My Malignant Melanoma

What is I presume a paid publicist over on the melanoma board has brought up the old Rigvir (supposed over-the-counter Latvian virus cure for MM) scam again.

The list of publications on the producer's website might look impressive to a non-scientist, but not one of them is published in a journal where fellow scientists get to exercise quality control over claims (what is known as peer-review). Despite being quoted as supposedly supporting the use of the "treatment", the overwhelming majority of the papers do not actually make any claims about the safety or effectiveness of the "therapy". It has never used been in any clinical trial, despite supposedly being developed forty years ago.

Confusingly, there is a real virus therapy for melanoma, Oncovex. What's the difference? There is evidence that Oncovex might work, and be safe. This is not the case for Rigvir. Be warned!

Labels: latvia, Melanoma, oncovex, rigvir, scam, virotherapy, virus

I've been busy with work and teaching, and having now been banned from all cancer forums I would care to frequent, other than the Melanoma Board, the lack of any sign of recurrence means that MM isn't very much of my life nowadays. This is no bad thing- I wouldn't miss it if it was no part of my life at all, but with stage 3b MM, it'll be twelve years before I can be reasonably certain I dodged a bullet. 

There's a twinge of guilt that John, Katie, Alison, Kerry and so many others never got to say "perhaps it's time to move on a bit", but life's not fair. It wasn't fair that I or those others got MM. Whether I live or die, there's a level on which that wouldn't be fair either, but MM isn't about fairness.