Three women contract HIV from dirty “vampire facials” at unlicensed spa
arstechnica.com
Five patients with links to the spa had viral genetic sequences that closely matched.

I never went as far as to defend Gwyneth Paltrow, but after her Hot Ones appearance I created a post (which I will link in the comments) where I suggested that she’s done no more harm than male grifters and that the dislike of her as a person was primarily due to misogyny. That’s before I learned about her promotion of these unproven “vampire facials”. Now an unlicensed clinic performing this procedure has given at least three women HIV. You guys were right and I was wrong.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    6210·
    2 months ago

    I mean, yeah, she’s to blame for promoting an obviously batshit crazy process, but she was NOT involved with any of the facilities distributing HIV. That’s a bit of a stretch.

    It would be like, I dunno, blaming your favorite tattooed celebrity because you got hepatitis c from some back alley artist.

    • sgibson5150OP
      614·
      2 months ago

      I see what you’re saying, but the treatment is unproven even under sanitary conditions and she probably helped make people aware of it using her largish social media platform. I say she deserves at least some of the blame.

      • xor@infosec.pub
        2·
        2 months ago

        she didn’t invent the process, and the problem here is safe and sanitary practices, not the fact that it’s woowoo fake science grifter shit that paltrow likes to profit off of…

        i dunno, it’s a stretch to turn it into a “til”… but she should be culpable for spreading snake oil anyways…

        • sgibson5150OP
          1·
          2 months ago

          I hear your objection to making this a TIL. Do you have a suggestion as to a better community to host this?

          • xor@infosec.pub
            2·
            2 months ago

            not the onion? there’s a lot of “weird news” and anti capitalist stuff it would fit in…

      • psud@aussie.zone
        412·
        2 months ago

        So? When done safely perhaps it offers no benefit and very little risk - kind of like a tattoo

        Maybe it does work. We don’t know.

    • Ledivin@lemmy.world
      302·
      2 months ago

      Tbf, it’s more like the tattooed celebrity was promoting back alley artists. It’s a weird middle ground

      • psud@aussie.zone
        15·
        2 months ago

        I understand that she said it was a good and helpful procedure.

        I don’t think it’s at all fair to say she told people to go to unlicensed places