Groundhog Day and Simpson Oil

The local worthies pose with Punxsutawney Phil, in Punxsutawney,
Pennsylvania, which has one of the more famous Groundhog Day
celebrations in the northern United States. 

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone!

If you don't live in a wintry part of the U.S., you probably don't know or care about Groundhog Day. But the lore is that if the groundhog comes out of his hole and sees his shadow today, there will be six more weeks of winter.

Today is very cold, clear, and sunny, but I'm not prognosticating the end of the winter by it.

And neither am I publishing comments pushing Rick Simpson's cannabis oil as a cure for ET or Simpson's book, Phoenix Tears, or other unsubstantiated cure claims here or on the FB page.

I have noted elsewhere on this blog that marijuana may be a useful palliative for bone pain, despondency, or the side effects of oral chemo. But not even the official site for Simpson Oil claims that this produce does anything, though its disclaimer is cloaked in a nearly unreadable font at the bottom of its "About" page:

LEAVING OUR WEBSITE DISCLAIMER: IF WE HAVE A RESEARCH LINK TO A WEBSITE WHERE WE HAVE PRODUCT INFORMATION, THE EXIT DISCLAIMER INDICATES THAT WHEN YOU CLICK OK YOU WILL LEAVE SIMPSON-OIL.COM WEBSITE AND VISIT AN EXTERNAL LINK. LINKS TO ANY INFORMATIONAL WEBSITES ARE PROVIDED SOLELY AS A SERVICE TO OUR USERS. EXTERNAL LINKS PROVIDE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION THAT MAY BE USEFUL OR INTERESTING AND HAS NO AFFILIATION TO THE PROMOTION, SALE AND DISTRIBUTION OF SIMPSON PRODUCTS. THE LINK DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN ENDORSEMENT OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS BY CBD INTERNATIONAL  AND NONE SHOULD BE INFERRED.

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) DISCLOSURE: THESE PRODUCTS HAVE NOT BEEN EVALUATED BY THE FDA AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO DIAGNOSE, TREAT, OR CURE ANY DISEASE. ALWAYS CHECK WITH YOUR PHYSICIAN BEFORE STARTING A NEW SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM.

What the site WILL do is send you to other sites where people make lots of claims that they used Simpson Oil and it cured their cancer.

The official site will also talk about its collaboration with unspecified physicians, the condition of its laboratories, and provide photos of all kinds of happy-looking cancer patients. It will make vague feel-good statements about holistic treatments and how every patient is an individual whom the company respects and will tailor treatment for (at a nominal fee).

I understand the lure of a cheap and "natural" cure for ET and the promise of compassionate, personal care. I also know many ET patients are disenchanted with conventional medicine. Our treatment choices are limited to "chemo," some of it prohibitively expensive. I understand that just the word "chemo" fires up a lot of scary images of disfigurement and illness. I realize that fears linger about the connection between long-term hydroxyurea (Hydrea) use and leukemia, though testing has made no clear connection between the two. I know that hematology oncologists often dismiss our symptom complaints and cannot tell us how, when, or why ET morphs into more serious cancers like myelofibrosis or leukemia.

It's enough to make anybody want to burn a joint. And if and when cannabis products have been proven to cure ET in FDA-supervised double-blind tests (and not by anecdotal evidence), I will be happy to report it here. and I will be using it liberally!

But today is not that day. Today is Groundhog Day. Maybe watching "Groundhog Day," a surprisingly deep film in which Bill Murray is forced to live the same day of his life over and over until he makes spiritual progress, will make you feel better. So here's a compilation where Murray, an arrogant weatherman, is chased by a former high school classmate, over and over and over.

Be well!

Related: Up in smoke? Marijuana and ET

Related: "Natural treatments" and ET

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