Shirley Lipschutz-Robinson runs Shirley’s Wellness Café, a
website crammed with all sorts of creative woo of the most ridiculous kind (you can find it here).
One of the “myths” Lipschutz-Robinson is out to debunk is the idea that
sunlight can be dangerous for us (which is either a strawman or obviously
true). Her evidence? “The sun provides the basis for all life on earth.”
Indeed. The connection between that observation and the hypothesis “sunbathing
actually helps heal cancer of the skin while sunblock increases cancer risk”? I
have no idea, but the hypothesis probably reveals the rather worrisome nature
of Lipschutz-Robinson’s particular brand of woo and lack of reasoning skills –
the hypothesis is not only false, but rather dangerously so. She also cites
Mercola in support of her claims (as well as one Jacob Liberman, who has written a book
In Light: Medicine Of The Future: How We Can
Use It To Heal Ourselves Now, where he explains how to utilize the
therapeutic benefits of light because “light is the basic component from which
all life originates, develops, heals, and evolves”), which is not exactly
reassuring, and apart from (well, in addition to) that the website is primarily
filled with appeals to nature,
cherry-picking, ridiculously false empirical claims, and appeals to a
medieval-level understanding of how the human body works. There’s also quite a
bit of Vitamin D woo and – indeed – promotion of the dangerous and abhorrently silly idea of
sungazing,
the meditative practice of staring directly at the Sun for short periods of
time during sunrise or sunset. Yay to the power of confirmation bias in the fact of absolutely and immediately dangerous practices (her source is a
video by one Sandy Chase featuring the idiocy of one Daniel Giel).
To top it off, Lipschutz-Robinson also promotes, well,
pretty much everything from HIV-denialism,
through homeopathy and
anti-vaccinationism,
to holistic animal health and pretty much every ridiculous conspiracy theory
associated with any of these ideas. She does make great claims about what her
altmed abilities have enabled her to do, however,
though her stories have not been independently verified.
Diagnosis: Deranged madwoman, who blatantly promotes
treatments that are demonstrably dangerous.
As such, despite her presumably limited influence, Lipschutz-Robinson actually
poses a direct threat to life and well-being.
This is a prime example hit-piece article from a no name author of fake news. Of course Google puts it at the top of the name search for this person. They have to protect the interests of their big advertisers. Completely understandable...
ReplyDelete