As somewhat of a free speech fundamentalist, I’ve never been that much in favour of deplatforming. I’d rather that lunatics of any sort, whether they are anti-vaxxers, Holocaust Deniers, Flat Earthers or quack ‘doctors’, be easily visible, in order that they can be subjected to challenge. Suppressing those with bad or lunatic ideas doesn’t make those bad ideas go away, they are still there and still being believed in. It just makes it much harder for normal people to ridicule them and show them up for what they are. Censorship can also make those censored a great deal stronger than they were, because bans end up giving the banned some form of social cachet. A good example of this is Alex Jones. His popularity has gone through the roof since he was banned from the major social media platforms. The ban on Jones gave him a bigger platform than before he was deplatformed.

But what about those who ‘shout fire in a crowded theatre, when there is no fire’? What about those who rather than voicing an opinion, instead directly and credibly incite immediate violence or terrorism or exploit the vulnerable? Then we have situations where there are exceptions and where there could be some moral justification in not letting them speak. One of the types of denizens of the internet that bother me the most are quacks. Rather than banning them in a knee-jerk way, I’d like to see, in the first instance, those with real science knowledge challenge these quacks on their comment sections or make debunking videos about them or just generally point out to others exactly why a particular quack is a quack.

However there are some quacks that are not just annoying or wrong or stupid, but are generally and genuinely dangerous. I speak here of the turpentine drinking and bleach drinking cults. The quacks behind these cults recommend drinking turps and drinking or anally administering bleach as a ‘cure all’ for everything from cancer to autism. These quacks prey on the desperate, the vulnerable and the uneducated in a similar cynical way to the mugger who nearly always targets a victim that they perceive will not fight back or resist.

One particularly nasty and dangerous quack is Danny ‘Sunfruit Dan’ Glass. This particular quack styles himself as a ‘conscious health’ advisor and was a big promoter of the bleach and turps drinking cult on YouTube for years until he was banned from the platform following a great deal of pressure and complaint from those with scientific knowledge, who pointed out that drinking turps and bleach is dangerous and anally inserting bleach destroys the intestine.

As much as it pains me to say so, because I am so in favour of freedom of speech, removing Sunfruit Dan from YT was probably justified. After all there is ample evidence that the bleach drinking cult has been pushing desperate parents of autistic children to give their kids bleach enemas and the quacks have been wrongly telling them that the bloody shreds that are emerging from their children’s rectums are not bits of bowel but ‘parasites’ being expelled because of the ‘treatment’. I think that this sort of quackery really does come into the category of harm.

What the bleach and turps cult, and I include Sunfruit Dan in this category, have done by telling desperate people to drink bleach and turps, is little different from someone telling a person that they can get to a spiritual nirvana by slashing their wrists. The majority will see the turps and bleach cult as lunatic, but we can’t ignore the reality which is that there are probably a lot of uneducated and easily led people who will go ahead and drink the bleach or the turps, or force it on their children because a smiling dreadlocked hippy on the internet told them to do it.

I thought that with his YT ban that I’d seen and heard the last of this particular quack called Sunfruit Dan and his ‘natural medicine’ bullshit but sadly I was wrong. In desperate need of cash from his deluded followers he’s slithered back on to You Tube with a back up channel that he set up either before or after his ban. He’s currently trying to fly under the radar somewhat by not talking about what he called ‘controversial topics’ by which he means turps and bleach drinking.

Sunfruit Dan’s back up channel is, as one would expect from a quack like Sunfruit Dan, full of stuff that is either dubious,wrong or potentially dangerous. At best what Sunfruit Dan is putting out is ineffective ‘woo’ that will do no good but also do no harm such as with the various diet fads he promotes. But at worst he’s making untrue medical claims such as when he claims that coconut water can dissolve cataracts, children with seizures should be given CBD oil and that apple cider vinegar can reduce blood sugar levels.

Now I’m not medical doctor, I’ve done many things in my life but never doctoring, so I decided that I would look up what credible medical advice sources said about treatments for each of these conditions. For cataracts there is really only one cure and that is surgery, no mention from the Mayo Clinic about the use of coconut oil. For childhood seizures, although the UK’s premier children’s hospital Great Ormond Street acknowledges that there are some cannabis derived pharmaceuticals that have shown some benefit, this is not the same as over the counter CBD oil, which is what Sunfruit Dan is suggesting. As regards the use of Apple Cider Vinegar for reducing blood sugar levels The British Diabetic Association does suggest using this item as a cooking ingredient, they do not to say ‘drink it’, which is what the quack says. Sunfruit Dan has also claimed that, falsely, that Bicarbonate of Soda, a common baking and cooking ingredient, is toxic. I’ve checked and in normal use such as in cooking when used in the correct amounts,it is not toxic.

What Sunfruit Dan is doing is sailing as close as he can to the edges of YouTube rules that prevent the promotion of dangerous quackery. He’s taking some genuine medical truths, such as cannabinoids helping with some forms of childhood epilepsy, but recommending stuff that is not approved by doctors. From what I saw of his videos he’s quoting studies but could well be cherry picking stuff from these studies to back up his quackery. He’s also not doing a very good job of linking to studies either.

It’s quite obvious to me that Sunfruit Dan has brought his channel back,although with a few changes such as removing references to turps and bleach drinking, because he needs the money from his gullible punters. Whether he is breaking YT guidelines is difficult to say, at least from the videos that I’ve seen, but I will say this: I would not follow the advice of this quack, instead I would go and see a proper doctor. Sunfruit Dan might not be recommending Turps and bleach drinking any more, which may be keeping him on the right side of You Tube, but he’s certainly back making money from his deluded acolytes and should be the subject of debate, challenge and criticism.