It isn’t often that I post about things that are completely unrelated to vaping, but sometimes things happen that social media just doesn’t give enough space for me to comment with the entirety of my thoughts, hence the blog.
Today, 1st August 2015 is #WorldLungCancerDay and the subject of lung cancer, and cancer in general is one I hold near and dear to my heart simply because I lost both of my parents to forms of cancer. I donate on a regular basis to charities that are active in bringing the varying forms of cancer to the attention of the masses. The work these charities and organisations do is incredibly valuable in raising awareness and much-needed funding for the ongoing research into the varying forms of cancer, both for treatment and detection for the sufferer and for the families.
As we know, smoking is one of the leading causes of lung, throat and mouth cancers. One of the leading causes, not the cause. There are of course many factors that can lead to the development of the various cancers so it comes as absolutely no surprise that some organisations took the opportunity to push their own agenda.
Of course, I thoroughly despise any organisation or individual that makes use of a particular social media campaign to push their own agenda so imagine my delight when Faces of Lung Cancer replied to the CDC.
Effectively telling them to back off, but the CDC weren’t the only ones told to go away or at least not to push their own agenda.
In no uncertain terms, Faces of Lung Cancer didn’t want any association with smoking, which is absolutely correct. I even responded to the Blackwell tweet thanking Faces of Lung Cancer for insisting it.
I even tweeted out my own memories.
It isn’t something I do often, nor do I undertake it lightly as it is deeply personal, but I wanted to express my support to raise awareness, help end the stigma associated with lung cancer, and maybe even help raise some funding for a much needed cause. It wasn’t to be.
For reasons, at the time that were unknown to me I ended up being blocked by the Faces of Lung Cancer twitter account. Needless to say I was thoroughly shocked by this, and truly upset. After all I had shown nothing but support, shared my personal story. It upset me to the point that I tweeted:
The support from my close friends on Twitter was amazing and unusually for me, I’m finding it difficult to find the words to express how truly grateful and thankful I am.
The reason I, and many others got blocked?
So because one called them a “fuckwit” all vapers are now blocked. I don’t think that is entirely appropriate, have they blocked the CDC?
Oddly enough, the exchange between Lorien and Faces of Lung Cancer earned Lorien a block too, for asking why I’d been blocked.
Stay classy Faces of Lung Cancer, you’ve just lost the support of someone directly affected by the effects of losing someone through lung cancer.
Update: I woke up this morning (4th August 2015) to find that I had some replies from Faces Of Lung Cancer
Oddly enough, only one of them seems to exist, but thanks to Tweetdeck I’ve been able to catch both responses. To be honest, I know how easy it is to overreact to a particular situation, especially if it affects me personally. As I mention in the comments below this post, this blog was written in direct response to being blocked so you could say that I overreacted to the block. Maybe I did, fact is, my support of causes such as this won’t waver.
Thank you, Faces of Lung Cancer for the apology, we are after all on the same side, just approaching it from different angles.
