Michael Fumento

Passive Thinking

Take it from me, a right winger, [sic] you are wrong, pal. Smoking should be no more allowed in a closed building that crapping on the floor next to where someone else is sitting. I don’t care about the studies or the health effects, it simply stinks. Just as farting in the face of your companions and coworkers would be reprehensible, so is firing up a fag.

It doesn’t take science to know what common sense should tell you.

If you’ve got ‘em, smoke ‘em. Just not indoors near me, ok?

atlantismedia@[omitted]

Dear Pal:

You seem to believe that coming from the right side of the political spectrum and having a potty mouth give you authority. You also invoke “common sense” to disregard scientific findings. Common sense might indicate that being exposed to 4/1000s of a cigarette a day, as I wrote in my piece, would not pose a health hazard. In any event, I discussed the fallacy of the appeal to common sense in a pamphlet I produced.

[It’s] really a bullying rhetorical tool, designed to drag people along by shaming them into thinking you must be right because you’re so confident. “Common sense” doesn’t really mean a lot. At one time, it was common sense that the world was flat, that much disease was caused by excess of “bad” blood requiring the application of nasty slimy leaches, and that exposure to a full moon could cause insanity – hence the origin of the word “lunacy.” During the Love Canal controversy, activist Lois Gibbs declared “you don’t have to be a scientist. You don’t have to do a survey to find out – common sense’ll tell you, there’s something wrong in Love Canal.” Thus, we are supposed to reject the studies of learned professionals in favor of this concept of “common sense.”

Thus you have not only invoked a foolish fallacy to make a point you obviously could not make otherwise, you have aligned yourself with Lois Gibbs, a darling of the left. Were I you, pal, I would not only try to clean up your language but also your muddled thinking.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Potty mouth and cigarette smoke are on the same level. I don’t need studies to know I don’t want to hear or smell either in public. Your rants against people wanting clean air in restaurants are misguided and completely miss the mark. Raving about the ‘science’ of such an [sic] common sense problem is totally inane. You need a real job because obviously you’ve got dirt for brains. You ought to get down on your knees and give thanks that someone is willing to give you money for your idiotic rants.

When it comes to dining with my family and friends, I don’t need wait [sic] for laws to fix a problem or some scientist to figure out that any burning object that releases an offensive smell is good or bad for one’s health. I address the offender who burns or spews in my location immediately. I simply don’t want the guy or girl at the next table ruining my meal with a cigarette, cigar, pipe or excessive profanity. Since I’m 6’2” and 220, I apply some persuasive ‘science’ on the spot.

Don’t be smoking or cursing around me, pencil neck. I don’t care what science you can quote, I’ll erase the problem.

*Dear Halitosismedia:

In other words, you’re a potty-mouthed bully who complains of “excessive profanity” on the part of other people. I guess your profanity is not excessive because, well, because it’s yours. I hope you keep applying your “persuasive ‘science’” because there are a lot of people out there who know that a quick kick to the kneecap will bring you down like the retarded bull elephant you are – thereby “erasing the problem.” If you don’t like smoke in your face, I’m sure you won’t get any while recovering in the hospital from surgery.*

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Herpetic and Hallow

[This is in reference to my writing that I was stunned to hear that at a smoking ban hearing, a pediatrician actually blamed passive smoking for causing herpes.]

I don't know about herpes but it definitely causes drivel. Get a life!

Howydooin@[omitted]

I’m dooin’ just fine. But judging from the informative nature of your e-mail, you don’t know much about a lot. Get a brain cell.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

It’s RIGHT there in the Bill of RIGHTS

Mr. Fumento,

It doesn't matter whether or not passive smoking causes cancer. It stinks. It's oppressive. It fouls the air that non-smokers have the RIGHT to breathe without having to inhale noxious fumes.

Smokers have the right to foul their own lungs. They shouldn't have the right to foul mine. So let them go outside and continue their nasty habit and let me breathe freely inside.

That's enough.
Why does the NY POST continue with this stupid crusade? Stop already!

[omitted] Tooker
NY, NY

Dear Miss Hooker:

Body odor also stinks and is oppressive. Perhaps we should pass laws mandating that everybody who enters a restaurant or bar have had a bath or shower in the last 24 hours. You see, while I hate stinky people I’m careful to distinguish between what I don’t like, what is scientifically correct, and what truly is or is not a right. Just because I do or don’t care for something doesn’t mean it should be legally mandated, especially in a private place. Your RIGHT is to avoid private facilities that allow smoking or to avoid those parts of those facilities in which smoking is involved. And as I noted in my piece that you merely glanced at, the crusaders are those who feel that if they don’t lie and tell people passive smoke caused everything from heart attacks to herpes they couldn’t get their pet laws passed. Let’s strip away their fake claims and see how far they get.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

And speaking of merely glancing at something, Mr. Fumento, you got my name wrong, willfully, I believe. It's Tooker, not Hooker. Perhaps that's what passes as wit around you.

[omitted] Tooker

*Dear Miss Hooker:*

No, I don’t find it the least bit witty.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I told you that you got my name wrong and you repeat it. I totally understand now. It can be summed up by the wise saying: Never try to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
[omitted] Tooker

Dear Miss Hooker:

I suggest you ply your trade elsewhere. I no longer have any wish to participate in this transaction.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Memories, of the Way We Used to Cough …

I am a 76 year old white male. Every time I read an article by you regarding secondhand smoke I want to go through the ceiling. I am not here to argue whether secondhand smoke is going to affect the health of someone. That is not where I am coming from. When I was a child in the '30s, I was constantly subjected to secondhand smoke in the back seat of a 1935 Pontiac because both my mother and grandmother (a chain smoker) would fill the car with their exhaled cigarette smoke. I could not get away from it. It filled the air inside the car and make [sic] my eyes water and cause [sic] me to cough. I was not allowed to lower the car window even a little to gain relief. In fact my grandmother would reach into the back seat and backhand me in the face and say that I was "an obstinate little shit" and to "close the window because it was cold". [132 words of pathos omitted.]

One more story about cigarettes and secondhand smoke. [No, enough stories.]

I have had many health problems all my life. Can I attribute them to the smoking that my mother did while I was in utero? I don't know but I know that the air that I breathe is much better without cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other type of smoke in it.

You and the others that defend the rights of smokers never address the irritation to those who don't [sic]. You cannot honestly believe that a smoker has no responsibility to others. I am recovering from tongue cancer and had the doctors confirmed [Huh?] that the cause of it was secondhand smoke...... which of course cannot be proved..... I don't know what I would have done to silence those of you who continuously spout off about the rights of smokers. You can not [sic] really believe that there is no harm from smoke inhaled after being exhaled by someone else. After what I have gone through to battle and now survive this cancer, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would intentionally put themselves in jeopardy of the kinds of cancer that are the result of smoking.

[omitted] Reinert

Dear Mr. Reinert:

So you think that any and all smoking bans are justified because your grandmother was a bitch and wouldn’t let you roll down the window? When you talk about the laws in California, are you referring to those that prevent smoking even on the beach in the name of protecting the health of others? Have you ever stood on the beach, Mr. Reinert? Have you noticed the continual breezes that instantly waft away even the smoke from campfires, much less from a cigarette? Yet those laws were passed in the name of health.

I’m not a doctor, but I strongly suspect that every health problem you’ve had in life was probably not caused by your mother smoking during pregnancy. In any case, that is not second-hand smoke. That’s called smoking while pregnant and has demonstrated health effects on the fetus. None of which is to say that if that fetus ever gets sick in its life it was due to the mother’s smoking.

*You say your tongue cancer was “confirmed” to have been caused by second-hand smoke, but at the same time you admit that “cannot be proved.” Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive. I suggest you make one argument and stick with it and I suggest you stick with the “cannot be proved.” Assuming part of your tongue was excised, I assure you the doctors couldn’t flip it over and see “Caused by passive smoking” on the underside. Medical diagnoses don’t work that way. *

*You claim I “defend the rights of smokers” and “never address the irritation to those who don't.” Please go to my website where all of pieces on passive smoking are posted and find a single one in which I so much as say smokers even have rights. Just one will do nicely, thank you. On the other hand, I have written:

Do we know that passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer? No. But we know that either it does not or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasurable. Does this mean passive smoke poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma and other breathing problems, if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers aren't murdering other people, they're not still engaging in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chance of sickness and premature death? Definitely not. *

Just as you contradicted yourself, you also contradict what I have written. And why can I “not really believe” what I have shown the studies indicate? Just because you reject science, why is incumbent upon me to let your 70-year-old memories cloud my judgment. I do not defend smokers nor smokers’ rights; I defend science and reason. And in that regard I find you quite offensive. * Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

Who cares if second hand smoke can kill you or not? This "issue" is just as much camouflage from the right as "passive smoking" is camouflage from the left. The bottom line is that smokers have no right to put smoke in my lungs even if it's completely harmless – I know, as a good libertarian, that other people's rights end where mine begin.

First, second hand smoke definitely does affect some people's health, even if it's short of murder. I'm asthmatic, and it causes me wheezing and tightness, and sometimes full-blown attacks. Sure, that's '[sic] anecdotal evidence,[sic]' but all of science is anecdotal unless you do the experiments yourself – and when was the last time YOU measured the accelation due to gravity?

Second (hah), it's just plain obnoxious. Who wants to smell that stuff or have smoke swirling around your head?

Third, will all the active smokers pay to have my clothes cleaned? I live in California (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), and every time I go back East [sic] I can smell tobacco on my clothes and in my hair for days. [Hair? How often does this guy bathe?]

Fourth, saying that if I don't like smoke I can just go somewhere else is only a valid argument if there's more than one absolutely equivalent source for the service. Why should I have to avoid – say – the best restaurant or bar in town because of smokers?

Fifth, yes, I would extend this to perfumes. This isn't the Middle Ages – get some soap, for crying out loud.

Sixth, of course society requires putting up with a certain amount of annoyance and "transgression" (how I hate that pomo word) of personal taste. [The Pomo are an Indian tribe; I have no idea what he’s talking about.] But smoking is beyond a mere annoyance. It's not a necessary or unavoidable social behavior, it's a personal hobby that smokers are trying to transfer into my body.

Mike Conroy

Dear Mr. Conroy:

Seventh, let's kill all gum crackers. God, I hate gum cracking!

Eighth, to the camps with people who eat with their mouths open.

*Ninth, hard labor for guys who don't tie their ties to the beltline. They look like idiots! *

Tenth, 20 lashes for you daily because when you drive a car (or use mass-transit) you put smoke in other people’s lungs, even if it’s completely harmless.

*The bottom line is that city councils play the health card for a reason – because your arguments don't wash in a nation built on the principle of liberty. I know there's no one definition of libertarianism, but "outlawing only things I dislike" isn't generally accepted as one of them.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

From the Head of the Nebbish Guild

Aren't you the same moron who claimed that the air around ground zero was perfectly clean days after 9/11, and that "wacky environmentalists" were using "junk science" to claim otherwise? Weren't you the moron who was proven to be a completely wrong about that? Yes, you are, you dimwitted little nebbish. Go blow some crack smoke on your infant, idiot.

Red Wright

Dear Red:

I trust your first name was chosen to indicate your political sympathies. As it happens, I’m not “the same moron” insofar as I have never written any such thing. Everything I do write appears online, so I invite you to find the piece you’re describing either using a general search engine or the search engine on my website at www.fumento.com. Doesn’t this make you a little bit dim and nebbishy? I await the apology that is due to me but will not come because you will think of some other nasty thing to put in the place of your original attack.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ya right. You and your fetid ilk of nihilists are the lowest of the low. You were one of the silly nihilists who claimed the air around 9/11 was perfectly clean and healthy to breath, even when I had friends in severe respiratory distress who had to move from the area to regain some semblance of health. Of course, time has proven you wrong scientifically as well, so you just pretend you never wrote any such thing. Typical.

Dear Redface:

Logically you cannot prove a charge by simply re-asserting it. Or as Ben Franklin put it (in a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein), “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I ask you again: Where did this alleged piece of mine appear? If you cannot tell me, I expect an apology.

And I expect more idiotic artilces [sic] from you to appear in the post. I don't play games with people like you and I am not typing your name in any search engine or visiting your website. Feel free to point out the article you wrote warning of the dangers of the air near ground zero after 9/11.

Dear Better Red than Dead:

• Thank you very much. I'm collecting the best of my hate mail into a book and this exchange with you will be wonderfully illustrative of makes a hate-mailer tick – or not tick, as it were. You now know I wrote no such thing and yet you don't care. Your hate is all-consuming. Fortunately, that's your problem and not mine. *

You are a self-absorbed twit. I specifically recall your article attacking those warning of the dangers of living and working near ground zero after 9/11 and it made me sick. If this is "hate mail" to you, I guess you are lucky. As I understand it, people are quite a bit more vicious than my talk-radio level stuff in their emails.

*Dear Redrum (The reference is to Stephen King’s “The Shining”): *

Why does denying I wrote a piece that I did not in fact write make me a “self-absorbed twit”? Why do you refuse to tell me where this piece appeared even though I told you how to track it down if it did? I’m sorry but “I specifically recall” doesn’t cut it. Else, to quote Cromwell: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think you may be mistaken.” By the way, could THIS be the piece you’re thinking of: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/milloy-020814.html Or are you now going to argue that “Steve Milloy” is a pen name I employ?

[For some odd reason, I never heard back from him.]

ADHD Hate

Science by Oprah

**

Hello Mr. Fumento:

Of course I don't know anything about you except by reading your article on ADHD.

This much I think would be sure: If you had watched the Oprah show about a month ago and if you would then be honest with yourself you would have removed your ADHD article from the net.

For the public's sake, perhaps you can contact her and get a tape of that show. Oprah contacted a British lady that [sic] goes by the title of Super Nanny. Oprah contacted three families which were TOTALLY out of control and were DESPERATE for help. If you could have seen it you would certainly agree, they were even MORE than out of control. Two of the families had 3 children each and one family had two children. Oprah had cameras mounted in the homes and we were able to watch the children punch each other, kick each other, bite each other and do most of these same things to their parents. If any children in the world would ever have been diagnosed with ADHD it was this group.

The Nanny took charge and introduced discipline (NOT the physical kind) to both the kids AND the parents. The end result was like a MIRACLE. In a VERY short time ALL of those kids were showing kindness and politeness and obedience. Something that the families were previously WITHOUT.

[350 words omitted.]

Thanks for reading this far. [“Thanks?” For this, I should have gotten a medal!]

Jim

PS: Speaking from PERSONAL experience I know without doubt the [sic] this so called [sic] disease is a NEW one.

Dear Jim:

Let’s see now, is that the same Oprah Winfrey who announced on her show in 1987: “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”

Is it the same Oprah Winfrey who introduced us to Dr. Phil, the fat fake who has sold millions of diet books?

*Oprah is an entertainer, nothing more. Me, I’ll stick with the over 9,000 peer-reviewed, published medical journal articles on ADHD and leave “science by TV” to pinheads. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S.: Speaking from the medical literature, ADHD was first treated with stimulants in 1937. Not by many standards does that make the disorder a “NEW one.”

AIDS Hate

I’m Not an Idiot; I Just Play One on TV

[This is the master-baiter from Hate Mail 34.]

Hello Michael Fumento:

Your position that HIV/AIDS is a hoax is very intriguing.

After thirty years why have the vaccinologists [sic] filed [sic] to find and isolate the virus that would be necessary to develop a viable vaccine?

Some one [sic] should have won a Nobel Prize by now.

I notice that in the past three months there has [sic] been at least three separate failures to develop a SARS vaccine. The test animals suffered liver damage. In light of such failures, it would seem the virologists have not isolated the SARS virus.

Cheers.

[omitted] Woodruff

Still baiting me, eh? Still making a fool of yourself. I’ve never claimed “HIV is a hoax.” If it were, why would I have written a book and countless articles about it? AIDS was not first recognized 30 years ago but rather in 1981. Do the math. The virus was isolated not 30 years ago but in 1985. Do the math. It took 19 years after isolation of the hepatitis B virus to develop a vaccine, and hepatitis B is child’s play in comparison because vaccines traditionally have harnessed the power of the immune system. You can’t do that with HIV because it attacks the immune system. On the other hand, the number of protease inhibitors that directly attack HIV and by some great coincidence also make AIDS patients live many years longer is huge and growing longer. Quelque coincidence! Whoever develops a successful vaccine probably will win the Nobel.

How in the heck do you logically deduce that since test animals develop liver damage, SARS must not be SARS. You are a walking, talking non-sequitur. (Look it up.)

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Since I Can’t Beat Your Argument, I’ll Give You One I Can Beat

Mr. Fumento:

HIV transmission obviously can occur through vaginal intercourse, so 'heterosexual AIDS,' per se, is not a myth. Indeed, not only can it occur, it occurs rather frequently. For example, in your article "AIDS: No Armageddon, No Accountability (http://www.fumento.com/newaids.html)," you cite CDC statistics that, in the U.S. in 1998, non-drug abusing heterosexuals represented 14% of AIDS cases [in the most recent year.] Fourteen percent is not a 'mythical' statistic. [70 words of bloviated blubber removed.] The choice of your book's title is unfortunately suggestive of a hidden agenda. On the other hand, from what I have read at your web-site, I do not believe that you necessarily have such an agenda – or, at any rate, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. Was it your publisher who suggested that title? Perhaps your publisher was less courageous than homophobic.

I apologize that this missive is unlikely to make your hate mail hit list.

To provide some context, I'm an HIV-negative, heterosexual, physician-scientist, who has treated many cases of AIDS (most of whom were gay or iv [sic] drug users).

Satish [omitted]

Dear Satish:

*You have committed what is known as the “straw-man fallacy.” That means instead of tackling your opponent’s argument, you fabricate his argument and tackle that instead. The appeal of using straw men is obvious. In this case, rather than criticize the book itself you merely criticize your interpretation of the book’s title, an interpretation belied by the very explanation of the title on the back of the hardback edition. (A similar one appears on the paperback edition.)* 

The “myth of heterosexual AIDS” consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it, from shared needles, from transfusions, from clotting factor, from their mother at or before birth, and sometimes through sexual intercourse with persons in these categories and from bisexuals. You simply assume when somebody writes of “the myth” of something they’re saying that something doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your logic, the recent books The Myth of Laziness and The Mommy Myth are saying there’s no such thing as laziness or mothers – a truly brilliant deduction on your part. In the case of my book, you chose an interpretation contradicted not just by the book but by the explanation on the back. I know it must have given you a delicious warm and fuzzy feeling to think that you whipped me in an argument, but actually you merely engaged in self-flagellation. To each his own, I suppose.

• Indeed, the very article of mine you cite contains such alarmist quotes as Oprah Winfrey telling us that a third of heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS by 1990 or USA Today's 1988 prediction that, "By 1991, One in Ten Babies May be AIDS Victims.*
• Those didn’t exactly pan out, did they Satish? In fact, if we accept that everybody in the heterosexual AIDS transmission category actually got the disease that way (which you would know to be a foolish one if you had bothered to read my book or knew the least thing about human nature), the odds of a heterosexual dying today would be about one in 50,000 – not quote one in three. As to the predictions of “America’s Picture Newspaper,” over four million babies were born here last year. Yet, as the current headlines read, “AIDS Among Infants Close to Being Wiped Out in U.S.” Some people would say that made me right when the big boys (and girls) were all wrong. But Satish concedes nothing.*

*Finally, you will make the hate mail pages because many of the letters aren’t necessarily hateful; they’re just plain dumb.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

[The following e-mails stemmed from a C-Span repeat showing of a 1990 “Bookends” interview with me.]

My Folks Wouldn’t Approve Anyway

sir [sic, sic] have never seen on television a pundit who [sic] I thought was more gay than you. If I was [sic] queer I'd ask you out. I'm truly sad that you have to fight so hard. [In using present tense, he shows he’s unaware that what he was watching was 15 years old.]

Sir:

If I were queer, I’d tell you to find a queer chicken. And if I were a queer chicken, although I don’t doubt you’d be lusting after me, I’d still refuse to date you. And I don’t have to “fight so hard” anymore. The epidemic proved me correct even if for some unidentified reason (hmmm…) you wish it hadn’t.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ronald Reagan AND Mike Fumento Caused the AIDS Epidemic

I am watching your 2/16/90 CSPAN2 Book/TV Interview.

My brother pass [sic] 13 years ago today, from this terrible social cancer. I hope you and the late, R W. Reagan, comprehend how you are a contributor to all the people that are still dying.

Be well,
Jim Thomason

Dear Mr. Thomason:

*AIDS is not a “social cancer;” it’s a viral disease spread by blood and other bodily fluids and contracted in an extremely limited number of ways. *

I’m sorry that your brother engaged in those activities and was struck down, but please don’t blame his actions or the result thereof on either myself or the late President Reagan.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Hate

So Sue Me Already!

[I found this on a bulletin board at <http://toxlaw.com/chatboards/class-actions/topic12/2.28.05.12.44.29.html>. NO, I am not going to spend the rest of my life siccing spelling errors or pointing out errors in his assertions. Assume all his assertions are errors. This is illustrative in that it shows people claiming to have MCS often truly are sick, but not in the way they think.] **Post: Class Action Defamation Suit against Barret/Fumento/Milloy **

Posted by Patrick on 2/28/05
Question: Which law firm can find the legal foundation upon which to file a class action defamation suit against the duly noted [Stephen] Barrett/Fumento/[Steve] Milloy/[John] Gots/[John] Stossel and company propaganda machine? Such a lawsuit would be on behalf of every Chemical Sensitivity sufferer in the States, including those Chemical Sensitivity sufferers formally diagnosed with
the following titles:
1a] Occupational Asthma due to low-molecular weight agents.
1b] Irritant-induced Asthma.
2] Chemical Worker's Lung.
3] External Allergic Alveolitis, aka Hypersensitivity
Pneumonitis "due to chemical sensitization."
4] Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome.
5] World Trade Center Cough.
6] Sick Building Syndrome; a diagnostic title which is
even recognized in the Merck Manual.
7] Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
8] Acute Generalized Exanthematous Pustulosi.
9a] Chronic Actinic Dermatitis.
9b] Occupational Dermatitis.
10] Phthalic Anhydride Hypersensitivity.
11] And of course, the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which
is now recognized by name, by the following
licensed & accredited entities, in each one's
Occupatonal & Environmental Medicine Programs:

[Omission of a long list of organizations he claims recognize MCS, none of which do.]

Of course, there is the matter of including CFS sufferers and GWS sufferers. Of course, GWS sufferers have apparently suffered the most defamation of all the Chemical Sensitivity sufferers.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, a subset of patients who were diagnosed with the following 'medically accepted' diagnostic titles can be included:

1] Chemically-induced Hepatitis, 2] Chemically-induced

Aplastic Anemia (Bone Marrow Suppression).

The subset, of course, would consist in those who suffered lingering sensitivity beyond the acute stage.

[100 words omitted.]

The Barret/Fumento/Milloy/Stossel & company propaganda machine employed slight-of-hand semantics & convenient evidence omission in asserting to the inexperienced public that Chemical Sensitivity is entirely a process of mental illness, instead of a physiological process accompanied with the following physiological medical findings:

[Omission of a humongous list.]

And then there is the matter P-300 Waves, IgA immunoglobins, T-Cells, porphyira, and the observable and non-deniable symptom of Profuse Dry Heaving, as well as that of Blacking-Out. All in all, the smoking gun was the Fiber Optic Rhinolaryngoscopic Exam and the medical findings thereof.

The defamatory propaganda resulted in the deprivation of research funding. Furthermore, how many ignorant persons in America believed the conclusions of Barret/Stossel/Fumento and refused to accomodate a chemical sensitivity sufferer in a time of crisis? How much suffering has that propaganda machine caused? In as much, all Chemical Sensitivity sufferers have suffered triply:

1] at the hands of the illness,
2] at the hands of a ruthless form of defamation,
3] at the hands of abandonment for years, due to little research funding and outrightly lazy physicians who make lots of money upon one nitch repetitively,
steamlining their practices to a comfortable laziness.

[*Enough! 425 words omitted.]*

The MCS debate has been game of semantics. The anti-MCS lobby went beyond the sound barriers of obsecenity. All contributing members must be held accountable.

Worse even than Dioxin?

Dear Michael,

I have just read your articles on the fragrance free policy and feel incensed. Perhaps you should try being an MCS sufferer yourself for 1 day – maybe you will if you continue to use synthetic fragrances. As a sufferer myself I do not choose to be effected [sic] in this way and lose many days of my life (a very lonely and isolated one at that if I want to stay symptom free [sic] ) because of these horrible toxic chemicals. It's not psychological as some people would like to believe, but most definitely a physical problem. Let's hope you don't have to find out the hard way.

I used to love wearing perfume, but now I'm more educated – the only appropriately named perfume is 'POISON'!!

Regards [sic]
Barbara Curtis

P.S: You don't need to put toxic chemicals on your body to smell nice. A nice bath or shower is helpful and essential oils (People are less likely to be sensitive to these) can be used if you want extra smell!!

Dear Barbara:

Maybe the incense is bothering you. It certainly bothers me, though I don’t claim it’s harmful. I’m sorry, but I can’t be an MCS sufferer for even one day any more than I can be a jackalope for one day. Ain’t no such animal. MCS is indeed a psychological problem, though it certainly may manifest itself physically. A body under psychological stress releases adrenaline, histamines, and other chemicals that can do all sorts of nasty things to you. If you become convinced chemicals are bothering you, you will release your own chemicals and you will truly be sick. Plus you will blame other ills you have on the outside chemicals, thereby preventing or delaying a diagnosis of what really ails you. For these reasons, I do take MCS seriously even though it’s a myth. It can be a dangerous myth.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S. I’m glad you think I don’t need to put toxic chemicals on my body to smell nice – though I’ve known a few people for whom I think toxic chemicals would provide a real improvement.

Subject: Scientific Measurements of Heavy Metal and Chemical Overload in MCS Destroy Your Premise

Please get up to date on the treatments for MCS before you destroy your reputation completely!

Deborah Pedherney
President
The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Society of Hope

Dear Ms. Pedherney:

What? And join you in the club? Not a chance!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Obesity Hate

Subject: BMI is Bogus

[*Note: This was a general posting and not directed at me. I bend the term “hate mail” whenever it suits my wicked purposes.*]

Whenever I read a report on obesity, I stop when I see 'BMI.' [Body Mass Index, a comparison of weight to height.] When someone uses the BMI to support their position, they are telling you that they have no credibility on the issue.

Fortunately, I did read the final paragraph of this essay. The author correctly points out that according to the BMI Michael Jordan and Shaq are overweight. So is Jerry Rice, by the way. That should show everyone how bogus the BMI is.

Jay

No, BMI is quite useful. It applies to the vast majority of the population. If you're a weight lifter or a football player, you should have the smarts to know that the BMI doesn't apply to you. Obviously a direct measurement of the body's fat content is better, but calipers don't really work well and the best measurements are costly.

Further, BMI is completely correct when used to compare populations. So when we say the average BMI in America today is a certain percentage higher than it once was, either you have to accept that suddenly massive numbers of Americans have become more muscular (not bloody likely) or they've become fatter and they've become fatter by this percent.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Radon Hate

Subject: How Do You Sleep at Night

[From a professional radon alarmist whose work I eviscerated years earlier.]

From the untruths you spread, not very well I imagine. You sound very desperate.

R. William Field, M.S, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Public Health
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

*Oh I just breathe in some radon until I feel nice and cozy and drift off, waking up most refreshed. From the untruths you manage to publish because you're scientifically wrong but politically correct, you're the one who should be suffering insomnia. It's a matter of record that I ripped your hide to shreds with your first attempt at prevarication. I just loved how you simply excluded all the data that didn’t fit your predetermined outcome. You had all the subtlety of a landslide. I have no reason to think you've cleaned up your act. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Hate

Curious George

Have you been drinking Chromium [sic] 6? [The “evil” chemical in the water supply in the Erin Brockovich movie.]

Just curious.

Todd Phillips

Dear Mr. Phillips:

No, unfortunately the utility company charges extra for chromium-six flavoring and I can’t afford it. But I avoid sugary soft drinks like the proverbial plague. Those things will rot your teeth. They’ll also make you high strung like a poodle – or like Erin Brockovich.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Silliness

[Put in your own “sics.”]

Hi, My name is Robert Oldham, I grew up in Hinkley we left there in 1969 I was 9yrs old at the time . My father "Bobby Joe Oldham" was a milkman for foremost, i remember the glass bottles he would bring home, full of ice cold milk, I remember as a young boy being sick alot and having severe nosebleeds myself, my mother would tell me it was from the heat as well, dont recall doing any swimming at any certain pool our which one it was but i do remember swimming pools. I am interested in learning more on this subject of chromium 6 in the drinking water there. My teachers would refrain us from drinking to much water at school dont recall why they did that but, they were strickt about it. I do remember alot of peoples pets dying and alot of water being brought to are house and others as well we used to chase the trucks delivering them down the dirt road to our house. would like the e-mail address of the attorney [Erin Brockovich] if u have it. thank you very much

Dear Mr. Oldham:

You know; it’s the strangest thing. I had bronchitis every month for years when I was a kid. Plus all of my pets eventually died, too. I believe all of the neighbors’ pets eventually died too. AND I drank the water and swam in the swimming pools, also! But I grew up in Illinois and nobody made a movie about us.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Gulf War Syndrome Hate

Repent, Ye Sinner!

As a Gulfwar [sic] veteran who's [sic] life has been turned upside down because of my service I would finally like to thank you as well as everyone else for making our lives more miserable. At least finally the veterans [sic] administration [sic] is admitting they were wrong and I was wondering if you are ever going to admit the same. [sic]

Thanks
Brad [omitted]

Dear Brad,

You mean “as a Gulf War veteran who has turned his own life upside down and desperately desires something to blame it on other than himself.” I always believed in the expression, “The truth shall set ye free; you apparently believe that should be, “The truth shall make ye miserable.” I have and will continue to tell the truth about Gulf Lore Syndrome, which in my latest article on the subject notes that the VA stacked its panel with at least six activists out of ten committee members in order to ensure they came to the “proper” conclusion. The VA’s motives are simple cowardice and the same desire of any bureaucracy that exists to spend money to spend even more money. That is what I will admit.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Agent Orange Hate

Gimme Orange Money!

Do you know if any other veterans have ever developed a seizure disorder from the spraying of Agent Orange? My husband is a Vietnam Veteran [sic] and was stationed in DaNang in 1971. He started having seizures when he came back from Viet Nam. He first started having Petit [sic] Mal [sic] Seizures [sic] …..dropping things out of his hand, blank stares, etc. We didn’t know what was going on with him until he had his Grand Mal Seizure and ended up in a VA Hospital for 2 weeks. He has been taking Dilantin ever since.

I would love to know if anyone else has this condition. My husband is disabled and I was wondering if he would be entitled to any benefits? Your help appreciated.

Sincerely,
[omitted] Miller

Dear Mrs. Miller:

There is no evidence that Agent Orange has harmed any veteran. Less than one percent of persons with seizure disorders (including my own wife, who has had seizures, petit and grand mal) has ever been to Vietnam. You'll have to look for money elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Certifiably Insane Hate

A Unifying Theory of the Universe

[These two e-mails came back-to-back. Insert your own “sics.”]

at first i was interested in what you have to say but as i read on i could see that your agenda is some crack pot hypocritical tract against stem cell research. why not just say that rather than attack the JDRF (who i am not very fond of by the way). You are undoubtedly a "right to lifer" who supports war and loves the fetus but doesn't mind poisoning it with environmental toxins. you guys are really the death cult and should own up to it instead of hiding behind a wedge issue like abortion when you spread death over everything else in your agenda. stem cells are here, they are the wave of the future and will hopefully save a lot of lives. give it up....

David MOrrison, Portland OR

yep, just as i thought. a right wing plant in a think tank uniform. just checked out your list of articles on the hudson institute site – one after the other, a lot of right wing propaganda. granted i am not informed in many of the subjects but i am able to see a pattern. in the "rather" article [He means CBS’s broadcast concerning the fraudulent Bush National Guard papers.] you should have at least given cbs the credit of presenting accurate information. The facts within the article were never disputed. It was a Carl Rove Feature Presentation. Bush was awol, he did rub everyone the wrong way. let's face it, you know and i know that rove planted those papers, cbs bought in because they knew the information was accurate. there is so much crime and deception within the republican party that no one would believe this stuff if you wrote it as a novel or a documentary.. bush is nothing but a hired killer, his surrounding thugs and ex death squad blood thirsty mongrels only come to life when there are countries to overthrow, people to kill, oil and money to steal, etc. they should all be rounded up and put in jail and placed before a firing squad. the depth of crime and contempt for international law has put the us in a position of scorn within the world community. we ARE prenazi germany.

David Morrison
Portland OR

Dear Mr. Morrison:

Take two overdoses of thorazine and don’t call me in the morning.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I thought you guys were more into shipping anthrax out to your enemies. how about a nice article on the assassination of paul wellstone. by the way, what's your phone no.

David Morrison

With that jacket you’re wearing, how are you going to push the phone buttons – with your tongue?

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

![](/img2/reaperhand.gif) [Introduction to Hate Mail and Other Hate Mail Volumes](/hatemail.html)  [A Review of Michael Fumento's Hate Mail](/suckcom.html)  [Fumento Flamb�](/hatepraise.html)    

Smoking with Hate

Passive Smoking Hate

Passive Thinking

Take it from me, a right winger, [sic] you are wrong, pal. Smoking should be no more allowed in a closed building that crapping on the floor next to where someone else is sitting. I don’t care about the studies or the health effects, it simply stinks. Just as farting in the face of your companions and coworkers would be reprehensible, so is firing up a fag.

It doesn’t take science to know what common sense should tell you.

If you’ve got ‘em, smoke ‘em. Just not indoors near me, ok?

atlantismedia@[omitted]

Dear Pal:

You seem to believe that coming from the right side of the political spectrum and having a potty mouth give you authority. You also invoke “common sense” to disregard scientific findings. Common sense might indicate that being exposed to 4/1000s of a cigarette a day, as I wrote in my piece, would not pose a health hazard. In any event, I discussed the fallacy of the appeal to common sense in a pamphlet I produced.

[It’s] really a bullying rhetorical tool, designed to drag people along by shaming them into thinking you must be right because you’re so confident. “Common sense” doesn’t really mean a lot. At one time, it was common sense that the world was flat, that much disease was caused by excess of “bad” blood requiring the application of nasty slimy leaches, and that exposure to a full moon could cause insanity – hence the origin of the word “lunacy.” During the Love Canal controversy, activist Lois Gibbs declared “you don’t have to be a scientist. You don’t have to do a survey to find out – common sense’ll tell you, there’s something wrong in Love Canal.” Thus, we are supposed to reject the studies of learned professionals in favor of this concept of “common sense.”

Thus you have not only invoked a foolish fallacy to make a point you obviously could not make otherwise, you have aligned yourself with Lois Gibbs, a darling of the left. Were I you, pal, I would not only try to clean up your language but also your muddled thinking.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Potty mouth and cigarette smoke are on the same level. I don’t need studies to know I don’t want to hear or smell either in public. Your rants against people wanting clean air in restaurants are misguided and completely miss the mark. Raving about the ‘science’ of such an [sic] common sense problem is totally inane. You need a real job because obviously you’ve got dirt for brains. You ought to get down on your knees and give thanks that someone is willing to give you money for your idiotic rants.

When it comes to dining with my family and friends, I don’t need wait [sic] for laws to fix a problem or some scientist to figure out that any burning object that releases an offensive smell is good or bad for one’s health. I address the offender who burns or spews in my location immediately. I simply don’t want the guy or girl at the next table ruining my meal with a cigarette, cigar, pipe or excessive profanity. Since I’m 6’2” and 220, I apply some persuasive ‘science’ on the spot.

Don’t be smoking or cursing around me, pencil neck. I don’t care what science you can quote, I’ll erase the problem.

*Dear Halitosismedia:

In other words, you’re a potty-mouthed bully who complains of “excessive profanity” on the part of other people. I guess your profanity is not excessive because, well, because it’s yours. I hope you keep applying your “persuasive ‘science’” because there are a lot of people out there who know that a quick kick to the kneecap will bring you down like the retarded bull elephant you are – thereby “erasing the problem.” If you don’t like smoke in your face, I’m sure you won’t get any while recovering in the hospital from surgery.*

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Herpetic and Hallow

[This is in reference to my writing that I was stunned to hear that at a smoking ban hearing, a pediatrician actually blamed passive smoking for causing herpes.]

I don't know about herpes but it definitely causes drivel. Get a life!

Howydooin@[omitted]

I’m dooin’ just fine. But judging from the informative nature of your e-mail, you don’t know much about a lot. Get a brain cell.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

It’s RIGHT there in the Bill of RIGHTS

Mr. Fumento,

It doesn't matter whether or not passive smoking causes cancer. It stinks. It's oppressive. It fouls the air that non-smokers have the RIGHT to breathe without having to inhale noxious fumes.

Smokers have the right to foul their own lungs. They shouldn't have the right to foul mine. So let them go outside and continue their nasty habit and let me breathe freely inside.

That's enough.
Why does the NY POST continue with this stupid crusade? Stop already!

[omitted] Tooker
NY, NY

Dear Miss Hooker:

Body odor also stinks and is oppressive. Perhaps we should pass laws mandating that everybody who enters a restaurant or bar have had a bath or shower in the last 24 hours. You see, while I hate stinky people I’m careful to distinguish between what I don’t like, what is scientifically correct, and what truly is or is not a right. Just because I do or don’t care for something doesn’t mean it should be legally mandated, especially in a private place. Your RIGHT is to avoid private facilities that allow smoking or to avoid those parts of those facilities in which smoking is involved. And as I noted in my piece that you merely glanced at, the crusaders are those who feel that if they don’t lie and tell people passive smoke caused everything from heart attacks to herpes they couldn’t get their pet laws passed. Let’s strip away their fake claims and see how far they get.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

And speaking of merely glancing at something, Mr. Fumento, you got my name wrong, willfully, I believe. It's Tooker, not Hooker. Perhaps that's what passes as wit around you.

[omitted] Tooker

*Dear Miss Hooker:*

No, I don’t find it the least bit witty.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I told you that you got my name wrong and you repeat it. I totally understand now. It can be summed up by the wise saying: Never try to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
[omitted] Tooker

Dear Miss Hooker:

I suggest you ply your trade elsewhere. I no longer have any wish to participate in this transaction.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Memories, of the Way We Used to Cough …

I am a 76 year old white male. Every time I read an article by you regarding secondhand smoke I want to go through the ceiling. I am not here to argue whether secondhand smoke is going to affect the health of someone. That is not where I am coming from. When I was a child in the '30s, I was constantly subjected to secondhand smoke in the back seat of a 1935 Pontiac because both my mother and grandmother (a chain smoker) would fill the car with their exhaled cigarette smoke. I could not get away from it. It filled the air inside the car and make [sic] my eyes water and cause [sic] me to cough. I was not allowed to lower the car window even a little to gain relief. In fact my grandmother would reach into the back seat and backhand me in the face and say that I was "an obstinate little shit" and to "close the window because it was cold". [132 words of pathos omitted.]

One more story about cigarettes and secondhand smoke. [No, enough stories.]

I have had many health problems all my life. Can I attribute them to the smoking that my mother did while I was in utero? I don't know but I know that the air that I breathe is much better without cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other type of smoke in it.

You and the others that defend the rights of smokers never address the irritation to those who don't [sic]. You cannot honestly believe that a smoker has no responsibility to others. I am recovering from tongue cancer and had the doctors confirmed [Huh?] that the cause of it was secondhand smoke...... which of course cannot be proved..... I don't know what I would have done to silence those of you who continuously spout off about the rights of smokers. You can not [sic] really believe that there is no harm from smoke inhaled after being exhaled by someone else. After what I have gone through to battle and now survive this cancer, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would intentionally put themselves in jeopardy of the kinds of cancer that are the result of smoking.

[omitted] Reinert

Dear Mr. Reinert:

So you think that any and all smoking bans are justified because your grandmother was a bitch and wouldn’t let you roll down the window? When you talk about the laws in California, are you referring to those that prevent smoking even on the beach in the name of protecting the health of others? Have you ever stood on the beach, Mr. Reinert? Have you noticed the continual breezes that instantly waft away even the smoke from campfires, much less from a cigarette? Yet those laws were passed in the name of health.

I’m not a doctor, but I strongly suspect that every health problem you’ve had in life was probably not caused by your mother smoking during pregnancy. In any case, that is not second-hand smoke. That’s called smoking while pregnant and has demonstrated health effects on the fetus. None of which is to say that if that fetus ever gets sick in its life it was due to the mother’s smoking.

*You say your tongue cancer was “confirmed” to have been caused by second-hand smoke, but at the same time you admit that “cannot be proved.” Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive. I suggest you make one argument and stick with it and I suggest you stick with the “cannot be proved.” Assuming part of your tongue was excised, I assure you the doctors couldn’t flip it over and see “Caused by passive smoking” on the underside. Medical diagnoses don’t work that way. *

*You claim I “defend the rights of smokers” and “never address the irritation to those who don't.” Please go to my website where all of pieces on passive smoking are posted and find a single one in which I so much as say smokers even have rights. Just one will do nicely, thank you. On the other hand, I have written:

Do we know that passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer? No. But we know that either it does not or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasurable. Does this mean passive smoke poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma and other breathing problems, if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers aren't murdering other people, they're not still engaging in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chance of sickness and premature death? Definitely not. *

Just as you contradicted yourself, you also contradict what I have written. And why can I “not really believe” what I have shown the studies indicate? Just because you reject science, why is incumbent upon me to let your 70-year-old memories cloud my judgment. I do not defend smokers nor smokers’ rights; I defend science and reason. And in that regard I find you quite offensive. * Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

Who cares if second hand smoke can kill you or not? This "issue" is just as much camouflage from the right as "passive smoking" is camouflage from the left. The bottom line is that smokers have no right to put smoke in my lungs even if it's completely harmless – I know, as a good libertarian, that other people's rights end where mine begin.

First, second hand smoke definitely does affect some people's health, even if it's short of murder. I'm asthmatic, and it causes me wheezing and tightness, and sometimes full-blown attacks. Sure, that's '[sic] anecdotal evidence,[sic]' but all of science is anecdotal unless you do the experiments yourself – and when was the last time YOU measured the accelation due to gravity?

Second (hah), it's just plain obnoxious. Who wants to smell that stuff or have smoke swirling around your head?

Third, will all the active smokers pay to have my clothes cleaned? I live in California (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), and every time I go back East [sic] I can smell tobacco on my clothes and in my hair for days. [Hair? How often does this guy bathe?]

Fourth, saying that if I don't like smoke I can just go somewhere else is only a valid argument if there's more than one absolutely equivalent source for the service. Why should I have to avoid – say – the best restaurant or bar in town because of smokers?

Fifth, yes, I would extend this to perfumes. This isn't the Middle Ages – get some soap, for crying out loud.

Sixth, of course society requires putting up with a certain amount of annoyance and "transgression" (how I hate that pomo word) of personal taste. [The Pomo are an Indian tribe; I have no idea what he’s talking about.] But smoking is beyond a mere annoyance. It's not a necessary or unavoidable social behavior, it's a personal hobby that smokers are trying to transfer into my body.

Mike Conroy

Dear Mr. Conroy:

Seventh, let's kill all gum crackers. God, I hate gum cracking!

Eighth, to the camps with people who eat with their mouths open.

*Ninth, hard labor for guys who don't tie their ties to the beltline. They look like idiots! *

Tenth, 20 lashes for you daily because when you drive a car (or use mass-transit) you put smoke in other people’s lungs, even if it’s completely harmless.

*The bottom line is that city councils play the health card for a reason – because your arguments don't wash in a nation built on the principle of liberty. I know there's no one definition of libertarianism, but "outlawing only things I dislike" isn't generally accepted as one of them.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

From the Head of the Nebbish Guild

Aren't you the same moron who claimed that the air around ground zero was perfectly clean days after 9/11, and that "wacky environmentalists" were using "junk science" to claim otherwise? Weren't you the moron who was proven to be a completely wrong about that? Yes, you are, you dimwitted little nebbish. Go blow some crack smoke on your infant, idiot.

Red Wright

Dear Red:

I trust your first name was chosen to indicate your political sympathies. As it happens, I’m not “the same moron” insofar as I have never written any such thing. Everything I do write appears online, so I invite you to find the piece you’re describing either using a general search engine or the search engine on my website at www.fumento.com. Doesn’t this make you a little bit dim and nebbishy? I await the apology that is due to me but will not come because you will think of some other nasty thing to put in the place of your original attack.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ya right. You and your fetid ilk of nihilists are the lowest of the low. You were one of the silly nihilists who claimed the air around 9/11 was perfectly clean and healthy to breath, even when I had friends in severe respiratory distress who had to move from the area to regain some semblance of health. Of course, time has proven you wrong scientifically as well, so you just pretend you never wrote any such thing. Typical.

Dear Redface:

Logically you cannot prove a charge by simply re-asserting it. Or as Ben Franklin put it (in a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein), “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I ask you again: Where did this alleged piece of mine appear? If you cannot tell me, I expect an apology.

And I expect more idiotic artilces [sic] from you to appear in the post. I don't play games with people like you and I am not typing your name in any search engine or visiting your website. Feel free to point out the article you wrote warning of the dangers of the air near ground zero after 9/11.

Dear Better Red than Dead:

• Thank you very much. I'm collecting the best of my hate mail into a book and this exchange with you will be wonderfully illustrative of makes a hate-mailer tick – or not tick, as it were. You now know I wrote no such thing and yet you don't care. Your hate is all-consuming. Fortunately, that's your problem and not mine. *

You are a self-absorbed twit. I specifically recall your article attacking those warning of the dangers of living and working near ground zero after 9/11 and it made me sick. If this is "hate mail" to you, I guess you are lucky. As I understand it, people are quite a bit more vicious than my talk-radio level stuff in their emails.

*Dear Redrum (The reference is to Stephen King’s “The Shining”): *

Why does denying I wrote a piece that I did not in fact write make me a “self-absorbed twit”? Why do you refuse to tell me where this piece appeared even though I told you how to track it down if it did? I’m sorry but “I specifically recall” doesn’t cut it. Else, to quote Cromwell: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think you may be mistaken.” By the way, could THIS be the piece you’re thinking of: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/milloy-020814.html Or are you now going to argue that “Steve Milloy” is a pen name I employ?

[For some odd reason, I never heard back from him.]

ADHD Hate

Science by Oprah

Hello Mr. Fumento:

Of course I don't know anything about you except by reading your article on ADHD.

This much I think would be sure: If you had watched the Oprah show about a month ago and if you would then be honest with yourself you would have removed your ADHD article from the net.

For the public's sake, perhaps you can contact her and get a tape of that show. Oprah contacted a British lady that [sic] goes by the title of Super Nanny. Oprah contacted three families which were TOTALLY out of control and were DESPERATE for help. If you could have seen it you would certainly agree, they were even MORE than out of control. Two of the families had 3 children each and one family had two children. Oprah had cameras mounted in the homes and we were able to watch the children punch each other, kick each other, bite each other and do most of these same things to their parents. If any children in the world would ever have been diagnosed with ADHD it was this group.

The Nanny took charge and introduced discipline (NOT the physical kind) to both the kids AND the parents. The end result was like a MIRACLE. In a VERY short time ALL of those kids were showing kindness and politeness and obedience. Something that the families were previously WITHOUT.

[350 words omitted.]

Thanks for reading this far. [“Thanks?” For this, I should have gotten a medal!]

Jim

PS: Speaking from PERSONAL experience I know without doubt the [sic] this so called [sic] disease is a NEW one.

Dear Jim:

Let’s see now, is that the same Oprah Winfrey who announced on her show in 1987: “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”

Is it the same Oprah Winfrey who introduced us to Dr. Phil, the fat fake who has sold millions of diet books?

*Oprah is an entertainer, nothing more. Me, I’ll stick with the over 9,000 peer-reviewed, published medical journal articles on ADHD and leave “science by TV” to pinheads. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S.: Speaking from the medical literature, ADHD was first treated with stimulants in 1937. Not by many standards does that make the disorder a “NEW one.”

AIDS Hate

I’m Not an Idiot; I Just Play One on TV

[This is the master-baiter from Hate Mail 34.]

Hello Michael Fumento:

Your position that HIV/AIDS is a hoax is very intriguing.

After thirty years why have the vaccinologists [sic] filed [sic] to find and isolate the virus that would be necessary to develop a viable vaccine?

Some one [sic] should have won a Nobel Prize by now.

I notice that in the past three months there has [sic] been at least three separate failures to develop a SARS vaccine. The test animals suffered liver damage. In light of such failures, it would seem the virologists have not isolated the SARS virus.

Cheers.

[omitted] Woodruff

Still baiting me, eh? Still making a fool of yourself. I’ve never claimed “HIV is a hoax.” If it were, why would I have written a book and countless articles about it? AIDS was not first recognized 30 years ago but rather in 1981. Do the math. The virus was isolated not 30 years ago but in 1985. Do the math. It took 19 years after isolation of the hepatitis B virus to develop a vaccine, and hepatitis B is child’s play in comparison because vaccines traditionally have harnessed the power of the immune system. You can’t do that with HIV because it attacks the immune system. On the other hand, the number of protease inhibitors that directly attack HIV and by some great coincidence also make AIDS patients live many years longer is huge and growing longer. Quelque coincidence! Whoever develops a successful vaccine probably will win the Nobel.

How in the heck do you logically deduce that since test animals develop liver damage, SARS must not be SARS. You are a walking, talking non-sequitur. (Look it up.)

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Since I Can’t Beat Your Argument, I’ll Give You One I Can Beat

Mr. Fumento:

HIV transmission obviously can occur through vaginal intercourse, so 'heterosexual AIDS,' per se, is not a myth. Indeed, not only can it occur, it occurs rather frequently. For example, in your article "AIDS: No Armageddon, No Accountability (http://www.fumento.com/newaids.html)," you cite CDC statistics that, in the U.S. in 1998, non-drug abusing heterosexuals represented 14% of AIDS cases [in the most recent year.] Fourteen percent is not a 'mythical' statistic. [70 words of bloviated blubber removed.] The choice of your book's title is unfortunately suggestive of a hidden agenda. On the other hand, from what I have read at your web-site, I do not believe that you necessarily have such an agenda – or, at any rate, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. Was it your publisher who suggested that title? Perhaps your publisher was less courageous than homophobic.

I apologize that this missive is unlikely to make your hate mail hit list.

To provide some context, I'm an HIV-negative, heterosexual, physician-scientist, who has treated many cases of AIDS (most of whom were gay or iv [sic] drug users).

Satish [omitted]

Dear Satish:

*You have committed what is known as the “straw-man fallacy.” That means instead of tackling your opponent’s argument, you fabricate his argument and tackle that instead. The appeal of using straw men is obvious. In this case, rather than criticize the book itself you merely criticize your interpretation of the book’s title, an interpretation belied by the very explanation of the title on the back of the hardback edition. (A similar one appears on the paperback edition.)* 

The “myth of heterosexual AIDS” consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it, from shared needles, from transfusions, from clotting factor, from their mother at or before birth, and sometimes through sexual intercourse with persons in these categories and from bisexuals. You simply assume when somebody writes of “the myth” of something they’re saying that something doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your logic, the recent books The Myth of Laziness and The Mommy Myth are saying there’s no such thing as laziness or mothers – a truly brilliant deduction on your part. In the case of my book, you chose an interpretation contradicted not just by the book but by the explanation on the back. I know it must have given you a delicious warm and fuzzy feeling to think that you whipped me in an argument, but actually you merely engaged in self-flagellation. To each his own, I suppose.

• Indeed, the very article of mine you cite contains such alarmist quotes as Oprah Winfrey telling us that a third of heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS by 1990 or USA Today's 1988 prediction that, "By 1991, One in Ten Babies May be AIDS Victims.*
• Those didn’t exactly pan out, did they Satish? In fact, if we accept that everybody in the heterosexual AIDS transmission category actually got the disease that way (which you would know to be a foolish one if you had bothered to read my book or knew the least thing about human nature), the odds of a heterosexual dying today would be about one in 50,000 – not quote one in three. As to the predictions of “America’s Picture Newspaper,” over four million babies were born here last year. Yet, as the current headlines read, “AIDS Among Infants Close to Being Wiped Out in U.S.” Some people would say that made me right when the big boys (and girls) were all wrong. But Satish concedes nothing.*

*Finally, you will make the hate mail pages because many of the letters aren’t necessarily hateful; they’re just plain dumb.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

[The following e-mails stemmed from a C-Span repeat showing of a 1990 “Bookends” interview with me.]

My Folks Wouldn’t Approve Anyway

sir [sic, sic] have never seen on television a pundit who [sic] I thought was more gay than you. If I was [sic] queer I'd ask you out. I'm truly sad that you have to fight so hard. [In using present tense, he shows he’s unaware that what he was watching was 15 years old.]

Sir:

If I were queer, I’d tell you to find a queer chicken. And if I were a queer chicken, although I don’t doubt you’d be lusting after me, I’d still refuse to date you. And I don’t have to “fight so hard” anymore. The epidemic proved me correct even if for some unidentified reason (hmmm…) you wish it hadn’t.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ronald Reagan AND Mike Fumento Caused the AIDS Epidemic

I am watching your 2/16/90 CSPAN2 Book/TV Interview.

My brother pass [sic] 13 years ago today, from this terrible social cancer. I hope you and the late, R W. Reagan, comprehend how you are a contributor to all the people that are still dying.

Be well,
Jim Thomason

Dear Mr. Thomason:

*AIDS is not a “social cancer;” it’s a viral disease spread by blood and other bodily fluids and contracted in an extremely limited number of ways. *

I’m sorry that your brother engaged in those activities and was struck down, but please don’t blame his actions or the result thereof on either myself or the late President Reagan.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Hate

So Sue Me Already!

[I found this on a bulletin board at <http://toxlaw.com/chatboards/class-actions/topic12/2.28.05.12.44.29.html>. NO, I am not going to spend the rest of my life siccing spelling errors or pointing out errors in his assertions. Assume all his assertions are errors. This is illustrative in that it shows people claiming to have MCS often truly are sick, but not in the way they think.] **Post: Class Action Defamation Suit against Barret/Fumento/Milloy **

Posted by Patrick on 2/28/05
Question: Which law firm can find the legal foundation upon which to file a class action defamation suit against the duly noted [Stephen] Barrett/Fumento/[Steve] Milloy/[John] Gots/[John] Stossel and company propaganda machine? Such a lawsuit would be on behalf of every Chemical Sensitivity sufferer in the States, including those Chemical Sensitivity sufferers formally diagnosed with
the following titles:
1a] Occupational Asthma due to low-molecular weight agents.
1b] Irritant-induced Asthma.
2] Chemical Worker's Lung.
3] External Allergic Alveolitis, aka Hypersensitivity
Pneumonitis "due to chemical sensitization."
4] Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome.
5] World Trade Center Cough.
6] Sick Building Syndrome; a diagnostic title which is
even recognized in the Merck Manual.
7] Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
8] Acute Generalized Exanthematous Pustulosi.
9a] Chronic Actinic Dermatitis.
9b] Occupational Dermatitis.
10] Phthalic Anhydride Hypersensitivity.
11] And of course, the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which
is now recognized by name, by the following
licensed & accredited entities, in each one's
Occupatonal & Environmental Medicine Programs:

[Omission of a long list of organizations he claims recognize MCS, none of which do.]

Of course, there is the matter of including CFS sufferers and GWS sufferers. Of course, GWS sufferers have apparently suffered the most defamation of all the Chemical Sensitivity sufferers.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, a subset of patients who were diagnosed with the following 'medically accepted' diagnostic titles can be included:

1] Chemically-induced Hepatitis, 2] Chemically-induced

Aplastic Anemia (Bone Marrow Suppression).

The subset, of course, would consist in those who suffered lingering sensitivity beyond the acute stage.

[100 words omitted.]

The Barret/Fumento/Milloy/Stossel & company propaganda machine employed slight-of-hand semantics & convenient evidence omission in asserting to the inexperienced public that Chemical Sensitivity is entirely a process of mental illness, instead of a physiological process accompanied with the following physiological medical findings:

[Omission of a humongous list.]

And then there is the matter P-300 Waves, IgA immunoglobins, T-Cells, porphyira, and the observable and non-deniable symptom of Profuse Dry Heaving, as well as that of Blacking-Out. All in all, the smoking gun was the Fiber Optic Rhinolaryngoscopic Exam and the medical findings thereof.

The defamatory propaganda resulted in the deprivation of research funding. Furthermore, how many ignorant persons in America believed the conclusions of Barret/Stossel/Fumento and refused to accomodate a chemical sensitivity sufferer in a time of crisis? How much suffering has that propaganda machine caused? In as much, all Chemical Sensitivity sufferers have suffered triply:

1] at the hands of the illness,
2] at the hands of a ruthless form of defamation,
3] at the hands of abandonment for years, due to little research funding and outrightly lazy physicians who make lots of money upon one nitch repetitively,
steamlining their practices to a comfortable laziness.

[*Enough! 425 words omitted.]*

The MCS debate has been game of semantics. The anti-MCS lobby went beyond the sound barriers of obsecenity. All contributing members must be held accountable.

Worse even than Dioxin?

Dear Michael,

I have just read your articles on the fragrance free policy and feel incensed. Perhaps you should try being an MCS sufferer yourself for 1 day – maybe you will if you continue to use synthetic fragrances. As a sufferer myself I do not choose to be effected [sic] in this way and lose many days of my life (a very lonely and isolated one at that if I want to stay symptom free [sic] ) because of these horrible toxic chemicals. It's not psychological as some people would like to believe, but most definitely a physical problem. Let's hope you don't have to find out the hard way.

I used to love wearing perfume, but now I'm more educated – the only appropriately named perfume is 'POISON'!!

Regards [sic]
Barbara Curtis

P.S: You don't need to put toxic chemicals on your body to smell nice. A nice bath or shower is helpful and essential oils (People are less likely to be sensitive to these) can be used if you want extra smell!!

Dear Barbara:

Maybe the incense is bothering you. It certainly bothers me, though I don’t claim it’s harmful. I’m sorry, but I can’t be an MCS sufferer for even one day any more than I can be a jackalope for one day. Ain’t no such animal. MCS is indeed a psychological problem, though it certainly may manifest itself physically. A body under psychological stress releases adrenaline, histamines, and other chemicals that can do all sorts of nasty things to you. If you become convinced chemicals are bothering you, you will release your own chemicals and you will truly be sick. Plus you will blame other ills you have on the outside chemicals, thereby preventing or delaying a diagnosis of what really ails you. For these reasons, I do take MCS seriously even though it’s a myth. It can be a dangerous myth.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S. I’m glad you think I don’t need to put toxic chemicals on my body to smell nice – though I’ve known a few people for whom I think toxic chemicals would provide a real improvement.

Subject: Scientific Measurements of Heavy Metal and Chemical Overload in MCS Destroy Your Premise

Please get up to date on the treatments for MCS before you destroy your reputation completely!

Deborah Pedherney
President
The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Society of Hope

Dear Ms. Pedherney:

What? And join you in the club? Not a chance!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Obesity Hate

Subject: BMI is Bogus

[*Note: This was a general posting and not directed at me. I bend the term “hate mail” whenever it suits my wicked purposes.*]

Whenever I read a report on obesity, I stop when I see 'BMI.' [Body Mass Index, a comparison of weight to height.] When someone uses the BMI to support their position, they are telling you that they have no credibility on the issue.

Fortunately, I did read the final paragraph of this essay. The author correctly points out that according to the BMI Michael Jordan and Shaq are overweight. So is Jerry Rice, by the way. That should show everyone how bogus the BMI is.

Jay

No, BMI is quite useful. It applies to the vast majority of the population. If you're a weight lifter or a football player, you should have the smarts to know that the BMI doesn't apply to you. Obviously a direct measurement of the body's fat content is better, but calipers don't really work well and the best measurements are costly.

Further, BMI is completely correct when used to compare populations. So when we say the average BMI in America today is a certain percentage higher than it once was, either you have to accept that suddenly massive numbers of Americans have become more muscular (not bloody likely) or they've become fatter and they've become fatter by this percent.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Radon Hate

Subject: How Do You Sleep at Night

[From a professional radon alarmist whose work I eviscerated years earlier.]

From the untruths you spread, not very well I imagine. You sound very desperate.

R. William Field, M.S, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Public Health
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

*Oh I just breathe in some radon until I feel nice and cozy and drift off, waking up most refreshed. From the untruths you manage to publish because you're scientifically wrong but politically correct, you're the one who should be suffering insomnia. It's a matter of record that I ripped your hide to shreds with your first attempt at prevarication. I just loved how you simply excluded all the data that didn’t fit your predetermined outcome. You had all the subtlety of a landslide. I have no reason to think you've cleaned up your act. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Hate

Curious George

Have you been drinking Chromium [sic] 6? [The “evil” chemical in the water supply in the Erin Brockovich movie.]

Just curious.

Todd Phillips

Dear Mr. Phillips:

No, unfortunately the utility company charges extra for chromium-six flavoring and I can’t afford it. But I avoid sugary soft drinks like the proverbial plague. Those things will rot your teeth. They’ll also make you high strung like a poodle – or like Erin Brockovich.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Silliness

[Put in your own “sics.”]

Hi, My name is Robert Oldham, I grew up in Hinkley we left there in 1969 I was 9yrs old at the time . My father "Bobby Joe Oldham" was a milkman for foremost, i remember the glass bottles he would bring home, full of ice cold milk, I remember as a young boy being sick alot and having severe nosebleeds myself, my mother would tell me it was from the heat as well, dont recall doing any swimming at any certain pool our which one it was but i do remember swimming pools. I am interested in learning more on this subject of chromium 6 in the drinking water there. My teachers would refrain us from drinking to much water at school dont recall why they did that but, they were strickt about it. I do remember alot of peoples pets dying and alot of water being brought to are house and others as well we used to chase the trucks delivering them down the dirt road to our house. would like the e-mail address of the attorney [Erin Brockovich] if u have it. thank you very much

Dear Mr. Oldham:

You know; it’s the strangest thing. I had bronchitis every month for years when I was a kid. Plus all of my pets eventually died, too. I believe all of the neighbors’ pets eventually died too. AND I drank the water and swam in the swimming pools, also! But I grew up in Illinois and nobody made a movie about us.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Gulf War Syndrome Hate

Repent, Ye Sinner!

As a Gulfwar [sic] veteran who's [sic] life has been turned upside down because of my service I would finally like to thank you as well as everyone else for making our lives more miserable. At least finally the veterans [sic] administration [sic] is admitting they were wrong and I was wondering if you are ever going to admit the same. [sic]

Thanks
Brad [omitted]

Dear Brad,

You mean “as a Gulf War veteran who has turned his own life upside down and desperately desires something to blame it on other than himself.” I always believed in the expression, “The truth shall set ye free; you apparently believe that should be, “The truth shall make ye miserable.” I have and will continue to tell the truth about Gulf Lore Syndrome, which in my latest article on the subject notes that the VA stacked its panel with at least six activists out of ten committee members in order to ensure they came to the “proper” conclusion. The VA’s motives are simple cowardice and the same desire of any bureaucracy that exists to spend money to spend even more money. That is what I will admit.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Agent Orange Hate

Gimme Orange Money!

Do you know if any other veterans have ever developed a seizure disorder from the spraying of Agent Orange? My husband is a Vietnam Veteran [sic] and was stationed in DaNang in 1971. He started having seizures when he came back from Viet Nam. He first started having Petit [sic] Mal [sic] Seizures [sic] …..dropping things out of his hand, blank stares, etc. We didn’t know what was going on with him until he had his Grand Mal Seizure and ended up in a VA Hospital for 2 weeks. He has been taking Dilantin ever since.

I would love to know if anyone else has this condition. My husband is disabled and I was wondering if he would be entitled to any benefits? Your help appreciated.

Sincerely,
[omitted] Miller

Dear Mrs. Miller:

There is no evidence that Agent Orange has harmed any veteran. Less than one percent of persons with seizure disorders (including my own wife, who has had seizures, petit and grand mal) has ever been to Vietnam. You'll have to look for money elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Certifiably Insane Hate

A Unifying Theory of the Universe

[These two e-mails came back-to-back. Insert your own “sics.”]

at first i was interested in what you have to say but as i read on i could see that your agenda is some crack pot hypocritical tract against stem cell research. why not just say that rather than attack the JDRF (who i am not very fond of by the way). You are undoubtedly a "right to lifer" who supports war and loves the fetus but doesn't mind poisoning it with environmental toxins. you guys are really the death cult and should own up to it instead of hiding behind a wedge issue like abortion when you spread death over everything else in your agenda. stem cells are here, they are the wave of the future and will hopefully save a lot of lives. give it up....

David MOrrison, Portland OR

yep, just as i thought. a right wing plant in a think tank uniform. just checked out your list of articles on the hudson institute site – one after the other, a lot of right wing propaganda. granted i am not informed in many of the subjects but i am able to see a pattern. in the "rather" article [He means CBS’s broadcast concerning the fraudulent Bush National Guard papers.] you should have at least given cbs the credit of presenting accurate information. The facts within the article were never disputed. It was a Carl Rove Feature Presentation. Bush was awol, he did rub everyone the wrong way. let's face it, you know and i know that rove planted those papers, cbs bought in because they knew the information was accurate. there is so much crime and deception within the republican party that no one would believe this stuff if you wrote it as a novel or a documentary.. bush is nothing but a hired killer, his surrounding thugs and ex death squad blood thirsty mongrels only come to life when there are countries to overthrow, people to kill, oil and money to steal, etc. they should all be rounded up and put in jail and placed before a firing squad. the depth of crime and contempt for international law has put the us in a position of scorn within the world community. we ARE prenazi germany.

David Morrison
Portland OR

Dear Mr. Morrison:

Take two overdoses of thorazine and don’t call me in the morning.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I thought you guys were more into shipping anthrax out to your enemies. how about a nice article on the assassination of paul wellstone. by the way, what's your phone no.

David Morrison

With that jacket you’re wearing, how are you going to push the phone buttons – with your tongue?

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

![](/img2/reaperhand.gif) [Introduction to Hate Mail and Other Hate Mail Volumes](/hatemail.html)  [A Review of Michael Fumento's Hate Mail](/suckcom.html)  [Fumento Flamb�](/hatepraise.html)    

Smoking with Hate

Passive Smoking Hate

Passive Thinking

Take it from me, a right winger, [sic] you are wrong, pal. Smoking should be no more allowed in a closed building that crapping on the floor next to where someone else is sitting. I don’t care about the studies or the health effects, it simply stinks. Just as farting in the face of your companions and coworkers would be reprehensible, so is firing up a fag.

It doesn’t take science to know what common sense should tell you.

If you’ve got ‘em, smoke ‘em. Just not indoors near me, ok?

atlantismedia@[omitted]

Dear Pal:

You seem to believe that coming from the right side of the political spectrum and having a potty mouth give you authority. You also invoke “common sense” to disregard scientific findings. Common sense might indicate that being exposed to 4/1000s of a cigarette a day, as I wrote in my piece, would not pose a health hazard. In any event, I discussed the fallacy of the appeal to common sense in a pamphlet I produced.

[It’s] really a bullying rhetorical tool, designed to drag people along by shaming them into thinking you must be right because you’re so confident. “Common sense” doesn’t really mean a lot. At one time, it was common sense that the world was flat, that much disease was caused by excess of “bad” blood requiring the application of nasty slimy leaches, and that exposure to a full moon could cause insanity – hence the origin of the word “lunacy.” During the Love Canal controversy, activist Lois Gibbs declared “you don’t have to be a scientist. You don’t have to do a survey to find out – common sense’ll tell you, there’s something wrong in Love Canal.” Thus, we are supposed to reject the studies of learned professionals in favor of this concept of “common sense.”

Thus you have not only invoked a foolish fallacy to make a point you obviously could not make otherwise, you have aligned yourself with Lois Gibbs, a darling of the left. Were I you, pal, I would not only try to clean up your language but also your muddled thinking.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Potty mouth and cigarette smoke are on the same level. I don’t need studies to know I don’t want to hear or smell either in public. Your rants against people wanting clean air in restaurants are misguided and completely miss the mark. Raving about the ‘science’ of such an [sic] common sense problem is totally inane. You need a real job because obviously you’ve got dirt for brains. You ought to get down on your knees and give thanks that someone is willing to give you money for your idiotic rants.

When it comes to dining with my family and friends, I don’t need wait [sic] for laws to fix a problem or some scientist to figure out that any burning object that releases an offensive smell is good or bad for one’s health. I address the offender who burns or spews in my location immediately. I simply don’t want the guy or girl at the next table ruining my meal with a cigarette, cigar, pipe or excessive profanity. Since I’m 6’2” and 220, I apply some persuasive ‘science’ on the spot.

Don’t be smoking or cursing around me, pencil neck. I don’t care what science you can quote, I’ll erase the problem.

*Dear Halitosismedia:

In other words, you’re a potty-mouthed bully who complains of “excessive profanity” on the part of other people. I guess your profanity is not excessive because, well, because it’s yours. I hope you keep applying your “persuasive ‘science’” because there are a lot of people out there who know that a quick kick to the kneecap will bring you down like the retarded bull elephant you are – thereby “erasing the problem.” If you don’t like smoke in your face, I’m sure you won’t get any while recovering in the hospital from surgery.*

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Herpetic and Hallow

[This is in reference to my writing that I was stunned to hear that at a smoking ban hearing, a pediatrician actually blamed passive smoking for causing herpes.]

I don't know about herpes but it definitely causes drivel. Get a life!

Howydooin@[omitted]

I’m dooin’ just fine. But judging from the informative nature of your e-mail, you don’t know much about a lot. Get a brain cell.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

It’s RIGHT there in the Bill of RIGHTS

Mr. Fumento,

It doesn't matter whether or not passive smoking causes cancer. It stinks. It's oppressive. It fouls the air that non-smokers have the RIGHT to breathe without having to inhale noxious fumes.

Smokers have the right to foul their own lungs. They shouldn't have the right to foul mine. So let them go outside and continue their nasty habit and let me breathe freely inside.

That's enough.
Why does the NY POST continue with this stupid crusade? Stop already!

[omitted] Tooker
NY, NY

Dear Miss Hooker:

Body odor also stinks and is oppressive. Perhaps we should pass laws mandating that everybody who enters a restaurant or bar have had a bath or shower in the last 24 hours. You see, while I hate stinky people I’m careful to distinguish between what I don’t like, what is scientifically correct, and what truly is or is not a right. Just because I do or don’t care for something doesn’t mean it should be legally mandated, especially in a private place. Your RIGHT is to avoid private facilities that allow smoking or to avoid those parts of those facilities in which smoking is involved. And as I noted in my piece that you merely glanced at, the crusaders are those who feel that if they don’t lie and tell people passive smoke caused everything from heart attacks to herpes they couldn’t get their pet laws passed. Let’s strip away their fake claims and see how far they get.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

And speaking of merely glancing at something, Mr. Fumento, you got my name wrong, willfully, I believe. It's Tooker, not Hooker. Perhaps that's what passes as wit around you.

[omitted] Tooker

*Dear Miss Hooker:*

No, I don’t find it the least bit witty.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I told you that you got my name wrong and you repeat it. I totally understand now. It can be summed up by the wise saying: Never try to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
[omitted] Tooker

Dear Miss Hooker:

I suggest you ply your trade elsewhere. I no longer have any wish to participate in this transaction.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Memories, of the Way We Used to Cough …

I am a 76 year old white male. Every time I read an article by you regarding secondhand smoke I want to go through the ceiling. I am not here to argue whether secondhand smoke is going to affect the health of someone. That is not where I am coming from. When I was a child in the '30s, I was constantly subjected to secondhand smoke in the back seat of a 1935 Pontiac because both my mother and grandmother (a chain smoker) would fill the car with their exhaled cigarette smoke. I could not get away from it. It filled the air inside the car and make [sic] my eyes water and cause [sic] me to cough. I was not allowed to lower the car window even a little to gain relief. In fact my grandmother would reach into the back seat and backhand me in the face and say that I was "an obstinate little shit" and to "close the window because it was cold". [132 words of pathos omitted.]

One more story about cigarettes and secondhand smoke. [No, enough stories.]

I have had many health problems all my life. Can I attribute them to the smoking that my mother did while I was in utero? I don't know but I know that the air that I breathe is much better without cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other type of smoke in it.

You and the others that defend the rights of smokers never address the irritation to those who don't [sic]. You cannot honestly believe that a smoker has no responsibility to others. I am recovering from tongue cancer and had the doctors confirmed [Huh?] that the cause of it was secondhand smoke...... which of course cannot be proved..... I don't know what I would have done to silence those of you who continuously spout off about the rights of smokers. You can not [sic] really believe that there is no harm from smoke inhaled after being exhaled by someone else. After what I have gone through to battle and now survive this cancer, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would intentionally put themselves in jeopardy of the kinds of cancer that are the result of smoking.

[omitted] Reinert

Dear Mr. Reinert:

So you think that any and all smoking bans are justified because your grandmother was a bitch and wouldn’t let you roll down the window? When you talk about the laws in California, are you referring to those that prevent smoking even on the beach in the name of protecting the health of others? Have you ever stood on the beach, Mr. Reinert? Have you noticed the continual breezes that instantly waft away even the smoke from campfires, much less from a cigarette? Yet those laws were passed in the name of health.

I’m not a doctor, but I strongly suspect that every health problem you’ve had in life was probably not caused by your mother smoking during pregnancy. In any case, that is not second-hand smoke. That’s called smoking while pregnant and has demonstrated health effects on the fetus. None of which is to say that if that fetus ever gets sick in its life it was due to the mother’s smoking.

*You say your tongue cancer was “confirmed” to have been caused by second-hand smoke, but at the same time you admit that “cannot be proved.” Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive. I suggest you make one argument and stick with it and I suggest you stick with the “cannot be proved.” Assuming part of your tongue was excised, I assure you the doctors couldn’t flip it over and see “Caused by passive smoking” on the underside. Medical diagnoses don’t work that way. *

*You claim I “defend the rights of smokers” and “never address the irritation to those who don't.” Please go to my website where all of pieces on passive smoking are posted and find a single one in which I so much as say smokers even have rights. Just one will do nicely, thank you. On the other hand, I have written:

Do we know that passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer? No. But we know that either it does not or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasurable. Does this mean passive smoke poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma and other breathing problems, if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers aren't murdering other people, they're not still engaging in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chance of sickness and premature death? Definitely not. *

Just as you contradicted yourself, you also contradict what I have written. And why can I “not really believe” what I have shown the studies indicate? Just because you reject science, why is incumbent upon me to let your 70-year-old memories cloud my judgment. I do not defend smokers nor smokers’ rights; I defend science and reason. And in that regard I find you quite offensive. * Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

Who cares if second hand smoke can kill you or not? This "issue" is just as much camouflage from the right as "passive smoking" is camouflage from the left. The bottom line is that smokers have no right to put smoke in my lungs even if it's completely harmless – I know, as a good libertarian, that other people's rights end where mine begin.

First, second hand smoke definitely does affect some people's health, even if it's short of murder. I'm asthmatic, and it causes me wheezing and tightness, and sometimes full-blown attacks. Sure, that's '[sic] anecdotal evidence,[sic]' but all of science is anecdotal unless you do the experiments yourself – and when was the last time YOU measured the accelation due to gravity?

Second (hah), it's just plain obnoxious. Who wants to smell that stuff or have smoke swirling around your head?

Third, will all the active smokers pay to have my clothes cleaned? I live in California (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), and every time I go back East [sic] I can smell tobacco on my clothes and in my hair for days. [Hair? How often does this guy bathe?]

Fourth, saying that if I don't like smoke I can just go somewhere else is only a valid argument if there's more than one absolutely equivalent source for the service. Why should I have to avoid – say – the best restaurant or bar in town because of smokers?

Fifth, yes, I would extend this to perfumes. This isn't the Middle Ages – get some soap, for crying out loud.

Sixth, of course society requires putting up with a certain amount of annoyance and "transgression" (how I hate that pomo word) of personal taste. [The Pomo are an Indian tribe; I have no idea what he’s talking about.] But smoking is beyond a mere annoyance. It's not a necessary or unavoidable social behavior, it's a personal hobby that smokers are trying to transfer into my body.

Mike Conroy

Dear Mr. Conroy:

Seventh, let's kill all gum crackers. God, I hate gum cracking!

Eighth, to the camps with people who eat with their mouths open.

*Ninth, hard labor for guys who don't tie their ties to the beltline. They look like idiots! *

Tenth, 20 lashes for you daily because when you drive a car (or use mass-transit) you put smoke in other people’s lungs, even if it’s completely harmless.

*The bottom line is that city councils play the health card for a reason – because your arguments don't wash in a nation built on the principle of liberty. I know there's no one definition of libertarianism, but "outlawing only things I dislike" isn't generally accepted as one of them.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

From the Head of the Nebbish Guild

Aren't you the same moron who claimed that the air around ground zero was perfectly clean days after 9/11, and that "wacky environmentalists" were using "junk science" to claim otherwise? Weren't you the moron who was proven to be a completely wrong about that? Yes, you are, you dimwitted little nebbish. Go blow some crack smoke on your infant, idiot.

Red Wright

Dear Red:

I trust your first name was chosen to indicate your political sympathies. As it happens, I’m not “the same moron” insofar as I have never written any such thing. Everything I do write appears online, so I invite you to find the piece you’re describing either using a general search engine or the search engine on my website at www.fumento.com. Doesn’t this make you a little bit dim and nebbishy? I await the apology that is due to me but will not come because you will think of some other nasty thing to put in the place of your original attack.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ya right. You and your fetid ilk of nihilists are the lowest of the low. You were one of the silly nihilists who claimed the air around 9/11 was perfectly clean and healthy to breath, even when I had friends in severe respiratory distress who had to move from the area to regain some semblance of health. Of course, time has proven you wrong scientifically as well, so you just pretend you never wrote any such thing. Typical.

Dear Redface:

Logically you cannot prove a charge by simply re-asserting it. Or as Ben Franklin put it (in a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein), “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I ask you again: Where did this alleged piece of mine appear? If you cannot tell me, I expect an apology.

And I expect more idiotic artilces [sic] from you to appear in the post. I don't play games with people like you and I am not typing your name in any search engine or visiting your website. Feel free to point out the article you wrote warning of the dangers of the air near ground zero after 9/11.

Dear Better Red than Dead:

• Thank you very much. I'm collecting the best of my hate mail into a book and this exchange with you will be wonderfully illustrative of makes a hate-mailer tick – or not tick, as it were. You now know I wrote no such thing and yet you don't care. Your hate is all-consuming. Fortunately, that's your problem and not mine. *

You are a self-absorbed twit. I specifically recall your article attacking those warning of the dangers of living and working near ground zero after 9/11 and it made me sick. If this is "hate mail" to you, I guess you are lucky. As I understand it, people are quite a bit more vicious than my talk-radio level stuff in their emails.

*Dear Redrum (The reference is to Stephen King’s “The Shining”): *

Why does denying I wrote a piece that I did not in fact write make me a “self-absorbed twit”? Why do you refuse to tell me where this piece appeared even though I told you how to track it down if it did? I’m sorry but “I specifically recall” doesn’t cut it. Else, to quote Cromwell: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think you may be mistaken.” By the way, could THIS be the piece you’re thinking of: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/milloy-020814.html Or are you now going to argue that “Steve Milloy” is a pen name I employ?

[For some odd reason, I never heard back from him.]

ADHD Hate

Science by Oprah

Hello Mr. Fumento:

Of course I don't know anything about you except by reading your article on ADHD.

This much I think would be sure: If you had watched the Oprah show about a month ago and if you would then be honest with yourself you would have removed your ADHD article from the net.

For the public's sake, perhaps you can contact her and get a tape of that show. Oprah contacted a British lady that [sic] goes by the title of Super Nanny. Oprah contacted three families which were TOTALLY out of control and were DESPERATE for help. If you could have seen it you would certainly agree, they were even MORE than out of control. Two of the families had 3 children each and one family had two children. Oprah had cameras mounted in the homes and we were able to watch the children punch each other, kick each other, bite each other and do most of these same things to their parents. If any children in the world would ever have been diagnosed with ADHD it was this group.

The Nanny took charge and introduced discipline (NOT the physical kind) to both the kids AND the parents. The end result was like a MIRACLE. In a VERY short time ALL of those kids were showing kindness and politeness and obedience. Something that the families were previously WITHOUT.

[350 words omitted.]

Thanks for reading this far. [“Thanks?” For this, I should have gotten a medal!]

Jim

PS: Speaking from PERSONAL experience I know without doubt the [sic] this so called [sic] disease is a NEW one.

Dear Jim:

Let’s see now, is that the same Oprah Winfrey who announced on her show in 1987: “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”

Is it the same Oprah Winfrey who introduced us to Dr. Phil, the fat fake who has sold millions of diet books?

*Oprah is an entertainer, nothing more. Me, I’ll stick with the over 9,000 peer-reviewed, published medical journal articles on ADHD and leave “science by TV” to pinheads. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S.: Speaking from the medical literature, ADHD was first treated with stimulants in 1937. Not by many standards does that make the disorder a “NEW one.”

AIDS Hate

I’m Not an Idiot; I Just Play One on TV

[This is the master-baiter from Hate Mail 34.]

Hello Michael Fumento:

Your position that HIV/AIDS is a hoax is very intriguing.

After thirty years why have the vaccinologists [sic] filed [sic] to find and isolate the virus that would be necessary to develop a viable vaccine?

Some one [sic] should have won a Nobel Prize by now.

I notice that in the past three months there has [sic] been at least three separate failures to develop a SARS vaccine. The test animals suffered liver damage. In light of such failures, it would seem the virologists have not isolated the SARS virus.

Cheers.

[omitted] Woodruff

Still baiting me, eh? Still making a fool of yourself. I’ve never claimed “HIV is a hoax.” If it were, why would I have written a book and countless articles about it? AIDS was not first recognized 30 years ago but rather in 1981. Do the math. The virus was isolated not 30 years ago but in 1985. Do the math. It took 19 years after isolation of the hepatitis B virus to develop a vaccine, and hepatitis B is child’s play in comparison because vaccines traditionally have harnessed the power of the immune system. You can’t do that with HIV because it attacks the immune system. On the other hand, the number of protease inhibitors that directly attack HIV and by some great coincidence also make AIDS patients live many years longer is huge and growing longer. Quelque coincidence! Whoever develops a successful vaccine probably will win the Nobel.

How in the heck do you logically deduce that since test animals develop liver damage, SARS must not be SARS. You are a walking, talking non-sequitur. (Look it up.)

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Since I Can’t Beat Your Argument, I’ll Give You One I Can Beat

Mr. Fumento:

HIV transmission obviously can occur through vaginal intercourse, so 'heterosexual AIDS,' per se, is not a myth. Indeed, not only can it occur, it occurs rather frequently. For example, in your article "AIDS: No Armageddon, No Accountability (http://www.fumento.com/newaids.html)," you cite CDC statistics that, in the U.S. in 1998, non-drug abusing heterosexuals represented 14% of AIDS cases [in the most recent year.] Fourteen percent is not a 'mythical' statistic. [70 words of bloviated blubber removed.] The choice of your book's title is unfortunately suggestive of a hidden agenda. On the other hand, from what I have read at your web-site, I do not believe that you necessarily have such an agenda – or, at any rate, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. Was it your publisher who suggested that title? Perhaps your publisher was less courageous than homophobic.

I apologize that this missive is unlikely to make your hate mail hit list.

To provide some context, I'm an HIV-negative, heterosexual, physician-scientist, who has treated many cases of AIDS (most of whom were gay or iv [sic] drug users).

Satish [omitted]

Dear Satish:

*You have committed what is known as the “straw-man fallacy.” That means instead of tackling your opponent’s argument, you fabricate his argument and tackle that instead. The appeal of using straw men is obvious. In this case, rather than criticize the book itself you merely criticize your interpretation of the book’s title, an interpretation belied by the very explanation of the title on the back of the hardback edition. (A similar one appears on the paperback edition.)* 

The “myth of heterosexual AIDS” consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it, from shared needles, from transfusions, from clotting factor, from their mother at or before birth, and sometimes through sexual intercourse with persons in these categories and from bisexuals. You simply assume when somebody writes of “the myth” of something they’re saying that something doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your logic, the recent books The Myth of Laziness and The Mommy Myth are saying there’s no such thing as laziness or mothers – a truly brilliant deduction on your part. In the case of my book, you chose an interpretation contradicted not just by the book but by the explanation on the back. I know it must have given you a delicious warm and fuzzy feeling to think that you whipped me in an argument, but actually you merely engaged in self-flagellation. To each his own, I suppose.

• Indeed, the very article of mine you cite contains such alarmist quotes as Oprah Winfrey telling us that a third of heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS by 1990 or USA Today's 1988 prediction that, "By 1991, One in Ten Babies May be AIDS Victims.*
• Those didn’t exactly pan out, did they Satish? In fact, if we accept that everybody in the heterosexual AIDS transmission category actually got the disease that way (which you would know to be a foolish one if you had bothered to read my book or knew the least thing about human nature), the odds of a heterosexual dying today would be about one in 50,000 – not quote one in three. As to the predictions of “America’s Picture Newspaper,” over four million babies were born here last year. Yet, as the current headlines read, “AIDS Among Infants Close to Being Wiped Out in U.S.” Some people would say that made me right when the big boys (and girls) were all wrong. But Satish concedes nothing.*

*Finally, you will make the hate mail pages because many of the letters aren’t necessarily hateful; they’re just plain dumb.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

[The following e-mails stemmed from a C-Span repeat showing of a 1990 “Bookends” interview with me.]

My Folks Wouldn’t Approve Anyway

sir [sic, sic] have never seen on television a pundit who [sic] I thought was more gay than you. If I was [sic] queer I'd ask you out. I'm truly sad that you have to fight so hard. [In using present tense, he shows he’s unaware that what he was watching was 15 years old.]

Sir:

If I were queer, I’d tell you to find a queer chicken. And if I were a queer chicken, although I don’t doubt you’d be lusting after me, I’d still refuse to date you. And I don’t have to “fight so hard” anymore. The epidemic proved me correct even if for some unidentified reason (hmmm…) you wish it hadn’t.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ronald Reagan AND Mike Fumento Caused the AIDS Epidemic

I am watching your 2/16/90 CSPAN2 Book/TV Interview.

My brother pass [sic] 13 years ago today, from this terrible social cancer. I hope you and the late, R W. Reagan, comprehend how you are a contributor to all the people that are still dying.

Be well,
Jim Thomason

Dear Mr. Thomason:

*AIDS is not a “social cancer;” it’s a viral disease spread by blood and other bodily fluids and contracted in an extremely limited number of ways. *

I’m sorry that your brother engaged in those activities and was struck down, but please don’t blame his actions or the result thereof on either myself or the late President Reagan.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Hate

So Sue Me Already!

[I found this on a bulletin board at <http://toxlaw.com/chatboards/class-actions/topic12/2.28.05.12.44.29.html>. NO, I am not going to spend the rest of my life siccing spelling errors or pointing out errors in his assertions. Assume all his assertions are errors. This is illustrative in that it shows people claiming to have MCS often truly are sick, but not in the way they think.] **Post: Class Action Defamation Suit against Barret/Fumento/Milloy **

Posted by Patrick on 2/28/05
Question: Which law firm can find the legal foundation upon which to file a class action defamation suit against the duly noted [Stephen] Barrett/Fumento/[Steve] Milloy/[John] Gots/[John] Stossel and company propaganda machine? Such a lawsuit would be on behalf of every Chemical Sensitivity sufferer in the States, including those Chemical Sensitivity sufferers formally diagnosed with
the following titles:
1a] Occupational Asthma due to low-molecular weight agents.
1b] Irritant-induced Asthma.
2] Chemical Worker's Lung.
3] External Allergic Alveolitis, aka Hypersensitivity
Pneumonitis "due to chemical sensitization."
4] Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome.
5] World Trade Center Cough.
6] Sick Building Syndrome; a diagnostic title which is
even recognized in the Merck Manual.
7] Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
8] Acute Generalized Exanthematous Pustulosi.
9a] Chronic Actinic Dermatitis.
9b] Occupational Dermatitis.
10] Phthalic Anhydride Hypersensitivity.
11] And of course, the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which
is now recognized by name, by the following
licensed & accredited entities, in each one's
Occupatonal & Environmental Medicine Programs:

[Omission of a long list of organizations he claims recognize MCS, none of which do.]

Of course, there is the matter of including CFS sufferers and GWS sufferers. Of course, GWS sufferers have apparently suffered the most defamation of all the Chemical Sensitivity sufferers.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, a subset of patients who were diagnosed with the following 'medically accepted' diagnostic titles can be included:

1] Chemically-induced Hepatitis, 2] Chemically-induced

Aplastic Anemia (Bone Marrow Suppression).

The subset, of course, would consist in those who suffered lingering sensitivity beyond the acute stage.

[100 words omitted.]

The Barret/Fumento/Milloy/Stossel & company propaganda machine employed slight-of-hand semantics & convenient evidence omission in asserting to the inexperienced public that Chemical Sensitivity is entirely a process of mental illness, instead of a physiological process accompanied with the following physiological medical findings:

[Omission of a humongous list.]

And then there is the matter P-300 Waves, IgA immunoglobins, T-Cells, porphyira, and the observable and non-deniable symptom of Profuse Dry Heaving, as well as that of Blacking-Out. All in all, the smoking gun was the Fiber Optic Rhinolaryngoscopic Exam and the medical findings thereof.

The defamatory propaganda resulted in the deprivation of research funding. Furthermore, how many ignorant persons in America believed the conclusions of Barret/Stossel/Fumento and refused to accomodate a chemical sensitivity sufferer in a time of crisis? How much suffering has that propaganda machine caused? In as much, all Chemical Sensitivity sufferers have suffered triply:

1] at the hands of the illness,
2] at the hands of a ruthless form of defamation,
3] at the hands of abandonment for years, due to little research funding and outrightly lazy physicians who make lots of money upon one nitch repetitively,
steamlining their practices to a comfortable laziness.

[*Enough! 425 words omitted.]*

The MCS debate has been game of semantics. The anti-MCS lobby went beyond the sound barriers of obsecenity. All contributing members must be held accountable.

Worse even than Dioxin?

Dear Michael,

I have just read your articles on the fragrance free policy and feel incensed. Perhaps you should try being an MCS sufferer yourself for 1 day – maybe you will if you continue to use synthetic fragrances. As a sufferer myself I do not choose to be effected [sic] in this way and lose many days of my life (a very lonely and isolated one at that if I want to stay symptom free [sic] ) because of these horrible toxic chemicals. It's not psychological as some people would like to believe, but most definitely a physical problem. Let's hope you don't have to find out the hard way.

I used to love wearing perfume, but now I'm more educated – the only appropriately named perfume is 'POISON'!!

Regards [sic]
Barbara Curtis

P.S: You don't need to put toxic chemicals on your body to smell nice. A nice bath or shower is helpful and essential oils (People are less likely to be sensitive to these) can be used if you want extra smell!!

Dear Barbara:

Maybe the incense is bothering you. It certainly bothers me, though I don’t claim it’s harmful. I’m sorry, but I can’t be an MCS sufferer for even one day any more than I can be a jackalope for one day. Ain’t no such animal. MCS is indeed a psychological problem, though it certainly may manifest itself physically. A body under psychological stress releases adrenaline, histamines, and other chemicals that can do all sorts of nasty things to you. If you become convinced chemicals are bothering you, you will release your own chemicals and you will truly be sick. Plus you will blame other ills you have on the outside chemicals, thereby preventing or delaying a diagnosis of what really ails you. For these reasons, I do take MCS seriously even though it’s a myth. It can be a dangerous myth.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S. I’m glad you think I don’t need to put toxic chemicals on my body to smell nice – though I’ve known a few people for whom I think toxic chemicals would provide a real improvement.

Subject: Scientific Measurements of Heavy Metal and Chemical Overload in MCS Destroy Your Premise

Please get up to date on the treatments for MCS before you destroy your reputation completely!

Deborah Pedherney
President
The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Society of Hope

Dear Ms. Pedherney:

What? And join you in the club? Not a chance!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Obesity Hate

Subject: BMI is Bogus

[*Note: This was a general posting and not directed at me. I bend the term “hate mail” whenever it suits my wicked purposes.*]

Whenever I read a report on obesity, I stop when I see 'BMI.' [Body Mass Index, a comparison of weight to height.] When someone uses the BMI to support their position, they are telling you that they have no credibility on the issue.

Fortunately, I did read the final paragraph of this essay. The author correctly points out that according to the BMI Michael Jordan and Shaq are overweight. So is Jerry Rice, by the way. That should show everyone how bogus the BMI is.

Jay

No, BMI is quite useful. It applies to the vast majority of the population. If you're a weight lifter or a football player, you should have the smarts to know that the BMI doesn't apply to you. Obviously a direct measurement of the body's fat content is better, but calipers don't really work well and the best measurements are costly.

Further, BMI is completely correct when used to compare populations. So when we say the average BMI in America today is a certain percentage higher than it once was, either you have to accept that suddenly massive numbers of Americans have become more muscular (not bloody likely) or they've become fatter and they've become fatter by this percent.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Radon Hate

Subject: How Do You Sleep at Night

[From a professional radon alarmist whose work I eviscerated years earlier.]

From the untruths you spread, not very well I imagine. You sound very desperate.

R. William Field, M.S, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Public Health
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

*Oh I just breathe in some radon until I feel nice and cozy and drift off, waking up most refreshed. From the untruths you manage to publish because you're scientifically wrong but politically correct, you're the one who should be suffering insomnia. It's a matter of record that I ripped your hide to shreds with your first attempt at prevarication. I just loved how you simply excluded all the data that didn’t fit your predetermined outcome. You had all the subtlety of a landslide. I have no reason to think you've cleaned up your act. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Hate

Curious George

Have you been drinking Chromium [sic] 6? [The “evil” chemical in the water supply in the Erin Brockovich movie.]

Just curious.

Todd Phillips

Dear Mr. Phillips:

No, unfortunately the utility company charges extra for chromium-six flavoring and I can’t afford it. But I avoid sugary soft drinks like the proverbial plague. Those things will rot your teeth. They’ll also make you high strung like a poodle – or like Erin Brockovich.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Silliness

[Put in your own “sics.”]

Hi, My name is Robert Oldham, I grew up in Hinkley we left there in 1969 I was 9yrs old at the time . My father "Bobby Joe Oldham" was a milkman for foremost, i remember the glass bottles he would bring home, full of ice cold milk, I remember as a young boy being sick alot and having severe nosebleeds myself, my mother would tell me it was from the heat as well, dont recall doing any swimming at any certain pool our which one it was but i do remember swimming pools. I am interested in learning more on this subject of chromium 6 in the drinking water there. My teachers would refrain us from drinking to much water at school dont recall why they did that but, they were strickt about it. I do remember alot of peoples pets dying and alot of water being brought to are house and others as well we used to chase the trucks delivering them down the dirt road to our house. would like the e-mail address of the attorney [Erin Brockovich] if u have it. thank you very much

Dear Mr. Oldham:

You know; it’s the strangest thing. I had bronchitis every month for years when I was a kid. Plus all of my pets eventually died, too. I believe all of the neighbors’ pets eventually died too. AND I drank the water and swam in the swimming pools, also! But I grew up in Illinois and nobody made a movie about us.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Gulf War Syndrome Hate

Repent, Ye Sinner!

As a Gulfwar [sic] veteran who's [sic] life has been turned upside down because of my service I would finally like to thank you as well as everyone else for making our lives more miserable. At least finally the veterans [sic] administration [sic] is admitting they were wrong and I was wondering if you are ever going to admit the same. [sic]

Thanks
Brad [omitted]

Dear Brad,

You mean “as a Gulf War veteran who has turned his own life upside down and desperately desires something to blame it on other than himself.” I always believed in the expression, “The truth shall set ye free; you apparently believe that should be, “The truth shall make ye miserable.” I have and will continue to tell the truth about Gulf Lore Syndrome, which in my latest article on the subject notes that the VA stacked its panel with at least six activists out of ten committee members in order to ensure they came to the “proper” conclusion. The VA’s motives are simple cowardice and the same desire of any bureaucracy that exists to spend money to spend even more money. That is what I will admit.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Agent Orange Hate

Gimme Orange Money!

Do you know if any other veterans have ever developed a seizure disorder from the spraying of Agent Orange? My husband is a Vietnam Veteran [sic] and was stationed in DaNang in 1971. He started having seizures when he came back from Viet Nam. He first started having Petit [sic] Mal [sic] Seizures [sic] …..dropping things out of his hand, blank stares, etc. We didn’t know what was going on with him until he had his Grand Mal Seizure and ended up in a VA Hospital for 2 weeks. He has been taking Dilantin ever since.

I would love to know if anyone else has this condition. My husband is disabled and I was wondering if he would be entitled to any benefits? Your help appreciated.

Sincerely,
[omitted] Miller

Dear Mrs. Miller:

There is no evidence that Agent Orange has harmed any veteran. Less than one percent of persons with seizure disorders (including my own wife, who has had seizures, petit and grand mal) has ever been to Vietnam. You'll have to look for money elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Certifiably Insane Hate

A Unifying Theory of the Universe

[These two e-mails came back-to-back. Insert your own “sics.”]

at first i was interested in what you have to say but as i read on i could see that your agenda is some crack pot hypocritical tract against stem cell research. why not just say that rather than attack the JDRF (who i am not very fond of by the way). You are undoubtedly a "right to lifer" who supports war and loves the fetus but doesn't mind poisoning it with environmental toxins. you guys are really the death cult and should own up to it instead of hiding behind a wedge issue like abortion when you spread death over everything else in your agenda. stem cells are here, they are the wave of the future and will hopefully save a lot of lives. give it up....

David MOrrison, Portland OR

yep, just as i thought. a right wing plant in a think tank uniform. just checked out your list of articles on the hudson institute site – one after the other, a lot of right wing propaganda. granted i am not informed in many of the subjects but i am able to see a pattern. in the "rather" article [He means CBS’s broadcast concerning the fraudulent Bush National Guard papers.] you should have at least given cbs the credit of presenting accurate information. The facts within the article were never disputed. It was a Carl Rove Feature Presentation. Bush was awol, he did rub everyone the wrong way. let's face it, you know and i know that rove planted those papers, cbs bought in because they knew the information was accurate. there is so much crime and deception within the republican party that no one would believe this stuff if you wrote it as a novel or a documentary.. bush is nothing but a hired killer, his surrounding thugs and ex death squad blood thirsty mongrels only come to life when there are countries to overthrow, people to kill, oil and money to steal, etc. they should all be rounded up and put in jail and placed before a firing squad. the depth of crime and contempt for international law has put the us in a position of scorn within the world community. we ARE prenazi germany.

David Morrison
Portland OR

Dear Mr. Morrison:

Take two overdoses of thorazine and don’t call me in the morning.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I thought you guys were more into shipping anthrax out to your enemies. how about a nice article on the assassination of paul wellstone. by the way, what's your phone no.

David Morrison

With that jacket you’re wearing, how are you going to push the phone buttons – with your tongue?

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

![](/img2/reaperhand.gif) [Introduction to Hate Mail and Other Hate Mail Volumes](/hatemail.html)  [A Review of Michael Fumento's Hate Mail](/suckcom.html)  [Fumento Flamb�](/hatepraise.html)    

Smoking with Hate

Passive Smoking Hate

Passive Thinking

Take it from me, a right winger, [sic] you are wrong, pal. Smoking should be no more allowed in a closed building that crapping on the floor next to where someone else is sitting. I don’t care about the studies or the health effects, it simply stinks. Just as farting in the face of your companions and coworkers would be reprehensible, so is firing up a fag.

It doesn’t take science to know what common sense should tell you.

If you’ve got ‘em, smoke ‘em. Just not indoors near me, ok?

atlantismedia@[omitted]

Dear Pal:

You seem to believe that coming from the right side of the political spectrum and having a potty mouth give you authority. You also invoke “common sense” to disregard scientific findings. Common sense might indicate that being exposed to 4/1000s of a cigarette a day, as I wrote in my piece, would not pose a health hazard. In any event, I discussed the fallacy of the appeal to common sense in a pamphlet I produced.

[It’s] really a bullying rhetorical tool, designed to drag people along by shaming them into thinking you must be right because you’re so confident. “Common sense” doesn’t really mean a lot. At one time, it was common sense that the world was flat, that much disease was caused by excess of “bad” blood requiring the application of nasty slimy leaches, and that exposure to a full moon could cause insanity – hence the origin of the word “lunacy.” During the Love Canal controversy, activist Lois Gibbs declared “you don’t have to be a scientist. You don’t have to do a survey to find out – common sense’ll tell you, there’s something wrong in Love Canal.” Thus, we are supposed to reject the studies of learned professionals in favor of this concept of “common sense.”

Thus you have not only invoked a foolish fallacy to make a point you obviously could not make otherwise, you have aligned yourself with Lois Gibbs, a darling of the left. Were I you, pal, I would not only try to clean up your language but also your muddled thinking.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Potty mouth and cigarette smoke are on the same level. I don’t need studies to know I don’t want to hear or smell either in public. Your rants against people wanting clean air in restaurants are misguided and completely miss the mark. Raving about the ‘science’ of such an [sic] common sense problem is totally inane. You need a real job because obviously you’ve got dirt for brains. You ought to get down on your knees and give thanks that someone is willing to give you money for your idiotic rants.

When it comes to dining with my family and friends, I don’t need wait [sic] for laws to fix a problem or some scientist to figure out that any burning object that releases an offensive smell is good or bad for one’s health. I address the offender who burns or spews in my location immediately. I simply don’t want the guy or girl at the next table ruining my meal with a cigarette, cigar, pipe or excessive profanity. Since I’m 6’2” and 220, I apply some persuasive ‘science’ on the spot.

Don’t be smoking or cursing around me, pencil neck. I don’t care what science you can quote, I’ll erase the problem.

*Dear Halitosismedia:

In other words, you’re a potty-mouthed bully who complains of “excessive profanity” on the part of other people. I guess your profanity is not excessive because, well, because it’s yours. I hope you keep applying your “persuasive ‘science’” because there are a lot of people out there who know that a quick kick to the kneecap will bring you down like the retarded bull elephant you are – thereby “erasing the problem.” If you don’t like smoke in your face, I’m sure you won’t get any while recovering in the hospital from surgery.*

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Herpetic and Hallow

[This is in reference to my writing that I was stunned to hear that at a smoking ban hearing, a pediatrician actually blamed passive smoking for causing herpes.]

I don't know about herpes but it definitely causes drivel. Get a life!

Howydooin@[omitted]

I’m dooin’ just fine. But judging from the informative nature of your e-mail, you don’t know much about a lot. Get a brain cell.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

It’s RIGHT there in the Bill of RIGHTS

Mr. Fumento,

It doesn't matter whether or not passive smoking causes cancer. It stinks. It's oppressive. It fouls the air that non-smokers have the RIGHT to breathe without having to inhale noxious fumes.

Smokers have the right to foul their own lungs. They shouldn't have the right to foul mine. So let them go outside and continue their nasty habit and let me breathe freely inside.

That's enough.
Why does the NY POST continue with this stupid crusade? Stop already!

[omitted] Tooker
NY, NY

Dear Miss Hooker:

Body odor also stinks and is oppressive. Perhaps we should pass laws mandating that everybody who enters a restaurant or bar have had a bath or shower in the last 24 hours. You see, while I hate stinky people I’m careful to distinguish between what I don’t like, what is scientifically correct, and what truly is or is not a right. Just because I do or don’t care for something doesn’t mean it should be legally mandated, especially in a private place. Your RIGHT is to avoid private facilities that allow smoking or to avoid those parts of those facilities in which smoking is involved. And as I noted in my piece that you merely glanced at, the crusaders are those who feel that if they don’t lie and tell people passive smoke caused everything from heart attacks to herpes they couldn’t get their pet laws passed. Let’s strip away their fake claims and see how far they get.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

And speaking of merely glancing at something, Mr. Fumento, you got my name wrong, willfully, I believe. It's Tooker, not Hooker. Perhaps that's what passes as wit around you.

[omitted] Tooker

*Dear Miss Hooker:*

No, I don’t find it the least bit witty.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I told you that you got my name wrong and you repeat it. I totally understand now. It can be summed up by the wise saying: Never try to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
[omitted] Tooker

Dear Miss Hooker:

I suggest you ply your trade elsewhere. I no longer have any wish to participate in this transaction.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Memories, of the Way We Used to Cough …

I am a 76 year old white male. Every time I read an article by you regarding secondhand smoke I want to go through the ceiling. I am not here to argue whether secondhand smoke is going to affect the health of someone. That is not where I am coming from. When I was a child in the '30s, I was constantly subjected to secondhand smoke in the back seat of a 1935 Pontiac because both my mother and grandmother (a chain smoker) would fill the car with their exhaled cigarette smoke. I could not get away from it. It filled the air inside the car and make [sic] my eyes water and cause [sic] me to cough. I was not allowed to lower the car window even a little to gain relief. In fact my grandmother would reach into the back seat and backhand me in the face and say that I was "an obstinate little shit" and to "close the window because it was cold". [132 words of pathos omitted.]

One more story about cigarettes and secondhand smoke. [No, enough stories.]

I have had many health problems all my life. Can I attribute them to the smoking that my mother did while I was in utero? I don't know but I know that the air that I breathe is much better without cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other type of smoke in it.

You and the others that defend the rights of smokers never address the irritation to those who don't [sic]. You cannot honestly believe that a smoker has no responsibility to others. I am recovering from tongue cancer and had the doctors confirmed [Huh?] that the cause of it was secondhand smoke...... which of course cannot be proved..... I don't know what I would have done to silence those of you who continuously spout off about the rights of smokers. You can not [sic] really believe that there is no harm from smoke inhaled after being exhaled by someone else. After what I have gone through to battle and now survive this cancer, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would intentionally put themselves in jeopardy of the kinds of cancer that are the result of smoking.

[omitted] Reinert

Dear Mr. Reinert:

So you think that any and all smoking bans are justified because your grandmother was a bitch and wouldn’t let you roll down the window? When you talk about the laws in California, are you referring to those that prevent smoking even on the beach in the name of protecting the health of others? Have you ever stood on the beach, Mr. Reinert? Have you noticed the continual breezes that instantly waft away even the smoke from campfires, much less from a cigarette? Yet those laws were passed in the name of health.

I’m not a doctor, but I strongly suspect that every health problem you’ve had in life was probably not caused by your mother smoking during pregnancy. In any case, that is not second-hand smoke. That’s called smoking while pregnant and has demonstrated health effects on the fetus. None of which is to say that if that fetus ever gets sick in its life it was due to the mother’s smoking.

*You say your tongue cancer was “confirmed” to have been caused by second-hand smoke, but at the same time you admit that “cannot be proved.” Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive. I suggest you make one argument and stick with it and I suggest you stick with the “cannot be proved.” Assuming part of your tongue was excised, I assure you the doctors couldn’t flip it over and see “Caused by passive smoking” on the underside. Medical diagnoses don’t work that way. *

*You claim I “defend the rights of smokers” and “never address the irritation to those who don't.” Please go to my website where all of pieces on passive smoking are posted and find a single one in which I so much as say smokers even have rights. Just one will do nicely, thank you. On the other hand, I have written:

Do we know that passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer? No. But we know that either it does not or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasurable. Does this mean passive smoke poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma and other breathing problems, if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers aren't murdering other people, they're not still engaging in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chance of sickness and premature death? Definitely not. *

Just as you contradicted yourself, you also contradict what I have written. And why can I “not really believe” what I have shown the studies indicate? Just because you reject science, why is incumbent upon me to let your 70-year-old memories cloud my judgment. I do not defend smokers nor smokers’ rights; I defend science and reason. And in that regard I find you quite offensive. * Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

Who cares if second hand smoke can kill you or not? This "issue" is just as much camouflage from the right as "passive smoking" is camouflage from the left. The bottom line is that smokers have no right to put smoke in my lungs even if it's completely harmless – I know, as a good libertarian, that other people's rights end where mine begin.

First, second hand smoke definitely does affect some people's health, even if it's short of murder. I'm asthmatic, and it causes me wheezing and tightness, and sometimes full-blown attacks. Sure, that's '[sic] anecdotal evidence,[sic]' but all of science is anecdotal unless you do the experiments yourself – and when was the last time YOU measured the accelation due to gravity?

Second (hah), it's just plain obnoxious. Who wants to smell that stuff or have smoke swirling around your head?

Third, will all the active smokers pay to have my clothes cleaned? I live in California (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), and every time I go back East [sic] I can smell tobacco on my clothes and in my hair for days. [Hair? How often does this guy bathe?]

Fourth, saying that if I don't like smoke I can just go somewhere else is only a valid argument if there's more than one absolutely equivalent source for the service. Why should I have to avoid – say – the best restaurant or bar in town because of smokers?

Fifth, yes, I would extend this to perfumes. This isn't the Middle Ages – get some soap, for crying out loud.

Sixth, of course society requires putting up with a certain amount of annoyance and "transgression" (how I hate that pomo word) of personal taste. [The Pomo are an Indian tribe; I have no idea what he’s talking about.] But smoking is beyond a mere annoyance. It's not a necessary or unavoidable social behavior, it's a personal hobby that smokers are trying to transfer into my body.

Mike Conroy

Dear Mr. Conroy:

Seventh, let's kill all gum crackers. God, I hate gum cracking!

Eighth, to the camps with people who eat with their mouths open.

*Ninth, hard labor for guys who don't tie their ties to the beltline. They look like idiots! *

Tenth, 20 lashes for you daily because when you drive a car (or use mass-transit) you put smoke in other people’s lungs, even if it’s completely harmless.

*The bottom line is that city councils play the health card for a reason – because your arguments don't wash in a nation built on the principle of liberty. I know there's no one definition of libertarianism, but "outlawing only things I dislike" isn't generally accepted as one of them.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

From the Head of the Nebbish Guild

Aren't you the same moron who claimed that the air around ground zero was perfectly clean days after 9/11, and that "wacky environmentalists" were using "junk science" to claim otherwise? Weren't you the moron who was proven to be a completely wrong about that? Yes, you are, you dimwitted little nebbish. Go blow some crack smoke on your infant, idiot.

Red Wright

Dear Red:

I trust your first name was chosen to indicate your political sympathies. As it happens, I’m not “the same moron” insofar as I have never written any such thing. Everything I do write appears online, so I invite you to find the piece you’re describing either using a general search engine or the search engine on my website at www.fumento.com. Doesn’t this make you a little bit dim and nebbishy? I await the apology that is due to me but will not come because you will think of some other nasty thing to put in the place of your original attack.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ya right. You and your fetid ilk of nihilists are the lowest of the low. You were one of the silly nihilists who claimed the air around 9/11 was perfectly clean and healthy to breath, even when I had friends in severe respiratory distress who had to move from the area to regain some semblance of health. Of course, time has proven you wrong scientifically as well, so you just pretend you never wrote any such thing. Typical.

Dear Redface:

Logically you cannot prove a charge by simply re-asserting it. Or as Ben Franklin put it (in a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein), “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I ask you again: Where did this alleged piece of mine appear? If you cannot tell me, I expect an apology.

And I expect more idiotic artilces [sic] from you to appear in the post. I don't play games with people like you and I am not typing your name in any search engine or visiting your website. Feel free to point out the article you wrote warning of the dangers of the air near ground zero after 9/11.

Dear Better Red than Dead:

• Thank you very much. I'm collecting the best of my hate mail into a book and this exchange with you will be wonderfully illustrative of makes a hate-mailer tick – or not tick, as it were. You now know I wrote no such thing and yet you don't care. Your hate is all-consuming. Fortunately, that's your problem and not mine. *

You are a self-absorbed twit. I specifically recall your article attacking those warning of the dangers of living and working near ground zero after 9/11 and it made me sick. If this is "hate mail" to you, I guess you are lucky. As I understand it, people are quite a bit more vicious than my talk-radio level stuff in their emails.

*Dear Redrum (The reference is to Stephen King’s “The Shining”): *

Why does denying I wrote a piece that I did not in fact write make me a “self-absorbed twit”? Why do you refuse to tell me where this piece appeared even though I told you how to track it down if it did? I’m sorry but “I specifically recall” doesn’t cut it. Else, to quote Cromwell: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think you may be mistaken.” By the way, could THIS be the piece you’re thinking of: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/milloy-020814.html Or are you now going to argue that “Steve Milloy” is a pen name I employ?

[For some odd reason, I never heard back from him.]

ADHD Hate

Science by Oprah

Hello Mr. Fumento:

Of course I don't know anything about you except by reading your article on ADHD.

This much I think would be sure: If you had watched the Oprah show about a month ago and if you would then be honest with yourself you would have removed your ADHD article from the net.

For the public's sake, perhaps you can contact her and get a tape of that show. Oprah contacted a British lady that [sic] goes by the title of Super Nanny. Oprah contacted three families which were TOTALLY out of control and were DESPERATE for help. If you could have seen it you would certainly agree, they were even MORE than out of control. Two of the families had 3 children each and one family had two children. Oprah had cameras mounted in the homes and we were able to watch the children punch each other, kick each other, bite each other and do most of these same things to their parents. If any children in the world would ever have been diagnosed with ADHD it was this group.

The Nanny took charge and introduced discipline (NOT the physical kind) to both the kids AND the parents. The end result was like a MIRACLE. In a VERY short time ALL of those kids were showing kindness and politeness and obedience. Something that the families were previously WITHOUT.

[350 words omitted.]

Thanks for reading this far. [“Thanks?” For this, I should have gotten a medal!]

Jim

PS: Speaking from PERSONAL experience I know without doubt the [sic] this so called [sic] disease is a NEW one.

Dear Jim:

Let’s see now, is that the same Oprah Winfrey who announced on her show in 1987: “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”

Is it the same Oprah Winfrey who introduced us to Dr. Phil, the fat fake who has sold millions of diet books?

*Oprah is an entertainer, nothing more. Me, I’ll stick with the over 9,000 peer-reviewed, published medical journal articles on ADHD and leave “science by TV” to pinheads. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S.: Speaking from the medical literature, ADHD was first treated with stimulants in 1937. Not by many standards does that make the disorder a “NEW one.”

AIDS Hate

I’m Not an Idiot; I Just Play One on TV

[This is the master-baiter from Hate Mail 34.]

Hello Michael Fumento:

Your position that HIV/AIDS is a hoax is very intriguing.

After thirty years why have the vaccinologists [sic] filed [sic] to find and isolate the virus that would be necessary to develop a viable vaccine?

Some one [sic] should have won a Nobel Prize by now.

I notice that in the past three months there has [sic] been at least three separate failures to develop a SARS vaccine. The test animals suffered liver damage. In light of such failures, it would seem the virologists have not isolated the SARS virus.

Cheers.

[omitted] Woodruff

Still baiting me, eh? Still making a fool of yourself. I’ve never claimed “HIV is a hoax.” If it were, why would I have written a book and countless articles about it? AIDS was not first recognized 30 years ago but rather in 1981. Do the math. The virus was isolated not 30 years ago but in 1985. Do the math. It took 19 years after isolation of the hepatitis B virus to develop a vaccine, and hepatitis B is child’s play in comparison because vaccines traditionally have harnessed the power of the immune system. You can’t do that with HIV because it attacks the immune system. On the other hand, the number of protease inhibitors that directly attack HIV and by some great coincidence also make AIDS patients live many years longer is huge and growing longer. Quelque coincidence! Whoever develops a successful vaccine probably will win the Nobel.

How in the heck do you logically deduce that since test animals develop liver damage, SARS must not be SARS. You are a walking, talking non-sequitur. (Look it up.)

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Since I Can’t Beat Your Argument, I’ll Give You One I Can Beat

Mr. Fumento:

HIV transmission obviously can occur through vaginal intercourse, so 'heterosexual AIDS,' per se, is not a myth. Indeed, not only can it occur, it occurs rather frequently. For example, in your article "AIDS: No Armageddon, No Accountability (http://www.fumento.com/newaids.html)," you cite CDC statistics that, in the U.S. in 1998, non-drug abusing heterosexuals represented 14% of AIDS cases [in the most recent year.] Fourteen percent is not a 'mythical' statistic. [70 words of bloviated blubber removed.] The choice of your book's title is unfortunately suggestive of a hidden agenda. On the other hand, from what I have read at your web-site, I do not believe that you necessarily have such an agenda – or, at any rate, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. Was it your publisher who suggested that title? Perhaps your publisher was less courageous than homophobic.

I apologize that this missive is unlikely to make your hate mail hit list.

To provide some context, I'm an HIV-negative, heterosexual, physician-scientist, who has treated many cases of AIDS (most of whom were gay or iv [sic] drug users).

Satish [omitted]

Dear Satish: You have committed what is known as the “straw-man fallacy.” That means instead of tackling your opponent’s argument, you fabricate his argument and tackle that instead. The appeal of using straw men is obvious. In this case, rather than criticize the book itself you merely criticize your interpretation of the book’s title, an interpretation belied by the very explanation of the title on the back of the hardback edition. (A similar one appears on the paperback edition.)

The “myth of heterosexual AIDS” consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it, from shared needles, from transfusions, from clotting factor, from their mother at or before birth, and sometimes through sexual intercourse with persons in these categories and from bisexuals. You simply assume when somebody writes of “the myth” of something they’re saying that something doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your logic, the recent books The Myth of Laziness and The Mommy Myth are saying there’s no such thing as laziness or mothers – a truly brilliant deduction on your part. In the case of my book, you chose an interpretation contradicted not just by the book but by the explanation on the back. I know it must have given you a delicious warm and fuzzy feeling to think that you whipped me in an argument, but actually you merely engaged in self-flagellation. To each his own, I suppose.

• Indeed, the very article of mine you cite contains such alarmist quotes as Oprah Winfrey telling us that a third of heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS by 1990 or USA Today's 1988 prediction that, "By 1991, One in Ten Babies May be AIDS Victims.*
• Those didn’t exactly pan out, did they Satish? In fact, if we accept that everybody in the heterosexual AIDS transmission category actually got the disease that way (which you would know to be a foolish one if you had bothered to read my book or knew the least thing about human nature), the odds of a heterosexual dying today would be about one in 50,000 – not quote one in three. As to the predictions of “America’s Picture Newspaper,” over four million babies were born here last year. Yet, as the current headlines read, “AIDS Among Infants Close to Being Wiped Out in U.S.” Some people would say that made me right when the big boys (and girls) were all wrong. But Satish concedes nothing.*

*Finally, you will make the hate mail pages because many of the letters aren’t necessarily hateful; they’re just plain dumb.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

[The following e-mails stemmed from a C-Span repeat showing of a 1990 “Bookends” interview with me.]

My Folks Wouldn’t Approve Anyway

sir [sic, sic] have never seen on television a pundit who [sic] I thought was more gay than you. If I was [sic] queer I'd ask you out. I'm truly sad that you have to fight so hard. [In using present tense, he shows he’s unaware that what he was watching was 15 years old.]

Sir:

If I were queer, I’d tell you to find a queer chicken. And if I were a queer chicken, although I don’t doubt you’d be lusting after me, I’d still refuse to date you. And I don’t have to “fight so hard” anymore. The epidemic proved me correct even if for some unidentified reason (hmmm…) you wish it hadn’t.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ronald Reagan AND Mike Fumento Caused the AIDS Epidemic

I am watching your 2/16/90 CSPAN2 Book/TV Interview.

My brother pass [sic] 13 years ago today, from this terrible social cancer. I hope you and the late, R W. Reagan, comprehend how you are a contributor to all the people that are still dying.

Be well,
Jim Thomason

Dear Mr. Thomason:

*AIDS is not a “social cancer;” it’s a viral disease spread by blood and other bodily fluids and contracted in an extremely limited number of ways. *

I’m sorry that your brother engaged in those activities and was struck down, but please don’t blame his actions or the result thereof on either myself or the late President Reagan.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Hate

So Sue Me Already!

[I found this on a bulletin board at <http://toxlaw.com/chatboards/class-actions/topic12/2.28.05.12.44.29.html>. NO, I am not going to spend the rest of my life siccing spelling errors or pointing out errors in his assertions. Assume all his assertions are errors. This is illustrative in that it shows people claiming to have MCS often truly are sick, but not in the way they think.] **Post: Class Action Defamation Suit against Barret/Fumento/Milloy **

Posted by Patrick on 2/28/05
Question: Which law firm can find the legal foundation upon which to file a class action defamation suit against the duly noted [Stephen] Barrett/Fumento/[Steve] Milloy/[John] Gots/[John] Stossel and company propaganda machine? Such a lawsuit would be on behalf of every Chemical Sensitivity sufferer in the States, including those Chemical Sensitivity sufferers formally diagnosed with
the following titles:
1a] Occupational Asthma due to low-molecular weight agents.
1b] Irritant-induced Asthma.
2] Chemical Worker's Lung.
3] External Allergic Alveolitis, aka Hypersensitivity
Pneumonitis "due to chemical sensitization."
4] Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome.
5] World Trade Center Cough.
6] Sick Building Syndrome; a diagnostic title which is
even recognized in the Merck Manual.
7] Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
8] Acute Generalized Exanthematous Pustulosi.
9a] Chronic Actinic Dermatitis.
9b] Occupational Dermatitis.
10] Phthalic Anhydride Hypersensitivity.
11] And of course, the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which
is now recognized by name, by the following
licensed & accredited entities, in each one's
Occupatonal & Environmental Medicine Programs:

[Omission of a long list of organizations he claims recognize MCS, none of which do.]

Of course, there is the matter of including CFS sufferers and GWS sufferers. Of course, GWS sufferers have apparently suffered the most defamation of all the Chemical Sensitivity sufferers.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, a subset of patients who were diagnosed with the following 'medically accepted' diagnostic titles can be included:

1] Chemically-induced Hepatitis, 2] Chemically-induced

Aplastic Anemia (Bone Marrow Suppression).

The subset, of course, would consist in those who suffered lingering sensitivity beyond the acute stage.

[100 words omitted.]

The Barret/Fumento/Milloy/Stossel & company propaganda machine employed slight-of-hand semantics & convenient evidence omission in asserting to the inexperienced public that Chemical Sensitivity is entirely a process of mental illness, instead of a physiological process accompanied with the following physiological medical findings:

[Omission of a humongous list.]

And then there is the matter P-300 Waves, IgA immunoglobins, T-Cells, porphyira, and the observable and non-deniable symptom of Profuse Dry Heaving, as well as that of Blacking-Out. All in all, the smoking gun was the Fiber Optic Rhinolaryngoscopic Exam and the medical findings thereof.

The defamatory propaganda resulted in the deprivation of research funding. Furthermore, how many ignorant persons in America believed the conclusions of Barret/Stossel/Fumento and refused to accomodate a chemical sensitivity sufferer in a time of crisis? How much suffering has that propaganda machine caused? In as much, all Chemical Sensitivity sufferers have suffered triply:

1] at the hands of the illness,
2] at the hands of a ruthless form of defamation,
3] at the hands of abandonment for years, due to little research funding and outrightly lazy physicians who make lots of money upon one nitch repetitively,
steamlining their practices to a comfortable laziness.

[*Enough! 425 words omitted.]*

The MCS debate has been game of semantics. The anti-MCS lobby went beyond the sound barriers of obsecenity. All contributing members must be held accountable.

Worse even than Dioxin?

Dear Michael,

I have just read your articles on the fragrance free policy and feel incensed. Perhaps you should try being an MCS sufferer yourself for 1 day – maybe you will if you continue to use synthetic fragrances. As a sufferer myself I do not choose to be effected [sic] in this way and lose many days of my life (a very lonely and isolated one at that if I want to stay symptom free [sic] ) because of these horrible toxic chemicals. It's not psychological as some people would like to believe, but most definitely a physical problem. Let's hope you don't have to find out the hard way.

I used to love wearing perfume, but now I'm more educated – the only appropriately named perfume is 'POISON'!!

Regards [sic]
Barbara Curtis

P.S: You don't need to put toxic chemicals on your body to smell nice. A nice bath or shower is helpful and essential oils (People are less likely to be sensitive to these) can be used if you want extra smell!!

Dear Barbara:

Maybe the incense is bothering you. It certainly bothers me, though I don’t claim it’s harmful. I’m sorry, but I can’t be an MCS sufferer for even one day any more than I can be a jackalope for one day. Ain’t no such animal. MCS is indeed a psychological problem, though it certainly may manifest itself physically. A body under psychological stress releases adrenaline, histamines, and other chemicals that can do all sorts of nasty things to you. If you become convinced chemicals are bothering you, you will release your own chemicals and you will truly be sick. Plus you will blame other ills you have on the outside chemicals, thereby preventing or delaying a diagnosis of what really ails you. For these reasons, I do take MCS seriously even though it’s a myth. It can be a dangerous myth.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S. I’m glad you think I don’t need to put toxic chemicals on my body to smell nice – though I’ve known a few people for whom I think toxic chemicals would provide a real improvement.

Subject: Scientific Measurements of Heavy Metal and Chemical Overload in MCS Destroy Your Premise

Please get up to date on the treatments for MCS before you destroy your reputation completely!

Deborah Pedherney
President
The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Society of Hope

Dear Ms. Pedherney:

What? And join you in the club? Not a chance!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Obesity Hate

Subject: BMI is Bogus

[*Note: This was a general posting and not directed at me. I bend the term “hate mail” whenever it suits my wicked purposes.*]

Whenever I read a report on obesity, I stop when I see 'BMI.' [Body Mass Index, a comparison of weight to height.] When someone uses the BMI to support their position, they are telling you that they have no credibility on the issue.

Fortunately, I did read the final paragraph of this essay. The author correctly points out that according to the BMI Michael Jordan and Shaq are overweight. So is Jerry Rice, by the way. That should show everyone how bogus the BMI is.

Jay

No, BMI is quite useful. It applies to the vast majority of the population. If you're a weight lifter or a football player, you should have the smarts to know that the BMI doesn't apply to you. Obviously a direct measurement of the body's fat content is better, but calipers don't really work well and the best measurements are costly.

Further, BMI is completely correct when used to compare populations. So when we say the average BMI in America today is a certain percentage higher than it once was, either you have to accept that suddenly massive numbers of Americans have become more muscular (not bloody likely) or they've become fatter and they've become fatter by this percent.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Radon Hate

Subject: How Do You Sleep at Night

[From a professional radon alarmist whose work I eviscerated years earlier.]

From the untruths you spread, not very well I imagine. You sound very desperate.

R. William Field, M.S, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Public Health
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

*Oh I just breathe in some radon until I feel nice and cozy and drift off, waking up most refreshed. From the untruths you manage to publish because you're scientifically wrong but politically correct, you're the one who should be suffering insomnia. It's a matter of record that I ripped your hide to shreds with your first attempt at prevarication. I just loved how you simply excluded all the data that didn’t fit your predetermined outcome. You had all the subtlety of a landslide. I have no reason to think you've cleaned up your act. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Hate

Curious George

Have you been drinking Chromium [sic] 6? [The “evil” chemical in the water supply in the Erin Brockovich movie.]

Just curious.

Todd Phillips

Dear Mr. Phillips:

No, unfortunately the utility company charges extra for chromium-six flavoring and I can’t afford it. But I avoid sugary soft drinks like the proverbial plague. Those things will rot your teeth. They’ll also make you high strung like a poodle – or like Erin Brockovich.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Silliness

[Put in your own “sics.”]

Hi, My name is Robert Oldham, I grew up in Hinkley we left there in 1969 I was 9yrs old at the time . My father "Bobby Joe Oldham" was a milkman for foremost, i remember the glass bottles he would bring home, full of ice cold milk, I remember as a young boy being sick alot and having severe nosebleeds myself, my mother would tell me it was from the heat as well, dont recall doing any swimming at any certain pool our which one it was but i do remember swimming pools. I am interested in learning more on this subject of chromium 6 in the drinking water there. My teachers would refrain us from drinking to much water at school dont recall why they did that but, they were strickt about it. I do remember alot of peoples pets dying and alot of water being brought to are house and others as well we used to chase the trucks delivering them down the dirt road to our house. would like the e-mail address of the attorney [Erin Brockovich] if u have it. thank you very much

Dear Mr. Oldham:

You know; it’s the strangest thing. I had bronchitis every month for years when I was a kid. Plus all of my pets eventually died, too. I believe all of the neighbors’ pets eventually died too. AND I drank the water and swam in the swimming pools, also! But I grew up in Illinois and nobody made a movie about us.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Gulf War Syndrome Hate

Repent, Ye Sinner!

As a Gulfwar [sic] veteran who's [sic] life has been turned upside down because of my service I would finally like to thank you as well as everyone else for making our lives more miserable. At least finally the veterans [sic] administration [sic] is admitting they were wrong and I was wondering if you are ever going to admit the same. [sic]

Thanks
Brad [omitted]

Dear Brad,

You mean “as a Gulf War veteran who has turned his own life upside down and desperately desires something to blame it on other than himself.” I always believed in the expression, “The truth shall set ye free; you apparently believe that should be, “The truth shall make ye miserable.” I have and will continue to tell the truth about Gulf Lore Syndrome, which in my latest article on the subject notes that the VA stacked its panel with at least six activists out of ten committee members in order to ensure they came to the “proper” conclusion. The VA’s motives are simple cowardice and the same desire of any bureaucracy that exists to spend money to spend even more money. That is what I will admit.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Agent Orange Hate

Gimme Orange Money!

Do you know if any other veterans have ever developed a seizure disorder from the spraying of Agent Orange? My husband is a Vietnam Veteran [sic] and was stationed in DaNang in 1971. He started having seizures when he came back from Viet Nam. He first started having Petit [sic] Mal [sic] Seizures [sic] …..dropping things out of his hand, blank stares, etc. We didn’t know what was going on with him until he had his Grand Mal Seizure and ended up in a VA Hospital for 2 weeks. He has been taking Dilantin ever since.

I would love to know if anyone else has this condition. My husband is disabled and I was wondering if he would be entitled to any benefits? Your help appreciated.

Sincerely,
[omitted] Miller

Dear Mrs. Miller:

There is no evidence that Agent Orange has harmed any veteran. Less than one percent of persons with seizure disorders (including my own wife, who has had seizures, petit and grand mal) has ever been to Vietnam. You'll have to look for money elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Certifiably Insane Hate

A Unifying Theory of the Universe

[These two e-mails came back-to-back. Insert your own “sics.”]

at first i was interested in what you have to say but as i read on i could see that your agenda is some crack pot hypocritical tract against stem cell research. why not just say that rather than attack the JDRF (who i am not very fond of by the way). You are undoubtedly a "right to lifer" who supports war and loves the fetus but doesn't mind poisoning it with environmental toxins. you guys are really the death cult and should own up to it instead of hiding behind a wedge issue like abortion when you spread death over everything else in your agenda. stem cells are here, they are the wave of the future and will hopefully save a lot of lives. give it up....

David MOrrison, Portland OR

yep, just as i thought. a right wing plant in a think tank uniform. just checked out your list of articles on the hudson institute site – one after the other, a lot of right wing propaganda. granted i am not informed in many of the subjects but i am able to see a pattern. in the "rather" article [He means CBS’s broadcast concerning the fraudulent Bush National Guard papers.] you should have at least given cbs the credit of presenting accurate information. The facts within the article were never disputed. It was a Carl Rove Feature Presentation. Bush was awol, he did rub everyone the wrong way. let's face it, you know and i know that rove planted those papers, cbs bought in because they knew the information was accurate. there is so much crime and deception within the republican party that no one would believe this stuff if you wrote it as a novel or a documentary.. bush is nothing but a hired killer, his surrounding thugs and ex death squad blood thirsty mongrels only come to life when there are countries to overthrow, people to kill, oil and money to steal, etc. they should all be rounded up and put in jail and placed before a firing squad. the depth of crime and contempt for international law has put the us in a position of scorn within the world community. we ARE prenazi germany.

David Morrison
Portland OR

Dear Mr. Morrison:

Take two overdoses of thorazine and don’t call me in the morning.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I thought you guys were more into shipping anthrax out to your enemies. how about a nice article on the assassination of paul wellstone. by the way, what's your phone no.

David Morrison

With that jacket you’re wearing, how are you going to push the phone buttons – with your tongue?

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

![](/img2/reaperhand.gif) [Introduction to Hate Mail and Other Hate Mail Volumes](/hatemail.html)  [A Review of Michael Fumento's Hate Mail](/suckcom.html)  [Fumento Flamb�](/hatepraise.html)    

Smoking with Hate

Passive Smoking Hate

Passive Thinking

Take it from me, a right winger, [sic] you are wrong, pal. Smoking should be no more allowed in a closed building that crapping on the floor next to where someone else is sitting. I don’t care about the studies or the health effects, it simply stinks. Just as farting in the face of your companions and coworkers would be reprehensible, so is firing up a fag.

It doesn’t take science to know what common sense should tell you.

If you’ve got ‘em, smoke ‘em. Just not indoors near me, ok?

atlantismedia@[omitted]

Dear Pal:

You seem to believe that coming from the right side of the political spectrum and having a potty mouth give you authority. You also invoke “common sense” to disregard scientific findings. Common sense might indicate that being exposed to 4/1000s of a cigarette a day, as I wrote in my piece, would not pose a health hazard. In any event, I discussed the fallacy of the appeal to common sense in a pamphlet I produced.

[It’s] really a bullying rhetorical tool, designed to drag people along by shaming them into thinking you must be right because you’re so confident. “Common sense” doesn’t really mean a lot. At one time, it was common sense that the world was flat, that much disease was caused by excess of “bad” blood requiring the application of nasty slimy leaches, and that exposure to a full moon could cause insanity – hence the origin of the word “lunacy.” During the Love Canal controversy, activist Lois Gibbs declared “you don’t have to be a scientist. You don’t have to do a survey to find out – common sense’ll tell you, there’s something wrong in Love Canal.” Thus, we are supposed to reject the studies of learned professionals in favor of this concept of “common sense.”

Thus you have not only invoked a foolish fallacy to make a point you obviously could not make otherwise, you have aligned yourself with Lois Gibbs, a darling of the left. Were I you, pal, I would not only try to clean up your language but also your muddled thinking.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Potty mouth and cigarette smoke are on the same level. I don’t need studies to know I don’t want to hear or smell either in public. Your rants against people wanting clean air in restaurants are misguided and completely miss the mark. Raving about the ‘science’ of such an [sic] common sense problem is totally inane. You need a real job because obviously you’ve got dirt for brains. You ought to get down on your knees and give thanks that someone is willing to give you money for your idiotic rants.

When it comes to dining with my family and friends, I don’t need wait [sic] for laws to fix a problem or some scientist to figure out that any burning object that releases an offensive smell is good or bad for one’s health. I address the offender who burns or spews in my location immediately. I simply don’t want the guy or girl at the next table ruining my meal with a cigarette, cigar, pipe or excessive profanity. Since I’m 6’2” and 220, I apply some persuasive ‘science’ on the spot.

Don’t be smoking or cursing around me, pencil neck. I don’t care what science you can quote, I’ll erase the problem.

*Dear Halitosismedia:

In other words, you’re a potty-mouthed bully who complains of “excessive profanity” on the part of other people. I guess your profanity is not excessive because, well, because it’s yours. I hope you keep applying your “persuasive ‘science’” because there are a lot of people out there who know that a quick kick to the kneecap will bring you down like the retarded bull elephant you are – thereby “erasing the problem.” If you don’t like smoke in your face, I’m sure you won’t get any while recovering in the hospital from surgery.*

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Herpetic and Hallow

[This is in reference to my writing that I was stunned to hear that at a smoking ban hearing, a pediatrician actually blamed passive smoking for causing herpes.]

I don't know about herpes but it definitely causes drivel. Get a life!

Howydooin@[omitted]

I’m dooin’ just fine. But judging from the informative nature of your e-mail, you don’t know much about a lot. Get a brain cell.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

It’s RIGHT there in the Bill of RIGHTS

Mr. Fumento,

It doesn't matter whether or not passive smoking causes cancer. It stinks. It's oppressive. It fouls the air that non-smokers have the RIGHT to breathe without having to inhale noxious fumes.

Smokers have the right to foul their own lungs. They shouldn't have the right to foul mine. So let them go outside and continue their nasty habit and let me breathe freely inside.

That's enough.
Why does the NY POST continue with this stupid crusade? Stop already!

[omitted] Tooker
NY, NY

Dear Miss Hooker:

Body odor also stinks and is oppressive. Perhaps we should pass laws mandating that everybody who enters a restaurant or bar have had a bath or shower in the last 24 hours. You see, while I hate stinky people I’m careful to distinguish between what I don’t like, what is scientifically correct, and what truly is or is not a right. Just because I do or don’t care for something doesn’t mean it should be legally mandated, especially in a private place. Your RIGHT is to avoid private facilities that allow smoking or to avoid those parts of those facilities in which smoking is involved. And as I noted in my piece that you merely glanced at, the crusaders are those who feel that if they don’t lie and tell people passive smoke caused everything from heart attacks to herpes they couldn’t get their pet laws passed. Let’s strip away their fake claims and see how far they get.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

And speaking of merely glancing at something, Mr. Fumento, you got my name wrong, willfully, I believe. It's Tooker, not Hooker. Perhaps that's what passes as wit around you.

[omitted] Tooker

*Dear Miss Hooker:*

No, I don’t find it the least bit witty.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I told you that you got my name wrong and you repeat it. I totally understand now. It can be summed up by the wise saying: Never try to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
[omitted] Tooker

Dear Miss Hooker:

I suggest you ply your trade elsewhere. I no longer have any wish to participate in this transaction.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Memories, of the Way We Used to Cough …

I am a 76 year old white male. Every time I read an article by you regarding secondhand smoke I want to go through the ceiling. I am not here to argue whether secondhand smoke is going to affect the health of someone. That is not where I am coming from. When I was a child in the '30s, I was constantly subjected to secondhand smoke in the back seat of a 1935 Pontiac because both my mother and grandmother (a chain smoker) would fill the car with their exhaled cigarette smoke. I could not get away from it. It filled the air inside the car and make [sic] my eyes water and cause [sic] me to cough. I was not allowed to lower the car window even a little to gain relief. In fact my grandmother would reach into the back seat and backhand me in the face and say that I was "an obstinate little shit" and to "close the window because it was cold". [132 words of pathos omitted.]

One more story about cigarettes and secondhand smoke. [No, enough stories.]

I have had many health problems all my life. Can I attribute them to the smoking that my mother did while I was in utero? I don't know but I know that the air that I breathe is much better without cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other type of smoke in it.

You and the others that defend the rights of smokers never address the irritation to those who don't [sic]. You cannot honestly believe that a smoker has no responsibility to others. I am recovering from tongue cancer and had the doctors confirmed [Huh?] that the cause of it was secondhand smoke...... which of course cannot be proved..... I don't know what I would have done to silence those of you who continuously spout off about the rights of smokers. You can not [sic] really believe that there is no harm from smoke inhaled after being exhaled by someone else. After what I have gone through to battle and now survive this cancer, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would intentionally put themselves in jeopardy of the kinds of cancer that are the result of smoking.

[omitted] Reinert

Dear Mr. Reinert:

So you think that any and all smoking bans are justified because your grandmother was a bitch and wouldn’t let you roll down the window? When you talk about the laws in California, are you referring to those that prevent smoking even on the beach in the name of protecting the health of others? Have you ever stood on the beach, Mr. Reinert? Have you noticed the continual breezes that instantly waft away even the smoke from campfires, much less from a cigarette? Yet those laws were passed in the name of health.

I’m not a doctor, but I strongly suspect that every health problem you’ve had in life was probably not caused by your mother smoking during pregnancy. In any case, that is not second-hand smoke. That’s called smoking while pregnant and has demonstrated health effects on the fetus. None of which is to say that if that fetus ever gets sick in its life it was due to the mother’s smoking.

*You say your tongue cancer was “confirmed” to have been caused by second-hand smoke, but at the same time you admit that “cannot be proved.” Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive. I suggest you make one argument and stick with it and I suggest you stick with the “cannot be proved.” Assuming part of your tongue was excised, I assure you the doctors couldn’t flip it over and see “Caused by passive smoking” on the underside. Medical diagnoses don’t work that way. *

*You claim I “defend the rights of smokers” and “never address the irritation to those who don't.” Please go to my website where all of pieces on passive smoking are posted and find a single one in which I so much as say smokers even have rights. Just one will do nicely, thank you. On the other hand, I have written:

Do we know that passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer? No. But we know that either it does not or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasurable. Does this mean passive smoke poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma and other breathing problems, if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers aren't murdering other people, they're not still engaging in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chance of sickness and premature death? Definitely not. *

Just as you contradicted yourself, you also contradict what I have written. And why can I “not really believe” what I have shown the studies indicate? Just because you reject science, why is incumbent upon me to let your 70-year-old memories cloud my judgment. I do not defend smokers nor smokers’ rights; I defend science and reason. And in that regard I find you quite offensive. * Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

Who cares if second hand smoke can kill you or not? This "issue" is just as much camouflage from the right as "passive smoking" is camouflage from the left. The bottom line is that smokers have no right to put smoke in my lungs even if it's completely harmless – I know, as a good libertarian, that other people's rights end where mine begin.

First, second hand smoke definitely does affect some people's health, even if it's short of murder. I'm asthmatic, and it causes me wheezing and tightness, and sometimes full-blown attacks. Sure, that's '[sic] anecdotal evidence,[sic]' but all of science is anecdotal unless you do the experiments yourself – and when was the last time YOU measured the accelation due to gravity?

Second (hah), it's just plain obnoxious. Who wants to smell that stuff or have smoke swirling around your head?

Third, will all the active smokers pay to have my clothes cleaned? I live in California (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), and every time I go back East [sic] I can smell tobacco on my clothes and in my hair for days. [Hair? How often does this guy bathe?]

Fourth, saying that if I don't like smoke I can just go somewhere else is only a valid argument if there's more than one absolutely equivalent source for the service. Why should I have to avoid – say – the best restaurant or bar in town because of smokers?

Fifth, yes, I would extend this to perfumes. This isn't the Middle Ages – get some soap, for crying out loud.

Sixth, of course society requires putting up with a certain amount of annoyance and "transgression" (how I hate that pomo word) of personal taste. [The Pomo are an Indian tribe; I have no idea what he’s talking about.] But smoking is beyond a mere annoyance. It's not a necessary or unavoidable social behavior, it's a personal hobby that smokers are trying to transfer into my body.

Mike Conroy

Dear Mr. Conroy:

Seventh, let's kill all gum crackers. God, I hate gum cracking!

Eighth, to the camps with people who eat with their mouths open.

*Ninth, hard labor for guys who don't tie their ties to the beltline. They look like idiots! *

Tenth, 20 lashes for you daily because when you drive a car (or use mass-transit) you put smoke in other people’s lungs, even if it’s completely harmless.

*The bottom line is that city councils play the health card for a reason – because your arguments don't wash in a nation built on the principle of liberty. I know there's no one definition of libertarianism, but "outlawing only things I dislike" isn't generally accepted as one of them.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

From the Head of the Nebbish Guild

Aren't you the same moron who claimed that the air around ground zero was perfectly clean days after 9/11, and that "wacky environmentalists" were using "junk science" to claim otherwise? Weren't you the moron who was proven to be a completely wrong about that? Yes, you are, you dimwitted little nebbish. Go blow some crack smoke on your infant, idiot.

Red Wright

Dear Red:

I trust your first name was chosen to indicate your political sympathies. As it happens, I’m not “the same moron” insofar as I have never written any such thing. Everything I do write appears online, so I invite you to find the piece you’re describing either using a general search engine or the search engine on my website at www.fumento.com. Doesn’t this make you a little bit dim and nebbishy? I await the apology that is due to me but will not come because you will think of some other nasty thing to put in the place of your original attack.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ya right. You and your fetid ilk of nihilists are the lowest of the low. You were one of the silly nihilists who claimed the air around 9/11 was perfectly clean and healthy to breath, even when I had friends in severe respiratory distress who had to move from the area to regain some semblance of health. Of course, time has proven you wrong scientifically as well, so you just pretend you never wrote any such thing. Typical.

Dear Redface:

Logically you cannot prove a charge by simply re-asserting it. Or as Ben Franklin put it (in a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein), “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I ask you again: Where did this alleged piece of mine appear? If you cannot tell me, I expect an apology.

And I expect more idiotic artilces [sic] from you to appear in the post. I don't play games with people like you and I am not typing your name in any search engine or visiting your website. Feel free to point out the article you wrote warning of the dangers of the air near ground zero after 9/11.

Dear Better Red than Dead:

• Thank you very much. I'm collecting the best of my hate mail into a book and this exchange with you will be wonderfully illustrative of makes a hate-mailer tick – or not tick, as it were. You now know I wrote no such thing and yet you don't care. Your hate is all-consuming. Fortunately, that's your problem and not mine. *

You are a self-absorbed twit. I specifically recall your article attacking those warning of the dangers of living and working near ground zero after 9/11 and it made me sick. If this is "hate mail" to you, I guess you are lucky. As I understand it, people are quite a bit more vicious than my talk-radio level stuff in their emails.

*Dear Redrum (The reference is to Stephen King’s “The Shining”): *

Why does denying I wrote a piece that I did not in fact write make me a “self-absorbed twit”? Why do you refuse to tell me where this piece appeared even though I told you how to track it down if it did? I’m sorry but “I specifically recall” doesn’t cut it. Else, to quote Cromwell: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think you may be mistaken.” By the way, could THIS be the piece you’re thinking of: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/milloy-020814.html Or are you now going to argue that “Steve Milloy” is a pen name I employ?

[For some odd reason, I never heard back from him.]

ADHD Hate

Science by Oprah

Hello Mr. Fumento:

Of course I don't know anything about you except by reading your article on ADHD.

This much I think would be sure: If you had watched the Oprah show about a month ago and if you would then be honest with yourself you would have removed your ADHD article from the net.

For the public's sake, perhaps you can contact her and get a tape of that show. Oprah contacted a British lady that [sic] goes by the title of Super Nanny. Oprah contacted three families which were TOTALLY out of control and were DESPERATE for help. If you could have seen it you would certainly agree, they were even MORE than out of control. Two of the families had 3 children each and one family had two children. Oprah had cameras mounted in the homes and we were able to watch the children punch each other, kick each other, bite each other and do most of these same things to their parents. If any children in the world would ever have been diagnosed with ADHD it was this group.

The Nanny took charge and introduced discipline (NOT the physical kind) to both the kids AND the parents. The end result was like a MIRACLE. In a VERY short time ALL of those kids were showing kindness and politeness and obedience. Something that the families were previously WITHOUT.

[350 words omitted.]

Thanks for reading this far. [“Thanks?” For this, I should have gotten a medal!]

Jim

PS: Speaking from PERSONAL experience I know without doubt the [sic] this so called [sic] disease is a NEW one.

Dear Jim:

Let’s see now, is that the same Oprah Winfrey who announced on her show in 1987: “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”

Is it the same Oprah Winfrey who introduced us to Dr. Phil, the fat fake who has sold millions of diet books?

*Oprah is an entertainer, nothing more. Me, I’ll stick with the over 9,000 peer-reviewed, published medical journal articles on ADHD and leave “science by TV” to pinheads. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S.: Speaking from the medical literature, ADHD was first treated with stimulants in 1937. Not by many standards does that make the disorder a “NEW one.”

AIDS Hate

I’m Not an Idiot; I Just Play One on TV

[This is the master-baiter from Hate Mail 34.]

Hello Michael Fumento:

Your position that HIV/AIDS is a hoax is very intriguing.

After thirty years why have the vaccinologists [sic] filed [sic] to find and isolate the virus that would be necessary to develop a viable vaccine?

Some one [sic] should have won a Nobel Prize by now.

I notice that in the past three months there has [sic] been at least three separate failures to develop a SARS vaccine. The test animals suffered liver damage. In light of such failures, it would seem the virologists have not isolated the SARS virus.

Cheers.

[omitted] Woodruff

Still baiting me, eh? Still making a fool of yourself. I’ve never claimed “HIV is a hoax.” If it were, why would I have written a book and countless articles about it? AIDS was not first recognized 30 years ago but rather in 1981. Do the math. The virus was isolated not 30 years ago but in 1985. Do the math. It took 19 years after isolation of the hepatitis B virus to develop a vaccine, and hepatitis B is child’s play in comparison because vaccines traditionally have harnessed the power of the immune system. You can’t do that with HIV because it attacks the immune system. On the other hand, the number of protease inhibitors that directly attack HIV and by some great coincidence also make AIDS patients live many years longer is huge and growing longer. Quelque coincidence! Whoever develops a successful vaccine probably will win the Nobel.

How in the heck do you logically deduce that since test animals develop liver damage, SARS must not be SARS. You are a walking, talking non-sequitur. (Look it up.)

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Since I Can’t Beat Your Argument, I’ll Give You One I Can Beat

Mr. Fumento:

HIV transmission obviously can occur through vaginal intercourse, so 'heterosexual AIDS,' per se, is not a myth. Indeed, not only can it occur, it occurs rather frequently. For example, in your article "AIDS: No Armageddon, No Accountability (http://www.fumento.com/newaids.html)," you cite CDC statistics that, in the U.S. in 1998, non-drug abusing heterosexuals represented 14% of AIDS cases [in the most recent year.] Fourteen percent is not a 'mythical' statistic. [70 words of bloviated blubber removed.] The choice of your book's title is unfortunately suggestive of a hidden agenda. On the other hand, from what I have read at your web-site, I do not believe that you necessarily have such an agenda – or, at any rate, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. Was it your publisher who suggested that title? Perhaps your publisher was less courageous than homophobic.

I apologize that this missive is unlikely to make your hate mail hit list.

To provide some context, I'm an HIV-negative, heterosexual, physician-scientist, who has treated many cases of AIDS (most of whom were gay or iv [sic] drug users).

Satish [omitted]

Dear Satish:

*You have committed what is known as the “straw-man fallacy.” That means instead of tackling your opponent’s argument, you fabricate his argument and tackle that instead. The appeal of using straw men is obvious. In this case, rather than criticize the book itself you merely criticize your interpretation of the book’s title, an interpretation belied by the very explanation of the title on the back of the hardback edition. (A similar one appears on the paperback edition.)* 

The “myth of heterosexual AIDS” consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it, from shared needles, from transfusions, from clotting factor, from their mother at or before birth, and sometimes through sexual intercourse with persons in these categories and from bisexuals. You simply assume when somebody writes of “the myth” of something they’re saying that something doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your logic, the recent books The Myth of Laziness and The Mommy Myth are saying there’s no such thing as laziness or mothers – a truly brilliant deduction on your part. In the case of my book, you chose an interpretation contradicted not just by the book but by the explanation on the back. I know it must have given you a delicious warm and fuzzy feeling to think that you whipped me in an argument, but actually you merely engaged in self-flagellation. To each his own, I suppose.

• Indeed, the very article of mine you cite contains such alarmist quotes as Oprah Winfrey telling us that a third of heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS by 1990 or USA Today's 1988 prediction that, "By 1991, One in Ten Babies May be AIDS Victims.*
• Those didn’t exactly pan out, did they Satish? In fact, if we accept that everybody in the heterosexual AIDS transmission category actually got the disease that way (which you would know to be a foolish one if you had bothered to read my book or knew the least thing about human nature), the odds of a heterosexual dying today would be about one in 50,000 – not quote one in three. As to the predictions of “America’s Picture Newspaper,” over four million babies were born here last year. Yet, as the current headlines read, “AIDS Among Infants Close to Being Wiped Out in U.S.” Some people would say that made me right when the big boys (and girls) were all wrong. But Satish concedes nothing.*

*Finally, you will make the hate mail pages because many of the letters aren’t necessarily hateful; they’re just plain dumb.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

[The following e-mails stemmed from a C-Span repeat showing of a 1990 “Bookends” interview with me.]

My Folks Wouldn’t Approve Anyway

sir [sic, sic] have never seen on television a pundit who [sic] I thought was more gay than you. If I was [sic] queer I'd ask you out. I'm truly sad that you have to fight so hard. [In using present tense, he shows he’s unaware that what he was watching was 15 years old.]

Sir:

If I were queer, I’d tell you to find a queer chicken. And if I were a queer chicken, although I don’t doubt you’d be lusting after me, I’d still refuse to date you. And I don’t have to “fight so hard” anymore. The epidemic proved me correct even if for some unidentified reason (hmmm…) you wish it hadn’t.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ronald Reagan AND Mike Fumento Caused the AIDS Epidemic

I am watching your 2/16/90 CSPAN2 Book/TV Interview.

My brother pass [sic] 13 years ago today, from this terrible social cancer. I hope you and the late, R W. Reagan, comprehend how you are a contributor to all the people that are still dying.

Be well,
Jim Thomason

Dear Mr. Thomason:

*AIDS is not a “social cancer;” it’s a viral disease spread by blood and other bodily fluids and contracted in an extremely limited number of ways. *

I’m sorry that your brother engaged in those activities and was struck down, but please don’t blame his actions or the result thereof on either myself or the late President Reagan.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Hate

So Sue Me Already!

[I found this on a bulletin board at <http://toxlaw.com/chatboards/class-actions/topic12/2.28.05.12.44.29.html>. NO, I am not going to spend the rest of my life siccing spelling errors or pointing out errors in his assertions. Assume all his assertions are errors. This is illustrative in that it shows people claiming to have MCS often truly are sick, but not in the way they think.] **Post: Class Action Defamation Suit against Barret/Fumento/Milloy **

Posted by Patrick on 2/28/05
Question: Which law firm can find the legal foundation upon which to file a class action defamation suit against the duly noted [Stephen] Barrett/Fumento/[Steve] Milloy/[John] Gots/[John] Stossel and company propaganda machine? Such a lawsuit would be on behalf of every Chemical Sensitivity sufferer in the States, including those Chemical Sensitivity sufferers formally diagnosed with
the following titles:
1a] Occupational Asthma due to low-molecular weight agents.
1b] Irritant-induced Asthma.
2] Chemical Worker's Lung.
3] External Allergic Alveolitis, aka Hypersensitivity
Pneumonitis "due to chemical sensitization."
4] Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome.
5] World Trade Center Cough.
6] Sick Building Syndrome; a diagnostic title which is
even recognized in the Merck Manual.
7] Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
8] Acute Generalized Exanthematous Pustulosi.
9a] Chronic Actinic Dermatitis.
9b] Occupational Dermatitis.
10] Phthalic Anhydride Hypersensitivity.
11] And of course, the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which
is now recognized by name, by the following
licensed & accredited entities, in each one's
Occupatonal & Environmental Medicine Programs:

[Omission of a long list of organizations he claims recognize MCS, none of which do.]

Of course, there is the matter of including CFS sufferers and GWS sufferers. Of course, GWS sufferers have apparently suffered the most defamation of all the Chemical Sensitivity sufferers.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, a subset of patients who were diagnosed with the following 'medically accepted' diagnostic titles can be included:

1] Chemically-induced Hepatitis, 2] Chemically-induced

Aplastic Anemia (Bone Marrow Suppression).

The subset, of course, would consist in those who suffered lingering sensitivity beyond the acute stage.

[100 words omitted.]

The Barret/Fumento/Milloy/Stossel & company propaganda machine employed slight-of-hand semantics & convenient evidence omission in asserting to the inexperienced public that Chemical Sensitivity is entirely a process of mental illness, instead of a physiological process accompanied with the following physiological medical findings:

[Omission of a humongous list.]

And then there is the matter P-300 Waves, IgA immunoglobins, T-Cells, porphyira, and the observable and non-deniable symptom of Profuse Dry Heaving, as well as that of Blacking-Out. All in all, the smoking gun was the Fiber Optic Rhinolaryngoscopic Exam and the medical findings thereof.

The defamatory propaganda resulted in the deprivation of research funding. Furthermore, how many ignorant persons in America believed the conclusions of Barret/Stossel/Fumento and refused to accomodate a chemical sensitivity sufferer in a time of crisis? How much suffering has that propaganda machine caused? In as much, all Chemical Sensitivity sufferers have suffered triply:

1] at the hands of the illness,
2] at the hands of a ruthless form of defamation,
3] at the hands of abandonment for years, due to little research funding and outrightly lazy physicians who make lots of money upon one nitch repetitively,
steamlining their practices to a comfortable laziness.

[*Enough! 425 words omitted.]*

The MCS debate has been game of semantics. The anti-MCS lobby went beyond the sound barriers of obsecenity. All contributing members must be held accountable.

Worse even than Dioxin?

Dear Michael,

I have just read your articles on the fragrance free policy and feel incensed. Perhaps you should try being an MCS sufferer yourself for 1 day – maybe you will if you continue to use synthetic fragrances. As a sufferer myself I do not choose to be effected [sic] in this way and lose many days of my life (a very lonely and isolated one at that if I want to stay symptom free [sic] ) because of these horrible toxic chemicals. It's not psychological as some people would like to believe, but most definitely a physical problem. Let's hope you don't have to find out the hard way.

I used to love wearing perfume, but now I'm more educated – the only appropriately named perfume is 'POISON'!!

Regards [sic]
Barbara Curtis

P.S: You don't need to put toxic chemicals on your body to smell nice. A nice bath or shower is helpful and essential oils (People are less likely to be sensitive to these) can be used if you want extra smell!!

Dear Barbara:

Maybe the incense is bothering you. It certainly bothers me, though I don’t claim it’s harmful. I’m sorry, but I can’t be an MCS sufferer for even one day any more than I can be a jackalope for one day. Ain’t no such animal. MCS is indeed a psychological problem, though it certainly may manifest itself physically. A body under psychological stress releases adrenaline, histamines, and other chemicals that can do all sorts of nasty things to you. If you become convinced chemicals are bothering you, you will release your own chemicals and you will truly be sick. Plus you will blame other ills you have on the outside chemicals, thereby preventing or delaying a diagnosis of what really ails you. For these reasons, I do take MCS seriously even though it’s a myth. It can be a dangerous myth.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S. I’m glad you think I don’t need to put toxic chemicals on my body to smell nice – though I’ve known a few people for whom I think toxic chemicals would provide a real improvement.

Subject: Scientific Measurements of Heavy Metal and Chemical Overload in MCS Destroy Your Premise

Please get up to date on the treatments for MCS before you destroy your reputation completely!

Deborah Pedherney
President
The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Society of Hope

Dear Ms. Pedherney:

What? And join you in the club? Not a chance!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Obesity Hate

Subject: BMI is Bogus

[*Note: This was a general posting and not directed at me. I bend the term “hate mail” whenever it suits my wicked purposes.*]

Whenever I read a report on obesity, I stop when I see 'BMI.' [Body Mass Index, a comparison of weight to height.] When someone uses the BMI to support their position, they are telling you that they have no credibility on the issue.

Fortunately, I did read the final paragraph of this essay. The author correctly points out that according to the BMI Michael Jordan and Shaq are overweight. So is Jerry Rice, by the way. That should show everyone how bogus the BMI is.

Jay

No, BMI is quite useful. It applies to the vast majority of the population. If you're a weight lifter or a football player, you should have the smarts to know that the BMI doesn't apply to you. Obviously a direct measurement of the body's fat content is better, but calipers don't really work well and the best measurements are costly.

Further, BMI is completely correct when used to compare populations. So when we say the average BMI in America today is a certain percentage higher than it once was, either you have to accept that suddenly massive numbers of Americans have become more muscular (not bloody likely) or they've become fatter and they've become fatter by this percent.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Radon Hate

Subject: How Do You Sleep at Night

[From a professional radon alarmist whose work I eviscerated years earlier.]

From the untruths you spread, not very well I imagine. You sound very desperate.

R. William Field, M.S, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Public Health
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

*Oh I just breathe in some radon until I feel nice and cozy and drift off, waking up most refreshed. From the untruths you manage to publish because you're scientifically wrong but politically correct, you're the one who should be suffering insomnia. It's a matter of record that I ripped your hide to shreds with your first attempt at prevarication. I just loved how you simply excluded all the data that didn’t fit your predetermined outcome. You had all the subtlety of a landslide. I have no reason to think you've cleaned up your act. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Hate

Curious George

Have you been drinking Chromium [sic] 6? [The “evil” chemical in the water supply in the Erin Brockovich movie.]

Just curious.

Todd Phillips

Dear Mr. Phillips:

No, unfortunately the utility company charges extra for chromium-six flavoring and I can’t afford it. But I avoid sugary soft drinks like the proverbial plague. Those things will rot your teeth. They’ll also make you high strung like a poodle – or like Erin Brockovich.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Silliness

[Put in your own “sics.”]

Hi, My name is Robert Oldham, I grew up in Hinkley we left there in 1969 I was 9yrs old at the time . My father "Bobby Joe Oldham" was a milkman for foremost, i remember the glass bottles he would bring home, full of ice cold milk, I remember as a young boy being sick alot and having severe nosebleeds myself, my mother would tell me it was from the heat as well, dont recall doing any swimming at any certain pool our which one it was but i do remember swimming pools. I am interested in learning more on this subject of chromium 6 in the drinking water there. My teachers would refrain us from drinking to much water at school dont recall why they did that but, they were strickt about it. I do remember alot of peoples pets dying and alot of water being brought to are house and others as well we used to chase the trucks delivering them down the dirt road to our house. would like the e-mail address of the attorney [Erin Brockovich] if u have it. thank you very much

Dear Mr. Oldham:

You know; it’s the strangest thing. I had bronchitis every month for years when I was a kid. Plus all of my pets eventually died, too. I believe all of the neighbors’ pets eventually died too. AND I drank the water and swam in the swimming pools, also! But I grew up in Illinois and nobody made a movie about us.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Gulf War Syndrome Hate

Repent, Ye Sinner!

As a Gulfwar [sic] veteran who's [sic] life has been turned upside down because of my service I would finally like to thank you as well as everyone else for making our lives more miserable. At least finally the veterans [sic] administration [sic] is admitting they were wrong and I was wondering if you are ever going to admit the same. [sic]

Thanks
Brad [omitted]

Dear Brad,

You mean “as a Gulf War veteran who has turned his own life upside down and desperately desires something to blame it on other than himself.” I always believed in the expression, “The truth shall set ye free; you apparently believe that should be, “The truth shall make ye miserable.” I have and will continue to tell the truth about Gulf Lore Syndrome, which in my latest article on the subject notes that the VA stacked its panel with at least six activists out of ten committee members in order to ensure they came to the “proper” conclusion. The VA’s motives are simple cowardice and the same desire of any bureaucracy that exists to spend money to spend even more money. That is what I will admit.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Agent Orange Hate

Gimme Orange Money!

Do you know if any other veterans have ever developed a seizure disorder from the spraying of Agent Orange? My husband is a Vietnam Veteran [sic] and was stationed in DaNang in 1971. He started having seizures when he came back from Viet Nam. He first started having Petit [sic] Mal [sic] Seizures [sic] …..dropping things out of his hand, blank stares, etc. We didn’t know what was going on with him until he had his Grand Mal Seizure and ended up in a VA Hospital for 2 weeks. He has been taking Dilantin ever since.

I would love to know if anyone else has this condition. My husband is disabled and I was wondering if he would be entitled to any benefits? Your help appreciated.

Sincerely,
[omitted] Miller

Dear Mrs. Miller:

There is no evidence that Agent Orange has harmed any veteran. Less than one percent of persons with seizure disorders (including my own wife, who has had seizures, petit and grand mal) has ever been to Vietnam. You'll have to look for money elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Certifiably Insane Hate

A Unifying Theory of the Universe

[These two e-mails came back-to-back. Insert your own “sics.”]

at first i was interested in what you have to say but as i read on i could see that your agenda is some crack pot hypocritical tract against stem cell research. why not just say that rather than attack the JDRF (who i am not very fond of by the way). You are undoubtedly a "right to lifer" who supports war and loves the fetus but doesn't mind poisoning it with environmental toxins. you guys are really the death cult and should own up to it instead of hiding behind a wedge issue like abortion when you spread death over everything else in your agenda. stem cells are here, they are the wave of the future and will hopefully save a lot of lives. give it up....

David MOrrison, Portland OR

yep, just as i thought. a right wing plant in a think tank uniform. just checked out your list of articles on the hudson institute site – one after the other, a lot of right wing propaganda. granted i am not informed in many of the subjects but i am able to see a pattern. in the "rather" article [He means CBS’s broadcast concerning the fraudulent Bush National Guard papers.] you should have at least given cbs the credit of presenting accurate information. The facts within the article were never disputed. It was a Carl Rove Feature Presentation. Bush was awol, he did rub everyone the wrong way. let's face it, you know and i know that rove planted those papers, cbs bought in because they knew the information was accurate. there is so much crime and deception within the republican party that no one would believe this stuff if you wrote it as a novel or a documentary.. bush is nothing but a hired killer, his surrounding thugs and ex death squad blood thirsty mongrels only come to life when there are countries to overthrow, people to kill, oil and money to steal, etc. they should all be rounded up and put in jail and placed before a firing squad. the depth of crime and contempt for international law has put the us in a position of scorn within the world community. we ARE prenazi germany.

David Morrison
Portland OR

Dear Mr. Morrison:

Take two overdoses of thorazine and don’t call me in the morning.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I thought you guys were more into shipping anthrax out to your enemies. how about a nice article on the assassination of paul wellstone. by the way, what's your phone no.

David Morrison

With that jacket you’re wearing, how are you going to push the phone buttons – with your tongue?

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

![](/img2/reaperhand.gif) [Introduction to Hate Mail and Other Hate Mail Volumes](/hatemail.html)  [A Review of Michael Fumento's Hate Mail](/suckcom.html)  [Fumento Flamb�](/hatepraise.html)    

Smoking with Hate

Passive Smoking Hate

Passive Thinking

Take it from me, a right winger, [sic] you are wrong, pal. Smoking should be no more allowed in a closed building that crapping on the floor next to where someone else is sitting. I don’t care about the studies or the health effects, it simply stinks. Just as farting in the face of your companions and coworkers would be reprehensible, so is firing up a fag.

It doesn’t take science to know what common sense should tell you.

If you’ve got ‘em, smoke ‘em. Just not indoors near me, ok?

atlantismedia@[omitted]

Dear Pal:

You seem to believe that coming from the right side of the political spectrum and having a potty mouth give you authority. You also invoke “common sense” to disregard scientific findings. Common sense might indicate that being exposed to 4/1000s of a cigarette a day, as I wrote in my piece, would not pose a health hazard. In any event, I discussed the fallacy of the appeal to common sense in a pamphlet I produced.

[It’s] really a bullying rhetorical tool, designed to drag people along by shaming them into thinking you must be right because you’re so confident. “Common sense” doesn’t really mean a lot. At one time, it was common sense that the world was flat, that much disease was caused by excess of “bad” blood requiring the application of nasty slimy leaches, and that exposure to a full moon could cause insanity – hence the origin of the word “lunacy.” During the Love Canal controversy, activist Lois Gibbs declared “you don’t have to be a scientist. You don’t have to do a survey to find out – common sense’ll tell you, there’s something wrong in Love Canal.” Thus, we are supposed to reject the studies of learned professionals in favor of this concept of “common sense.”

Thus you have not only invoked a foolish fallacy to make a point you obviously could not make otherwise, you have aligned yourself with Lois Gibbs, a darling of the left. Were I you, pal, I would not only try to clean up your language but also your muddled thinking.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Potty mouth and cigarette smoke are on the same level. I don’t need studies to know I don’t want to hear or smell either in public. Your rants against people wanting clean air in restaurants are misguided and completely miss the mark. Raving about the ‘science’ of such an [sic] common sense problem is totally inane. You need a real job because obviously you’ve got dirt for brains. You ought to get down on your knees and give thanks that someone is willing to give you money for your idiotic rants.

When it comes to dining with my family and friends, I don’t need wait [sic] for laws to fix a problem or some scientist to figure out that any burning object that releases an offensive smell is good or bad for one’s health. I address the offender who burns or spews in my location immediately. I simply don’t want the guy or girl at the next table ruining my meal with a cigarette, cigar, pipe or excessive profanity. Since I’m 6’2” and 220, I apply some persuasive ‘science’ on the spot.

Don’t be smoking or cursing around me, pencil neck. I don’t care what science you can quote, I’ll erase the problem.

*Dear Halitosismedia:

In other words, you’re a potty-mouthed bully who complains of “excessive profanity” on the part of other people. I guess your profanity is not excessive because, well, because it’s yours. I hope you keep applying your “persuasive ‘science’” because there are a lot of people out there who know that a quick kick to the kneecap will bring you down like the retarded bull elephant you are – thereby “erasing the problem.” If you don’t like smoke in your face, I’m sure you won’t get any while recovering in the hospital from surgery.*

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Herpetic and Hallow

[This is in reference to my writing that I was stunned to hear that at a smoking ban hearing, a pediatrician actually blamed passive smoking for causing herpes.]

I don't know about herpes but it definitely causes drivel. Get a life!

Howydooin@[omitted]

I’m dooin’ just fine. But judging from the informative nature of your e-mail, you don’t know much about a lot. Get a brain cell.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

It’s RIGHT there in the Bill of RIGHTS

Mr. Fumento,

It doesn't matter whether or not passive smoking causes cancer. It stinks. It's oppressive. It fouls the air that non-smokers have the RIGHT to breathe without having to inhale noxious fumes.

Smokers have the right to foul their own lungs. They shouldn't have the right to foul mine. So let them go outside and continue their nasty habit and let me breathe freely inside.

That's enough.
Why does the NY POST continue with this stupid crusade? Stop already!

[omitted] Tooker
NY, NY

Dear Miss Hooker:

Body odor also stinks and is oppressive. Perhaps we should pass laws mandating that everybody who enters a restaurant or bar have had a bath or shower in the last 24 hours. You see, while I hate stinky people I’m careful to distinguish between what I don’t like, what is scientifically correct, and what truly is or is not a right. Just because I do or don’t care for something doesn’t mean it should be legally mandated, especially in a private place. Your RIGHT is to avoid private facilities that allow smoking or to avoid those parts of those facilities in which smoking is involved. And as I noted in my piece that you merely glanced at, the crusaders are those who feel that if they don’t lie and tell people passive smoke caused everything from heart attacks to herpes they couldn’t get their pet laws passed. Let’s strip away their fake claims and see how far they get.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

And speaking of merely glancing at something, Mr. Fumento, you got my name wrong, willfully, I believe. It's Tooker, not Hooker. Perhaps that's what passes as wit around you.

[omitted] Tooker

*Dear Miss Hooker:*

No, I don’t find it the least bit witty.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I told you that you got my name wrong and you repeat it. I totally understand now. It can be summed up by the wise saying: Never try to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
[omitted] Tooker

Dear Miss Hooker:

I suggest you ply your trade elsewhere. I no longer have any wish to participate in this transaction.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Memories, of the Way We Used to Cough …

I am a 76 year old white male. Every time I read an article by you regarding secondhand smoke I want to go through the ceiling. I am not here to argue whether secondhand smoke is going to affect the health of someone. That is not where I am coming from. When I was a child in the '30s, I was constantly subjected to secondhand smoke in the back seat of a 1935 Pontiac because both my mother and grandmother (a chain smoker) would fill the car with their exhaled cigarette smoke. I could not get away from it. It filled the air inside the car and make [sic] my eyes water and cause [sic] me to cough. I was not allowed to lower the car window even a little to gain relief. In fact my grandmother would reach into the back seat and backhand me in the face and say that I was "an obstinate little shit" and to "close the window because it was cold". [132 words of pathos omitted.]

One more story about cigarettes and secondhand smoke. [No, enough stories.]

I have had many health problems all my life. Can I attribute them to the smoking that my mother did while I was in utero? I don't know but I know that the air that I breathe is much better without cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other type of smoke in it.

You and the others that defend the rights of smokers never address the irritation to those who don't [sic]. You cannot honestly believe that a smoker has no responsibility to others. I am recovering from tongue cancer and had the doctors confirmed [Huh?] that the cause of it was secondhand smoke...... which of course cannot be proved..... I don't know what I would have done to silence those of you who continuously spout off about the rights of smokers. You can not [sic] really believe that there is no harm from smoke inhaled after being exhaled by someone else. After what I have gone through to battle and now survive this cancer, I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would intentionally put themselves in jeopardy of the kinds of cancer that are the result of smoking.

[omitted] Reinert

Dear Mr. Reinert:

So you think that any and all smoking bans are justified because your grandmother was a bitch and wouldn’t let you roll down the window? When you talk about the laws in California, are you referring to those that prevent smoking even on the beach in the name of protecting the health of others? Have you ever stood on the beach, Mr. Reinert? Have you noticed the continual breezes that instantly waft away even the smoke from campfires, much less from a cigarette? Yet those laws were passed in the name of health.

I’m not a doctor, but I strongly suspect that every health problem you’ve had in life was probably not caused by your mother smoking during pregnancy. In any case, that is not second-hand smoke. That’s called smoking while pregnant and has demonstrated health effects on the fetus. None of which is to say that if that fetus ever gets sick in its life it was due to the mother’s smoking.

*You say your tongue cancer was “confirmed” to have been caused by second-hand smoke, but at the same time you admit that “cannot be proved.” Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive. I suggest you make one argument and stick with it and I suggest you stick with the “cannot be proved.” Assuming part of your tongue was excised, I assure you the doctors couldn’t flip it over and see “Caused by passive smoking” on the underside. Medical diagnoses don’t work that way. *

*You claim I “defend the rights of smokers” and “never address the irritation to those who don't.” Please go to my website where all of pieces on passive smoking are posted and find a single one in which I so much as say smokers even have rights. Just one will do nicely, thank you. On the other hand, I have written:

Do we know that passive smoking doesn't cause lung cancer? No. But we know that either it does not or that if it does the risk is so tiny as to be unmeasurable. Does this mean passive smoke poses no health risks? No. It makes sense that it would aggravate asthma and other breathing problems, if nothing else. Does it mean that just because smokers aren't murdering other people, they're not still engaging in a nasty, expensive habit that greatly increases their own chance of sickness and premature death? Definitely not. *

Just as you contradicted yourself, you also contradict what I have written. And why can I “not really believe” what I have shown the studies indicate? Just because you reject science, why is incumbent upon me to let your 70-year-old memories cloud my judgment. I do not defend smokers nor smokers’ rights; I defend science and reason. And in that regard I find you quite offensive. * Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

Who cares if second hand smoke can kill you or not? This "issue" is just as much camouflage from the right as "passive smoking" is camouflage from the left. The bottom line is that smokers have no right to put smoke in my lungs even if it's completely harmless – I know, as a good libertarian, that other people's rights end where mine begin.

First, second hand smoke definitely does affect some people's health, even if it's short of murder. I'm asthmatic, and it causes me wheezing and tightness, and sometimes full-blown attacks. Sure, that's '[sic] anecdotal evidence,[sic]' but all of science is anecdotal unless you do the experiments yourself – and when was the last time YOU measured the accelation due to gravity?

Second (hah), it's just plain obnoxious. Who wants to smell that stuff or have smoke swirling around your head?

Third, will all the active smokers pay to have my clothes cleaned? I live in California (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), and every time I go back East [sic] I can smell tobacco on my clothes and in my hair for days. [Hair? How often does this guy bathe?]

Fourth, saying that if I don't like smoke I can just go somewhere else is only a valid argument if there's more than one absolutely equivalent source for the service. Why should I have to avoid – say – the best restaurant or bar in town because of smokers?

Fifth, yes, I would extend this to perfumes. This isn't the Middle Ages – get some soap, for crying out loud.

Sixth, of course society requires putting up with a certain amount of annoyance and "transgression" (how I hate that pomo word) of personal taste. [The Pomo are an Indian tribe; I have no idea what he’s talking about.] But smoking is beyond a mere annoyance. It's not a necessary or unavoidable social behavior, it's a personal hobby that smokers are trying to transfer into my body.

Mike Conroy

Dear Mr. Conroy:

Seventh, let's kill all gum crackers. God, I hate gum cracking!

Eighth, to the camps with people who eat with their mouths open.

*Ninth, hard labor for guys who don't tie their ties to the beltline. They look like idiots! *

Tenth, 20 lashes for you daily because when you drive a car (or use mass-transit) you put smoke in other people’s lungs, even if it’s completely harmless.

*The bottom line is that city councils play the health card for a reason – because your arguments don't wash in a nation built on the principle of liberty. I know there's no one definition of libertarianism, but "outlawing only things I dislike" isn't generally accepted as one of them.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

From the Head of the Nebbish Guild

Aren't you the same moron who claimed that the air around ground zero was perfectly clean days after 9/11, and that "wacky environmentalists" were using "junk science" to claim otherwise? Weren't you the moron who was proven to be a completely wrong about that? Yes, you are, you dimwitted little nebbish. Go blow some crack smoke on your infant, idiot.

Red Wright

Dear Red:

I trust your first name was chosen to indicate your political sympathies. As it happens, I’m not “the same moron” insofar as I have never written any such thing. Everything I do write appears online, so I invite you to find the piece you’re describing either using a general search engine or the search engine on my website at www.fumento.com. Doesn’t this make you a little bit dim and nebbishy? I await the apology that is due to me but will not come because you will think of some other nasty thing to put in the place of your original attack.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ya right. You and your fetid ilk of nihilists are the lowest of the low. You were one of the silly nihilists who claimed the air around 9/11 was perfectly clean and healthy to breath, even when I had friends in severe respiratory distress who had to move from the area to regain some semblance of health. Of course, time has proven you wrong scientifically as well, so you just pretend you never wrote any such thing. Typical.

Dear Redface:

Logically you cannot prove a charge by simply re-asserting it. Or as Ben Franklin put it (in a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein), “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I ask you again: Where did this alleged piece of mine appear? If you cannot tell me, I expect an apology.

And I expect more idiotic artilces [sic] from you to appear in the post. I don't play games with people like you and I am not typing your name in any search engine or visiting your website. Feel free to point out the article you wrote warning of the dangers of the air near ground zero after 9/11.

Dear Better Red than Dead:

• Thank you very much. I'm collecting the best of my hate mail into a book and this exchange with you will be wonderfully illustrative of makes a hate-mailer tick – or not tick, as it were. You now know I wrote no such thing and yet you don't care. Your hate is all-consuming. Fortunately, that's your problem and not mine. *

You are a self-absorbed twit. I specifically recall your article attacking those warning of the dangers of living and working near ground zero after 9/11 and it made me sick. If this is "hate mail" to you, I guess you are lucky. As I understand it, people are quite a bit more vicious than my talk-radio level stuff in their emails.

*Dear Redrum (The reference is to Stephen King’s “The Shining”): *

Why does denying I wrote a piece that I did not in fact write make me a “self-absorbed twit”? Why do you refuse to tell me where this piece appeared even though I told you how to track it down if it did? I’m sorry but “I specifically recall” doesn’t cut it. Else, to quote Cromwell: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think you may be mistaken.” By the way, could THIS be the piece you’re thinking of: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/milloy-020814.html Or are you now going to argue that “Steve Milloy” is a pen name I employ?

[For some odd reason, I never heard back from him.]

ADHD Hate

Science by Oprah

Hello Mr. Fumento:

Of course I don't know anything about you except by reading your article on ADHD.

This much I think would be sure: If you had watched the Oprah show about a month ago and if you would then be honest with yourself you would have removed your ADHD article from the net.

For the public's sake, perhaps you can contact her and get a tape of that show. Oprah contacted a British lady that [sic] goes by the title of Super Nanny. Oprah contacted three families which were TOTALLY out of control and were DESPERATE for help. If you could have seen it you would certainly agree, they were even MORE than out of control. Two of the families had 3 children each and one family had two children. Oprah had cameras mounted in the homes and we were able to watch the children punch each other, kick each other, bite each other and do most of these same things to their parents. If any children in the world would ever have been diagnosed with ADHD it was this group.

The Nanny took charge and introduced discipline (NOT the physical kind) to both the kids AND the parents. The end result was like a MIRACLE. In a VERY short time ALL of those kids were showing kindness and politeness and obedience. Something that the families were previously WITHOUT.

[350 words omitted.]

Thanks for reading this far. [“Thanks?” For this, I should have gotten a medal!]

Jim

PS: Speaking from PERSONAL experience I know without doubt the [sic] this so called [sic] disease is a NEW one.

Dear Jim:

Let’s see now, is that the same Oprah Winfrey who announced on her show in 1987: “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.”

Is it the same Oprah Winfrey who introduced us to Dr. Phil, the fat fake who has sold millions of diet books?

*Oprah is an entertainer, nothing more. Me, I’ll stick with the over 9,000 peer-reviewed, published medical journal articles on ADHD and leave “science by TV” to pinheads. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S.: Speaking from the medical literature, ADHD was first treated with stimulants in 1937. Not by many standards does that make the disorder a “NEW one.”

AIDS Hate

I’m Not an Idiot; I Just Play One on TV

[This is the master-baiter from Hate Mail 34.]

Hello Michael Fumento:

Your position that HIV/AIDS is a hoax is very intriguing.

After thirty years why have the vaccinologists [sic] filed [sic] to find and isolate the virus that would be necessary to develop a viable vaccine?

Some one [sic] should have won a Nobel Prize by now.

I notice that in the past three months there has [sic] been at least three separate failures to develop a SARS vaccine. The test animals suffered liver damage. In light of such failures, it would seem the virologists have not isolated the SARS virus.

Cheers.

[omitted] Woodruff

Still baiting me, eh? Still making a fool of yourself. I’ve never claimed “HIV is a hoax.” If it were, why would I have written a book and countless articles about it? AIDS was not first recognized 30 years ago but rather in 1981. Do the math. The virus was isolated not 30 years ago but in 1985. Do the math. It took 19 years after isolation of the hepatitis B virus to develop a vaccine, and hepatitis B is child’s play in comparison because vaccines traditionally have harnessed the power of the immune system. You can’t do that with HIV because it attacks the immune system. On the other hand, the number of protease inhibitors that directly attack HIV and by some great coincidence also make AIDS patients live many years longer is huge and growing longer. Quelque coincidence! Whoever develops a successful vaccine probably will win the Nobel.

How in the heck do you logically deduce that since test animals develop liver damage, SARS must not be SARS. You are a walking, talking non-sequitur. (Look it up.)

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Since I Can’t Beat Your Argument, I’ll Give You One I Can Beat

Mr. Fumento:

HIV transmission obviously can occur through vaginal intercourse, so 'heterosexual AIDS,' per se, is not a myth. Indeed, not only can it occur, it occurs rather frequently. For example, in your article "AIDS: No Armageddon, No Accountability (http://www.fumento.com/newaids.html)," you cite CDC statistics that, in the U.S. in 1998, non-drug abusing heterosexuals represented 14% of AIDS cases [in the most recent year.] Fourteen percent is not a 'mythical' statistic. [70 words of bloviated blubber removed.] The choice of your book's title is unfortunately suggestive of a hidden agenda. On the other hand, from what I have read at your web-site, I do not believe that you necessarily have such an agenda – or, at any rate, I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. Was it your publisher who suggested that title? Perhaps your publisher was less courageous than homophobic.

I apologize that this missive is unlikely to make your hate mail hit list.

To provide some context, I'm an HIV-negative, heterosexual, physician-scientist, who has treated many cases of AIDS (most of whom were gay or iv [sic] drug users).

Satish [omitted]

Dear Satish:

*You have committed what is known as the “straw-man fallacy.” That means instead of tackling your opponent’s argument, you fabricate his argument and tackle that instead. The appeal of using straw men is obvious. In this case, rather than criticize the book itself you merely criticize your interpretation of the book’s title, an interpretation belied by the very explanation of the title on the back of the hardback edition. (A similar one appears on the paperback edition.)* 

The “myth of heterosexual AIDS” consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it, from shared needles, from transfusions, from clotting factor, from their mother at or before birth, and sometimes through sexual intercourse with persons in these categories and from bisexuals. You simply assume when somebody writes of “the myth” of something they’re saying that something doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your logic, the recent books The Myth of Laziness and The Mommy Myth are saying there’s no such thing as laziness or mothers – a truly brilliant deduction on your part. In the case of my book, you chose an interpretation contradicted not just by the book but by the explanation on the back. I know it must have given you a delicious warm and fuzzy feeling to think that you whipped me in an argument, but actually you merely engaged in self-flagellation. To each his own, I suppose.

• Indeed, the very article of mine you cite contains such alarmist quotes as Oprah Winfrey telling us that a third of heterosexuals would be dead of AIDS by 1990 or USA Today's 1988 prediction that, "By 1991, One in Ten Babies May be AIDS Victims.*
• Those didn’t exactly pan out, did they Satish? In fact, if we accept that everybody in the heterosexual AIDS transmission category actually got the disease that way (which you would know to be a foolish one if you had bothered to read my book or knew the least thing about human nature), the odds of a heterosexual dying today would be about one in 50,000 – not quote one in three. As to the predictions of “America’s Picture Newspaper,” over four million babies were born here last year. Yet, as the current headlines read, “AIDS Among Infants Close to Being Wiped Out in U.S.” Some people would say that made me right when the big boys (and girls) were all wrong. But Satish concedes nothing.*

*Finally, you will make the hate mail pages because many of the letters aren’t necessarily hateful; they’re just plain dumb.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento*

[The following e-mails stemmed from a C-Span repeat showing of a 1990 “Bookends” interview with me.]

My Folks Wouldn’t Approve Anyway

sir [sic, sic] have never seen on television a pundit who [sic] I thought was more gay than you. If I was [sic] queer I'd ask you out. I'm truly sad that you have to fight so hard. [In using present tense, he shows he’s unaware that what he was watching was 15 years old.]

Sir:

If I were queer, I’d tell you to find a queer chicken. And if I were a queer chicken, although I don’t doubt you’d be lusting after me, I’d still refuse to date you. And I don’t have to “fight so hard” anymore. The epidemic proved me correct even if for some unidentified reason (hmmm…) you wish it hadn’t.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Ronald Reagan AND Mike Fumento Caused the AIDS Epidemic

I am watching your 2/16/90 CSPAN2 Book/TV Interview.

My brother pass [sic] 13 years ago today, from this terrible social cancer. I hope you and the late, R W. Reagan, comprehend how you are a contributor to all the people that are still dying.

Be well,
Jim Thomason

Dear Mr. Thomason:

*AIDS is not a “social cancer;” it’s a viral disease spread by blood and other bodily fluids and contracted in an extremely limited number of ways. *

I’m sorry that your brother engaged in those activities and was struck down, but please don’t blame his actions or the result thereof on either myself or the late President Reagan.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Hate

So Sue Me Already!

[I found this on a bulletin board at <http://toxlaw.com/chatboards/class-actions/topic12/2.28.05.12.44.29.html>. NO, I am not going to spend the rest of my life siccing spelling errors or pointing out errors in his assertions. Assume all his assertions are errors. This is illustrative in that it shows people claiming to have MCS often truly are sick, but not in the way they think.] **Post: Class Action Defamation Suit against Barret/Fumento/Milloy **

Posted by Patrick on 2/28/05
Question: Which law firm can find the legal foundation upon which to file a class action defamation suit against the duly noted [Stephen] Barrett/Fumento/[Steve] Milloy/[John] Gots/[John] Stossel and company propaganda machine? Such a lawsuit would be on behalf of every Chemical Sensitivity sufferer in the States, including those Chemical Sensitivity sufferers formally diagnosed with
the following titles:
1a] Occupational Asthma due to low-molecular weight agents.
1b] Irritant-induced Asthma.
2] Chemical Worker's Lung.
3] External Allergic Alveolitis, aka Hypersensitivity
Pneumonitis "due to chemical sensitization."
4] Reactive Airway Dysfunction Syndrome.
5] World Trade Center Cough.
6] Sick Building Syndrome; a diagnostic title which is
even recognized in the Merck Manual.
7] Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
8] Acute Generalized Exanthematous Pustulosi.
9a] Chronic Actinic Dermatitis.
9b] Occupational Dermatitis.
10] Phthalic Anhydride Hypersensitivity.
11] And of course, the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity which
is now recognized by name, by the following
licensed & accredited entities, in each one's
Occupatonal & Environmental Medicine Programs:

[Omission of a long list of organizations he claims recognize MCS, none of which do.]

Of course, there is the matter of including CFS sufferers and GWS sufferers. Of course, GWS sufferers have apparently suffered the most defamation of all the Chemical Sensitivity sufferers.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, a subset of patients who were diagnosed with the following 'medically accepted' diagnostic titles can be included:

1] Chemically-induced Hepatitis, 2] Chemically-induced

Aplastic Anemia (Bone Marrow Suppression).

The subset, of course, would consist in those who suffered lingering sensitivity beyond the acute stage.

[100 words omitted.]

The Barret/Fumento/Milloy/Stossel & company propaganda machine employed slight-of-hand semantics & convenient evidence omission in asserting to the inexperienced public that Chemical Sensitivity is entirely a process of mental illness, instead of a physiological process accompanied with the following physiological medical findings:

[Omission of a humongous list.]

And then there is the matter P-300 Waves, IgA immunoglobins, T-Cells, porphyira, and the observable and non-deniable symptom of Profuse Dry Heaving, as well as that of Blacking-Out. All in all, the smoking gun was the Fiber Optic Rhinolaryngoscopic Exam and the medical findings thereof.

The defamatory propaganda resulted in the deprivation of research funding. Furthermore, how many ignorant persons in America believed the conclusions of Barret/Stossel/Fumento and refused to accomodate a chemical sensitivity sufferer in a time of crisis? How much suffering has that propaganda machine caused? In as much, all Chemical Sensitivity sufferers have suffered triply:

1] at the hands of the illness,
2] at the hands of a ruthless form of defamation,
3] at the hands of abandonment for years, due to little research funding and outrightly lazy physicians who make lots of money upon one nitch repetitively,
steamlining their practices to a comfortable laziness.

[*Enough! 425 words omitted.]*

The MCS debate has been game of semantics. The anti-MCS lobby went beyond the sound barriers of obsecenity. All contributing members must be held accountable.

Worse even than Dioxin?

Dear Michael,

I have just read your articles on the fragrance free policy and feel incensed. Perhaps you should try being an MCS sufferer yourself for 1 day – maybe you will if you continue to use synthetic fragrances. As a sufferer myself I do not choose to be effected [sic] in this way and lose many days of my life (a very lonely and isolated one at that if I want to stay symptom free [sic] ) because of these horrible toxic chemicals. It's not psychological as some people would like to believe, but most definitely a physical problem. Let's hope you don't have to find out the hard way.

I used to love wearing perfume, but now I'm more educated – the only appropriately named perfume is 'POISON'!!

Regards [sic]
Barbara Curtis

P.S: You don't need to put toxic chemicals on your body to smell nice. A nice bath or shower is helpful and essential oils (People are less likely to be sensitive to these) can be used if you want extra smell!!

Dear Barbara:

Maybe the incense is bothering you. It certainly bothers me, though I don’t claim it’s harmful. I’m sorry, but I can’t be an MCS sufferer for even one day any more than I can be a jackalope for one day. Ain’t no such animal. MCS is indeed a psychological problem, though it certainly may manifest itself physically. A body under psychological stress releases adrenaline, histamines, and other chemicals that can do all sorts of nasty things to you. If you become convinced chemicals are bothering you, you will release your own chemicals and you will truly be sick. Plus you will blame other ills you have on the outside chemicals, thereby preventing or delaying a diagnosis of what really ails you. For these reasons, I do take MCS seriously even though it’s a myth. It can be a dangerous myth.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

P.S. I’m glad you think I don’t need to put toxic chemicals on my body to smell nice – though I’ve known a few people for whom I think toxic chemicals would provide a real improvement.

Subject: Scientific Measurements of Heavy Metal and Chemical Overload in MCS Destroy Your Premise

Please get up to date on the treatments for MCS before you destroy your reputation completely!

Deborah Pedherney
President
The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Society of Hope

Dear Ms. Pedherney:

What? And join you in the club? Not a chance!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Obesity Hate

Subject: BMI is Bogus

[*Note: This was a general posting and not directed at me. I bend the term “hate mail” whenever it suits my wicked purposes.*]

Whenever I read a report on obesity, I stop when I see 'BMI.' [Body Mass Index, a comparison of weight to height.] When someone uses the BMI to support their position, they are telling you that they have no credibility on the issue.

Fortunately, I did read the final paragraph of this essay. The author correctly points out that according to the BMI Michael Jordan and Shaq are overweight. So is Jerry Rice, by the way. That should show everyone how bogus the BMI is.

Jay

No, BMI is quite useful. It applies to the vast majority of the population. If you're a weight lifter or a football player, you should have the smarts to know that the BMI doesn't apply to you. Obviously a direct measurement of the body's fat content is better, but calipers don't really work well and the best measurements are costly.

Further, BMI is completely correct when used to compare populations. So when we say the average BMI in America today is a certain percentage higher than it once was, either you have to accept that suddenly massive numbers of Americans have become more muscular (not bloody likely) or they've become fatter and they've become fatter by this percent.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Radon Hate

Subject: How Do You Sleep at Night

[From a professional radon alarmist whose work I eviscerated years earlier.]

From the untruths you spread, not very well I imagine. You sound very desperate.

R. William Field, M.S, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Public Health
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

*Oh I just breathe in some radon until I feel nice and cozy and drift off, waking up most refreshed. From the untruths you manage to publish because you're scientifically wrong but politically correct, you're the one who should be suffering insomnia. It's a matter of record that I ripped your hide to shreds with your first attempt at prevarication. I just loved how you simply excluded all the data that didn’t fit your predetermined outcome. You had all the subtlety of a landslide. I have no reason to think you've cleaned up your act. *

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Hate

Curious George

Have you been drinking Chromium [sic] 6? [The “evil” chemical in the water supply in the Erin Brockovich movie.]

Just curious.

Todd Phillips

Dear Mr. Phillips:

No, unfortunately the utility company charges extra for chromium-six flavoring and I can’t afford it. But I avoid sugary soft drinks like the proverbial plague. Those things will rot your teeth. They’ll also make you high strung like a poodle – or like Erin Brockovich.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Erin Brockovich Silliness

[Put in your own “sics.”]

Hi, My name is Robert Oldham, I grew up in Hinkley we left there in 1969 I was 9yrs old at the time . My father "Bobby Joe Oldham" was a milkman for foremost, i remember the glass bottles he would bring home, full of ice cold milk, I remember as a young boy being sick alot and having severe nosebleeds myself, my mother would tell me it was from the heat as well, dont recall doing any swimming at any certain pool our which one it was but i do remember swimming pools. I am interested in learning more on this subject of chromium 6 in the drinking water there. My teachers would refrain us from drinking to much water at school dont recall why they did that but, they were strickt about it. I do remember alot of peoples pets dying and alot of water being brought to are house and others as well we used to chase the trucks delivering them down the dirt road to our house. would like the e-mail address of the attorney [Erin Brockovich] if u have it. thank you very much

Dear Mr. Oldham:

You know; it’s the strangest thing. I had bronchitis every month for years when I was a kid. Plus all of my pets eventually died, too. I believe all of the neighbors’ pets eventually died too. AND I drank the water and swam in the swimming pools, also! But I grew up in Illinois and nobody made a movie about us.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Gulf War Syndrome Hate

Repent, Ye Sinner!

As a Gulfwar [sic] veteran who's [sic] life has been turned upside down because of my service I would finally like to thank you as well as everyone else for making our lives more miserable. At least finally the veterans [sic] administration [sic] is admitting they were wrong and I was wondering if you are ever going to admit the same. [sic]

Thanks
Brad [omitted]

Dear Brad,

You mean “as a Gulf War veteran who has turned his own life upside down and desperately desires something to blame it on other than himself.” I always believed in the expression, “The truth shall set ye free; you apparently believe that should be, “The truth shall make ye miserable.” I have and will continue to tell the truth about Gulf Lore Syndrome, which in my latest article on the subject notes that the VA stacked its panel with at least six activists out of ten committee members in order to ensure they came to the “proper” conclusion. The VA’s motives are simple cowardice and the same desire of any bureaucracy that exists to spend money to spend even more money. That is what I will admit.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Agent Orange Hate

Gimme Orange Money!

Do you know if any other veterans have ever developed a seizure disorder from the spraying of Agent Orange? My husband is a Vietnam Veteran [sic] and was stationed in DaNang in 1971. He started having seizures when he came back from Viet Nam. He first started having Petit [sic] Mal [sic] Seizures [sic] …..dropping things out of his hand, blank stares, etc. We didn’t know what was going on with him until he had his Grand Mal Seizure and ended up in a VA Hospital for 2 weeks. He has been taking Dilantin ever since.

I would love to know if anyone else has this condition. My husband is disabled and I was wondering if he would be entitled to any benefits? Your help appreciated.

Sincerely,
[omitted] Miller

Dear Mrs. Miller:

There is no evidence that Agent Orange has harmed any veteran. Less than one percent of persons with seizure disorders (including my own wife, who has had seizures, petit and grand mal) has ever been to Vietnam. You'll have to look for money elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Certifiably Insane Hate

A Unifying Theory of the Universe

[These two e-mails came back-to-back. Insert your own “sics.”]

at first i was interested in what you have to say but as i read on i could see that your agenda is some crack pot hypocritical tract against stem cell research. why not just say that rather than attack the JDRF (who i am not very fond of by the way). You are undoubtedly a "right to lifer" who supports war and loves the fetus but doesn't mind poisoning it with environmental toxins. you guys are really the death cult and should own up to it instead of hiding behind a wedge issue like abortion when you spread death over everything else in your agenda. stem cells are here, they are the wave of the future and will hopefully save a lot of lives. give it up....

David MOrrison, Portland OR

yep, just as i thought. a right wing plant in a think tank uniform. just checked out your list of articles on the hudson institute site – one after the other, a lot of right wing propaganda. granted i am not informed in many of the subjects but i am able to see a pattern. in the "rather" article [He means CBS’s broadcast concerning the fraudulent Bush National Guard papers.] you should have at least given cbs the credit of presenting accurate information. The facts within the article were never disputed. It was a Carl Rove Feature Presentation. Bush was awol, he did rub everyone the wrong way. let's face it, you know and i know that rove planted those papers, cbs bought in because they knew the information was accurate. there is so much crime and deception within the republican party that no one would believe this stuff if you wrote it as a novel or a documentary.. bush is nothing but a hired killer, his surrounding thugs and ex death squad blood thirsty mongrels only come to life when there are countries to overthrow, people to kill, oil and money to steal, etc. they should all be rounded up and put in jail and placed before a firing squad. the depth of crime and contempt for international law has put the us in a position of scorn within the world community. we ARE prenazi germany.

David Morrison
Portland OR

Dear Mr. Morrison:

Take two overdoses of thorazine and don’t call me in the morning.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

I thought you guys were more into shipping anthrax out to your enemies. how about a nice article on the assassination of paul wellstone. by the way, what's your phone no.

David Morrison

With that jacket you’re wearing, how are you going to push the phone buttons – with your tongue?

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento