Thanks to friend and reader Konchog Norbu, whose bull-detector went off when he saw this headline on the front of the supermarket tabloid The National Examiner: “Buddhist Beliefs Killed Steve Jobs: Harvard Report.”
“Basically,” Konchog told me, “it cited some guy saying that Jobs’ ‘Buddhist beliefs’ led him to dabble in kooky alternative treatments for his illness, thus hastening his demise.”
He was right to be dubious of the story.
The story’s source was no “Harvard Report” but instead “Dr. Ramzi Amri, a researcher at Harvard Medical School.” The story itself is brought to you by the Christian Post, and titled “Steve Jobs Died Early as His Buddhist Beliefs Shunned Conventional Cancer Treatment. An excerpt:
According to a 2008 CNN Money article, Jobs decided to employ alternative methods to treat his pancreatic cancer, hoping to avoid the operation through a special diet.
These alternate methods were said to be an influence of Jobs’ Buddhist beliefs.
(The article goes on to say that Amri identifed this to be his personal opinion.)
For more (and, more legitimate) coverage of Jobs and his Buddhist connections, see our previous coverage, and especially Steve Silberman’s piece, “What Kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, Really?”