The sad case of Dr. Day
A MetaFilter article today innocently linked to the web site of a Scientology front organization that exists, essentially, to question the use of prescription drugs, particularly for mental illness.
Looking through the site, I found the page for their board of directors and there was Dr. Lorraine Day. Oh dear, I thought. What now?
I first encountered Dr. Day in 1988 or 89 when I was working for an orthopedic medical journal. She was one of our regular peer reviewers, and I found her a very impressive person. She’d clawed her way up from nothing through community college classes, a dental hygienist job, medical assistant, through nursing school and the nursing profession, to medical school, and finally had broken into one of the most notorious boy’s clubs in medicine: orthopedic surgery. She was at the time Chief of Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital and at the top of her profession.
Around the time I left that job, Dr. Day had stopped reviewing for us because she was “working full-time on the AIDS problem”, which sounded laudable to me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Like many healthcare workers, especially in places like San Francisco that got the full first wave of AIDS patients, she was very frightened of exposure to this deadly and poorly understood disease. As a surgeon who worked in one of the most splattery surgical specialties, she had more reason than most to worry about infection. And her early activism was an entirely appropriate criticism of the poor safety mechanisms in place to protect healthcare workers from exposure to HIV.
She then descended into ignorant gaybashing stupidity. She became the go-to person for the “Medical conservative viewpoint” on the talk shows, advocating restrictions of the basic civil rights of homosexuals, blaming gay men for AIDS, and in general feeding the Bigotry Monster. She appeared on TBN and the 700 Club constantly. She was shrill, and mean-spirited, and unscientific, and downright Un-American. I was sad because I’d thought of her before as kind of a career hero to me: someone who had triumphed over adversity to succeed and help others.
According to her web site, she acquired and then beat cancer recently. That’s cool. However, she’s also selling “natural cure” books, barley “dietary supplements” that cure everything, and a load of other prescientific and dangerous quackery all larded up with religious sentiment.
This is, quite literally, tragic. When I think of that long journey from nobody, through dental hygienist, up through the medical ranks to surgeon; of all of that skill, caring, and good hard scientific knowledge; and of all those years of experience that could be passed on; and I see a deranged fundamentalist herb-saleswoman leading on other sufferers to death? It makes me sad.
There’s a spot where paranoia, health-food crankery, know-nothing religion, and distrust of authority meet. That’s where Dr. Day has landed, 15 years after she abandoned her oath, started gaybashing and turned away from science.
Say it ain’t so, Dr. Day. Say you didn’t sell out to hatred and ignorance and fraud and Scientology and quackery. Say it ain’t so.
August 26th, 2003 at 7:16 pm
Has she written a diet book yet?
August 26th, 2003 at 7:20 pm
Not yet! I bet that’s in the works. Apparently God leads her to new products frequently.
August 26th, 2003 at 8:29 pm
Thank You. Always someone behind the curtain isn’t there. I thought something was up when I noticed them pimping Young Living and Reliv. Well my links are slanted :( but a debate is always good. Appreciate the info….wicker
August 27th, 2003 at 4:12 pm
The veneer of civilisation is mighty thin. Think of Woodrow Wilson – A man of noble sentiments, yet a racist.
Humans are flexible enough to hold irrational belief systems, and still be functioning members of society.
This story reminds me of a Vet I knew of, that was an extreme vegan. To the extent that their carnivore cats were fed vegetarian food. Go Figure.
October 1st, 2003 at 9:42 am
Ping
October 6th, 2003 at 9:49 am
what makes you think food and supplements are unscientific? Just because pharmaceuticals enjoy the monopoly on research money and killing us slowly does not negate diet related choices. There is a lot of scientific eveidence that points to unhealthy diet choices leading to disease and general breakdown of health.
What is unscientific is a pharmaceutical company employing a salesperson to promote product to doctors for uses other than the ones approved by the FDA.
October 6th, 2003 at 12:56 pm
I actually don’t think food treatments or dietary supplements are necessarily unscientific. I just think the ones she’s hawking are fraudulent.
October 12th, 2003 at 4:57 pm
she may be a gay basher, but igrorance in one area doesn’t necessarily mean ignorance in all areas. many people have discovered the correlation between the acid/alkaline balance in the body and disease. an acid predominance creates a welcoming environment for many diseases, including cancer. that’s not quackery. people can do alot to ward off disease for cheap, working with that principal, so in my opinion, that IS heroic, because people will call you quack if you dare to buck the cancer industry’s methods. why don’t we call the dr’s quacks who take peoples LIFE SAVINGS and offer no cure? if she makes a few bucks empowering people so what? there already are many “cures” for cancer and many you will never hear of if you only look to drs.
October 12th, 2003 at 10:58 pm
The reason that we don’t call doctors quacks when their methods don’t work is that they are genuinely trying to use the best knowledge available to cure the sick. Quacks are people who want to steal your money and don’t care if you die. There are quacks in “ordinary” and “alternative” medicine, both. The difference, in my mind, is that there are standards in medicine and in the big world of alternative medicine the only judge is emotion. That’s dangerous.
April 29th, 2004 at 6:31 am
The COS is hiding in fundamentalist quack clothing.
Mad props to James Randi for pointing out Dr Lorraine Day, M.D. (savour that: a qualified, medical doctor) who advocates prayer, amongst other things, as a treatment for cancer:
Dr. Day was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer but rejected standard t…
August 28th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
Program on the emergence of civilization.
“14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.”
Favor.
And disfavor.
They point out Africans’ attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.
The roots of racism are not of this earth.
Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.
The North American continent had none. Now 99% of that population is gone.
Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:
1. MUCK – perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management –
3. Mafia (evil) aliens – runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere (”On planets where they approved evil.”)
Then we come to terrestrial management:
4. Chinese/egyptians – this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans – they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia – the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician – Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.
Survival of the favored.
Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
1986 James Bond View to a Kill – 1989 San Fransisco Loma Prieta earthquake.
Journal: 10 composition books + 39 megs of text files
August 29th, 2005 at 2:51 am
Dear Anonymous
so how do we address people who are trying to be intelligent, and informed, and that dont know the basic way of communicating in written english you know like hitting a shift key to make a CAPITOL leter am i supposesd to respect the opinion of somebody who cant write in their first language????????????????
Not that I don’t respect the poster, however…..
If you want to be respected, slang is not the way to home base. Good luck passing English 100 when you have had 0 practice.
Sincerly,
High School Gone Wrong
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Dr. Day is a lunatic who sells a dangerous message to desperate cancer victims. Worst of all, her message truly resonates with certain people. My mother was an otherwise reasonable, sane person who was duped by Dr. Day’s advice and stopped seeing her oncologist. Instead, she followed Dr. Day’s plan meticulously. Nine months later she died.
Right up to the last days of her life, she believed her severe symptoms were signs she was on the road to recovery because Dr. Day claims to have experienced all the symptoms of terminal cancer and survived. This woman is more than crazy, she is doing real harm to innocent people. It amazes me she still holds a license to practice medicine in the state of California.
If you know anyone who is considering following Dr. Day’s advice, have them contact me. dkmessersmith@yahoo.com