big respect
u did a bold action and u opened the way for a future actions of awareness
now we need to have some powerful media on our side beside examiner and a good media strategy
Unbelievable courage! Thank you for taking a stand. Merck know that they have a battle on their hands and that they cannot silence us
Take it or leave it, this will have been seen by Merck as a fast for a few days as opposed to a hunger strike…
I don’t believe it was worth starving to death over, its a bit soon for that tactic.
Lincoln,
Who starved themselves to death???
You did real good SA.
In the history of mankind? I dont understand the question.
You said “I dont believe it was worth starving to death over” or something along those lines … he did not starve himself to death, obviously. I certainly do not think his actions were “take it or leave it”.
Where did I say his actions were “take it or leave it”. Where did I say he starved himself to death? You have some basic reading and comprehension problems going on there.
What was this supposed to mean?
Question 1. “Take it or leave it, this will have been seen by Merck as a fast for a few days as opposed to a hunger strike”. What was this supposed to mean?
Answer. This means that although Kevin’s protest was successful in some ways, it might be worth noting that the main target (i.e Merck) might not have been made to feel so bad as they probably viewed the protest as a short-term fast as opposed to the serious threat of a long-term hunger strike. “Take it or leave it” means that you might want to take this opinion on board or disregard it.
Question 2. “I don’t believe it was worth starving to death over, its a bit soon for that tactic”. What was this supposed to mean?
Answer. This means that while I supported Kevin in what he was doing, I was not worth starving to death over. A hunger striker must be willing to die for his/her cause, I would not have wanted that to happen to Kevin. “Its a bit soon for this tactic” means that we are in the early days of research and many things will be discovered. A hunger strike is something that could be done sometime down the line (a few years from now) if we hit a brick wall with all areas of research. As a hunger strike is a desperate measure to be taken, all other avenues must be exhausted before putting ones life on the line. Because we are still in the process of going down these avenues, a hunger strike, in my opinion, was “soon”.
Lincoln,
Thank you for clearing that up, I do appreciate it. Your original post had left much room for interpretation.
Second Amm.,
Very, very proud of what you did. This was quite brave and I and many others respect your bravery.
OK…I am in a unique position that I have a 1 year LOA from my teaching job, and I am interested in making an impact. Literally - I am willing to do anything at this point. I am looking for suggestions how I could best use this year off. (October - August 2013 - so a little less than a year)
Some options I have thought of:
- Literally just camping in front of Merck’s headquarters
- Another hunger strike
- Traveling around and going into doctor’s offices and telling doctors about this drug and its dangers
- Self-Immolation (I am serious about this one - it would kill two birds with one stone - end my pain, and might be theatrical enough to garner a ton of media attention)
Thoughts?
You wont be to helpful to the cause if your a piece of charcoal. There are plenty things you can do. I started of making a youtube videos getting the word out. This gets more attention than a bunch of post under an alies here. I know my videos are having an effect. Heaps of people have quit from seeing them and got contacted via the tv - youtube.com/watch?v=bhYtKnfI7jo I asked others to do it many times. They are too lazy or think it does not help or have some other reason not to do it. If we all had personal testimonies on youtube there would be no doubt at all about the validity of our condition. Also by killing yourself / you are killing the wrong person don’t you think? You are the victim.
Number 1 and 2 would probably be more effective than number 3… also could consider camping or protesting the FDA. Number 4… I don’t want anymore of us dying for this shit… and believe me I have been there… to that dark place inside where your own life has no meaning. I still go there often. I also don’t know if burning yourself alive would be as effective as we could hope it would definitely get attention but would it get action? Besides man… I’d rather have a soldier on my side fighting to get things changed even over a martyr, as symbolically powerful a martyr might be.
Vincent -
Fair enough. However, I feel I can be an asset to our cause. I have a relatively high profile job, and I have the ability to do anything for the next year. Videos will be great - and I might make one, but is there anything else that could be done?
Broken -
I like the FDA idea…and that might actually be more accessible than Merck headquarters. Good suggestion…
Without central leadership, groups have trouble organizing, so you’ll have to be spontaneous. Since there are a lot of people who share your grievances with Merck, you’ll have a lot of people helping you. Don’t worry so much about suggestions. If you want to go to Western NJ and tell the folks at Merck to fuck off, just do it. My protest got Media attention in a major world financial last month, and it’ll likely get more. The lack of spontaneity (and too much theorizing) is why the PFS movement has been so slow to get off the ground.
Exactly what SA said… if you want to do it. Do it… you will get the support you need. In fact I’m gonna PM ya with some info if your serious about it.
If you are going to do another hunger strike, then you might want to start ASAP before winter sets in…
if someone decides to do another hunger strike… for the love of god do an AMA on reddit… it will bring REAL MEDIA ATTENTION to it… reddit actually upvotes stuff for helping people and the website is viewed by MILLIONS each day… of which the AMA section is on the front page with very little submissions compared to other sections.
PM me if you need help with it, I will set it up for you and everything and show you how to do it in depth
Well, there are tons of Merck shills at Reddit, just like there is on Youtube.
They go around and downvote people who speak about Propecia’s side effects and upvote any comments that are pro-Merck/Propecia…
One example of the many…
reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/t … _i/c4lzsgu