Kim Jong Un Claims To Have Cured AIDS, Ebola and Cancer 162
jones_supa writes: North Korea has created a wonder drug which not only cures AIDS, but also eradicates Ebola and cancer — at least, according to the latest proclamation from the country's news agency. Their announcement says the miracle cure consists of ginseng grown from fertilizer and rare earth elements. The drug's website cites a medical study in Africa where the product was tested on HIV-positive patients. It records that every single participant in the trial noted an improvement, with 56% being completely cured and 44% noting a considerable improvement in their condition. Among other benefits, the North Korean scientists also revealed that the drug is capable of curing a number of cancers, but did not provide details of the medical trials which support this claim. It's also good to remember that the state has previously claimed that Kim Jong Il invented the hamburger.
Take That, Sony! (Score:2)
Re: Take That, Sony! (Score:5, Funny)
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In the spring, we made meat helmets.
I did not know he was that sick. (Score:2)
Supreme Fearless Leader Mr. Big should be more careful who he parties with.
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The sad thing is that what is basically the twitter feed of Patrick/Ken at Popehat keeps getting carried as real news. This article should be captured in this addendum: http://popehat.com/2014/12/20/... [popehat.com] and http://www.newsweek.com/interv... [newsweek.com]
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he is an asshole, imho !
What's ACTUALLY in it: (Score:5, Funny)
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I knew I couldn't trust North Korea.
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The article doesn't mention the possibility of extracting the blood without killing the unicorn. This seems like a much better approach - the unicorn can be kept penned and safe, and will provide many times the volume with a recurring extraction over the course of its life than could be taken in a single killing.
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It's AniMoJo, Slashdot's resident Social Justice Troll.
Re:What's ACTUALLY in it: (Score:5, Interesting)
While the claims about its effectiveness as a treatment for cancer are dubious, North Korea is not the pantomime many in the west seem to think it is. I'd also hasten to point out how many bullshit medical claims are made on a daily basis in the west, so this isn't even unique.
Let's keep the propaganda and borderline racism off Slashdot.
The claims are "dubious"? They're fucking laughable. North Korea is... pantomime? That wasn't the word I was thinking of. Brutal? Repressive? Backwards? Ridiculous? Yes to all of those, but only when talking about the leadership. Their people are starving, they can barely keep the lights on, yet they developed a nuke and launcher system.
As far as being racist... I have nothing but respect for Koreans, and in fact, used to work for a South Korean company. No one mocks North Korea (again, just the leadership) because they're Korean. We mock them because they're making a mockery of the lives and well-being their own citizens, and it's a fucking tragedy, really, because who knows how much more strong and vibrant Korea would be were they all free and prosperous like the South.
Re:What's ACTUALLY in it: (Score:5, Insightful)
"who knows how much more strong and vibrant Korea would be were they all free and prosperous like the South."
China does, that's why they don't push over the Norks and let the S. Koreans run the entire joint. The last thing Chinese leaders want is a united Korea showing the Chinese people how its done with no Communist Party of Kleptocrats.
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The claims are "dubious"? They're fucking laughable. North Korea is... pantomime? That wasn't the word I was thinking of. Brutal? Repressive? Backwards? Ridiculous? Yes to all of those, but only when talking about the leadership. Their people are starving, they can barely keep the lights on, yet they developed a nuke and launcher system.
That's why I don't like the "ha ha look at the silly North Korean claims" trope. I think it's a deliberate ploy on behalf of the brutal Kim dynasty to shape a public opinion that they are silly and backwards and harmless. Who can take seriously a country that makes these claims? And that's the first thing that many people think of when they think of North Korea. It saps political will in the west to treat them for what they are.
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Yet every story has to be embellished like this. It's crap journalism
Tell me exactly what's being embellished here. I saw nothing about "unicorns" in the article or summary - just a humorous poke by a slashdot poster in reference to, yes, a story that was later debunked. But good heavens, NK still provides such great material that *hasn't* been refuted! For instance:
The dictatorship is known for making outlandish claims about its own prowess. The state claims that Kim Jong Il invented the hamburger and had magical powers which meant he did not need to use the toilet.
They also claim that he was born atop a North Korean mountain prompting a double rainbow and new star to spontaneously appear. Unfortunately for the state, records show that he was born in Siberia.
People like this live in a bubble, where no one in the entire country is allowed to call "bullshit" about obvious lies for fear of their well-being, so they think they can spout the same nonsense international
Re:What's ACTUALLY in it: (Score:4, Insightful)
All those claims were made up by western journalists. NK doesn't make those claims, it doesn't "supply" comedy material.
Unicorns - actually a legendary animal from Korean mythology, acknowledged to be a myth but some of the people and places are real (a bit like King Arthur in the UK).
Invented the hamburger - made no such claim, merely that he had invented a particularly good one.
Does not use the toilet - Mistranslated, possibly deliberately, from someone saying that they don't talk about his toilet habits and generally pretend to be ignorant when he needs to pop out for five minutes. Hardly unique to NK, e.g. I imagine the British Queen doesn't tell her staff "I'm just going for a dump" and they probably don't ask her how it went afterwards. Never the less, you can bet that both their staffs ensure that there are clean facilities available.
It's all just bullshit made up in the west, and all it does is distort the truth about a brutal regime to get a few clicks.
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Honestly, that does sound more plausible than the hilarious lies we've heard. Do you happen to have a source for this? Or are you fluent enough in Korean to read the original transcripts?
BTW, the "unicorns" were actually kirin, a horned animal with parts of various creatures making up the body. This creature is said to accompany wise rulers (no coincidence there, eh?).
poster child (Score:5, Funny)
The medicinal herb also cures diabetes and morbid obesity; just look at the chiselled energetic body of the leader!
At least they got one thing right.. (Score:2)
They do seem to know the difference between the Rod of Asclepius and the Caduceus, so at least they have that over the Americans ;-)
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We cannot know, as Kim Jong-Un's rod is well protected by adipose tissue against the elements and against viewing
Glass is 10% full (Score:4, Funny)
You can get rid of all kinds of infectious diseases simply by starving your cities to the point where there aren't enough able-bodied people left to transmit the disease to each other.
And most cancer can be cured by lowering your country's life expectancy to under the age where those cancers start to form.
So look at the bright side, North Korea!
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And most cancer can be cured by lowering your country's life expectancy to under the age where those cancers start to form.
Ahhh so they'll invent the paleo diet next?
Cost too high... (Score:2)
What a coincidence! (Score:5, Funny)
I also cured AIDS, Ebola and Cancer. What are the chances?
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Huh so did I, my cure involves gasoline. What about yours?
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Wind turbine. I win.
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3D printing.
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Dead is not the same thing as cured (Score:1)
I want pictures of the newspaper... (Score:3)
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I give the guy no credibility, but if people continue dying after the miracle drug, how is he going to explain?
"Ah, I see young Kim Yeongchol has passed on; this is truly a sad occurrence and all of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is lessened by the loss, especially when they are taken so young. Well, this is just a routine investigation into the cause of death; I understand you, his family, are troubled by grief and sorrow so I shall strive to make this as quick and painless as possible. Name, tim
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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I wonder if his own propaganda department is trying to be insubordinate by making claims that are so fantastic and provably false. A claim like this is likely to be widely discredited within N. Korea, as everyone who dies of one of these diseases is proof against the claims. His PR people have to know that, so why make the claim in the first place? My suspicion is that they actually want The claims to be proven false, and for Kim Jong to be discredited. Active insubordination without having done anything they can, or will, be executed for.
Nice theory, but why do you think you have to do anything to be executed in NK?
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"...everyone who dies of one of these diseases is proof against the claims..."
But can the average North Korean pay the price for the drug? Or will gullible/rich Americans pay to get a fake cure?
Re:passive insubordination (Score:4, Funny)
can the average North Korean pay the price ... ?
North Korea provides free health care, which they can afford because they also carefully regulate caloric intake, so there are no fat North Koreans with chronic health problems. Also, no nation on Earth does more to combat climate change; wasteful night-time lighting, for instance, is basically not used outside Pyongyang, and North Koreans citizens don't drive gas guzzling SUVs. Finally, North Korea has achieved extremely uniform income equality; except for North Korea's benevolent rulers there are effectively no rich people in North Korea at all.
It's a liberal paradise, now with free a AIDs cure.
Not so much (Score:2)
Re:passive insubordination (Score:4, Interesting)
According to a few documentaries and some defectors, the degree of belief varies widely from outright contempt to complete subservience to all claims. However, determining where someone is on the scale can be extremely difficult because the habit of worshipping the Kim family (if only to not go to prison with three generations of your family) become so ingrained as to be reflexes, even if they are angry or laughing on the inside every time they bow and cry out how great the Dear Leader is.
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Remember, in NK even the radio receptors are controlled. (what they call a 'radio' indeed is an amplified loudspeaker connected to a *wire* coming to your house and bringing the only one state channel allowed. And possessing a real radio set ==> jail)
So, this leads to a situation where you really control everything known to your popuation.
Nobody in NK can even suspect we are having this discussion at this moment. Their only information channel tells them Cancer just has been cured, by a NK recipe, in afr
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Patient: Doctor, I've been sneezing a lot lately. And I have a sore throat.
Doctor: You have cancer. Here, take this new drug and be cured.
Patient (One week later) It's a miracle! And all thanks to Great Leader!
time to take that Tent Show on the Road (Score:1)
North Korea needs an extinction event (Score:2)
Here is how I would do it. First, load up several million thumb drives with movies and TV shows offering a view of life as it is lived today on the outside. Nothing American, just about how the other Koreans live in the free part of the country. The thumb drive is already established as an underground form of communication in NK, but up to now they are being smuggled a few at a time across the Chinese border.
Now drop them into North Korean cities from high-flying, undetectable B-2s. It won't take long for f
Re: North Korea needs an extinction event (Score:1)
Thumb drive delivery using B-2s? Seems a bit excessive. If you need air delivery, balloons would probably be more cost effective.
Or guys with backpacks. Though what they're going to watch the content on is beyond me.
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Ballons are already being used, from South Korea. The regime knows that it survives only if the mass of people know nothing about what life is like outside, especially just outside. And yes, video content on thumb drives is a de facto standard there.
Re: North Korea needs an extinction event (Score:5, Informative)
The regime survives not because the masses don't know what life is like (there are somewhere between hundreds of thousands and millions of illicit radios, TVs, DVD players, and flash-memory-based video players in the country). It survives because the masses are incapable of fighting if for no other reason than malnutrition, let alone the fear of reprisal. Almost one in ten of the population is in the military, and the military is first in line for food. The remaining population, especially outside of the major cities, lives on subsistence food at best, often handouts from the United Nations. The average caloric intake is somewhere in the region of 2100 calories per day, but the military and the well-connected probably skew this badly. Those not connected often get far less, and those in prison camps fight over kernels of grain found in manure, and consider themselves lucky if a swarm of insects comes into the camp.
When you barely have enough food to make it to the next day, you certainly do not have enough food to fight back. Any internal change in the regime is going to come from the military, not from the people.
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no you need to go to Shenzhen order 10,000 tablets and then load the videos on TF/SD cards and then your scheme might work. assuming they can figure out how to press the start button on the tablets. hmm maybe directions too, yeah wont work without directions
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even if true and acurate, the people you order the tablets are in Shenzhen, china.
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Not cities, just army bases. He couldn't survive without military.
But how would a free and united Korea help us?
Please stop giving him attention (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please stop giving him attention (Score:4, Funny)
Every court has its jester, and the world has li'l Kim.
Is that /. news? Really? (Score:2)
I mean c'mon, most of the community know that the moron lie to his people all the time.
Eventually he won't be able to hide the truth when access to communication will be more and more easily available and his "realm" will eventually revolt and head straight into a civil war. But until then, he could blather he fucked the president dog to show dominance for all I care.
I knew it! (Score:1)
Kim Jong Un is the Hamburgler!
But not gout (Score:2)
Let me guess.. (Score:1)
... the cured the sick using acute lead poisoning of the multiple entry type.
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Many would believe (Score:1)
Many people believe that carrot juice and fruit juice diets are a cure to cancer and other deadly illnesses.
Maybe he just spent a little too much time on the Internet!
And that is different than... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is different than the US Congress declaring climate change doesn't exist?
Re:And that is different than... (Score:5, Informative)
And that is different than the US Congress declaring climate change doesn't exist?
Yes, because the opposite happened [slate.com].
Re:And that is different than... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's little evidence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iran, though Iran did have a program at one point. Among the doomsayers, Netanyahu has been claiming Iran is a year away from nuclear weapons since at least 1993, and several former high-ranking Mossad personnel have publicly said that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
The claim isn't that medical spending is reduced, it's that the rate of increase of medical spending is slowing. It's probably going to remain well above inflation for the foreseeable future as the population ages.
The economy isn't fixed yet, and Obama hasn't claimed otherwise. But it's definitely improved. Stock market records, profit records, improving employment numbers... There's still a long way to go toward "fixed" but it's certainly a lot better than it was.
All crimes punishable by death! (Score:1)
Simple proof ... (Score:2)
... just infect Kim with AIDS and Ebola, then cure him ... as for cancer, some additional radioactive contamination might do ... ... oh, right, they'll just spend it on their military instead ... after all, for what does Kim need a people?
I guess once they've proved it works, they'll be able to sell it to the whole world, finally taking care of their people's hunger problem
Typo (Score:3)
Their announcement says the miracle cure consists of ginseng grown from fertilizer and rare earth elements.
They misspelled "bullet".
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Give them credit (Score:1)
Great stuff (Score:2)
Meth (Score:2)
Unfortunately (Score:2)
Unfortunately the drug delivery system explodes half way to the patient... :P :P :P
KoolAid (Score:1)
Outrageous claims (Score:3)
While these claims are probably ridiculous and with no merit, don't underestimate the speed at which medical research can progress under a regime which doesn't have morals holding the researchers back...
The nazis made significant progress.
The next inventions in North Korea (Score:2)
I hate to give them any new ideas about productive research possibilities that might come from the curious US workers with garages and an advertising budget, but you never know.
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The answer (Score:1)
Death has always been a cure for the afflicted (Score:1)
Conspicuously, Kim Jong-un offers no claim on how his Snake Oil affects vascular diseases leading to stroke (Kim Il-sung's demise [wikipedia.org]) or cardiac arrest (Kim Jong-il's killer [wikipedia.org]). If North Koreans (and the world) are lucky, he won't find a cure for those ailments.
In related news ... (Score:2)
And Now he's working on Obesity (Score:2)
Lead suppliement? (Score:2)
I'm not so sure a lead injection into the skull qualifies as a cure, nor as an improvement in condition.
Try again, North Korea!
More direct (Score:2)
I think you'll find his miracle cure more closely resembles a bullet.
Not Kim Jong Un (Score:2)
The title is wrong: It seems that North Korea do not claim Kim Jong Un himself invented it.
This is a relevant point because propaganda previously presented Kim Jong Il as a scientist, a poet, an inventor, and whatever
That's nothing, the Republicans claim that our (Score:2)
president caused ebola.
We Can Can't Cure Him (Score:2)
Baby You're A Firework (Score:1)
Enough said.
Meanwhile, in the US (Score:2)
The hamburger, or a cure for AIDS can be done by anyone, but it will end up being the property of whoever has the most lawyers and lobbyists. So who's better off, us or them?
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And 5 years after the treatment, not a single living HIV could be detected.
Ok, no other living cell could be detected either anymore, but hey!
Re: Does it cure constipation? (Score:5, Funny)
He explodes when he turns 60?
But it would kinda explain his ... size. He's not overweight. Just full of it.
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(..) the insanity that is North Korean science
There is no such thing as 'insane science'. There is just science, done properly, reproducible, with methods & findings published and verifiable, etc. And there is propaganda, where few (if any) of scientific methods' attributes are present.
Note that "in N. Korea, or elsewhere" isn't part of that equation. Science is done properly, or it's not. Where that's done, doesn't matter as long as geography isn't part of the subject matter.
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Cup of tea and a NATO 7.62 for the lead rare earth part.
I see how you did that kim Jong Un, pretty slick, but Al Gore's got ya beat by inventing the internet,
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Yep, cures everything; mafia, dirty cops, organized crime, cold storage blood money cash cows that kill presidents and peddle off their space programs dealing their way out of it, uranium contaminated well water, concealed murder statistics not counted against property value, fire hazards, gambling, aids, ebola, cancer, fiscal cliff's and even obesity. It's a miracle cure, but it ain't free...
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In part or in whole, it will even fix Cali's water shortage problems.
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We're talking miracle cure here, "don worry 'bout it". Did I mention it can cure bad pizza indigestion dating all the way back to 1954?
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I think Putin has lead a life that is a bit less sheltered than Kim Jong Un. While it is no secret the president on either pole (US/Russky) will sell weapons to just about anyone, I think they hold in common the same lack of concern about the ramifications of it. In fact I think the US has better planning for profits in the aftermath but the over all process seems to dig a bigger fiscal hole faster than they can fill it in. All things considered you do not know how right you are, but Kim has to have a su
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Believable
Well, it is someone believable. He must be doing something with his time, and he certainly isn't wasting time looking around for a competent barber.
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Are you talking about Santos-Dumont? He didn't fly a heavier-than-air craft until 1906, nearly three years after the Wright Brothers. The only contender for beating the Wright Brothers has been Albert Whitehead, who may have flown in early 1902. However, photos of the feat allegedly did not turn out well, and no follow-up photos have ever shown up.
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Oops. You're right. I'm blaming it on a radio glitch. :)
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