Questionable Diseases
Image taken from a 2022 doc preview: https://goldenglobes.com/articles/docs-syndrome-k-and-how-fake-disease-saved-lives/
Preface: I have KT Syndrome, a rare disease that’s introduced me to people with conditions you've never heard of. Today, I’m not talking about my personal experience. I’m talking about questionable diseases, one you’ve never heard of, and one you definitely have.
Syndrome K: The Fake Disease that Saved Lives
In Nazi-occupied Italy, there was a disease so mysterious, so terrifying, that German soldiers wouldn’t even enter a hospital ward where it appeared.
They called it Syndrome K.
Syndrome K wasn’t real. That’s exactly what made it powerful.
At Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome, doctors like Adriano Ossicini and Giovanni Borromeo used this fictional diagnosis to hide Jews from deportation. When Nazis came looking, the staff calmly explained that certain patients had contracted “Syndrome K”—a deadly, disfiguring, and highly contagious illness.
The Nazis backed off.
As I regularly point out: Jew-haters, especially antizionists, are not smart. They never asked what virus caused the syndrome, like a semi-educated person would. They just followed orders: marching or medical.
Nazi stupidity and Italian doctor genius saved lives. It was a masterclass in weaponized compassion. No guns. No grenades. Just a lie so frightening it worked.
In a world where people debate whether resisting oppression requires open warfare, Syndrome K reminds us: sometimes the most radical act is keeping someone alive. And I support any “resistance movement” that focuses on saving lives rather than taking them, much like I support poetry and debate over chants.
Asperger’s Syndrome: Diagnosis with a Dark History
There was a time when diagnoses were left to professionals. Now, in a post-truth world where antisemites define antisemitism and people get diagnosed via WebMD and TikTok, labels are currency. Everyone thinks they know what autism is. Several friends and family members have insisted they have it, or I have it, and that’s enough. So it’s strangely common to also know Tism’s “little brother” Asperger’s Syndrome.
Fewer people know about the man behind the name, or why many on the spectrum now reject it.
In 1944, Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger described a set of behaviors in boys who struggled socially but had strong language or reasoning skills. He called it “autistic psychopathy,” which later became known as Asperger’s Syndrome.
[Side note: Asperger only diagnosed boys, which many say contributes to the chronic underdiagnosis of autism in women. Medical bias is real. That’s a topic for another blog, so here I’ll just say that the medical bias may have ironically saved some undiagnosed women’s lives ]
For years, the Asperger’s label was worn like a badge by quirky geniuses, misunderstood kids, and Silicon Valley types who finally had a reason for avoiding eye contact. It became shorthand for “socially off, but brilliant.” [Again, I’m not a fan of people giving themselves diagnoses, even if it is seen as a nerd’s coming-of-age arc, courtesy of the DSM. I have friends who didn’t speak until they were 6 years old and it feels diminishing to compare them to the quirky LGBT+ person who decided they’re on every spectrum.]
Then came the inconvenient truth: Hans Asperger worked in Nazi-controlled Vienna, and unlike the Italian doctors mentioned above, he cooperated.
Historian Herwig Czech’s research revealed that Asperger actively referred disabled children to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic, where they were euthanized under Hitler’s child euthanasia program. This is not an exaggeration, the antisemites and antizionists performed medical murder, built into the healthcare system.
Asperger helped decide who was "salvageable" and who was "uneducable." One group might get therapy. The other got executed. And he wasn’t reluctantly pressured. He gave lectures on the difference between "valuable" and "unworthy" lives. [For comparison, your medical treatment is dictated by how much money you have and where you were born. If you’re in a first world country, consider yourself lucky.]
Today, that same chilling rhetoric is echoed by many Palestine supporters, who claim "Zionist lives don't matter," shamelessly parroting racial purity ideology while claiming to be anti-racist. These are the same people who lie that Israel "banned DNA tests" to support their theories of Jewish impurity. Jews are somehow "not Semitic enough," unless they’re antizionist, in which case their DNA becomes miraculously valid and semetic.
We live in a time where microaggressions are treated more seriously than death threats. It’s more likely someone will correct you for saying “Asperger’s” instead of “autism spectrum” (or the hip new shorthand “tism”) than speak up against genocidal rhetoric about wanting to murder the Zio-Jews.
Whose Diagnose Is It Anyway?
Hopefully, I've made the contrast clear: Syndrome K was a fake diagnosis used to save people. Asperger’s Syndrome was a real diagnosis used to murder people.
Both are legacies of WWII, but their consequences echo today.
And in our time, diagnosis itself has become a strange form of identity performance. People get labeled ADHD and walk away with a prescription for their favorite upper. Others with vague trauma pick up an anxiety or PTSD label, take dangerous meds, and risk spiraling further. Everyone is depressed.
Some diagnoses are useful. Some are lifesaving. But some are badges, a form of tribal membership or moral shield. We’ve turned conditions into branding, and struggle into aesthetic.
I’m not ashamed of my own diagnoses. KT Syndrome. I felt great relief and love meeting others with it, sharing our struggle of never ever having a doctor who knows what KT is. But I don’t understand the urge to build personality around it, or to act like it gives moral high ground in every conversation.
We need a better system for defining what’s “normal.” Being anxious doesn’t mean you’re broken. Being sad doesn’t mean you're diseased. The baseline for happiness varies. I don’t have the answer, but I know that over-prescribing is not helping.
I also know this: antisemitism is a real disease. And I see it constantly. I see it in my LinkedIn DMs, where strangers harass me to validate their antizionism or justify outright Jew-hate. It’s obsessive. It’s compulsive. It’s irrational. It looks an awful lot like… addiction. [See “REPOST: Pat Johnson, ‘Israel Is Not Your Shrink’”
My intro discusses the DSM’s definition of addiction, and why I believe the obsession with destroying Israel fits the model frighteningly well.]
Drop a comment with your thoughts. Just don’t diagnose me, bro.
