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BBC uses bereaved family as propaganda

The story, which doesn’t even have a title, is played for one purpose - to put blame for a solitary death on to the patient’s mother, who no doubt had influenced her in her choice of treatment, and who is a well-known anti-vaccine campaigner. This must be relevant, as their are three or four vaccine digs in the story, even though nobody had an infectious disease.

But the main focus of the story is on ‘conspiracy theories’, which are mentioned about 15 times.

This is problematic, as this particular type of propaganda is what Marianne Spring does for a living.

‘Our sister died of cancer because of our mum’s conspiracy theories’

From the gross headline (what have conspiracy theories got to do with the deceased’s choice of cancer treatment? The article doesn’t explain this, in fact conspiracy theories are mentioned more than the cancer) you get the strong impression that the woman, who declined chemotherapy treatment, then died of her cancer. Must have been her stupid beliefs, then! goes the narrative, quoting the bereaved relatives, who disagreed with the treatment choice.

In fact the woman died of a heart attack - but you have to read your way through a lot of fraught family flak before you get to read this at the bottom of this emotionally-laden story, which, as such, could have been written by the Eastenders scriptwriters.

Whatever the evidence for or against the respective choices the dead woman faced, one cannot claim to be scientific while pinning a single death on to one treatment. No treatment guarantees success.

In science, you declare conflicts of interest and don’t exploit or peddle emotions.

I think this is the worst taste I have seen the BBC stoop to.

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Really vicious. To be blunt Sebastian comes across as an absolute snake.

Do Marianna and her team even have a clue what chemotherapy entails?

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To be fair the guy was kind of pushed into choosing a side in 2020 when the split with his mum developed and the BBC got wind of it, and quickly stretched it to a mile wide, adding its own melodrama with no thought for perhaps helping to heal the family schism.
One minute of this to prove the point:

24 October 2020 Help! My mum is a conspiracy influencer
…He’s been speaking to a person who believes in conspiracy theories…
A newspaper asked whether she was “the most dangerous woman in Britain”
It’s hard to dismiss this person completely.
Because she’s… (pregnant pause)
His mother.

“Do Marianna and her team even have a clue what chemotherapy entails?”

Good question. Answer surely yes, but it’s counter-narrative to the message of stupid anti-vaxxers and conspiracists.

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I remember the original stories. Shemarami (sp?) gave some fiery speeches early on during the flu d’etat. Family pressures, duress, intense Twitter hatred and much more besides was thrown at her.

So too, as we remember, people like the Freds, Matt LeTissier and Ian Brown.