Right after a note I sent to someone who was discussing his own suffering
due to rumor mongers I had someone ask why I care about such slanderous
situations.  So, I'll share the info that I sent the first person:
 
The only thing a person can do is to work to dispel rumors.  I learned
that the hard way, but all turned out right in the end.  When I first
went away to college (at 17 years of age in '68) there was a person
from my high school class also in the college.  He began passing around
that he and his family lived in a fancy community that was nearby our
childhood town, that his family owned an airplane company, and that they
lived next door to Johnny Carson.  As you can guess none of it was true,
but I wasn't about to say anything.  I guess he was afraid that i would
because he passed around that I was a junkie.  Back then I didn't like
naturally having large muscular arms (Now I love them.) and always wore
long or 3/4 sleeves.  Add that onto it being a rather conservative
smallish school in a not very large town in Ohio.  It wound up that one
day i went outside to go to class and people were crossing the road to
walk on the other side.  I literally wound up alone on the sidewalk.  I
was being shunned!  I was hurt and shocked but didn't even know what was
going on till my roommate, some dear dorm friends, and two guys I got
along with incredibly well checked into it for me.  I was shattered,
and when all attempts by a number of us to stop the rumor failed I left
school very depressed, and minus a lot of the money I'd saved for college
all through my childhood.  (Later I had a career, nursed my mother
through a serious illness, and then attended and worked my way through
my education at a much, much, much better school where I got to have
adventures and to meet my wonderful hubby, so it turned out okay.)
 
After that I decided that I wasn't going to just sit still for that
treatment in the future (partly because I think that my caving in hurt me
at least as much as the rumor did).  So, I don't.  I also don't usually
get really angry because that backfires, but I do find a way to stand up
to it.
 
So, don't pass rumors, don't create rumors, and if someone tells you one
don't automatically believe it.  Verify, verify, verify!  Also, except if
you find out that you are listed in there or your are given falsely as
the source for a claim do go out of your way to avoid blacklisting lists
that do not verify claims and do not verify the identities of those
making the claims.  Those are just automated rumor mongering when they
are misused, and that is at their best.  At their worst they are tools
for libel, bigotry, and harassment.  If you happen to find someone you
know listed there or given as the source for a claim, though, do get in
touch with the person right away so that action can be taken if the claim
is false or if the person never wrote what was attributed to him or her.
 
The person who created that list probably had very good intentions, but
as it is implemented the result is something which easily causes much
more harm than it ever will ever hope to prevent.  We all already know
of one good person hurt by it when she should not have been.  No one
else should suffer what she is going through.
 
Getting bald on the top of the head is not unusual with adrenal
neoplasia.  It's not the most common fur loss seen, but it's also not
rare.
 
>Another is the use of cranberry juice to treat bladder infections.
>Yes, it will work, eventually, in many cases.  BUT...
 
LOL!  Yes.  Cranberry or blueberry are best used after the good meds
for the problem or when a chronic problem exists (like an antibiotic
resistant bacterium which can be reduced but not killed off but can
only be knocked down).  In that sort of situation it is very useful but
flair-ups still require treatment.
[Posted in FML issue 4139]