Stop the apologists
Re: "One-sided suffering", (PostBag, July 28).
There are letters appearing in PostBag from apologists. The most recent from Frank Scimone, who seemingly wants us to believe that the reports are fabricated by Hamas. After we have all seen many hundreds of starving children on live video, he claims, without any evidence, that the pictures we were shown in the Bangkok Post were not genuine but scripted by Hamas.
In order to write such letters, these supporters of Israel have to close themselves off from every source of information apart from Israeli propaganda. They would have us believe that organisations such as Unicel, WFP, Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross, to say nothing of the ICC.
Keith Barlow
Cancer fairy tale
Re: "Cancer revelations", (PostBag, July 28).
Michael Setter asserts that "there are many scientific papers" that support the nonsensical "turbo cancer" fairy tale. However he neglects to mention that any rabid tin foil wearer can write a "scientific paper" and it is the process of peer review that weeds them out. There is not a single peer-reviewed paper on this nutty claim that stands up to scrutiny.
To illustrate this, a simple look at cancer incidences in the US, a country with a high mRNA vaccination rate, shows that cancer rates are currently around the same level as they were in 1985.
Just to clarify: mRNA vaccines are generally safe and effective, and turbo cancers are a myth created by conspiracy theorists.
I wonder if Mr Setter would change his tune if he ever required one of the numerous mRNA vaccines being developed to treat or prevent cancers of the lung, breast, prostate, skin, pancreas and brain? 120 clinical trials to date have demonstrated their potential for the treatment of these diseases.
It's high time the Bangkok Post started fact-checking this type of wild fabrication from our conspiracy theorists, although I am, of course, happy to keep doing it in the meantime.
Tarquin Chufflebottom
Put Buddhism first
Re: "Restoring people's faith battered by bad monks", (BP, July 27).
The scholars cited by the Post are correct to "say change must ... come from within" if Thai Buddhism is to be saved from its business-as-usual failures. They are mistaken to put faith in the watchdog of Thai law. On the contrary, get the politicians and political players out of running the religion. It is irrational to think that any institution or its members could have better morals than those running it to serve their own purposes. Thai Buddhism is exactly what it is because it has traditionally been run by Thai politicians and other political players bent not on allowing the Thai version of Buddhism to serve the dissemination of the Buddha's wise teachings but, rather, on bending it to serve the agenda of those political overlords. Abolishing the National Office of Buddhism would be a healthy start to saving Thai Buddhism from the state domination it yet suffers under.
Felix Qui
