sharmautar, as he opened up to his month long struggle to find anything ridiculous, yet natural, to post about trying to his 13,222 followers.
“It’s not easy being me.” confessed Ketchup, “And it’s not like you can just make these up. Getting the correct balance between something left-field enough to capture attention, while still being natural enough and marketable to make a decent margin through my online store.”
“The gold rush is over. The Good Old days of Urine Smoothies and Coffee Enemas are gone. You just can’t be original without risking organ failure these days.” He sighs.
When asked why he didn’t just promote good, healthy advice, Keshav had this to say. “You try selling people evidence-based advice. It’s boring. Like and follower suicide.”
While it is true that the best weight loss solutions involve a bit of work and conscious control of some dietary habits, the explosion of Instagram Stars online has fueled more and more misinformation. Cancer Researcher Nikhil Autar points out that cancer patients who took alternative medicines have a 2 – 5.7x higher rate according to numerous studies, with various factors to blame. But you don’t care about those peer-reviewed sources! Read on!
“I tried everything. From picking through compost mounds and pulling out random combinations of fruits and veg, to using Alternative Medicine Generators, nothing worked!” exclaims embattled 24 year old star, Ketchup. “Since my amazing vitamin company that I’m-not-allowed-to-say-the-name-of-in-public-but-am-allowed-to-if-you-DM-me went belly up, I’ve actually considered selling pharmaceutical products on Instagram.”
“I don’t have an obvious disability or anything. Apparently pharmaceuticals have enough ethics to insist on that.” scoffed the little prick, while examining his hairline on his phone’s front-lens camera. “But I’m sure I could pull a Gibson on people and call it a prank.” he laughed.
Instafamous Entrepreneur, Ketchup, Pictured here, understandably disappointed by an eggless sugarless cake he was forced to plug during birthday celebrations.
“You know how hard it is to get alternative cake that’s Vegan, Gluten and GMO free AND Organic these days??? Of course it tasted shit.”
Influencers are conflicted, however. “I’m not sure if something shown to work can be alternative enough to match our audiences.” pouts 80% of all Instagram models selling you a juice cleanse. “I mean I LOVE the fact that they cost followers thousands, as that generates large profits from me. But the whole ‘proven to be safe and effective through numerous clinical trial things’ doesn’t really sell as much as you think it does.”
This has not been Nikhil Autar (not the Nikhil Autar who was interviewed before, or who’s in the URL of this article), I swear, and you should definitely NOT subscribe to his infrequent email list if you approve of alternative medicines being able to make whatever claims they want. PS – next time, I talk to another legit Instagram Influencer who insists his pyramid scheme shaped business is actually just a triangle on this episode of #MedicalFactz
If you wanna learn about that time that I was almost killed by misinformation spread by a guy trying to sell me supervitamins from his “Not a pyramid scheme because pyramid schemes are illegal and we’re still being prosecuted right now” multi-level marketing company – click here.
To lend your voice against social media stars/alternative medicine practitioners who DON’T MAKE DISCLAIMERS THAT WHAT THEY SAY OR DO IS NOT MEDICALLY PROVEN OR SHOWN – something they legally should be doing – click here. If you wanna tweet about the change.org campaign – click here.
I wanna make it sure this is absolutely clear, this is NOT Nikhil Autar who wrote this and you should NOT check out his Instagram or social media accounts – @nikhilautar .
And you should DEFINITELY NOT listen to what he says just because he’s a researcher and is pictured in a lab coat in a certified lab. Because even he’d say to fact check EVERYTHING you see via credible sources!
We saw, over the weekend, another pair of mass murders occur, yet again, in America. Namely,El Paso and Dayton.
The usual process that seems to occur after every mass shooting occurred again. And the usual shitty arguments came up again too.
As a future doctor, I feel so much for these unnecessary deaths. As a realist, I despair but wonder what the purpose of getting angry would be when the above keeps happening. But as a scientist, I was outraged when Neil DeGrasse Tyson, one of the most prominent science educators in the world, put out this tweet:
Here was my response to this.
The Reddit Post and how or why it’s wrong
The Reddit post that Neil and millions of conservatives used is linked here – and it goes like this;
There are roughly 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, and this number is not disputed. U.S. population 324,059,091 as of Wednesday, June 22, 2016. Do the math: 0.0092575708669133% of the population dies from gun related actions each year. Statistically speaking, this is insignificant! What is never told, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths, to put them in perspective as compared to other causes of death:
• 65% of those deaths are by suicide which would never be prevented by gun laws
• 15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified
• 17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons – gun violence
• 3% are accidental discharge deaths
So technically, “gun violence” is not 30,000 annually, but drops to 5,100. Still too many? Well, first, how are those deaths spanned across the nation?
• 480 homicides (9.4%) were in Chicago
• 344 homicides (6.7%) were in Baltimore
• 333 homicides (6.5%) were in Detroit
• 119 homicides (2.3%) were in Washington D.C. (a 54% increase over prior years)
So basically, 25% of all gun crime happens in just 4 cities. All 4 of those cities have strict gun laws, so it is not the lack of law that is the root cause.
This basically leaves 3,825 for the entire rest of the nation, or about 75 deaths per state. That is an average because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California had 1,169 and Alabama had 1.
Now, who has the strictest gun laws by far? California, of course, but understand, so it is not guns causing this. It is a crime rate spawned by the number of criminal persons residing in those cities and states. So if all cities and states are not created equally, then there must be something other than the tool causing the gun deaths.
Are 5,100 deaths per year horrific? How about in comparison to other deaths? All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of a crime but that is the nature of crime. Robbery, death, rape, assault all is done by criminals and thinking that criminals will obey laws is ludicrous. That’s why they are criminals.
But what about other deaths each year?
• 40,000+ die from a drug overdose–THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT!
• 36,000 people die per year from the flu, far exceeding the criminal gun deaths
• 34,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities(exceeding gun deaths even if you include suicide)
Now it gets good:
• 200,000+ people die each year (and growing) from preventable medical errors. You are safer in Chicago than when you are in a hospital!
• 710,000 people die per year from heart disease. It’s time to stop the double cheeseburgers! So what is the point? If the anti-gun movement focused their attention on heart disease, even a 10% decrease in cardiac deaths would save twice the number of lives annually of all gun-related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.). A 10% reduction in medical errors would be 66% of the total gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides……Simple, easily preventable 10% reductions!
So you have to ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, why the focus on guns? It’s pretty simple.:
Taking away guns gives control to governments.
This isn’t just conjecture. Numerous studies from numerous bodies all show the same thing – none shows the opposite. Guns in homes, gun ownership and higher proportions of gun ownerships is correlated to, and cause more death.
States with more gun control – like Massachusetts – which, like Australia, requires licences before purchasing (Australia has PLENTY of gun ownership – as someone who’s hunted, I actually wanted to get a gun, and only had to do 1 day of training to get a licence to do so, similar to the Massachusetts process), suicide rates are some of the lowest in America. The only 2 states that top it also have comparitively restricitve gun laws, which don’t stop people from getting guns!
Just a bit of common sense to reduce rates of suicide which ARE INCREASED BY GUN OWNERSHIP. Ignoring them is completely wrong.
14995 people died to gun homicides. Add that to 23854 suicides, and you have closer to 40,000 than 30,000 deaths due to guns that this redditor claims is true. That’s equal or more than all the other examples cited WHICH ALREADY HAVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS PUMPED INTO THEM TO COMBAT but medical error. Reducing rates of medical error is VERY TOUGH. We’re taught about systems thinking in medicine. I’m the founder of a startup creating lifesaving alert systems for elderly people. Things are already being done in this space. I know this.
Or is it more likely that 12000 business owners who make $11billion a year off guns, want business to continue on as usual? Guns cost us $17.4billion in indirect costs (wages lost, productivity), and $2.8 in direct healthcare expenditure to treat. Many people are injured, and suffer permanent life damage because of a gun too. Isn’t that a much more likely conspiracy? I explain how Australia does it below. We have pretty high gun ownership. If you want a gun, and you aren’t a suspected terrorist, mentally ill, or an ex convict, you’ll get it. We haven’t had anyone try and stop people from getting guns with a licence. Absolutely noone wants to take our guns. Why can’t common sense prevail? If you’re a responsible gun owner, it will not restrict you in any way.
The most abhorrent thing here though is that Neil’s tweets are going to be used, for decades, to justify gun violence, and oppose gun control. If ‘a prominent scientist’ said this, it means it must be true, to many. I understand his points. Hell, my startup, Australia’s Student Startup of the Year, is working to fix some preventable problems.
The Dickey Amendment, Again
Right now further detail and research into gun violence and attempts to mitigate its impacts aren’t being done. It’s pure politics. The Dickey Amendment , where gun lobbiest hamstrung the CDC, a body that’s supposed to be indepent’s, ability to conduct research which is the only reason why we don’t have more conclusive data on interventions that exist to reduce gun violence.
Funding for the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife breakdown.
The only people unrestricted gun availability is benefiting is 12000 gun business owners, a few gun convention businesses, a bunch of politicians, while costing America billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. Neil’s tweet is only encouraging inaction. And that’s something I stand against.
We saw, over the weekend, another pair of mass murders occur, yet again, in America. Namely,El Paso and Dayton.
The usual process that seems to occur after every mass shooting occurred again.
As a future doctor, I feel so much for these unnecessary deaths. As a realist, I despair but wonder what the purpose of getting angry would be when the above keeps happening. But as a scientist, I was outraged when Neil DeGrasse Tyson, one of the most prominent science educators in the world, put out this tweet:
But even if this was the case, there’s still a huge population of gun deaths he doesn’t address. Suicides. In the same year, guns resulted in 23,854 suicides. That’s over half of all suicides.
This isn’t just conjecture. It’s a proven correlation.
The most abhorrent thing here though is that Neil’s tweets are going to be used, for decades, to justify gun violence, and oppose gun control. If ‘a prominent scientist’ said this, it means it must be true, to many. I understand his points. Hell, my startup, Australia’s Student Startup of the Year, is working to fix some preventable problems.
Right now further detail and research into gun violence and attempts to mitigate its impacts aren’t being done. It’s pure politics. The Dickey Amendment , where gun lobbiest hamstrung the CDC, a body that’s supposed to be indepent’s, ability to conduct research which is the only reason why we don’t have more conclusive data on interventions that exist to reduce gun violence.
Funding for the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife breakdown.
The only people unrestricted gun availability is benefiting is 12000 gun business owners, a few gun convention businesses, a bunch of politicians, while costing America billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. Neil’s tweet is only encouraging inaction. And that’s something I stand against.
