I was personally attacked in thyroid.about.com. These are my comments related to that episode by Mary Shomon.

I want to thank Mary Shomon, from www.thyroid.about.com, for including www.thyroid.com in her top thyroid sites' article. This reflects the fact that the site is one of the top three most visited sites for thyroid information on the web. Thyroid.com is the one hundred thousandth most visited site in the whole world. 25 million hits a year. Mainstream thyroid patients visit and learn from my thyroid.com site. It is 100% about thyroid disease. As usual she has continued her main job at about.com, a large corporation, to sell ads to anyone with a buck to spend. The Thyroid Disease Manager site gets a short note. "I really like this site", she notes. In my previous comprehensive Top Ten list with criticism, in my earlier newsletter, I go into detail about Thyroid Manager.org. Then we get to three sites that are not in the top 1 million sites, but pay to appear with the top sites. Coconut Oil, drugstore.com/ Armour thyroid, paid big cash to the company that pays Mary's salary, the Corporation called About.com, to be listed be listed before the American thyroid Association, and my site in Mary's Top sites: Pros and Cons. Nice profits will help her keep her job at About.com. The emails from her alternative minded subscribers, bordered on being called hate mail. However, her call for an email attack on me was not a bang but a poof! Only a handful of her devoted followers emailed me. Here are quotes from her followers.

1. "You are old, backward, antiquated quack" (I am 62, and the Armour type drugs she is pushing are over 130 years old!)
2. "Turn in your medical license". (There are only several hundred true thyroid doctors in the country. I would check out American Thyroid Association at thyroid.org for the real list of thyroid experts. I am on the real list.)
3. "You pompous ass" (Because I do not treat patients by symptoms alone, but rely on accurate thyroid blood testing. The thyroid tests are abnormal way before you have "thyroid related symptoms". Other similar symptoms, such as fatigue, and weight gain are not thyroid related if the testing is stable and normal.)
4. All my former doctors were like you" (Yes, they refused to treat your depression with Armour with normal thyroid tests. 99% of the thyroid physicians would agree with me.)
5. "I am disabled for life" (because of Synthroid)."If I was mean, I would wish Hashimoto's on you". (If you check the disability records you will fine that Synthroid causing lifetime disability is a big stretch of the truth.)
6. "Three years later I am well on 3 Grains of Armour" (Well she might be but, before Synthroid, that was the standard dose of Armour, and was proven by published, journal articles, to be excessive in the vast majority of patients.)
7. "Sick and tired of being sent home because my numbers were normal" (We have the most accurate thyroid testing, and if you test normal, and have symptoms most likely your symptoms are not due to abnormal thyroid balance.).
8. "First, do no harm" (That is exactly what I am doing, by not treating you incorrectly by symptoms alone. Abnormal thyroid blood tests are necessary before a physician treats your symptoms with thyroid hormone.)
9. "Depression on Synthroid, relieved by Thyrolar. You are a kook" (Thyroid disease can cause worsening of depression, and the worsening will be corrected by normal amounts of any thyroid medication)
10. "Crappy Synthroid" (Her symptoms of "horrible PMS, depression, acne, and awful periods" are not due to thyroid deficiency, if the accurate T4 and TSH tests are normal. Deficiency can make those symptoms worse, except acne, but only if you are hypothyroid at the time.)
11. "To get to your site I had to go through a Honda commercial" (She is dead wrong, unlike Mary's site we have no Ads, and receive no outside funds.)
12. "One size fits all". (Well, the one size is the use of T4. There are no conclusive studies that find a place for Armour, or other combination plans. T4 always converts to T3 when given to hypothyroid ambulatory patients.) One hormone, T4, given causes the body to make the T3 in every cell of the body.)
13. "Mary does not sell Armour, or Thyrolar" (I am sorry, but there are drug company ads, such as drugstore.com that pay big bucks to be listed on her corporation's site hawking those drugs at discounts)!
14. "Armour cleared my brain fog, and cold intolerance" (Wrong, There is plenty of evidence that cold intolerance would be relieved by any thyroid medication. If T4 didn't relieve it at normal doses then it can be relieved by an overdose of Armour or any thyroid medication. This Mary fan needs a TSH quick!)
15. "So big deal, a Lady (MS) writes about you in her website" (It is a big deal. Her site is next to my in the top ten visited sites. Her corporation, about.com, has been filling the web with mis-information, and confusing real thyroid patients, with their ideas that all symptoms and all diseases are some how related to thyroid. Why does she talk about diseases that have nothing to do with thyroid, as if they were related. She has too big an exposure to let her continue to go unchallenged. There is real thyroid information, but it is buried among her books, ads, and other unrelated subjects. She attacks the very doctors that have made modern treatment of thyroid conditions possible.)
16. "Hugh weight gain on Synthroid" (There is no reason that any thyroid medication would cause weight gain, unless the dose was inadequate. Excessive Armour could be the reason you have lost the weight. You need a TSH. If it is low you have your reason for abnormal weight loss due to induced hyperthyroidism.)
17. "How much do you make from your book store?" (It is not mine. It is a link to Amazon.com. It is to allow thyroid patients to see all the books written and buy them. It is a convenience thing not a cash cow! There is a small $100-300 made yearly. It even has Mary's books for sale off my website link. However there are some serious thyroid books for patients listed that should be considered before hers.
18. "I suffered from hives on Synthroid, and it went away on Armour. Armour saved my life" (True allergy to T4 is extremely rare. If you were allergic, there is T4 in Armour and the hives would have continued. There is dye in colored pills of any kind. There is a white T4 pill (0.05 mg) that I use for possible dye allergic thyroid patients.)
19. "Do any of you thyroid experts have hypothyroidism?" (Yes many members of American Thyroid Association are hypothyroid, and are doing well on T4 alone.)
20. "Mary is a God send. I was tired, she told me to take vitamins. I complained about my weight-her solution? Eat an orange" (Do you see why she should not be heading up one of the top ten thyroid websites? She does not stick to thyroid problems, but due to corporate pressure to make money for about.com, she covers just about everything. She can not just talk thyroid as the site will lose money. The majority of the ads are not thyroid related.)
21. "Thanks to Mary's research I found better solutions." (First, Mary is not a doctor, and has done no original research. She is a patient that pushes the non-mainstream thyroid solutions she takes herself, along with coconut oil ads.
22. "You are an Idiot. Mary is superb." (No Comment.)
23. "She (MS) is in the top ten thyroid sites. You are jealous." (I am also one of the top 3 sites on the web.) "You are mad because you got a bad review " (The bad review was a sham. It was written by her. It has no validity.)
    
    Finally a ray of light in a forrest of gloom
24. "It seems that the only person coming unhinged is Mary Shomon these days. It is rather unfortunate to watch this advocate of thyroid disease criticizing every doctor. Let me tell you that the people who seem to have the most problems are the ones taking Armour and Cytomel (T3) from where I sit and read." It is an embarrassment to some of us thyroid patients. But not all. Especially those who believe T3 and Armour are the cure all. (Bravo, you are right about her agenda. An advocate for her books, and sponsor's products, not for the good of thyroid patients.)

She states I charge too much for a second opinion. Well, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard, Mayo Clinic, and John Hopkins, charge at least as much and many charge almost twice my $495 fee. Web second opinions by top specialists and universities are here to stay. It allows people to get opinions from anywhere in the world.

Her comment about my winery listed under my passions, is a joke. She has her books for sale on almost every page of her site. I have a link only, to my 3 great passions outside of thyroid. Also wine contains a substance that has shown promise in inhibiting thyroid cancer cell growth in vitro.

Her attack included a self-serving statement that my site was given a bad review in a recent article. She fails to tell you she wrote the article!

Mary shows her paranoid streak with "Why your doctor thinks I am Crazy". This article appeared in her newsletter. Her statements are not fact but her misguided opinion. She wants anyone with thyroid failure, that is still complaining of non- specific symptoms when all thyroid tests are normal, to demand continued search for a relief by going to alternative methods, rather than looking elsewhere for the cause of the symptoms. Her statement that she summarizes research papers for her readers is a joke. She has no medical background to competently review and summarize any journal article for the thyroid patients. She is also wrong about women with little papers brought to doctors during an office visit. If the papers come from sources that are medically sound, there is no problem. When they come from her paper mill, the real thyroid expert has to groan, and spend time explaining why the information is usually wrong. She uses herself as an example for how bad the doctors are. When her doctor told her the thyroid tests were normal, and the hair loss was stress related, she changed doctors, and took Thyrolar. Her hair loss stopped. This is such a joke. Hair loss is episodic. This anecdote proved nothing. The hair loss from stress is transient. Thyroid hair loss does not occur if you have normal thyroid testing, T4, T3, and TSH.

I am sorry for this newsletter, but I must answer a direct attack by a corporate mouthpiece, who manages one of the top thyroid sites on the web.


Yours truly, and goodbye,