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]