To be trustworthy, I don’t know the way I really feel about this.
You might need observed that I finished posting overtly on social media for just a few months again in 2011 in case you adopted me again then. In one in every of my evenings of preventing anti-vaccine misinformation on Twitter, I came across one specific troll who was mocking a feminine doctor over her seems to be. He was doing it to assault her knowledgeable opinion on vaccines. After I engaged him, I ended up kicking a hornet’s nest of types that resulted in my bosses on the Maryland Division of Well being ordering me to chop it out with the social media posting.
The dude mentioned, amongst different issues, that he was a millionaire, making his cash from prescribed drugs. Certainly, he and his spouse (and seemingly others in his private circle) began just a few LLCs that had been engaged within the pharmaceutical business. As a result of I wrote a weblog put up calling him a “douchebag” (which was very immature of me, I do know), he determined to threaten everybody on the well being division with authorized motion. It was “tortuous interference with commerce”. (It’s truly “tortious,” as in a civil improper that might be taken to courtroom.)
Sure, he discovered the emails of just about everybody on the well being division and determined to launch that threatening e-mail to me and copied them. Even the Secretary of Well being was wrapped up on this.
This was additionally the time when social media was changing into increasingly of an issue with well being disinformation and misinformation, one thing I had warned my bosses about. So the bosses took me into an workplace, together with some attorneys for the State of Maryland, they usually (once more) had a chat with me.
I write “once more” as a result of I had already been talked to about earlier engagements with anti-vaccine activists. Most notably, I had written a weblog put up about Jenny McCarthy’s “Era Rescue” group and the way they had been serving to a younger girl who allegedly developed a neurological situation after getting her influenza vaccine. (It turned out to be extra sophisticated than that.)
Anyway, the dude claimed to have attorneys on the prepared and that he can be submitting some type of lawsuit promptly in opposition to me and the well being division. As a result of, in his view, the issues I wrote about him had been written with the consent or acknowledgement of the well being division. Nope. I had written all of that like I’m doing now, at house and in the midst of the night time. (Possibly the dearth of sleep led me to name him a douchebag.)
His assaults acquired weirder when members of various science blogs determined to come back to my protection. The entire thing changed into the “Epilate” (referencing Watergate) affair. My mates and colleagues complained that I used to be being silenced. A few of them who know in regards to the legislation warned my bosses that, as a authorities entity, the well being division needed to tread rigorously when silencing me. That complete First Modification factor and whatnot.
Within the feedback part of a few of these blogs, the dude made some alarming feedback, threatening extra lawsuits and sending hyperlinks to graphically violent movies. Then all of us determined to disregard him, and he form of simply went away. I even despatched him a well-crafted e-mail (written on the recommendation of a lawyer) to get him to again off. Lastly, I blocked him on all social media.
For months, I referred to as him my “Lex Luthor” as a result of he was a millionaire (in response to him). He was additionally considerably of an entrepreneur in science. And he appeared to hate me for being me and nothing extra. In the long run, he form of simply light into the background.
His bullying led me to name him out on it. Calling him out on it led the bosses to inform me to get off social media. My response to their censorship led me to hunt a means out of the well being division. And that led me into the arms of the doctoral diploma.
In truth, in a touch upon one of many weblog posts written by a pal about this complete factor, I discussed the significance of letting issues go so I may discover a doctoral diploma that may enable me to proceed to struggle the nice struggle. Little did I do know that I might be going to Johns Hopkins College in lower than two years after that complete debacle.
Just a few days in the past, as I wrote a weblog put up about my “origin story” in public well being, I acquired curious and re-visited that incident. I used to be inquisitive about the place “Lex” ended up, and I came upon he handed away. His spouse filed a request with the courtroom to grow to be the executor of his property. There was one thing a few wrongful demise lawsuit having been settled. However one factor within the submitting struck me:
“ln her petition for probate filed on January 25, 2023, petitioner alleged Decedent had little or no belongings other than tangible private results. Decedent died in a car accident and probate was opened in an effort to have a private consultant in place to start a civil motion for wrongful demise…”
Little or no belongings? The dude who claimed to everybody on-line how he had hundreds of thousands and the way he would use these hundreds of thousands to sue everybody?
On the one hand, somebody misplaced their associate. (I feel they’d kids. If that’s the case, somebody misplaced a mum or dad.) That’s all very unhappy. I don’t need to think about a world the place I lose my spouse. (Heck, you don’t need to think about such a world, both.)
However, then again, all my interactions with the dude had been detrimental. From my perspective, he by no means contributed to society in a significant means. You see, when he mentioned he had all these hundreds of thousands, we (I and everybody he interacted with within the on-line science blogs) seemed him up. No charities, although he claimed he needed to do (or was doing) one thing in Africa. Nothing of… substance.
There have been different issues we discovered on-line, however these are neither right here nor there. They’re non-public issues between him and his household.
And now, it’s throughout. He’s gone.
It’s simply bizarre.