Rhys Morgan

Rhys Morgan (born 1994) is a consumer watchdog, science activist, and health blogger from Wales who first received acclaim in 2010 when, at the age of 15, he played a key role in raising awareness of the health risks of Miracle Mineral Supplement. Morgan brought attention to the fact that the product contained bleach and was being illegally marketed as a "miracle" cure, which prompted a consumer warning across the European Union and earned Morgan a James Randi Award for Grassroots Activism.

In 2011, Morgan again received media attention and acclaim, this time for his commentary on treatments offered by Stanislaw Burzynski, a controversial Texas-based physician who uses substances he calls "antineoplastons" as part of a non-approved alternative cancer therapy regimen. Morgan's critique provoked legal and personal threats from a public relations representative of the Burzynski Clinic, which in turn precipitated a hailstorm of criticism from the media, who defended Morgan, and prompted a public apology from the Clinic. In January 2012 Morgan was censured by his school for posting a Jesus and Mo cartoon as his Facebook profile for a week, in solidarity with University College London's Atheist, Secular, and Humanist Society. The school told him to remove the cartoon from his Facebook archive, and when he refused, threatened him with expulsion. Morgan spoke at the Rally for Free Expression in London on 11 February.

Biography Rhys Morgan was born in 1994 and lives in Cardiff, Wales. He attended Cardiff High School, where he studied mathematics, chemistry, biology and psychology at AS level,

Science activism

Miracle Mineral Supplement Rhys Morgan receiving the James Randi Award for Grassroots Activism (TAM London, 16 October 2010. Photo by Kelly Haddow). On the right is James Randi. Morgan first learned of Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS) in 2010 after he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and, while researching his condition, came across the Crohn's Disease Forum, a website run by a patient support group. He noticed "a disturbing undercurrent of people trying to push alternative medicines to members".

Morgan and others began documenting sellers of MMS and reporting them to the relevant authorities in Britain, and he eventually addressed a public meeting of the Cardiff Council to win the backing of trading standards officers to highlight the dangers of MMS. across the European Union and put United Kingdom councils on alert over retail sales of MMS. and on podcasts such as The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, Righteous Indignation, and Token Skeptic.

For his efforts in raising awareness about MMS, Morgan was presented with the James Randi Award for Grassroots Activism at The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) in London in October 2010, and received a standing ovation from the meeting's attendees. Several bloggers, including Morgan, reported other cases of patients who had spent similar amounts of money on the Clinic's treatments, and had died, and challenged the validity of Burzynski's antineoplaston therapy. Marc Stephens, identifying himself as a representative of the Burzynski Clinic, sent emails to Morgan accusing him of libel and demanding that coverage of Burzynski be removed from his site.

The threats against Morgan prompted a media backlash against Stephens and the Burzynski Clinic, as reporters from Discover Magazine,