Mother Starves 16 Year Old Daugher To Death

Wow - after today's Oreo story, I didn't expect to see even more stupid people in the world today. But, that's the thing about idiots, they pop up everywhere.

This time, the idiot is mainly a 38 year old American woman called Ebony Berry, who's under arrest for starving her 16 year old daughter to death. The story goes like this: the mother was obsessed by the teachings of one doctor Andrew Chung, a certified cardiologist who mixes medicine with scripture and advocates eating just two pounds of food a day. Ebony Berry, a friend of the doctor's, followed the doctor's recommendations and eventually led to the tragic death of her young daughter, Markea Blakeley-Berry - who weighed only 20 kilograms at  the time of her death!

Berry is currently in prison, arrested on charges of murder, and has been visited by the "good doctor" in jail.

So, who the hell is this doctor and what's up with his pro-hunger doctrine? Maybe the woman got it all wrong. Doctor Chung, a licensed doctor in the state of Georgia, has an active online presence ( over 5,300 Facebook friends) where he promotes his philosophy on social sites and forums. Quote from his facebook wall, dated today: "notes that when Jesus suddenly appeared where His disciples hid, He proved to them by His being hungry that He wasn't a ghost. Eating the broiled piece of fish means our LORD is hungry & His disciples having cooked fish means they were hungry (Luke 6:21a) b/c HE was blessing them sight unseen. Yes, we're in the mouth (Rev 3:16) of a wonderfully hungry GOD & though we're not good (Matt 19:17), we can taste good by being perfect (Matt 5:48) in Him." His book, "Be Hungry", highlights his belief that "hunger is wonderful", and this is also summarized in an "interview", posted on YouTube, that goes a little something like this:

Doctor: "I'm wonderfully hungry. How are you?"
Nurse: "I'm not hungry."
Doctor: "That's terrible."
Why? Because "being hungry is wonderful. The opposite of hungry, which is not hungry, is the opposite of wonderful, which is terrible."

You may ask, how is that wonderful? Well, the doctor claims he has mathematically proven his theorem in the following manner: "When we're 10 times hungrier, doesn't food tastes 10 times better? And when food tastes 10 times better, that's wonderful, isn't it? (ah, what a wonderful piece of circular logic - neither scientific nor logical) ... It's a mathematical principle."

His followers must weight their food to ensure the consumption of no more than 1 kg/day

Now, I'm not a doctor, but I call "bullshit". Even if he has stated that he doesn't really advocate starvation and that miss Berry did not properly administer his "medical advice", he still defends her and absolves her of her involvement in her daughter's death. What??? 

We're talking about a 16 year old girl that died weighing 20 kilograms, a THIRD of the normal weight for someone her age. A little girl that has sent chilling drawings to her grandma of family members with empty plates, a little girl that was so hungry she ran away to steal food from Walmart. How is this not the mother's fault? How is this not child abuse?

You know what, maybe he's right. Maybe the one to blame is Doctor Chung himself, who despite having graduated from a top 25 medical school, has received monumental criticism for being a "quack" who mixes medicine with Bible quotations and who promotes a "cult religion". No wonder he's so delusional and irresponsible. I understand when tragedy occurs because people misunderstand, mistranslate or misread philosophies ( a lot of bad things have happened because ignorant people have always misconstrued philosophies and theories - take a look at Marx's vision of communism and the flaws the application of the system has lead to, or how Nietzsche's philosophy has been wrongly linked to the Nazi regime). You can't be held responsible if some nut job misunderstands what you say or downright interprets it to his own benefit. But when what you advocate is a hunger-based philosophy, how can you not be held accountable when somebody, not a trained physician like yourself, actually takes you seriously and follows your doctrine word for word? It's amazing what some people are willing to believe. It's also frightening just how much an "expert" can screw people up. The man promoted eating very limited amounts of food. He promoted constantly being hungry as some sort of desirable state. How can someone sane actually starve their child and still justify it? You may be a crazy quack and uphold what is clearly a flawed and dangerous lifestyle, but how can you force a child, who probably doesn't understand your motivations and isn't responsible for your crazy, to do the same?

Try touting your philosophy to third world people who are in constant hunger pains - wonderfully hungry, huh? It's simply amazing how he bases his "medical theory" on subjective and irrational arguments ("food tastes 10 times better when you're hungry") and advocates starvation on what is essentially a flawed and unscientific foundation. He responds to people accusing him of malpraxis on his facebook wall by saying stuff like " the medical fact is that those who are dying for any reason, including starvation, are not hungry. Truth is simply reality." Seriously, how did this man keep his license? This is criminally irresponsible.


Update: Take a look at this man's facebook page. Seriously, just take a look, read his wall posts and see his comments. The proof that he's a nut job is right there.