Written by He Brings Purple Power To A Whole New Level! Everyday Is Epilepsy Awareness Day for Chris:
Chris tells his story well. He’s the creator of a very unique art project that adorns T-Shirts, paintings, and more. All are to promote Epilepsy awareness and to teach people about it. I asked him to tell us a little about himself and how he came to be the mastermind behind the Epilepsy Shield Project but first I’d like to share what I know of Chris. He is not a user of Medicinal Cannabis but is an advocate for anything that helps people with epilepsy – and has even done one of his Shields on CBD. Around the globe, people love his work!
We’ve worked together on various civil rights issues surrounding individuals with Epilepsy being discriminated against.
He’s a true advocate that was at the center of the backlash against CNN’s Chris Cuomo back in early 2015 when the news reporter faked a seizure online stating he’d ‘swallowed his tongue’ and then laughed saying they needed to sign off. That didn’t sit well with the entire 65 million strong Epilepsy community, nor did it with myself or Chris. This was before the shield project so he had a bit of time to me out with a full-scale protest against CNN and Cuomo on social media.
Together we drafted hundreds of others with epilepsy to hang out on Cuomo and CNN’s pages and let them know what they thought of the phony on-air seizure. That’s about as offensive as faking a heart attack during a live television show and then laughing about it.
The whole fiasco ended in this formal video apology that was done on request by both Chris and Myself – in which we directed CNN and Cuomo to have him wear Purple and to give a message of Epilepsy Awareness specifically on Purple Day – World Epilepsy Awareness Day March 26th. Here’s that apology that’s well worth watching!
In another instance, Chris notified me about very dangerous hashtag usage by Tumblr. There was one for #EpilepsyWarning that led people to a flashing strobe. I went ahead and decided to be the test dummy on it since I use Cannabis Oil and it was causing seizures for many who looked at it – I figured I’d be safe. That wasn’t the case.
One quick glance and a partial-onset or the beginning of a seizure occurred. Needless to say that irritated me so the wheels went in motion and working with Chris a US Dept. of Justice Civil Rights Complaint was filed in regards to the use of flashing images online by multiple entities that actually made fun of people with Epilepsy.
Chris led the way in notifying people in all nations to not click on certain links – he went as far as to put a website up that stated the following:
“Dangerous Hashtag Usage by Tumblr”
The use of the hashtag Epilepsy Warning or Epilw on flashing GIFs will lead any search for the word Epilepsy to the images, which can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy.
The use of the words “Epilepsy Warning” for anything other than a clearly visible warning is against the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).
A DOJ ADA Title 1 complaint is going to be filed about this practice. When adding a tag to an image as soon as you type Epil a choice of tags pops up including Epilepsy Warning, so people might think they are helping us by using that tag on flashing GIFs. That is clearly Tumblr’s fault and needs to be stopped!
The Coalition for the Rights of Disabled People has started a petition against this practice, please sign and share the petition so we can get this stopped.
Chris tells a bit of his story:
Sign up to receive informative and exciting email updates from Mike's Medicines!
You can sign up for our mail list here:
Didn't find what you are looking for?
Find exactly what you want to when you want it.
Browse through our archives by date, category or by entering a topic in the provided search field.
Archives
Categories
More to come as we have time to add them – there’s 100’s of additional publications!
