I received one of these “chain emails” today about a kid with cancer & unless you forward on the message she’ll die etc etc. Now, I am NOT a nasty or uncompassionate person (have lost people close to me to cancer), but I receive alot of these & wonder if anyone else has received this one:
Cancer (DO NOT DELETE) You must forward
Original message: 11 July 2001 Melina Sagarrica
Hi, my name is Amy Bruce. I am 7 years old and I have severe lung cancer from second hand smoke. I also have also (sic) a large tumor in my brain from repeated beatings. The doctors say I will die soon if this isn’t fixed and my family can’t pay the bills. The Make a Wish Foundation has agreed to donate 7 cents for every name on this list. For those of you who send this along, I thank you so much, but for those who don’t send it, what goes around comes around. Have a heart, please send this. Please, if you are a kind person, send this on. PLEASE HIT FORWARD BUTTON “NOT REPLY BUTTON”. Thank you!!!
Elaine Kenyon, Faculty of Nursing, University of New Brunswick, Frederiction, Phone # 458-7620, email: ekenyon@unb.ca
I find the “what goes around comes around” thing the most disturbing. How could a 7 year old know of such a term and talk about a guilt trip! I don’t like to be made to feel guilty by someone who is a complete stranger. I am a very kind person, but just because I don’t forward a dodgy email on, does that mean I’ll be struck by a curse or something? I am just concerned this is one of those hoax things and don’t want to buy in to someone’s sick joke. All replies will be MOST welcome.
In July 1999, another version of the standard hoax appeared, this time naming the Make-A-Wish Foundation as the organization bankrolling the donations:
Just to be perfectly clear: ALL of the above text, except for the very first line, was copied and pasted from the snopes website. It was a small fraction of the page on cancer-chain-mails generally. I hope it wasn’t too much to clip, as regards copyright issues.
You just need to ask yourself why a well known organization like this would want to disgrace itself by essentially promising the death of a sick little girl unless the general public meets its demands starts a massive spam storm.
I edited a post above to remove copyrighted material. Generally speaking more than a paragraph or two is too much to quote. The rest can be read at http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/children/mydek.htm
Plus, one of the few wishes the Make-A-Wish Foundation doesn’t cover is “I wish I could pay for treatment.”
I especially liked the “I have severe lung cancer from second hand smoke” (if she could prove that, it would be a dream case for most any lawyer; and the media certainly would have pounced on the story by now) and “I also have also (sic) a large tumor in my brain from repeated beatings” (cancer develops from beatings? Then why aren’t boxers dropping like flies?).
psychotropic, do not worry. You can’t be “cursed” by an email or by anything else, for that matter. Just delete the damned thing or reply to the “friends” who sent it that the only thing accomplished by endlessly forwarding such junk mail is to deceive well-meaning people like you and rob them of their time.