My Malignant Melanoma

I received the following message from someone whose website describes her as a home-schooling mother:

"I was reading on the American Cancer Society about alkalizing and cancer. They stated that it was found to be of benefit to alkalize your body to inhibit cancer. My father in law started doing it 10 years ago and is 8 years past his death diagnoses for Multiple Myleloma. Why do you say it does not work? on Tullio Simoncini"

I get lots of these. I never publish them as comments because they have links in them to quack sites. This one is however extra-stupid. None of those vague and hard to disprove claims for this home-educator. I am not in a position to verify their anecdote, but I can fact-check the rest of it.

So does the American cancer society recommend alkalising your body? Here are their diet and exercise guidelines. No mention of alkaline diet there, or anywhere on their website. The internet is however full of quacks and their dupes claiming the ACS as the primary source for this nonsense - but it just isn't true.

In fact I didn't really need to check, as it can't be true, because the ACS employs scientists and doctors who know that there is no diet which can alkalise the body. Alkaline Diet is nonsense, and Tullio Simoncini is a convicted fraudster, barred from practising medicine after his conviction for the manslaughter of a patient in his "care".

There is no mention anywhere in the publications of the ACS or any other reputable body of a diet which can reverse cancer, these are the usual "healthy eating" guidelines intended to reduce the risk of cancer. There is in fact no diet known or even suspected of being able to reverse cancer of any kind, though the web is full of such nonsensical claims.

Alkaline, Budwig, Gerson, and the rest of the quack diets are promoted by scum who prey on cancer patients, and supported by muddle-headed fools who think we should treat all opinions as equal, whatever the supporting evidence.

Even after bottom-feeding vermin like Simoncini have been struck off, convicted as killers and fraudsters, morons stick up for them.

Why do I say it does not work? Leaving aside for a moment the fact that I am not obliged to disprove  false medical claims, but their proponents to prove them - try this list of a few of Simoncini's victims. It includes details of how much this killer charges the victims of his fraud.

Labels: alkaline, Alternative, quack, Tullio Simoncini

Whilst you can believe what you like, there is in fact plenty of evidence that positive mental attitude and attitude have no effect on the outcome of cancer (though of course it isn't science's job to prove every fad wrong).
Every trial which finds no effect on cancer isn't just not providing supporting evidence, it is providing opposing evidence.
For example, dietary Vitamin C has been trialled, and is known not to work. It's not just that it hasn't been proven not to work, so thinking that it might work is supportable - it has been shown not to work. Beta carotene was tested and found to be actively harmful, as was vitamin E.
The informed position here is that the normal dietary recommendations, without any dietary supplements, or the elimination of any dietary component is what is recommended for cancer patients, and that if there are any circumstances in which a special diet is needed, the patient will be told by their care team. Patients should discuss with that team any supplement they are thinking of taking or diet they are thinking of trying, not anonymous people on the internet who might be healthy but bored teenage kids or alternative medicine practitioners for all we know.
Positive mental attitude has no effect on the outcome of cancer, and research suggests that the best coping style for the patient is their usual one. If you are usually sunny in disposition, go with that, but being admonished to keep smiling when you feel like crying is not encouraging but oppressive. It sounds great saying you need to have a fighting attitude to cancer, but my friend's 15-year old daughter died of MM - didn't she try hard enough to live?
Perhaps this is why I so often see the relatives of those with cancer as the foremost proponents of PMA on cancer boards. As you point out, we wouldn't want to be overwhelmed with negative emotions, and of course we all try not to be, and to protect those who care for us from our darker moments. But for those of you who haven't had cancer, let me tell you, it can be a bit of a downer. I know cancer's cheerleaders mean well, but what are they telling those who feel depressed, and those who despair - cheer up or you'll die?
Yes, there is hope. I have/have had advanced cancer, and was given the "its' all palliative from here" speech five years ago. I have melanoma, for which there was no treatment other than surgery back when I was diagnosed. I had the surgery, and after researching the so called "alternatives", got on with my life. I haven't taken any quack diets, supplements or complementary therapies, yet here I am, five years NED. It's a miracle!
No it isn't. I have had proven effective treatment, and I been lucky so far. Others I know had the same treatment at the same stage as me, and they are dead. The world is a chancy and an unfair place. We all want to believe that some lucky charm or magic beans will make us lucky. Nothing more human than superstition, but it doesn't work on cancer - surgery, chemo and radiotherapy work.
The great hope for MM patients is that during the time since I was diagnosed, new life-extending drugs have been developed by those evil drug companies I hear so much about on cancer forums. They were not found by chance from the "alternatives"- nothing ever has been, despite what you hear on the 'net. They were found via the human genome project. Have hope, but look in the right direction. If we are going to be cured, the answer will come from science and medicine, not from "alternative medicine"'s cynical exploiters of the desperate, or the woolly minded fools of "complementary therapy".
So called complementary and alternative medicine (sCAM) doesn't work. I mean not just that it doesn't cure cancer, but that it has no beneficial effect on cancer treatment. It doesn't help treatment to work, as those who like to blur the line between hard reality and pleasant fantasy claim. It has no effect whatever on cancer. Of course a bit of a footrub or some smellies might be nice - I like a massage and a go in the steam room myself. But that's not why I'm here writing this. It's because some people spent long years training and learning things that many others spent hard years discovering, and those people used their skills and knowledge to apparently cure me. You want hope? Hope in them.
Of course many of them didn't have time in all of this training to acquire people skills, and the level of people skills required to deal effectively on an emotional level with confused, frightened, despairing people all day every day is a very big ask.  I understand if people want a book or a person to put their faith in, someone to make sense of it all, a bit of harmless comfort, some way of feeling in control, even if it's just over what they eat.
If only these simple comforters would have the honesty to admit the truth, which is that all they offer is empty comfort. If only they wouldn't attempt to erode confidence in our real chance of survival, to blur the line, and claim more power than they really have. Many of them do have that honesty, and fair play to them. But those who offer false hope with lies and half-truths put people on the slippery slope that leads into the hands of "alternative medicine" - and consequently death. So have a care.

Labels: Alternative, complementary, quack

I think my latest email from psychiatrist-turned-amateur-oncologist Julian Lieb speaks for itself:

Claude Bernard noted that people whose “minds are bound and cramped” disdain opposing theories because they do not want to discover anything that might disprove their own. Bernard referred to them as “despisers of their fellows,” corrupting results that support their rivals, thus falsifying the facts.

It is the human and ethical right of every patient, physician and citizen, to receive medical information without any interference, second guessing, reevaluation, modification, editorializing, corruption, or delay. Your disparaging comments are immediately encountered upon Googling, thus corrupting my entire research output, and corrupting human and ethical rights on a gigantic scale. You have permanently damaged my reputation, and deprived an incalculable number of cancer sufferers, of their human and ethical rights, of which these are the most important. It is in your best interests to eradicate every detail of our relationship, and apologize to those whose human and ethical rights you corrupted. You did not have the right to corrupt my innovation, stigmatize me, and corrupt my human and ethical rights..

I advise you to terminate all of your internet activities, and never use it again to disseminate your opinions, positive or negative, about any health related issue. Many physicians are deeply concerned about rampant medical corruption on the internet, of which this is a prime example. 

He's banned me from the internet! Glad to hear I am so effective. If only.

Labels: antidepressant, Julian Lieb M.D, quack

Inga the Rigvir publicist has been kind enough to write again:

Well, this obviously is a one-man-show. Seanty – the utmost expert in all cancer medicines, and a professional guide to Latvia's medical system. :) The one and only voice of truth from the depths of civilization.

You place a link to a U.S. Clinical Trials website. Why?! What does this link have to do with a medicine which is registered in Latvia?! You won't find RIGVIR in the U.S., Turkey's, Ukraine's, or any other country's clinical trials' sites, and you don't have to spend your precious time trying to prove it. RIGVIR went through all clinical trials in L A T V I A.

By the way, what is this disdain towards my country? Sounds like you're having some personal issues which have nothing to do with objective evaluation of RIGVIR. What next? You will try to force that everyone should eat at McDonald's just because it's the American way?

I will not involve in this again so enjoy your incompetent babbling about civilization, highly infectious viruses, medical systems, clinical trials, untested virotherapy(?!) and so on and so forth.

She also put three links to her employer's quack promotion sites at the end, presumably in the hope that I would be stupid enough to post them up. Duh.

But she has questions: so let's answer them: Why did I post a link to the US clinical trials site, showing no mention of Rigvir? Because if you want to sell a medical treatment worldwide, you register your trial there-but it's not just that Rigvir hasn't been tested to international standards. I can see no evidence that Rigvir has ever been subjected to any clinical trials at all, in Latvia or elsewhere. The dross they list on their publicity site is not reports of clinical trials against melanoma or anything else, or even papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. It constitutes far more trivial claims, which were never checked by third parties, made twenty years ago.

So, it is untested. It is a virotherapy. It is an untested virotherapy. Fact.

Rigvir is an ECHO virus,  so the claim that it is of  a type which is both highly infectious and responsible for many cases of childhood meningitis is factual.

Why the disdain toward Latvia? Well, joking aside, it's quite a focussed disdain. If Inga and her employers are not in prison, Latvia's medical standards need tightening up.

Labels: latvia, quack, rigvir, virotherapy

In Latvia, you can buy lab-modified highly infectious childhood meningitis viruses over the counter in the chemist (and for all I know, the newsagent) with unsubstantiated claims of effectiveness against melanoma. This product, untested for safety or effectiveness, is called Rigvir. "Inga" writes (probably from the office of Rigvir's publicists):

"Sorry if I'm wrong, Seanty, but you are trying so hard to “destroy” Rigvir that it makes me think you have been paid by someone to do so. I wonder who might that have been. Oncovex?"

Be sorry then, Inga, because you are wrong on all counts.

"Nevertheless, it's great you post your opinion, but why do you slender the facts? Let's see - Rigvir has been registered in a member state of the EU, that's a fact. This fact proves that Rigvir has gone through ALL 3 PHASES of clinical trials. Cancer patients should be allowed to decide for themselves on the efficiency of some medicine, but they should not be given wrong information, agree?"

First let's remove the wrong information from your own communication, Inga - Rigvir has not been subjected to a phase 1 clinical trial, let alone passed all three. Latvia's medical system is (to put it politely) not quite as formal as those in the more developed EU countries. That you can buy an untested virotherapy over the counter in pharmacies tells you everything you need to know about medical regulatory standards in Latvia. If it passes clinical trials, Oncovex is not going to be found next to the tampons in Superdrug.

Then there is the question you raise of whether of cancer patients should judge for themselves on the efficiency of cancer medicines. Though I understand you have your own ways on Latvia, over here in civilisation we have doctors for that. It's quite tricky you see, even if you aren't making the decision under threat of death.

A quick look around the internet shows the results of letting frightened unqualified people choose their own treatment for life-threatening illnesses. They get ripped off by bloodsucking scum like your employer, then they die. Other than that it's a great idea, obviously.

Labels: latvia, quack, rigvir, virotherapy

I've had the following attempted comment over on my Tullio Simoncini post:

"Someone obviously needs to do more research and perhaps brush up on their high school chemistry and biology. The human body will only remain healthy if it has the proper PH balance, and that is all Sodium Bicarbonate does is raise the level of the PH, which does not allow for any bacteria, virus or fungi to thrive. "

Fantastic! The commentator is under the impression that they understand basic biology and chemistry better than I do. He is also under the impression that a bit of bicarb raises the pH of the human body so radically that it kills all bacteria, fungi and viruses without harming the person involved, and clearly implies that killing these organisms kills cancer.  On his planet, Rennies kill cancer, because cancer is a fungus, and fungi are killed by alkali.  

So let's have a look at this idea. The highest pH at which I can see a report of fungi growing, is 11.2. Now that's a bit of a problem there, straight away. If bicarb really could get your body's pH to 11.3 you'd be dead. Having blood pH over 7.45 is a medical condition called alkalosis, get much above that and you're toast. So if bicarb really could increase pH to the range which kills fungi, the patient would be long dead by the time you got there.

But can adding bicarbonate of soda really get you to that pH? Nope. It is only a weak alkali, solutions have a maximum pH only around 8. So bicarb will only elevate pH to around 1 unit from neutral, whereas some fungi can survive at pH 11+ (It is perhaps worth mentioning that pH is not a straight line scale, such that pH 11 is 1000 times as big as pH 8)

So, even if the human body's highly effective system for preventing alkalosis of the blood didn't exist, it simply is not chemically possible for bicarb to kill all fungi. And if it were? Cancer is not a fungus. Duh.

He's right about one thing though "Someone obviously needs to do more research and perhaps brush up on their high school chemistry and biology" I'm however not that someone, hope this helped anyone who did need a brush-up.

Labels: alkaline, quack, Tullio Simoncini

Another well-meaning advanced MM patient is plugging Gerson to their fellows, this time on Marsha's Melanomates Facebook group. Though its promotion by the desperate and the deluded has never lessened in the four years or so since I was diagnosed, not a single paper has been published in support of Gerson in a peer-reviewed journal, just like in the preceding fifty-odd years since Gerson dreamed this scam up. Gerson is still nonsense.

Labels: Gerson, quack, Therapy

Over on my Brandon Bays post, a fan of alternative medicine attempted to post a muddle-headed comment, drawing my attention to an Australian study which concludes that cytotoxic chemotherapy contributes little to five-year survival. He has the mistaken belief that this paper somehow strengthens the case for alternative medicine in general, and the quackery of Brandon Bays in particular. 

I'm afraid that wouldn't follow logically even if this paper claimed (it doesn't) to have proven that chemo made no difference at all. Proof that chemo didn't work at all wouldn't tell us anything about whether magic beans cured cancer. This is the classic alternative medicine technique of muddying the waters.

What the paper actually says is that for adults, only a very modest (2.3%) increase in five year-survival was on average conferred solely by cytotoxic chemotherapy (note that this is not the raw figure, but has been corrected downwards to account for the placebo effect, and the effects of surgery and radiotherapy).

Tell us something we don't know! (Note that cytotoxic chemotherapy is a sub-set of chemotherapy, using simpler, older, drugs highly toxic with a lot of side-effects like cisplatin, and that the placebo effect accounts for 100% of the effect shown by alternative techniques). This sort of chemo is used only as a palliative measure in MM, so only the sickest patients get it, and it's a desperate measure. It's not only MM where this is true, so averaging across all cancers is a bit misleading (especially to non-scientists looking to promote quackery).

The paper says that for MM and a number of other cancers, there is no evidence of improved 5-year survival at all, but admits that for certain cancers, improvements in five year survival of up to 40% are evident. Drawing the blanket conclusion that this sort of chemo is no better than alternative medicine from this paper is unwarranted.

The paper says that some patients are oversold the possible benefits of chemo, and expect too much of it where only very modest improvements are possible. The point of the paper is that overall, this is not great value for the health service, and the cost/benefit profile of individual drugs should be considered in the way NICE does in the UK.

Again, we knew that, but look at the campaigns to allow sick cancer patients access to very expensive drugs that no-one is claiming offer more than a few extra months of life. Cytotoxic drugs are usually pretty easy to make, and consequently cheap. A team of medical researchers made one on top of Snowdon. Whilst it might not be great on average, the 15% response rate of DTIC means that some individuals get a few extra years. This effect is insignificant at the 5-year survival group level, but is significant as hell to those few individuals.

Now this might sound like the sort of arguments advanced by alties, but let us be clear. I am not saying (as they do) that these things really work, but your stupid science just cannot detect it. I am saying that licenced chemotherpaies have been shown to work, but in the case of MM, they are not likely to cure. (Note however that the paper concedes that in the case of some cancers chemo DOES offer a very significant chance of a cure)

So to return to Brandon Bays, does the paper we have been offered to support his claim that all chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery is harmful to all cancer patients do so? No, it says that sometimes (taking away those cases attributable to the placebo effect, radiotherapy and surgery) one particular sort of chemotherapy does not CURE some sorts of cancer. It does not give any case where is says that chemo makes cancer worse. It does not say that this sort of chemo is not helpful. This paper does not support the case it is quoted in support of in any way.

If there were a paper with the conclusion our poster thinks this one has, the treatment in question would be withdrawn - the NHS does not knowingly pay for treatments intended to cure which instead kill. There is no conspiracy to suppress the truth. There is no such thing as alternative medicine-there is medicine, and there is quackery. Funny isn't it that they lose their distrust of science when they think they have found a scientist who agrees with them though, isn't it?

Labels: Brandon Bays, Caron Keating, quack

Another illiterate quacktard has written in, to plug his overpriced fruit drink as a cure for cancer, and complain semi-incoherently about my treatment of killer quack Tullio Simoncini as follows:

"Now that's typical of you to discharge accomplishments. It is common knowledge about the pH balance in the body promotes an acidic or alkaline environment. Cancer CANNOT exist in a alkaline rich and oxygen rich environment. Legally we as practitioners cannot claim a cure, but the evidence is overwhelming. You on the other hand, leave no name nor any of your credentials. "The comment's author links to his quack products site, hoping that I'm going to send cancer patients there to be fleeced.

I'm not sure what "discharge accomplishments" means. Any suggestion that Simoncini has achieved anything other being struck off as a doctor, and killing desperately ill people is news to me. Can anyone offer objective evidence to suggest that Simoncini has achieved anything other than enriching himself at the expense of the desperate?

Neither am I aware of evidence that it is common knowledge that the pH balance in the body promotes an acidic or alkaline environment. Whatever common opinion might be, expert opinion is that the commenter's statement is confused nonsense.

"Legally we as practitioners cannot claim a cure, but the evidence is overwhelming." That sounds like you are in fact claiming a cure. If you were in the UK, that would be a criminal offence.

Someone who is attempting to sell overpriced fruit-juice to cancer patients with a promise it will cure them describing themselves as a "practitioner" also seems a new low to me, in a field already lower than snake-shit. Congratulations!

The evidence is in fact underwhelming in the extreme to scientists and qualified medical practitioners. Unless someone would like to offer scientific evidence in support of the acid/alkaline theory of disease?

As far as withholding my name is concerned, I have no wish to be subject to further legal harassment by libel tourists acting on behalf of quacks. I am a cancer patient, and harassing me just shows how callous quacks are.

I make no claims to personal medical expertise, but merely link to the opinion of those who are qualified.

Look, stupids-either show me the evidence which backs your outlandish claims in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, or expect your ill-informed comments to be either simply rejected or held up to public ridicule.

Labels: alkaline, Alternative, Diet, nonsense, quack, Tullio Simoncini

Some insane and illiterate comments I have received recently (web addresses deleted) in support of Tullio Simoncini and another quack are worthy of reproduction:

Hello,

Do you have any evidense that what you say is true? Are you a doctor that profits from melanoma patients?I have spoken with several people who have cured their melanoma with the Iodine solution.The theroy should not matter if the therapy works, and cost almost nothing, and The Itakian doctor makes no profit from teaching pateints. Logic shows that you are the quack who seeks to protect your profits by such claims without any merit.

I can find no facts to be true from you, what I have researched is that Dr simoncini had tried to help a cancer patient who was in very late stage cancer and was in very bad condition because of chemotherapy. He did not have the chance to try therapy because the patient had died trying to recover from the chemotherapy. Dr. Josewph Gold has been put through almost the same attcks by the Cancer industry, Ifeel very sorry for the Doctors who are attacked by corrupt people like you ( for profit cancer Doctor)

Iodine treatment for Melanoma is almost free and Dr. Simoncini makes no money for this help. Are you a cancer doctor that is theatened by this free cure? You can still find work in Mcdonalds

Perhaps something does need to be added. The Dr. Gold mentioned by the nutter is the main proponent of hydrazine sulphate treatment of cancer, despite all of the evidence showing it to be of no benefit. He is a real doctor, hasn't been convicted of killing anyone (though there has been a death as a result of hydrazine treatment). I can see clear blue water between someone like Dr. Gold who is arguably merely mistaken, and an unrepentant killer like Simoncini.

Labels: Dr. Joseph Gold, iodine, mental illness, quack, Tullio Simoncini

Someone has written to me to suggest that the delusional quack Tullio Simoncini, convicted of the unlawful killing of one of his patients is "200% correct" in his assertions that cancer is a fungus. Here is the story of one of his patients. Judge for yourselves.

Labels: killer, quack, Tullio Simoncini

Over on CRUK's cancer chat site, there's a muppet who is plugging the Budwig Diet to cancer patients. Here's what I had to say to him:

"A quick glance round the internet shows that people are using this diet instead of radio-and chemo-therapy on the advice of morons like you.

Thinking that the papers you linked to in some way supports the Budwig diet only confirms your scientific ignorance. None of the papers are about the Budwig diet at all.

As I said, science deals with evidence, and there is no evidence whatever for the Budwig diet. There's nothing more to say from a scientific point of view. I have an open mind-show me some evidence. Believing the unsupported word of an internet time-waster like yourself isn't open-mindedness, it's stupidity.

Linus Pauling's ideas on dietary Vitamin C and cancer were tested and are nonsense (We might note in passing that he actually died of cancer)

The research you refer to is about intravenous vitamin C rather than dietary Vitamin C, in mice rather than people, and is far from conclusive. Linus Pauling won the Nobel prize for work on the nature of the chemical bond. He had neither training nor any research background in Medicine, or any biological science.

Your logical error is called the appeal to authority. Linus Pauling also had strong political opinions. Should we remake society in line with them because he won a Nobel Peace Prize? It does not logically follow that being right about chemical bonds makes you right about cancer, politics, or indeed even reliably right about some other aspect of chemistry. (Even Budwig's supporters claim that she was nominated for the peace prize rather than the prize for medicine, incidentally)

Bring some real evidence to back your assertions, or shut up. Since you clearly wouldn't know evidence if it was tattooed on your forehead, it's going to be a long wait. That's evidence that the Budwig diet is helpful for the outcome of all cancers which I'm talking about, as this is the claim that is being made.

The most impressive of the papers you linked to concludes that one component of the Budwig diet MIGHT be worthy of further investigation for some prostate cancer patients.

1. It does not study the Budwig diet at all, but a simple low-fat diet with flax seed oil. Budwig made strong claims that organic flaxseed oil must be mixed with organic cottage cheese to be effective, and that either component taken separately would have the opposite of the desired effect. The study you quote does however pertain to this claim. It tends to disprove it, as no excess deaths were recorded in the patients as would be expected from Budwig's claims.

The Budwig Protocol is actually a complete lifestyle, which besides flaxseed oil/cottage cheese includes a number of elements. It includes a vegetarian diet, flaxseeds, fruit juices, vegetable juices, sauerkraut, sunshine, "emotional and spiritual peace" "stress control", "avoiding negative energy" from a variety of sources in synthetic clothing, bedding, etc. in your immediate environment. and so on...

2. It only studies one sort of cancer. Things which help with one sort of cancer can harm in the case of another. For example testosterone is required to allow prostate cancers to grow, but it may inhibit breast cancers.

3. It does not study the post-treatment period when people seem most likely to be conned into the Budwig diet.

4. It does not conclude that the diet helps in any way, but that it MIGHT be worth looking into. Since the paper dates from 2008, it seems that they have not cured cancer in the meantime, or I would surely have heard about it.

5. The study does not actually look at survival or any real-world end-point at all, but biochemical changes which they believe might be associated with a better outcome.

Advising anyone to even consider the Budwig diet on the strength of this research is highly irresponsible. But of course your ideas on the Budwig diet come from internet quack sites, not scientific or medical research. These are the only places where this diet is promoted. You are just parroting quack propaganda.

Might I suggest that you, and anyone else like you, who want to play scientist/doctor based on tripe they read on the internet, who think that any study of a field implies scientific endorsement, and doesn't understand what the resulting papers mean refrain from giving unqualified medical advice to cancer patients?"

Obviously it would be better if people like this were split, salted and nailed to a fence, but we do what we can.

Labels: Budwig, Diet, nonsense, quack

I was recently showered with increasingly offensive emails by someone who thought that turmeric can cure cancer, and that I was highly irresponsible to say on this site that it doesn't.

So I had a look to see if any new evidence had come to light since I last looked into it. No new favourable evidence, but as ever, even more hucksters plugging alternative medicine. No wonder people get taken in, if they don't understand that being on the front page of Google isn't anything to do with accuracy of content.

CRUK have a page on turmeric, which I referenced in my previous post on the subject. It says that there is some anti-cancer activity in the test-tube, but that trials showed that it is so poorly absorbed from the gut that it is useless for anything other than gut cancers. It also cautioned against internet turmeric supplements, which have been shown to contain dangerous drugs.

Pretty much everything, including paracetamol has anti-cancer effects in cell culture or lab mice. It doesn't mean a damn thing.

The ranter also insisted that if he spoke to his doctor as I suggested, that his doctor would be struck off or even jailed if he were to agree that turmeric cured cancer. There is no conspiracy to suppress the truth about cancer treatment, other than the one perpetrated by the commercially motivated snake-oil merchants. You've been had, friend.

Labels: conspiracy, curcurmin, quack, snake-oil, turmeric

A concerned friend of a melanoma patient has written to me to ask about naturopathy in general and a naturopath called Etienne Callebout in particular. Of course naturopathy is little more than systematised quackery, but let's have a quick look at the things Callebout's publicity says he uses to treat cancer:

714X-Quackery
Aloe vera-Quackery
Amygdalin (laetrile)- Quackery
Bovine cartilage - Quackery
DMSO - Quackery

- you get the idea.

Wobe-Mugos enzymes - worthless
Glandulars - senseless
Green tea can be a nice drink, but does not cure cancer.
Iscador -is a trade name for mistletoe extract which "has no proven benefit and can cause harm"
Flaxseed oil - extremely questionable
Maitake - extremely questionable
Shark cartilage - Quackery
Homeopathic remedies - there are no such things

A quick glance over the 'net shows that these are just a small selection from Callebout's extensive arsenal of nice little earners. Cancer Patients Beware!

Labels: etienne callebout, naturopathy, quack

A fellow cancer patient has written to ask me whether Bernie Siegel is Kosher or Quack. Let's have a look at what Quackwatch have to say:

"Various psychologic methods are being promoted to cancer patients as cures or adjuncts to other treatment. The techniques include imagery, visualization, meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, and various forms of psychotherapy. These techniques may reduce stress, alleviate depression, help control pain, and enhance patients' feelings of mastery and control. Individual and group support can have a positive impact on quality of life and overall attitude. A positive attitude may increase a patient's chance of surviving cancer by increasing compliance with proven treatment. However, it has not been demonstrated that emotions directly influence the course of the disease.

Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of "Love, Medicine & Miracles" and "Peace, Love & Healing", claims that "happy people generally don't get sick" and that "one's attitude toward oneself is the single most important factor in healing or staying well." Siegel also states that "a vigorous immune system can overcome cancer if it is not interfered with, and emotional growth toward greater self-acceptance and fulfilment helps keep the immune system strong." However, he has published no scientific study supporting these claims.

A 10-year study co-authored by Siegel found that 34 breast cancer patients participating in his program did not live longer after diagnosis than comparable non-participants. The program consisted of weekly peer support and family therapy, individual counselling, and the use of positive imagery. In November 1998, Siegel sent a series of email messages to Dr. Barrett (who runs Quackwatch) in which he said that the study bearing his name had been done by a student and was improperly designed."

I think it would be more than fair to say that Siegel is making claims with no scientific foundation, which fly in the face of even his own research. This seems less than kosher to me.

The idea that attitude affects the course of cancer has been scientifically discredited for some time. As cancerbacup point out, whilst it has no beneficial effect the pressure to be positive can become an additional burden for a cancer patient.

There is some evidence that stress might have an effect on cancer progression, but that pressuring people with less sunny coping styles to be positive is stressful for them. This article discusses the research in question.

And then there are all of the studies (including Dr. Siegel's own one) which do not show the effect. Every one of these is a nail in the coffin of claims that it exists. Like so much pseudoscience, the harder you look, the less you see it.

But of course there are people for whom a positive mental attitude works wonders. The loved ones of the cancer patient. Perhaps this is why some of them are such fierce advocates of the PMA. Bad enough that their loved one is possibly dying, but do they really have to go on about it? Let's tell them that if they don't be a bit more positive they'll die sooner, that'll shut them up!

I'm sure that like myself, most cancer patients would like to take as positive and hopeful an attitude to their cancer, its treatment and prognosis as they can from moment to moment, as dictated by their normal coping style.

I'm sure that like me, they are as nice as they can be under the circumstances, and put on as brave a face as they can to protect their loved ones to the extent allowed by the emotional and physical resources available to them.

Having cancer is however a bit of a downer at times. Telling us to pull ourselves together is even less useful than it would be for someone suffering from depression. Telling us to be a bit more cheery on pain of death is less useful still.

Coming back to Dr Siegel, not only has he not proven that his ideas or "treatment" prolongs life, he has not proven that it makes people happier. He has not proven any one of his claims, but has in fact apparently personally supervised someone who has disproved them. He has no evidence to support his claims, but does has evidence to show that his personally supervised programme is worse than useless. Yet he does not retract any of his claims.

Is this fraud or quackery? I suppose that that decision depends on the precise definition of the words you are employing. We can however be pretty clear that this is not acting as a scientist or as an effective medical practitioner.

Labels: Bernie Siegel, Cancer, Clinical, evidence, Love, Love and Healing, M.D, Medicine and Miracles, Peace, promotion, psychologic methods, psychological, quack, Therapy

Another poster on What Now has passed on the irresponsible claims of a "Dr" Lodi about chemotherapy.

Legal threats on behalf of Lodi prevent me from commenting further than to say that Mr Lodi is presumably seeking only to promote the oxidative, chelation, homoeopathic, and other quack therapies he offers at his private clinic by his attacks on proven conventional treatments. His motivation is therefore financial.

His profoundly unhelpful and scientifically unjustified claims that doctors would not themselves have the treatments they give to patients were published in "Get Fresh" magazine.

This publication looks like a harmless health and beauty mag, but seems to actually be a slick propaganda sheet pushing the raw food quack diet, and seemingly all other forms of dietary alternative medicine.

This is not a reliable source of scientific or medical information. I wouldn't even trust its beauty tips.

They have been reported to their local trading standards department and the The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for what appears to be a clear breach of the Cancer Act, which prohibits anyone from making claims to be able to heal cancer of the sort they do on their website.

"Dr" Lodi is out of reach in the US, but these muppets are in the UK, and bound by our laws.

There is no alternative therapy which can strengthen the immune system. I'm sorry that anyone has been given false hope, or distressed by the false claims of a quack and a worthless magazine, but that's the truth.

Don't believe me? Ask Paul Merton's wife. Oh that's right, you can't, because she tried to beat cancer with the power of nutrition and positive thinking, and is consequently dead.

I think Gary38 is being a little too kind in describing this as "unproven" on the WN site, when "total and complete bollocks" might be more accurate, but sometimes it's hard to know which description is more convincing to the audience.

Labels: Alternative, Cancer, Chelation, Clinical, Diet, evidence, Get Fresh, Homeopathy, immune system, Insulin, Medicine, Oxidative, promotion, psychological, quack, Therapy, Thomas Lodi, Trial

I see someone has posted the old internet myth about asparagus and cancer on What Now. Perhaps someone at the asparagus marketing board is forwarding this tosh out in time for the fresh asparagus season.

The only reference anywhere in the world to the supposed original author "Richard R. Vensal, D.D.S" seems to be the version of the article which has been circulating the internet since 2006.

There is no other trace in the scientific literature of either the author, or the journal in which it was supposedly published (a now defunct collection of anecdotes on alternative medicine).

However, we can note that if there is a Richard Vensal, a DDS would make him a dentist, rather than a biochemist, a nutritionist or an oncologist.

As someone has pointed out on the board, "It is...a load of bullshit". Ah, le mot juste!

Ooh look, a timely nurse blog on this. Whatever next?

Labels: Alternative, asparagus, Cancer, Diet, evidence, Malignant, Medicine, Nature, promotion, quack, Richard Vensal, Trial

I see someone is promoting a dietary supplement called Biovitali Vitalcells on the What Now board with what looks to the unsophisticated eye like some reasonable scientific evidence. I guess the moderators will eventually get round to deleting this, but wouldn't it be better to have a look at how strong the evidence is?

So let's have a look at that evidence, which is:

1. The product has apparently been patented

2. It is supposedly endorsed by the MD Anderson Cancer Research Centre and the National Foundation for Cancer Research

3. Laboratory trials show it not just to stop cancer and cardiovascular illnesses in their tracks, but to prevent them occurring in the first place, and to extend life by 30%

Taking these claims one by one-

1. Patenting something does not mean that anyone has shown it to actually work. It is a commercial device to prevent anyone copying your work. Having a patent does not mean that something does what it claims. This is no evidence at all.

2. It seems not to be endorsed by either the MD Anderson Cancer Research Centre, or the National Foundation for Cancer Research as is claimed in the manufacturers literature. Both of the organisations in fact have advice against cancer patients and others taking non-prescribed food supplements on their websites, here and here. Neither of their websites make any mention of this product.

3. If the non-peer-reviewed in-house research on the manufacturer's website were true, and applicable to humans, cancer would be no more serious than the common cold. Every single one of the ingredients shows at least 80% tumour inhibition, and together they are even more powerful. But every one of these ingredients is a substance present in normal foodstuffs. How can this be?

Let's see what might be going on. Have a look at the table at the end on lifespan increase. 100% of these mice get cancer during their lives. That is because this strain of mouse has been specially bred to get skin cancer.

The experimenters made getting cancer a racing certainty in their antioxidant experiments by also injecting the mice with a powerful cancer-causing agent, and then constantly feeding them with something which helps cancer to grow.

They have not published their experimental protocol, but let us generously assume it was similar to that used in this real scientific research, despite us not being in a position to check whether they did things properly.

They fed the supplements along with the substance which helps cancer to grow, so that exposure to the promoter and the antioxidants was simultaneous.

Every single one of the ingredients showed incredible levels of tumour inhibition, far higher than that shown by the real treatment linked to previously. If I were a mouse genetically engineered to get a type of skin cancer who happened to have accidentally been injected with a potent carcinogen, and to be unfortunate enough to be on a drip of a drug which promoted the growth of cancer, it seems like this product would be well worth a look. Any other species, any other sort of cancer? Well, we'd have to look at the peer reviewed evidence.

Of course, this product is just a vitamin and antioxidant supplement, which contains the usual stuff, including a number of substances that in real people have been shown promote cancer when taken as a supplement, rather than inhibiting it, such as:

Beta Carotene
Vitamin A
Vitamin E
Vitamin C

Furthermore, the claims that taking combinations of these substances improved their effect is the opposite of what has been found in real studies. Combining beta carotene with vitamin A or vitamin E actually kills more people than either ingredient alone. Source.

There is therefore no chance whatever that the lab results shown in its website have any meaning for cancer patients.

Cancer Research UK advise as follows about all food supplements:

" We need a lot more research in this area before we will know for sure which vitamin and diet supplements may play a role in helping treat, prevent or control cancer. The best way to get the vitamins and minerals you need is through a balanced and varied diet, with plenty of fruit and vegetables. Vitamin supplements don’t have the same benefits as naturally occurring vitamins in fruit and vegetables."

And of course we now know that for those receiving active treatment, antioxidants and vitamin C can block the effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Source.

Someone has suggested on the What Now site that explaining all of the above is unnecessary, and that the last thing the site needs are know-alls telling you all what to think. But here is that same person thanking me for educating them on this very subject after they gave bad advice to someone.

Maybe the site doesn't need know-alls, but know-somethings are useful in situations like this, aren't they? Failing that, the know-nothings could at least not give advice to desperate people in areas they know nothing about.

I see someone has started a new "natural treatment" thread on WN. I'll be interested to see if Gary's polite and sound advice is well-taken. History suggests no, but the site is under moderator lockdown whilst my complaint is being investigated, so who knows?

Labels: Biovitali, Cancer, Clinical, Diet, evidence, immune system, Malignant, Medicine, Melanoma, Nature, promotion, quack, Supplements, Trial, Vitalcells, Vitamin D, Vitamins

Cancer Quack "Dr."Tullio Simoncini claims that all cancers are fungal colonies. It might be worth mentioning upfront that his license to practice medicine has been withdrawn, and in 2006 he was convicted by an Italian judge for wrongful death and swindling.

Since it is simple to demonstrate that cancers are in fact human cells gone wrong, he is a quack of the first magnitude. A detailed explanation of why this is is here. His "treatment" is dangerous

Yeast and other fungi are nothing to do with cancer, other than that certain fungi (not Candida) produce a carcinogenic toxin called aflatoxin, and some yeasts (not Candida) produce alcohol under certain circumstances, which is associated with a number of cancers.

The Candida hypersensitivity claim is well-known as a false claim of alternative practitioners. The alkaline theory of cancer is also classic quackery

This also mentions Tullio Simoncini, as well as giving more general rules for evaluating testimonials.

Labels: alkaline, bicarbonate of soda, Cancer, candida, quack, Tullio Simoncini

I have been asked the question who is "Brandon Bays", and surprise has been expressed that Caron Keating rejected conventional therapy, after someone on here recommended Mrs Bays book on the What Now boards.

Yes, Caron Keating was under the spell of a number of quacks, one of whom was Mrs Bays. Caron apparently beleived the slash/poison/burn extremist school of alternative medicince propaganda, which claims that conventional treatments such as surgery, chemo and radiotherapy are harmful, and cause cancer patients to die.

That this flies in the face of all medical evidence is explained away by paranoid conspiracy theories involving science and medicine being controlled by big business.

And what was the result of this? With more or less unlimited money to spend on alternative treatments, Ms. Keating managed to turn her small grade one breast cancer into multiple grade 3 metastases. Refusing a second mastectomy and chemo, she managed to die of a small, low risk cancer.

Alternative medicine propagandists are very fond of single cases, which they often claim contradict medical evidence from hundreds or thousands of cases. What do they make of this single case? Well, one of our resident altie apologists claimed that if only she had rejected slash/poison/ burn earlier she might still be alive. Source The person making the claim does not have the courage of their convictions, however, and takes every conventional option available. Very sensible, if a little dishonest.

But Ms. Keating was happy to let a naturopathic quack claim that he had diagnosed her cancer. Source. She was being "treated" by quacks from the very start. Naturopathy is the distillation of quackery. Source.

Mrs Bays was just another parasite on poor confused Caron. Her mother knew that she was being exploited by charlatans, but could not stop it. Source.

The Rose Shapiro book ("Suckers") I recommended has this to say about Mrs Bays:

"Brandon Bays says she is inspired by the work of Deepak Chopra, and there are certainly echoes of his pricing structures and recruitment techniques in her project. 'Journey Intensive' two-day seminars are held all over the world, for which she charges each of the reportedly five hundred or more attendees per event £245. After one of these 'you become a 'Journey Grad' which opens you to a wide range of benefits and support and qualifies you to attend the advanced Journey programs' such as the two-day Manifest Abundance Retreat, which costs £670."

Mrs Bays has claimed she cured herself of a tumour the size of a basketball in 6.5 weeks. Of course she offers not a scrap of evidence to back this ludicrous claim, which seemingly does not stop people from uncritically repeating it. We do however have at least one test case for her techniques: Ms Keating. Who died of a low grade 12mm tumour. Hmm.

Labels: Alternative, Brandon Bays, Caron Keating, Medicine, quack