Monday, October 10, 2005

Well, it's nice to see that Gary McCullough still has some money coming in. A few months ago he was in the news as a spokesman for Terri Schiavo's parents; prior to that, as World O'Crap noted, he

defended murderer Michael Griffin by claiming that killing an abortion provider is "justifiable homicide," was closely associated with double-murderer Paul Hill; funneled money to Clayton Waagner, the anti-abortion "terrorist" who sent those anthrax hoax letters to abortion clincs; and [was] arrested 30 times (he says) for his involvement in disruptive abortion protests.

Now I see that he's helping to promote a rather dubious medical book to religious conservatives through his Christian Communication Network:

In his research for Germ Theory, a new book on the latest surprises in medicine, veteran science writer William C. Shumay Jr. has uncovered a new understanding of human chronic disease that points away from the role of eating habits, exercise, and attitude. Hundreds of new medical studies suggest instead that sexual abstinence and monogamy may be the ultimate strategy to keep dangerous disease at bay throughout an individual's life....

The research for the
Germ Theory report indicates that intimate human contact with a number of partners is an excellent way to pick up a tumor virus, a brain infection, or perhaps the germ for an inflammation that means a heart attack years down the road....

Yup -- non-monogamous sex might cause all kinds of cancer! In fact, as Shumay's amateurish home page for the book explains, even being touched might cause cancer:

... one of mankind’s most dangerous diseases, melanoma, starts out on the body surface, then rapidly spreads throughout the body....

What causes it? The original theory made sense: Most melanomas seem to start on visible skin surfaces expected to be exposed to the sun routinely. But consider too: These skin areas are also those that are exposed to contact with other people, as well as public surfaces that other people touch. A melanoma germ? Has anyone looked for one?


Would Shumay extend that to other skin cancers? Would he argue that Ronald Reagan, say, got skin cancer not because he was an Irish guy who liked to ride horses in the strong California sun, but because people regularly touched the tip of his nose?

(I won't ask how Shumay imagines Reagan got colon cancer.)

By the way, Shumay's also a poet:

From a Better World Than Yours

Greetings,

This is Juki 3.14159
(But you can call me Juki Pi),
I want to make your world like Jukian Prime;
And let me tell you why.

The moment Juki 4.2 emerged full-grown
From Clone-Tank 63,
I loved him dearly as my own,
As when properly programmed, he would be me.

And when it came time for him to eat his mother,
(A special time in anybody's life),
I laughed loud when he asked me for another,
I had no plans as yet for a future wife....


Er, I think eating your mother really might cause cancer. (It definitely can cause a disease similar to mad cow.)

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