Aug 17 2012
A Surgical Oncologist Speaks Out on the Perils of Alternative Cancer Therapies
According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control about 12.7 million people around the world will be diagnosed with cancer this year and about 7.6 million people will die from the disease. In the United States, cancer is the second leading cause of death and over 570,000 Americans will die of some type of cancer this year. Despite these staggering figures, overall death rates from cancer are actually on the decline since the 1990s. Researchers have attributed much of this downward trend to better treatments. But, while newer forms of treatment and more advanced versions of chemotherapy and radiation have enabled patients to battle the disease more effectively, some still turn to alternative therapies to treat their illness. Among the alternative therapies is the Gerson Therapy created by Max Gerson which you may have heard about on KPFK. The Gerson Therapy claims to be an effective way to fight cancer by consuming a vegetarian diet, large quantities of fresh juices, and administering a regimen of coffee enemas. Yet, research done by various cancer groups including the American Cancer Society, The National Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have all concluded that the effectiveness of the Gerson therapy is highly doubtful.
GUEST: Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University. He also serves as the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University.
Visit www.sciencebasedmedicine.org to read Dr. Gorski’s blog
66 Responses to “A Surgical Oncologist Speaks Out on the Perils of Alternative Cancer Therapies”
What a terrific interview. We need to have more real experts on this radio broadcast, to dispel the myths about cancer treatments and to warn people about seeking “alternative” therapies.
As a friend of a person with a tumor, who believes in all the Big Pharma conspiracy theories and used Gerson Therapy as her first choice of “treatment” (from what I understand she has since moved on to different quack methods), I really appreciate the availability of good information like this.
I am starting to accept the likely (and possibly preventable) death of my friend, but I am also becoming “radicalized” in a way, searching for things I can do to combat the harmful thinking patterns that lead people down these rabbit holes into quack medicine and anti-science mindsets. As a lover of reason and a friend to a victim of this kind of baloney, my heart hurts for all of the people who are being taken advantage of and even killed by this nonsense.
The Loma Linda Clinic in Japan is conducting a study on the Gerson Therapy. In Japan, physicians are allowed to practice medicine in any way that they please and this includes alternative medicine, unlike the AMA that dictates how our physicians practice medicine. They are currently conducting a study on patients with metastatic cancer. Their results with the Gerson therapy are excellent from a scientific perspective. You may listen to these doctors on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypGv8E1PahU
There is also a trophoblastic theory of cancer that has never been accepted by orthodox medicine.
@ ScienceDoc: Okay, so I watched the YouTube promotional video about the Gerson Therapy. Where are scientific studies…that show juicing, multi-vitamins/supplements and COFFEE ENEMAS are effective cancer treatments against a multitude of different types of cancer?
Have you seen this from the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center? I’ve got a bundle of studies published in PubMed, about doctors who also use similar protocols to treat cancer.
http://www.skepdic.com/gersontherapy.html
#sciencedoc
Your statement about the AMA dictating how physicians practice reveals your complete ignorance of how physicians really practice. I await this study that shows an effective treatment of “metastatic cancer”. Is that all types of metastatic cancer? From pancreatic adenocarcinoma to glioblastomas? Melanomas and infiltrating ductal carcinoma? Anaplastic thyroid cancer and mesothelioma? Such diverse biology and yet one cure? I can’t wait. In the mean time, where is my coffee? And my rectal tube?
Look what I found…a blog by Dr. Gorski about the Gerson cancer treatment protocol:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-price-of-cancer-quackery/
I’m still waiting for ScienceDoc to provide some PubMed citations for the Gerson treatment protocol and its use for various types and stages of cancer.
“There is also a trophoblastic theory of cancer that has never been accepted by orthodox medicine.”
Yah, hypotheses for The One True Cause of Cancer, for a rather obvious reason. But, I mean, hey–if John Beard has his own Whale page, it must be the real deal, right?
^ Such hypotheses “have this problem,” sorry.
coffee enemas: could ANYthing be any more profoundly absurd (and dangerous, as the literature documents)? but, I’ve always wondered, is it ice coffee, french roast, Kopi Luwack or what? doesn’t matter, I guess, as long as it’s free trade coffee. for, as any woo-meister worth their salt would know, coffee with bad karma isn’t going to cure cancer anywhere as effectively as coffee with a clean conscious and robust vitalism.
Just download and listen to Cut Poison Burn the movie. All of you skeptics can see from a child’s perspective just what brutality is being forced and inflicted on our youngsters. It’s awful to see this happening to innocent children and to see ignorant doctors poo poo it away like nothing at all is unethical or wrong with your “cures”. Go to CutPoisonBurn.com to see the movie that is now touring the United States. Then listen to Mrecola’s interview with Mr. Navarro on YouTube.
Dr. John Beard was nominated for the nobel prize. He was an eminent professor of embryology and his trophoblastic and enzyme theory of cancer was proven both with animal and human studies. Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez uses an enzyme and nutritional regimen to treat cancer patients and his pancreatic cancer results are the best ever published in the peer-reviewed literature.
His phase II $1.4 million clinical study was funded by Nestle. Unfortunately, that data was garbage because there was no oversight by the NCI and 42 of 62 patients had no documented informed consent. Go to dr-gonzalez.com and review his newest book, What Went Wrong, and listen to Mercola’s interview with Dr. Gonzalez on YouTube.
Likewise, Gerson had many peer-reviewed publications on the effectiveness of nutritional therapy for curing chronic debiltating illnessess such as skin tuberculosis – an always deadly form. Just go to YouTube and listen to Cancer the Forbidden Cures video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWLrfNJICeM and listen to how the AMA was involved in the supression of alternatives.
I’m not afraid of coffee enemas. The benefits have been extensively studied.
“He was an eminent professor of embryology and his trophoblastic and enzyme theory of cancer was proven both with animal and human studies.”
Well, let’s have them. Not “citations” to YouTube, from the real literature. Is it all a cover-up? (And by the way, what kind of doctor are you?)
Yes what kind of doctor are you, ScienceDoc?
Here’s the website for PubMed to look for citations of studies conducted by your heroes. Make certain that the studies were published in first tier peer-reviewed medical journals.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
BTW, please provide us with the links to the actual studies about Gerson curing cutaneous tuberculosis eighty years ago…not the studies you located on Gerson’s website.
@ “Science””doc”:
You said: “I’m not afraid of coffee enemas. The benefits have been extensively studied.”
May I direct you to a comic that illustrates the difference between something being studied versus something being proven according to rigorous standards?
http://xkcd.com/1096/
Narad and lilady, if you read the book by Gerson, the book by Beard, and the four books by Gonzalez on the science behind the trophoblast and enzyme theory, you can come to your own conclusions.
The reason why the Gerson Therapy works so well is because he used a plant-based nutritional approach with detoxification. Digestive enzymes are not being used to digest meat; they are being used to kill cancer. Cancer is trophoblast and digestive enzymes were proven by Beard to kill cancer. Gerson therapy works on any type of cancer because it treats the underlying condition not the symptom or the cancer bump like Western medicine does. All cancer is trophoblast; Beard already proved this 100 years ago. I believe this is true.
Physicians are indoctrinated to believe that cancer can only be cured by surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. It’s not a conspiracy. The way the politics and beaurocracy of the cancer system are established, it’s the system that corrupts.
There is even an ongoing fraud investigation into Gonzalez’s nutritional clinical trial. You can download from the NIH (not NCI) their finding that patients did not have the required informed consent.
Fishbein of the AMA started calling people quacks over fifty years ago. There has been a war going on between the allopaths and the holistic doctors for many years. You will have to dig really hard to find this truth. I found it. Quack is the code word for competition. This doctor can’t prove Gerson Therapy doesn’t work, he just doesn’t believe it but that doesn’t make it quackery.
The real peril here is dying of the “cure”. See Cut Poison Burn the movie for a heartbreaking account of little Thomas Navarro’s fight to beat cancer and watch his death right before your eyes. It’s a free documentary that everyone needs to watch. Can you prove Gerson’s approach is wrong or unethical for children? It’s non-toxic. Nutrition is certainly documented to have health benefits. There is a young girl that was cured of her terminal cancer cancer using Gerson Therapy. Her story is on one the Gerson movies on YouTube, I think it’s called Dying to Have Known.
Jo, check the Merck manuals published before 1975 for the coffee enemas.
“Digestive enzymes are not being used to digest meat; they are being used to kill cancer. Cancer is trophoblast and digestive enzymes were proven by Beard to kill cancer.”
You keep claiming that things have been proved and failing to back it up, instead waving at videos and promoting books (You’ve also failed to mention that Gonzalez picked up his routine from a Texas dentist.) Now, let’s be clear: the notion that oral ingestion of pancreatic enzymes is going to produce any serum effect is basically absurd; your digestive tract is going to take them apart like any other protein. The further notion that anything that survives and makes it into the bloodstream is then somehow going to go on a search-and-destroy mission in the body is even sillier. There is no One True Cause Of Cancer, as years of research have demonstrated.
You are unable or unwilling to back up your own claims, as *you* have demonstrated. I think I can make my own conclusions without sitting through the promotional spiels.
Now, what kind of doctor did you say you were?
Narad, you know of William Donald Kelley, then. Then you must know that he treated himself and cured his incureable pancreatic cancer with enzymes and a nutritional approach. His method was so successful that the actor Steve McQueen was treated by Dr. Kelley. Some of hose pancreatic enzymes do make it through the digestive system. Most people have a weak digestive system and they only produce a little bile.
Let’s look at this. The embryo starts producing digestive enzymes in the 8th week of gestation and when these pancreatic enzymes come spewing out of the embryo, the primitive trophoblast that is proliferative, migratory, and highly invasive, much like the cancer, becomes well differentiated and forms the mature placenta. So some of those pancretaic enzymes make it out of the embryo and into the blood stream. That’s my understanding of it. Beard already proved that cancer is trophoblast and that digestive enzymes have an anti-cancer effect.
Some pancreatic enzymes are ineffective; you’re right. That’s true but Gonzalez studied these enzymes and he found that some must be in the precursor form like from trypsin and chymotrypsin for them to be very effective. They can be purchased at iHerb.com and are made by Nutricology.
You are unwilling or unable to prove that Beard, Gonzalez, Gerson, and Kelley were all wrong.
What kind of doctor are you or are you a doctor?
“His method was so successful that the actor Steve McQueen was treated by Dr. Kelley.”
Yah. How did that work out?
McQueen died from late-stage mesothelioma. His story is remarkable. You really should find out everything that happened to McQueen before he got to Dr. Kelley’s office with that late-stage illness. Not everyone can be saved.
“Not everyone can be saved.”
You just stated that Kelley “cured his own incurable pancreatic cancer.” And, consistent with the results of the Gonzalez trial, it sounds like McQueen shortened his life and (greatly) reduced its quality.
Let’s go back to some of your other material:
“Some of hose pancreatic enzymes do make it through the digestive system. Most people have a weak digestive system and they only produce a little bile.”
This is a complete non sequitur.
“The embryo starts producing digestive enzymes in the 8th week of gestation and when these pancreatic enzymes come spewing out of the embryo, the primitive trophoblast that is proliferative, migratory, and highly invasive, much like the cancer, becomes well differentiated and forms the mature placenta.”
You’re asserting that pancreatic enzymes are produced before the development of the placenta? *Newborns* hardly produce any pancreatic enzymes.
“Beard already proved that cancer is trophoblast and that digestive enzymes have an anti-cancer effect.”
‘Proved’. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
“That’s true but Gonzalez studied these enzymes and he found that some must be in the precursor form like from trypsin and chymotrypsin for them to be very effective.”
This is gibberish that does not address the point.
“They can be purchased at iHerb.com and are made by Nutricology.”
You mention this why?
“You are unwilling or unable to prove that Beard, Gonzalez, Gerson, and Kelley were all wrong.”
It is not encumbent upon me to do so. You are the one making claims, pretending that you can back them up, and consistently failing to do anything of the sort.
“What kind of doctor are you or are you a doctor?”
I’m not the one styling myself as one, “Doc.”
“Narad, you know of William Donald Kelley, then. Then you must know that he treated himself and cured his incureable pancreatic cancer with enzymes and a nutritional approach. His method was so successful that the actor Steve McQueen was treated by Dr. Kelley. Some of hose pancreatic enzymes do make it through the digestive system. Most people have a weak digestive system and they only produce a little bile.
And, this *gem*…
McQueen died from late-stage mesothelioma. His story is remarkable. You really should find out everything that happened to McQueen before he got to Dr. Kelley’s office with that late-stage illness. Not everyone can be saved.
ScienceDoc, surely you jest about McQueen’s “doctor”, Dr. Kelly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McQueen
“McQueen was treated by William Donald Kelley, whose only medical license had been (until it was revoked in 1976) for orthodontics.[64] Kelley’s methods created a sensation in both the traditional and tabloid press when it became known that McQueen was a patient.[65][66] Despite metastasis of the cancer to much of McQueen’s body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life.”
Hmmm, if I have a dental problem, I would not go to an oncologist. If I have been diagnosed with breast cancer, I wouldn’t go to an dentist. I would seek out someone such as Dr. David Gorski who is a breast cancer surgeon and the director of a breast cancer research facility.
Really now, ScienceDoc, what kind of doctor are you???
Dr. Kelley used metabolic typing that is being taught by Walcott, who worked for Kelley for many, many years. Physicans are learning this nutritional approach that is being taught by Walcott.
Let me remind you that most physicians have never had a nutrition course. Dr. Mark Hyman uses what is called functional medicine. He says he is a “whole-listic” doctor, meaning he treats the whole list of symptoms and the underlying problem using a nutritional approach. His patients must be seen by a nutritionist before they can see him or another physician at his office in Lenox, MA. He was Bill Clinton’s physician.
Read Suzanne Somer’s books. Listen to Julian Whitaker of the Whitaker Wellness Foundation. Listen Dr. Mercola at Mercola.com. Farrah Fawcett died after chemo; Patrick Swayze died; Steve Jobs died; Michael Landon died; and the list of dead cancer patients goes on and on…
Want more alternative medicine information. Listen to Andreas Moritz on the benefits of the liver and gallbladder cleanse for detoxification and cancer. He has more than 200 videos at ener-chi.com.
You are now just flailing wildly.
@ ScienceDoc:
For the umpteenth time, what kind of doctor are you?
Dr. Mark Hyman? Yes, I already tangled with this Huffington Post blogger…many times…he lost out to science, every time.
Dr. Julian Whitaker? I whupped his butt on his own blog, when he recently posted four times on vaccines. That was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Where are the articles for Dr. Gerson who *reportedly* cured a slew of patients who had cutaneous TB lesions?
Do you have any proof that the accepted cancer theory is correct? Tell me what you believe. Can you provide me with proof that cancer is not caused by a nutritional and vitamin D deficiency and toxic pesticides and manmade GMOs and dental amalgam?
So why are are physicians using a carcinogen like chemo on cancers? Cancer is not caused by a chemo deficiency.
I’m not trying to discredit breast cancer surgery. It is often 90% effective for stage 1 breast cancer, isn’t it? That would be a good cureative appraoch to use for that but not for metastatic cancer.
Why is this expert discrediting the Gerson Therapy? Does he have any experience with it? I believe it works and works very well, especially for melanomas, a highly aggressive form of cancer. There is enough anectdotal and other evidence coming from many scientists that prove to me that it likely does work especially when too much chemo is not used first.
“Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.” –Albert Einstein.
@Lilady
I will tell you that I saw firsthand the candy that was being given out in those cancer facilities. Those doctors do not take nutrition seriously and neither do you. That should be malpractice. Cancer metabolizes sugar and that is how a positron emission tomograph works by injecting radiolabeled glucose that is rapidly taken up by the cancer. That’s why the cancer shows up on a PET scan.
If you are a patient and see candy in the cancer facility, you should not hesitate and leave there immediately and seek better health care. All cancer patients should be on an organic diet that does not include refined sugars.
@ ScienceDoc:
Which one of your many *cancer theories* do you believe in?
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist
In spite of receiving some silly emails purportedly from Johns Hopkins Hospital, I base my opinions on my education, my professional experience as a health care provider and reliable sources on the internet.
Don’t tell us ScienceDoc, that you actually believe in the bogus theories of cancer being caused by nutritional deficiencies…and that you, without any education in health care science or any science degree, reject established science-based cancer treatments.
Did you, in fact, receive a series of bogus emails purportedly from Johns Hopkins Hospital?
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/kimmel_cancer_center/news_events/featured/cancer_update_email_it_is_a_hoax.html
Are you relying on Joe Mercola, Julian Whitaker and “nutritionists” with degrees from online “universities” as your sources for cancer treatment?
So, for the umpteenth time plus one, what kind of doctor are you?
It is true that nutritional factors play a part in the development of cancer but there is actually no good evidence that they have any effect on invasive human cancer once established.
There is substantial evidence of the failure of nutritional methods of various kinds. For example the Gerson clinic was unable to find a single five year survivor of patients wiht stage lV melanoma, even though this was one of the cancers that they believed they were getting their best results with and this was by far the most common kind of melanoma patient being accepted for treatment.
Contrast this well-documented fact with the impression that their videos convey regarding the effectiveness of their methods.
See —
“5-year survival rates of melanoma patients treated by diet therapy after the manner of Gerson: a retrospective review.” Hildenbrand GLG, Hildenbrand C, Bradford K, Cavin SW. Altern Ther Health Med 1995-09;1(4):29-37
I mostly rely on Dr. Russell Blaylock, retired neurosurgeon, who saw many cancers induced in young children that he didn’t see years ago. He mostly attributes those many cancers to brain toxins.
What does orthodox medicine do to detox the body?
“Can you provide me with proof that cancer is not caused by a nutritional and vitamin D deficiency and toxic pesticides and manmade GMOs and dental amalgam?”
Um, it’s a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes, remember? Or do you even care whether your tired cancer tropes contradict one another? Anyway, here’s 15,004 to get you started: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=carcinogenesis%5BTitle%5D
^ (Put square brackets around “Title”; they apparently needed to be escaped.)
Uh-oh ScienceDoc…I hope you know who you are engaging on this blog.
Dr. Peter Moran is a REAL Doctor, a REAL cancer surgeon and a respected blogger in the science community.
Why not take a look at Dr. Moran’s link?
http://www.users.on.net/~pmoran/cancer/Alternative_studies.htm
BTW ScienceDoc, for the umpteenth time plus two, what kind of doctor are you? Inquiring minds want to know.
Every cancer patient should know that there are laws against treating cancer with anything other than chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation in many countries. The cut, poison and burn techniques are REAL money makers for the cancer industry, right lilady…Narad? It certainly costs more than nutrition and coffee enemas that anyone can do in the privacy of their home.
Citing a stage 4 study on melanoma means nothing to me. There are over 100 different kinds of cancer and melanoma is one of the deadliest. I knew of a man that had melanoma on his face and died within weeks of his diagnosis.
Orthodox medicine does not practice preventitive medicine. Doctors are not paid to prevent and don’t learn prevention. That’s why I know better than take them very seriously. Remember, orthodox medicine was built by Rockefellar money. It was built as a way to profit using medicine. Nothing has changed. They are still trying to sell, promote and profit by it.
Narad, cancer is NOT caused by a deficiency in pancreatic enzymes. It is believed to be caused by deficiency and toxicity. There must be a cancer causing agent present. I recommend that you try to understand the amazing liver and gallbladder cleanse. It’s REAL preventative and curative medicine and it is practiced by REAL doctors, too. Oooo…la…la
Do tell? Citations, please. Real citations, from the peer-reviewed medical literature, please, not YouTube videos, links to the Gerson Foundation website, or blog posts.
Deficiencies in what, specifically? What specific toxins? Please provide chemical names for these toxins.
Stop relying on “real” citiations. I no longer believe that all medicine is based on science. I would just cite the trashed study under Chabot on his ‘successful’ chemotherapy regimen that is used to discredit Gonzalez’s three-pronged nutritional approach. Chabot was one of the inventors of the chemotherapy that was used in that study. That’s a conflict of interest that wasn’t discovered by the NIH. How were 42 of 62 patients admitted into that study without receiving informed consent? They had to be able eat, do the enema, make a juice. Some patients were entered that were so sick they died even before they got their supplements. There was an intent to treat provision in that study. All patients that died were counted as treatment failures.
There is obviously bias in those journal articles. Some chemotherapy studies won’t count the patients that died during those studies. Those patients could have been killed by the chemotherapy and the journal articles will not reveal those deaths. These are studies funded by the pharmaceutical companies of course and published in peer-reviewed journals.
I listened to your interview. It is not clear whether breast cancer patients are being over treated with radiation for DCIS, yet you claim such effectiveness of breast cancer. Where is the real proof that diagnosing and treating breast cancer is not causing many, many other or more serious breast cancers? Read the federally funded study conducted on mammography and you will find that many, many cancers were discovered during routine mammography.
Where is your proof that breast cancer diagnosis and treatment is not really causing more harm than good? The fact remains that we really don’t know.
Is or is not trypsin supposed to be the body’s primary defense against cancer in this scheme?
Sciencedoc throws out so much garbage it’s hard to respond to all of it. The notion that allopathic docs ignore or are ignorant of preventative medicine is absurd. There are thousands of studies and many recommendations of various professional organizations addressing preventative medicine.
I see patients regularly that wasted time on worthless alternative crap before they get real treatment. Sometimes a potentially curable cancer becomes incurable during the delay.
I support a healthy diet, but when there is cancer in your colon it’s time to see a surgeon.
The “gallbladder cleanse” is pure nonsense.
Gotta go. Real patients to see.
(This comment has been awaiting moderation for two days. I have removed the links that are presumably holding it up, on the assumption that eventually the whole thing will come through)
ScienceDoc, there probaly was bias towards sicker patients in the Gonzales arm of that study, not necessarily through anyone’s fault, but did you notice that no patients went into remission in the Gonzales-treated arm, and no patient lived longer than 40 months?
Yet you STILL think might be an effective treatment of cancer? (I know chemotherapy is not great in pancreatic cancer either, but no one is claiming any more than modest symptom palliation and prolongation of survival, We are not claiming that it is the “answer to cancer”).
Even if our treatments did not cure breast cancer we would still try and eliminate the local cancer because a failure to do so effectively has horrible consequences for most women. e.g.
(Link removed)
The fact is that we do cure about 50% of breast cancer patients overall (after allowing an adjustment for some overdiagnosis in present mammographic programs) otherwise it would be difficult to explain these statistics —.
See (link removed)
I defy you to find a study into chemotherapy where deaths were not considered.
That doesn’t explain the absence of informed consent or the fact that Chabot was enering the patients into the Gonzalez arm in that study or the fact that he still has the best pancreatic cancer results in the peer-reviewed literature. It just doesn’t add up.
The fact remains that I do believe that Charlotte Gerson and Dr. Gonzalez are seeing miracles happening. That’s my opinion right now based on all of the information that I have.
After listening to the Healing Cancer World Summit and their alternative medicine advice, I’m sure I remember that there is a reference to deaths made that were not considered in the statistical analysis. The DVD is available here.
http://www.perfectlyhealthy.com/Event/Healing-Cancer-World-Summit
I don’t think the question whether you’re merely offering a testimonial sales pitch is in dispute at this point, but yah, that’s nice.
The fact remains that I do believe that Charlotte Gerson and Dr. Gonzalez are seeing miracles happening.
They aren’t. I have in an email exchange challenged Howard Strauss and Charlotte Gerson to produce cases of well-documented established cancer which have remitted or been cured by their methods. The cases they produce show that these two, lacking any medical training whatsover, have no idea of the normal variability of cancer and how it responds to conventional methods.
Out of hundreds of cases they treat yearly all they can produce is less than a handful of cases which, while sometimes looking impressive, are still usually consistent with variability of cancer at the fringes of normal oncological experience or with other likely explanations. Since it is easy to follow up most cases of cancer these days, we should NEVER have to give the benefit of the doubt on such serious claims.
They are a busy enough clinic to produce moderately useful statistics as to their true results (as per the Hildebrand study) but instead they choose to produce deceptive promotional videos. What does that tell you?
I don’t care whether you want to use these methods or not. It is on your own head. Simply be advised that it is not wise to rely on them alone if you have a potentially curable cancer. The number of patients who have come to grief from relying on alternative cancer treatments, including Gerson, far outweighs the number of supposed “miracles” but you won’t find their stories on the Gerson videos.
The same applies to Gonzales. I have tried to confirm his early claims regarding the success of the Kelley treatment, as you can discover from my web site. He has now treated 43 patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer in two separate studies without a “miracle”.
It is not clear how informed consent issues would invaldate the main results. That is reaching for straws.
Moran,
You criticized Gonzalez and Gerson. That’s on your head. If they were frauds we would have all known it by now.
Where are your miracles on the internet? Oh, yeah, got none. The children are complaing of the brain damage and some are vegetables now and can’t do that.
I can tell you from experience that there are going to be many complications from chemo, radiation, and surgery. The medical community really didn’t care much about the patients or care about preventing cancer. It’s a business about the profit. I’ve been there.
Mammography is creating so many cancers. Ask the experts. Got the federal study around, Moran?
And DCIS isn’t really yet understood to be a cancer, yet it is always treated like an aggressive one. I know of a person that was diagnosed with DCIS. Her treatments were horrible. She scarred for life.
“The same applies to Gonzales. I have tried to confirm his early claims regarding the success of the Kelley treatment, as you can discover from my web site. He has now treated 43 patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer in two separate studies without a “miracle”.”
That’s would be breaking patient confidentiality.
Once they are cured, records are conveniently lost, aren’t they?
Last one to the party, eh?
“The same applies to Gonzales. I have tried to confirm his early claims regarding the success of the Kelley treatment, as you can discover from my web site. He has now treated 43 patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer in two separate studies without a “miracle”.”
That’s would be breaking patient confidentiality.
Once they are cured, records are conveniently lost, aren’t they?
————————————–
To his great credit, Gonzales has been prepared to publish his results with pancreatic cancer. That is how we know about these 43 patients. Are you saying he has cured OTHER patients but not let on about them? Or that somehow they have been suppressed?
Yes, medical treatments of cancer can be harsh. DCIS possibly is sometimes overtreated, because of its well-known risks. None of this makes “alternative” methods perform any better.
It is good that you are testing out that which you have been led to believe. Keep at it. I assure you I have nothing to hide.
Russel Blaylock discusses toxins and cancer incidence in this new video that I would like to share that illustarates the science of environmental toxins and the harmful effects on the brain.
Dr. Russel Blaylock – Neurological Disorders and the Toxins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heGFXW2qOFM
Any of the self professed “docs” here – I would not attend your offices/clinics. Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski puts you all to shame. Every one of your “disputing” posts show such arrogance. That would be my first test to run away from you as far as possible. Others who decry Alternative protocols for cancer treatment: you are just people who THINK you are thinking. Intuitive, observational, out of the box reasoning is not your forte. Obviously. Stick to your mainstream doctor’s as usual. Don’t even bother to rebut the “alternative”. It is apparently beneath your snobby sensibilities. You’re in the dark ages anyway. At the very least, you who put down alternative medicine, are simply rude to those who do not accept your inflexible mindsets.
http://www.payday-money-online.net ^ht5695. payday-money-online.net
This condition requires special care to combat the issue successfully.
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simply buy it instantly. He said that when the motor reached around 4,000 rpm, some other
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While you bastards argue about what people should or shouldn’t do you really have no idea! AS people who have never been diagnosed with cancer do not know the hell that standard treatment puts them through.. people look at alternative medicine as the standard seems un effective and painful. you are forgetting science is yet to offer up a proven cure.. It’s all up in the air quake stuf some people just have more power and money to prove it. As a race we will kill ourselves off.. unless this changes
It seems to me that it is the so-called scientifically based advocates of using chemotherapy to treat cancer that need to explain why they continue to advocate a treatment modality that is ineffective and costly. The results of the meta data analysis of chemotherapy across all cancers are no better than what one would expect from a placebo effect.
The contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies.
Morgan G, Ward R, Barton M.
Source
Department of Radiation Oncology, Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia. gmorgan1@bigpond.net.au
Abstract
AIMS:
The debate on the funding and availability of cytotoxic drugs raises questions about the contribution of curative or adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to survival in adult cancer patients.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
We undertook a literature search for randomised clinical trials reporting a 5-year survival benefit attributable solely to cytotoxic chemotherapy in adult malignancies. The total number of newly diagnosed cancer patients for 22 major adult malignancies was determined from cancer registry data in Australia and from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results data in the USA for 1998. For each malignancy, the absolute number to benefit was the product of (a) the total number of persons with that malignancy; (b) the proportion or subgroup(s) of that malignancy showing a benefit; and (c) the percentage increase in 5-year survival due solely to cytotoxic chemotherapy. The overall contribution was the sum total of the absolute numbers showing a 5-year survival benefit expressed as a percentage of the total number for the 22 malignancies.
RESULTS:
The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA.
CONCLUSION:
As the 5-year relative survival rate for cancer in Australia is now over 60%, it is clear that cytotoxic chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival. To justify the continued funding and availability of drugs used in cytotoxic chemotherapy, a rigorous evaluation of the cost-effectiveness and impact on quality of life is urgently required.
Advocates of chemotherapy should also review the results of the following “peer reviewed” meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. Please provide some scientific evidence establishing that the efficacy of chemotherapy treatment justifies the cost and expense not to mention the deadly side effects and negative impact on the quality of life of cancer patients. I’m waiting to review your scientific evidence not just citations to some quackery expert who writes a blog and says that modern medical treatments for cancer are effective.
Lung Cancer. 2009 Jan;63(1):50-7. doi: 10.1016/j.lungcan.2008.05.002. Epub 2008 Jun 18.
Magnitude of benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer: meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
Bria E, Gralla RJ, Raftopoulos H, Cuppone F, Milella M, Sperduti I, Carlini P, Terzoli E, Cognetti F, Giannarelli D.
Source
Department of Medical Oncology, Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Roma, Italy. emiliobria@yahoo.it
Abstract
Several randomized trials investigating the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have provided conflicting results. With over 7000 patients included, we analyzed results of 13 reports over the past 10 years in which patients received either platinum-containing chemotherapy or not. The major endpoint was to assess the magnitude of the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy in terms of the absolute benefit. All phase III randomized trials and meta-analyses published as peer-reviewed papers or as abstracts from 1994 to 2007 were eligible. A literature-based meta-analysis was performed; event-based overall- and disease-free survival (OS/DFS) and Relative Risks (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were derived. Magnitudes of benefit were evaluated with: absolute benefit and the number of patients treated for one patient to benefit. Seven sub-populations were examined. Combined effect estimation was computed with fixed- and random-effect models; a heterogeneity test was also applied. Twelve trials plus an individual patient meta-analysis (7334 patients) were gathered; the trials were designed to determine if cisplatin- or carboplatin-based chemotherapy improves survival over surgery. When data were pooled and plotted, significant differences in favor of chemotherapy were seen in OS in all seven sub-population, with a relative benefit of 7-12% and an absolute benefit ranging from 2.5% to 4.1%. A more significant trend for chemotherapy was found in DFS. No significant heterogeneity was observed for all outcomes and sub-populations. The absolute benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy remains essentially the same regardless of how data are screened. While significant differences are clearly found in this analysis, the small magnitude of benefit seen with this large population, especially when considering the number of patients needed for one to benefit, raises important issues when weighing risks and benefits of treatment for individual patients.
The problem with Dr. David H. Gorski a/k/a “Orac,” is that his research is questionable and he refuses to answer questions about it, as I have documented in-depth on my blog:
http://stanislawrajmundburzynski.wordpress.com
There may be some informed opinions represented as replies,
but I couldn’t get over the “quack” reference to Dr. Max Gerson. What a crock! The only thing Dr. Gerson didn’t understand was
that we’re not all vegans. Some of us need to eat more grains,
some more meat.
I cured my own cancer. So, I think I know something about this.
I’m also writing a book, so I’ve been doing cancer research for a
while. Without Dr. Max Gerson, future “quacks” wouldn’t have
had a standard detoxification model. The detoxification model
he used is without question his piece of genius. People who go
around saying that nutrition has nothing to do with cancer are
living in the Stone Age.
He was a pioneer. He cured thousands of people. The term,
“quack”, by the way, is a standard propaganda term used by
the Good Old Boys to get you to swig down their poisons. If
you like poison, go for it, Buddy, but you’ll still be their fool.
The real question here is who do we trust?????????
I’m an ex-Navy combat medic, EMT, LMT, and ACLS instructor. My Mother is a Microbiologist and we both study Alopathic medicine, Alternative treatments, Nutrition, Excercize physiology and Toxicology.
First I’d like to thank the following posters for their replies and putting an end to the B.S. posts.
# Justan Indian, # Concerned Citizen
Now on to my Questions on the problems with medicine in general. The thing that gives me the biggest headache is the fact most of the scientific research done is sponcered by Corporate interest funding, generally poorly conducted and the research results are easy to alter.
Another problem I see is that we are Human, research is way to narrowly focused and just because one cell reacts positively to an agent does not mean that same agent DOESN’T damage other cells or even organs. I find it Extremely Disturbing to listen to the side effects of the drugs the FDA has approved in commercials on my TV every night. More disturbing is when I hear the lawfirm commercials the following year, suing the Drug Company for deaths and side effects of the drug the FDA approved and the company has been promoting. But what I find the most disturbing of all is, the fact these companies are allowed to advertise their drugs to the layperson at all. This should be left up to the treating physician, who should have researched the drug and it’s side effects before perscribing it. I can think of a few examples right off the top of my head
(1. Lamisil- Cures your nail fungus but destroys your liver. Hmmm think I’d rather keep the nail fungus as I won’t DIE from it. 2- Interferons- Flu-like symptoms following each injection (fever, chills, headache, muscle aches and pains, malaise) occur with all of the interferons. These symptoms vary from mild to severe and occur in up to half of all patients. The symptoms tend to diminish with repeated injections and may be managed with analgesics such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) http://www.medicinenet.com/interferon/article.htm).
LOL! Both interferons and Tylenol will destroy your liver yet interferons are used to treat Hep-C a liver destroying disease.
Modern medicine is not exactly modern and definetly not as safe as you are lead like sheep to beleive. Most of the Drugs being used to treat people are synthetic versions of a chemical found in plants. For instance Digoxin (Lanoxin) is used in the treatment of congestive heart failure and abnormally rapid atrial rhythms (atrial fibrillation,…GENERIC NAME: digoxin BRAND NAME: Lanoxin). Here in America many patients have died as a result of it’s use. However in South America it is still made from the plant FoxGlove and has proven to be much much safer than the Sythetic form taken here in the states. The funny part- It’s illegal to sell in health food stores and herbal shops because that would be a cheap alternative to the price you pay the pharmacy. Even more funny is the fact that it’s a weed that groes on the side of the road in most states in the U.S.
I could go on and on bashing both sides (Alopathic and Alternative Medicine). I will tell you this- Don’t trust the FDA or the scientific studies produced by any scientist affiliated or funded by Big Corporations or Pharmaceutical companies. Go ahead I can hear the backlash now. Then again I’m not the one who changed the food pyramid 5 times since I was born. I’m not the one being sued for dead patients/malpractice and I’m not the one who did the safety studies on medications that are now no longer available because they Killed A Lot of People!!!
I do however agree with #Judith Dew
“There may be some informed opinions represented as replies,
but I couldn’t get over the “quack” reference to Dr. Max Gerson. What a crock! The only thing Dr. Gerson didn’t understand was
that we’re not all vegans. Some of us need to eat more grains,
some more meat.” There’s not or will there ever be one cure for cancer, it needs to be individualized based on metabolic typing and other factors. I personally have never found a better Detox program than Max Gersons Plan. Combine this with a personalized metabolic diet avoiding all refined sugars/salts and a walking or light exercise regimen and you’ll start to notice improvement quickly. Don’t forget to find a very good and open minded physician who’s willing to work with the fact you ARE going to use alternative therapies as well.
I know that the original thread started over 2 years ago. I wanted to say THANK YOU to #ScienceDoc for your courage and character as the original defender in this thread/ debate.
I’m just an average 50-year guy whose wife was recently diagnosed with Stage I cancer. We did 3 weeks of Gerson Therapy and are currently 6 weeks into the therapy. The original diagnosis was delivered to my wife at the hospital with an IMMEDIATE expectation to decide on chemo, radiation or surgery (with mandatory radiation). She was expected to make his decision within minutes of receiving the devastating news that her test results were positive. There was no time allowed to go home and think this through. We take more time deciding what movie to watch or restaurant to go; yet it appears that protocol (at least in this hospital) is to “close” the customer on the first visit. Almost like a high-pressure car salesman… It seems that the traditional cancer treatment could rely on it’s years of victories to speak for itself… and if the statistics are not favorable, why the big rush to decide TODAY.
I so appreciate reading the wise, level-headed and knowledgeable defenders of alternative therapies. I believe Gerson was a genius whose methods, “when followed”, yield hope and life. As he said “cancer is easy to cure, the problem is that it’s in people”.
What the skeptics have failed to understand is that Dr Max Gerson approached the treatment of cancer as a degenerative disease, the same as he approached the treatment of tuberculosis, skin diseases, diabetes etc. He published his findings in peer reviewed journals mainly in Europe. Unfortunately, these kind of studies were refused publication in journals in the US. unless they dealt with accepted medical treatments. This kind of dogma prevented new ideas in treatment of disease from being discussed, tested and explored. How is this any different than those who believed the earth was flat or that a physician should wash ones hands before attending to the next patient. It was considered heresy or quackery to believe in these ideas.. I believe that this is the reason why main cancer treatments using chemo, radiation and surgery has remained the same for over 100 years. Dogma lives on.
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