I never heard either if Dan ever responded to the article, although he probably talked to others about it in a joking manner. As far as him being the devil, that's just hilariously absurd.
My opinion is that usnic acid is not anywhere near as horrible as that article so glaringly states. I'd much rather see an article outlining the dangers of using margarine rather than usnic acid.
There seems to be discrepancy in the scientific terminology usage in that article and what is in the cited literature. This article seems to use the term "uncoupling" as though it were a phenom unique to usnic acid. In reality, it is not. It is rather surprising how many other substances are mitochondrial uncouplers. Also, you can't really compare how usnic acid affects pathologic dermal lesions and relate this similarly to oral intake, given the broad cell phase distinctions between neoplasms of almost any nature and normal tissue. Whether or not this translates into real world side effects is unclear. However, the mitoclastic and spindle effects, if they are as reported, probably would have manifested sooner rather than later.
But then again, I'm not an oncologist.