# Why didn't my oncologist tell me about alternative cancer treatments? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 10, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894 "2009-05-10T00:43:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/121 "2009-05-13T08:48:45Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > Doesn’t the survivor bias work for the opposing cure (in this case, the western approach) as well though? The dead people aren’t around anymore to be vocal about the treatments that did not work? Nope. That is the whole point. First off the results of scientific trials are only publicised by disinterested researchers in disinterested journals (broadly). Neither the survivors nor the fatalities are given an opportunity to be vocal, and that is done precisely to avoid this problem.. Secondly a scientific trial explicitly notes and compares the deaths as well as the survivals under a treatment regime. It then compares those figures to the death and survival rates of groups of people who are not getting any treatment. That is the very metric by which the success of of a treatment is evaluated in a scientific trial. Anecdotal tales such as yours lack the ability to perform such comparisons. You have no way of knowing how many people tried your treatment and died, and you have no way of knowing whether this is less than the number who would have died with no treatment at all. For that matter you have no way of knowing that your treatment doesn’t actually make you more prone to dying than doing nothing at all. All that you can ever know is that some people who tried the treatment survived, because you can only ever hear from the survivors. It’s classic survivor bias. You have no way of knowing whether the number of people who tried your treatment and died in the last year is closer to ten or closer to ten million. Your method of data collection only allows you to know about the survivors. > [@](#): > > And in theory, the truth would be what the science says, but I am asking, to a community that thrives on not just listening to what gets shoveled in their face, to consider that the science here has been tainted - and therefore, the truth that science should hold for us is in question. I’m more than prepared to consider that, certainly science has been tainted in the past. But I will need to see some evidence that it is true in this case. That’s because in 99.99% of cases science isn’t tainted and it is perfectly accurate. That’s higher than the odds that your car will start in the morning. But as a sensible man you don’t ‘consider’ that your car won’t work in the morning and book a taxi to take you to work every day. You work instead under the assumption that it will work until you see evidence that it won’t. And the same applies here. A sensible man would assume that the science is untainted and accurate until he sees evidence otherwise because the vast majority of past experience has been that this is so. > [@](#): > > How do we know my results are not typical… We don’t and that’s the whole problem. We have no way of knowing whether 99% of people who try your treatment survive, or if 99% of people die. We just have no idea. All we do know for certain is that only the survivors will be writing about their experience on the internet, and that the potential for survivor bias makes anecdotal data useless for evaluating the facts. > [@](#): > > … if the mere mention of the word alternative medicine and cancer causes well meaning folk to get upset and angry? Well first off I don’t see anyone getting upset and angry at the se of the words alternative medicine and cancer. I do see some folk getting upset when promulgating ignorant beliefs kills innocent people needlessly. But wouldn’t you agree that this is a good reason to get upset and angry? Secondly, the reason why scientific trials are so robust is because it doesn’t matter one whit whether people get angry and upset. As Harvey Krumpet said, a fact remains a fact whether people believe it or not. It doesn’t matter if the whole world gets angry, if a scientific study demonstrates that an alternative treatment works, then it is an indisputable fact that there is evidence that the alternative treatment works. That is in direct contrast to anecdotal evidence of the type that you have presented, where if you were angry at alternative medicine you would simply not attribute your success to the treatment. So you can hopefully see that the scientific method is a defence against people getting angry about a topic, while it is anecdotal tales are extremely prone to bias on the part of the investigator. > [@](#): > > I’m genuinely saddened that the general population of SDMB board is so quick to take the word of doctors… So quick? How is 8 years of study in the biological sciences quick? How long should I take and how much study do you expect me to do before I accept the integrity and utility of the scientific method? IOW what makes you think I or anyone else here is being hasty? > [@](#): > > (who used to advertise cigarettes not too long ago, lest we forget) Hitler’s secretary used a qwerty keyboard. Ad you are typing these posts using a qwerty keyboard. So you must be a Nazi. Right? I would like to think that you understood that such attempts at guilt by comparison and attempting to poison the well is not a sound way to construct an argument, much less a way to convince people of your position. [/quote] … and oncologists who work for places like MSK who have drug company executives on their boards so wholeheartedly and attack anyone who voices opposition to them. [/quote] You have made this, or similar, assertions several times in this thread, but you have yet to provide any actual evidence for the claim.Do you have any evidence, or are we expected yet again to to simply take your word that tis is the case? > [@](#): > > If SDMB is going to just take a topic like this and simply say well doctors say alternative medicine doesn’t work, so it doesn’t, then what exactly is the point? Absolutely nobody is saying that. What we are saying is twofold: 1. We shouldn’t trust doctors unless they have evidence for their claims, but we also shouldn’t trust you until your provide evidence of your claims. IOW far from saying we should blindly trust doctors we ar saying we should remain sceptical of everybody until they show some evidence. You have no reliable evidence whatsoever that your alternative treatment works, so why should we believe it works? It’s as simple as that. If 5% of people with your condition will undergo spontaneous remission there is no way of knowing whether you are part of that group or whether the treatment actually works. Heck, you can’t even demonstrate that it doesn’t actually make the condition worse for the vast majority of people. For all you know 999 out of every 1,000 people who use your treatment will see accelerated tumour growth and die within days of commencing treatment. Of course that’s unlikely, but the fact that you can not say with any certainly that it is untrue speaks volumes about the reliability of your treatment. IOW it’s not a case of “doctors say alternative medicine doesn’t work, so it doesn’t”. It’s a case of “Some anonymous person on a message claims a treatment worked for him, but I don’t believe everything claimed by anonymous people on message boards?” **brooklynn** , may I ask why you think that it would be wrong to trust what doctors (trained medical professionals) have to say on this subject, but somehow worthy to trust what an anonymous poster has to say? I just can’t reconcile those two positions? You seems to be saying that we should believe what you say based on anecdotal data with severe confirmation bias, but should not trust what doctors say based on their knowledge gained form years of study of medicine? Why is that? 2) We shouldn’t trust any treatment without evidence because most proposed treatments are ineffective. And the same is true for mainstream and alternative treatments. Most mainstream candidate treatments never even get to human trial stage because they shown to be ineffective or harmful. Most alternative medicines, have also failed to show any evidence of efficacy. From faecal poultices to cupping and bleeding to the use numerous plant parts, when tested alternative medicines usually fail. Some work and become mainstream but the vast majority have been proven to be useless or even harmful. So what would a sensible man conclude, when faced with an novel treatment with no evidence of efficacy? Conclude that it most likely doesn’t work pending evidence that it does? Or conclude that it will work without seeking any additional evidence? In short, far from anyone suggesting that we should trust doctors just because they say so people are saying that we should be sceptical of everyone and everything until someone fronts with the evidence that it works. That’s sound science, but it’s also good, common sense advice if you want to avoid buying snake oil > [@brooklynn](#): > > I stopped my chemotherapy several weeks before I started this regimen. That alone would be enough to explain your experience. Chemotherapy weakened the tumour and the immune system did the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/122 "2009-05-13T09:22:28Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > Modern medicine deals with clinical trials; until someone takes interest in a specific alternative therapy and conducts these trials - the therapy does not work and everyone for whom it worked is not reading their results right, is biased, ignorant, or simply not a valid person since it has not been peer reviewed (even though the same therapy will be patented by a drug company a few years later after enough people have the balls to try it without their doctor’s blessing). Therefore, it should not be recommended - even in a situation where what the doctor has to offer is also a crapshoot. Nobody has said anything remotely like that. The simple fact is that any proposed treatment for any disease is almost certain to be either completely useless or actively dangerous. Doesn’t matter whether it’s traditional, eastern, western dietary, chemical, surgical, spiritual or anything else. The odds are highly in favour of it not working. So believing that a treatment does work absent any evidence whatsoever is at illogical and wilfully ignoring the facts. It’s not a case of someone having a positive experience being invalid or biased or anything else. It’s simply that there is no reliable evidence whatsoever. Why would you choose to believe in something when (a) There is no reliable evidence that it works and (b) Past experience tells us that the odds are strongly in favour of it not working? Seriously, this is like believing that drinking 3 pints of Old Badger whisky a day is good for your health. I know an old wino who has done that all his life and he’s 95 and in perfect health. You have one data point from a survivor, no reliable evidence that it works and past experience of the effects of heavy whiskey consumption is strongly in favour of it not working. So are you now going to start drinking 3 pints of Old badger whisky a day? Of course you aren’t. Yet the situations are identical. The evidence that they work are the same, the odds that they don’t work are the same. Yet you will accept one and not accept the other? And why? As far as I can tell it’s because in one case you are the survivor and in the other you are not. That’s not a sensible criterion on which to evaluate medicine. > [@](#): > > Though the traditional approach has a 50-65% overall survival rate, which has not declined in many years… And the speed of international air travel hasn’t improved in decades. That doesn’t mean I’m going to paddle a dug-out canoe to India in favour of talking a jet. Why does it matter whether it hasn’t improved in years? Surely the important point is whether it can be demonstrated to be better than any alternative, not whether it is improving compared to previous years. In short, do you want a treatment that gives you the best shot at survival, or do you want treatment that has shown improvement? Most people want the best shot at survival and consider improvement in the treatment to be completely irrelevant. > [@](#): > > … and (to my young brain) uses more cancer causing substances to eradicate your first cancer - because that’s where modern medicine is up to these days… Once again, what is the relevance? When you get bitten by a rattlesnake the inject your venom infused blood with even more venom infused blood taken from a horse. When you get poisoned with neurotoxins they pump you full of even more neurotoixins to keep you alive. When you get bitten by a rabid animal they pump you full of rabies proteins to prevent you dying from the harmful effects of rabies proteins. I could go on all day with lists of lifesaving treatments that cure by using more of the same type of substance that is making you ill. That’s a cornerstone of modern medicine. Are you saying we should all refuse rabies vaccines, snakebite antivenines and countless other medical treatments because they eradicate the first ailment using more ailment causing substances? [ > [@](#): > > … I should just swallow my instinct and walk back to MSK to get more of the same and hope for the best. Logically, rationally, dispassionately the answer is an emphatic YES! Instinct is a really, really lousy way of evaluating medicine at the best of times. If instinct were an effective guide then why did people spend millennia treating diseases using bleeding, leeches, trepanning, fetishes and faecal poultices? If I were in your shoes I’d be scared shitless, and being sacred makes our intuitive judgement even more lousy than they are at the best of times. Of course what you choose to do is up to you, but you have much better odds of survival if you walk back to MSK to get more of the same and hope for the best than if you apply the equivalent of a dung poultice and hope for he best. > [@](#): > > Once again, I thank you all for being so patient with me and I wish everyone the best of health! Et tu. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/123 "2009-05-13T11:07:41Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > Dr: It’s simple, these therapies are NOT DRUGS, they are simple knowledge that can be conveyed in one afternoon of reading. There’s no business in it, nothing. Nothing for a company to do with it. Nothing. Not even a penny. This is totally wrong. If there was no money to be made from selling herbal supplements and “natural cures,” it wouldn’t be a multi-billion-dollar industry. The distinction you are making between “therapies” and “drugs” exists only in the marketing departments of people in the alternative medicine industry. It’s a big business in its own right and the people in it are just as interested in making money as people in the pharmaceutical industry. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/124 "2009-05-13T11:39:59Z")
The problem with expecting doctors to recommend alternative therapies is that there are so damn many of them, it would be like picking a needle out of a haystack for the patient to choose which ones to try. My wife has an incurable, degenerative auto-immune disease called scleroderma, for which she is currently undergoing chemotherapy. I cannot tell you how many alternative therapies have been suggested by well meaning friends and acquaintances. Aloe vera juice, alkalizing diets, DMSO, colloidal copper; the list is truly endless. Here is just a smattering of the crap being hawked to desperate scleroderma patients: [Rid Yourself of Scleroderma Through Proven Naturopathic Remedies](http://www.sclerodermamiracles.com/) [Scleroderma Defeated](http://www.sclerodermadefeated.com/) [Natural Remedies for Scleroderma](http://www.regenerativenutrition.com/natural-supplements-cure-scleroderma.asp) My point is, which alternative therapy should she try? Do they all work as advertised? Will they work for my wife as they did for those who made testimonials? What are the side effects of each? What are the risks? If only there were some way to evaluate alternative therapies, and quantify the efficacy, side effects and risks, perhaps I could make an informed decision about which among the myriad of quacks and nostrums is truly the miracle cure we are desperately searching for. Oh, wait there is. It is called science, and it uses a protocol of double-blinded peer reviewed studies to weed out the useless and the downright dangerous alternative therapies. You should be grateful your doctor did not throw you out into the blizzard of miracle cures that exist for cancer. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/125 "2009-05-13T15:20:58Z")
First, brooklyn, I think I speak for all the regulars here in thanking you for conducting yourself so well in the face of an onslaught of opposition. > [@brooklynn](#): > > Doesn’t the survivor bias work for the opposing cure (in this case, the western approach) as well though? The dead people aren’t around anymore to be vocal about the treatments that did not work? That was the point of his examples - with science-based medicine, survivor bias doesn’t exist because careful records are kept of _all_ the people, living, dead, those who received the proposed treatment, those who didn’t. It’s the alternative medicine which is subject to survivor bias. > [@brooklynn](#): > > First of all, we really need to move this conversation away from these massive generalizations; just because I’m proposing the few specific therapies I’ve been using have been working for me, it doesn’t mean that I’m advocating my friends eat tiger penises.. ok? Why not? If you’re advocating treatments that don’t have evidence, why not tiger penises? What do you use to sort out the ones you want to try from those you don’t, if there is no evidence available? (Remember - anecdotes are not evidence.) > [@brooklynn](#): > > …until someone takes interest in a specific alternative therapy and conducts these trials - the therapy does not work and everyone for whom it worked is not reading their results right, is biased, ignorant, or simply not a valid person since it has not been peer reviewed… We’re not saying that the therapies don’t work, or that the people are ignorant or not valid. We’re saying that sometimes people with the same condition will have different outcomes. The only way to know which treatments increase the survival is to give them to large groups of people, and to keep careful records of the results. Unless you do this, there is no way for you or anyone else to know whether a treatment is effective. You’ll have anecdotes on all sides, but actually making measurements is the only way to know. Any proposed treatment is probably not effective, and many are actually harmful. We can’t recommend taking anything unless we have good reason to think that one works, and the only way to know is to formally study it. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/126 "2009-05-13T15:40:57Z")
[Where is the line on natural remedies?](http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/44847992.html?page=2&c=y) > [@](#): > > This week, a judge in New Ulm faces a decision in a court case that has pitted Daniel Hauser’s family against his own doctors. The 13-year-old and his family have argued that they have the right to reject chemotherapy, based on their religious beliefs in natural medicine. In January, the boy was found to have Hodgkin’s lymphoma and had one round of chemotherapy at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. When he did not return for additional treatments, his doctors reported him to child protection, and the Brown County attorney asked the judge to order Daniel into treatment. > > Doctors who testified at a hearing said that with chemo and radiation, the boy has a 90 percent chance of surviving. Without it, they said, he will almost certainly die within five years. > > SNIP > > The Hausers’ decision to refuse treatment is rare, but not unheard of, Bowers said. Their story reminded her of a patient she had in 1979 – also a teenage boy with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His parents decided to forgo chemotherapy and take him to Mexico for vitamins and other alternative treatments. They spent tens of thousands of dollars, but after a year-and-a-half, he died under Bowers’ care. > > “It was so sad,” she said. “He was potentially curable when he was first seen. But they were afraid of the chemotherapy and the side effects.” Ignorance is begetting ignorance and those who are practicing some of these “alternative treatments” are preying on the desperate for their money. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/127 "2009-05-13T16:04:19Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > Dr: It’s simple, these therapies are NOT DRUGS, they are simple knowledge that can be conveyed in one afternoon of reading. There’s no business in it, nothing. Nothing for a company to do with it. Nothing. Not even a penny. The Nobel prize in Medicine carrys a nice amount of change, not to mention the hefty cache` it has. And, herbal and natural medications are a multi-billion dollar industry, how do you think the health food store and all those “natural” products stay in business? Even if one could “graze” the herbs and raw food selections and get what you need, it’s nearly always better to get purified and controled amounts, available in the “natural supplements” section. This is why we take aspirn rather that willow bark (also note that willow bark really tears your gut up, far more that aspirin does). Just the publicity of announcing a cheap “cure” would be worth billions to a smaller drug company, it’s other products would sell like hot cakes “Hey that’s the company that cured cancer! Their stuff must work!”) And even if there was not a dime to be made, there’s billions to be saved, which is why the Insurance industry and the government would get behind any such cheap cure. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/128 "2009-05-13T16:09:59Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > Taxol® = Pacific yew tree bark extract > Cholchicine = the autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale L.) > Vinblastine = leaves of the Madigascar periwinkle > > Even Etoposide, which is what I was perscribed is a semisynthetic derivative of podophyllotoxin which is found in resin from the roots of may apple or mandrake > > Seriously, this list is very long because after Eli Lilly sponsors the $200m clinical study they change the name to something very technical sounding and then everyone thinks that they were the ones who invented it. The medicine discovery process is very much aligned with alternative medicine, many modern drugs have their beginnings in some remote tribe or village somewhere where people have been cured from some random root and drug companies send a team out to investigate. First you say _“There’s no business in it, nothing. Nothing for a company to do with it. Nothing. Not even a penny.”_ then you contradict yourself and show there’s millions or billions to be made in remedies that start in herbs, etc. Which is it? Do the drug companies ignore natural sources as there’s no $ to be made, or do they make billions from exploiting once natural sources? ---
**Author:** ![brooklynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@brooklynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brooklynn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/129 "2009-05-13T19:39:24Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > So quick? How is 8 years of study in the biological sciences quick? How long should I take and how much study do you expect me to do before I accept the integrity and utility of the scientific method? > > IOW what makes you think I or anyone else here is being hasty? > > Hitler’s secretary used a qwerty keyboard. Ad you are typing these posts using a qwerty keyboard. So you must be a Nazi. Right? I would like to think that you understood that such attempts at guilt by comparison and attempting to poison the well is not a sound way to construct an argument, much less a way to convince people of your position. No Sir, all I am saying is that the general tone of the responses was in doctors we trust, in science we trust, and my reply to that was, maybe we shouldn’t so much since doctors have sold things way less benign than snake oil, not in the past, but today. How many of you have been prescribed superfluous drugs? How many people have been mis-diagnosed over and over. Look around the doctors office next time your there, how is it not obvious to everyone that all the pens and pencils and notebooks and perscriptions pads and wall charts and gifts and vacations can easily taint a doctors perception of right and wrong. > [@](#): > > … and oncologists who work for places like MSK who have drug company executives on their boards so wholeheartedly and attack anyone who voices opposition to them. > > You have made this, or similar, assertions several times in this thread, but you have yet to provide any actual evidence for the claim.Do you have any evidence, or are we expected yet again to to simply take your word that tis is the case? This is true in most high profile medical boards, here’s a breakdown of the MSK board, and the first person I chose, William C Stair Jr., is on the Pfizer [http://www.muckety.com/Memorial-Sloan-Kettering-Cancer-Center/5001191.muckety](http://www.muckety.com/Memorial-Sloan-Kettering-Cancer-Center/5001191.muckety) The second person I chose, James D. Robinson III is part of Bristol Meyers (and Coca Cola, one of the largest purveyors of high fructose corn syrup worldwide, a proven accelerant of all forms of cancer) If MSK is in charge of many of these studies that set the tone for cancer treatment around the world, it’s actually very likely that their science has been tainted. There have been several high profile whistleblowers over the years at MSK specifically who have explained the common practices of high risk group suppression (from satistics to make their treatments sound more effective) Ben W. Heineman, the third person I chose, is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Educational Welfare. So when legislation is up for review about funding for alternative treatments, we have a representitive of MSK there to weigh in. I’m not implying this HUGE CONSPIRACY here, I’m only saying it makes perfect sense that there are known alternative treatments, that don’t require expensive drugs or $30,000 stays at MSK that are suppressed by a comment to a researcher here, and a speaking engagement for some doctor there. Am I nuts? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/130 "2009-05-13T19:51:31Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > No Sir, all I am saying is that the general tone of the responses was in doctors we trust, in science we trust, and my reply to that was, maybe we shouldn’t so much since doctors have sold things way less benign than snake oil, not in the past, but today. > > How many of you have been prescribed superfluous drugs? How many people have been mis-diagnosed over and over. Your OP is heavily about self-prescribing superfluous drugs (excuse me, _natural supplements_. :rolleyes: It also might come as a shock that a great deal of the self-reported “cures” with alternative methods come in cases where people were never correctly diagnosed by a competent practitioner. It’s much easier to “cure cancer” when the patient never had cancer in the first place (note that I’m not referring specifically to your case). > [@](#): > > I’m not implying this HUGE CONSPIRACY here, I’m only saying it makes perfect sense that there are known alternative treatments, that don’t require expensive drugs or $30,000 stays at MSK that are suppressed by a comment to a researcher here, and a speaking engagement for some doctor there. It makes “perfect sense” if one is heavily drawn to conspiracy theories, hates physicians (for whatever reason), is an alt med practitioner who competes financially with mainstream medicine, or has a heavy philosophic and/or emotional investment in a mode of alternative treatment. If one’s thinking isn’t impaired by factors like these, the conspiracy idea comes across as delusional. As someone who occasionally gets labeled a “pharma shill” on boards where theories like this are floated, all I have to say is come _on_, Pfizer! Where are those fat checks I’m supposed to be getting? All I ever got as a practicing pathologist was a cheap plastic mug for Lab Week. Sigh…I am so easily bought. ---
**Author:** ![brooklynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@brooklynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brooklynn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/131 "2009-05-13T19:56:35Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > The problem with expecting doctors to recommend alternative therapies is that there are so damn many of them, it would be like picking a needle out of a haystack for the patient to choose which ones to try. > > My wife has an incurable, degenerative auto-immune disease called scleroderma, for which she is currently undergoing chemotherapy. I cannot tell you how many alternative therapies have been suggested by well meaning friends and acquaintances. Aloe vera juice, alkalizing diets, DMSO, colloidal copper; the list is truly endless. Here is just a smattering of the crap being hawked to desperate scleroderma patients: > > [Rid Yourself of Scleroderma Through Proven Naturopathic Remedies](http://www.sclerodermamiracles.com/) > > [Scleroderma Defeated](http://www.sclerodermadefeated.com/) > > [Natural Remedies for Scleroderma](http://www.regenerativenutrition.com/natural-supplements-cure-scleroderma.asp) > > My point is, which alternative therapy should she try? Do they all work as advertised? Will they work for my wife as they did for those who made testimonials? What are the side effects of each? What are the risks? > > If only there were some way to evaluate alternative therapies, and quantify the efficacy, side effects and risks, perhaps I could make an informed decision about which among the myriad of quacks and nostrums is truly the miracle cure we are desperately searching for. > > Oh, wait there is. It is called science, and it uses a protocol of double-blinded peer reviewed studies to weed out the useless and the downright dangerous alternative therapies. > > You should be grateful your doctor did not throw you out into the blizzard of miracle cures that exist for cancer. This is a very good point that I had a lot of trouble with initially, but, after spending a few weeks reading, I discovered that in most diseases there are only about a top five to ten alternative theories that have the biggest following. If you’re wife is suffering from something her doctors gave up on, don’t you think it’s worth at least trying? Even if there’s only a 5% chance that it will help her suffering by the slightest amount - is it not worth the minimal effort involved with say, to examine the first two: Aloe Vera Juice: you can buy it at any well-stocked grocery store, and stick it in the blender with a morning yogurt or something - aloe vera is a very healthy thing plant regardless of what disease you have. It’s only a plant! You can eat it every day for the rest of your life and it will do nothing but make you healthier, and while it’s around use it on a sunburn instead of the chemical-laden, preservative laced alternative if you have extra. Just do a little research beyond googling her condition into these things and you can easily get the side effects, etc. Alkalizing diet: is the easiest thing diet to follow.. basically have her eat more veggies and fruits and less meat, eggs and dairy. It’s really that simple! What possible side effect can eating less meat and more fresh vegetables have?! This is amazing to me that everyone seems so willing to go and try drugs that have mind-boggling side effects, that often do not work or stop working after a while - but if one suggests adjusting their diet they balk at it. Respectfully, with your wife suffering an incurable disease, you should close this page, got to amazon and start putting together a 6 month plan of trying every possible alternative (that’s reasonable) and maybe you’ll be arguing the other side of this (as I was easily in your position a few months back). I have a friend who suffered from acne for many years and was trying all sorts of crap from her dermatologist, when I started my regimen - she also started a form of alkalizing diet, in 4 weeks it cleared up. You never know! ---
**Author:** ![brooklynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@brooklynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brooklynn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/132 "2009-05-13T20:00:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > This is totally wrong. If there was no money to be made from selling herbal supplements and “natural cures,” it wouldn’t be a multi-billion-dollar industry. The distinction you are making between “therapies” and “drugs” exists only in the marketing departments of people in the alternative medicine industry. It’s a big business in its own right and the people in it are just as interested in making money as people in the pharmaceutical industry. The entire herbal supplement industry makes what 2 blockbuster drugs make. There’s no comparison to be made here - Bristol Meyers and Pfizer aren’t getting into this kind of bullshit supplement business they want real money because they spend real money. ---
**Author:** ![brooklynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@brooklynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brooklynn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/133 "2009-05-13T20:02:56Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Your OP is heavily about self-prescribing superfluous drugs (excuse me, _natural supplements_. :rolleyes: It also might come as a shock that a great deal of the self-reported “cures” with alternative methods come in cases where people were never correctly diagnosed by a competent practitioner. It’s much easier to “cure cancer” when the patient never had cancer in the first place (note that I’m not referring specifically to your case).It makes “perfect sense” if one is heavily drawn to conspiracy theories, hates physicians (for whatever reason), is an alt med practitioner who competes financially with mainstream medicine, or has a heavy philosophic and/or emotional investment in a mode of alternative treatment. > > If one’s thinking isn’t impaired by factors like these, the conspiracy idea comes across as delusional. > > As someone who occasionally gets labeled a “pharma shill” on boards where theories like this are floated, all I have to say is come _on_, Pfizer! Where are those fat checks I’m supposed to be getting? All I ever got as a practicing pathologist was a cheap plastic mug for Lab Week. Sigh…I am so easily bought. Do you perform autopsies? ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/134 "2009-05-13T20:04:36Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > if so many people worldwide see success with an alternative treatment, shouldn’t it at least be discussed or mentioned? How many people worldwide? Who keeps track of exactly what they had and what they took? > [@brooklynn](#): > > Nutrients and herbs etc. is a very broad statement: there are many people stricken with cancer all over the world that don’t have access to the $45,000 in surgeries, $3,000 in radiation and $5,000 in chemotherapy. These people use many different types of herbs and nutrient therapies that work. > > I did not use it, but the Gerson method has been around for many years and there are plenty of survivors to vouch for it’s efficacy, and it’s purely nutrition based. How many people all over the World? How many survivors? Who keeps track of exactly what they had and what they took? > [@brooklynn](#): > > There are numerous, well documented cases of the substances I used working, that is how I found out about it in the first place, the Budwig protocol has been around for 30+ years, and mushroom therapy has been used for hundreds (if not thousands of years) and is currently in use around world for cancer treatment. Documented by whom? What is the rate of success of the Budwig protocol? What is the rate of success of mushroom therapy? > [@brooklynn](#): > > This happens all day long, so basically, when people discover some herb that’s been curing people for a thousand years, just because nobody can patent it and thus did not sponsor a $200m clinical study, it does not mean it’s bogus - and the inverse - just because some drug company with billions of dollars paid some researchers to ‘study’ the drug it doesn’t mean the drug is worth shit either. What herb? What records going back 1000 years are there? > [@brooklynn](#): > > Almost all of the alternative therapies, and there are many, have specific instructions that are in fact very easily implementable and have thousands of people that used it successfully, this is why they have a following and they are used all over the world. How many thousands of people? Who keeps track of exactly what they had and what they took? Millions of Americans say they have been abducted by aliens - do you believe those ‘reports’? ---
**Author:** ![brooklynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@brooklynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brooklynn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/135 "2009-05-13T20:12:06Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > First you say _“There’s no business in it, nothing. Nothing for a company to do with it. Nothing. Not even a penny.”_ then you contradict yourself and show there’s millions or billions to be made in remedies that start in herbs, etc. Which is it? Do the drug companies ignore natural sources as there’s no $ to be made, or do they make billions from exploiting once natural sources? I’m talking of the regimen I am taking specifically, it’s simply, non-patentable forms (though I just read some company patented the parts of the human genome so I don’t know anymore). ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/136 "2009-05-13T20:22:41Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > … high fructose corn syrup worldwide, a proven accelerant of all forms of cancer How exactly was it “proven” that HFCS accelerates all forms of cancer? > [@](#): > > Am I nuts? You have a serious illness, and it is a natural human tendency to want to believe that there is a solution to your problem that is easy, cheap, and pain- and cost-free. Unfortunately, this is rarely true. > [@](#): > > I’m only saying it makes perfect sense that there are known alternative treatments, that don’t require expensive drugs or $30,000 stays at MSK that are suppressed by a comment to a researcher here, and a speaking engagement for some doctor there. Did you read my previous post? The members of the board at MSK are as likely to get cancer as anyone else in their age cohort. So also are their families. Do you believe that the board members are willing to sacrifice their own lives, and those of their families, so MSK can make money? From one of your cites - > [@](#): > > Our results show that 64.5% would now take chemotherapy—indicating nearly a doubling from 34% to 64.5% of those now willing to have chemotherapy plus radiotherapy and a quadrupling from 17% to 64.5% of those who would take chemotherapy alone. So, even by your own cites, and in very serious cases of cancer, two-thirds of oncolologists choose evidence-based medicine. Why wouldn’t they choose the magic herbs that you believe in? Look, for instance, in the enormously encouraging improvement in the outcome for treatment of childhood cancers. ["St. Jude’s groundbreaking development of combination therapy for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer, revolutionized leukemia therapy worldwide and increased the survival rate from 4 percent, when St. Jude opened in 1962, to 94 percent today. The survival rate for the following leukemias/lymphomas has also increased: \* Hodgkin lymphoma from 50 percent in 1962 to 90 percent today \* Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) from 7 percent in 1962 to 85 percent today In addition, contemporary leukemia treatment strategies at St. Jude have doubled the survival rate of childhood NHL from about 40 percent 20 to 30 years ago to the current rate of 85 percent, without increasing the risks of developing other cancers."]([Page not found](http://www.stjude.org/stjude/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=03cdfa3186e70110VgnVCM1000001e0215acRCRD&vgnextchannel=b367ef9e87018010VgnVCM1000000e2015acRCRD)) They sure as hell didn’t do that with herbs and positive thinking. Why would we abandon science now? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![brooklynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@brooklynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brooklynn)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/137 "2009-05-13T20:23:11Z")
> [@glee](#): > > How many people worldwide? > Who keeps track of exactly what they had and what they took? > > How many people all over the World? > How many survivors? > Who keeps track of exactly what they had and what they took? > > Documented by whom? > What is the rate of success of the Budwig protocol? > What is the rate of success of mushroom therapy? > > What herb? > What records going back 1000 years are there? > > How many thousands of people? > Who keeps track of exactly what they had and what they took? > > Millions of Americans say they have been abducted by aliens - do you believe those ‘reports’? That was thank you earlier, if it’s not in a controlled environment taken by scientists then it can’t be brought into a discussion in this country. Got it. That’s good enough for everyone here. I’m going to trust the people I spoke to and read about because I don’t see any reason someone would write a 6 paragraph story about their experience to sell me a therapy that they make no money from. And, from my own experience of being a cancer patient for so many years, it’s actually quite easy to self diagnose: One of the comments that keep on re-appearing is that since a doctor didn’t monitor my success or the success of alternative treatments all their evidence is anecdotal; that may be technically so in this country (or this board), butwhat oncologists do is not really very complex: 1. You find a lump 2. Doctor performs a biopsy, it’s sent to pathology 3. You go for some sort of imaging to find out where it’s spread 4. You get blood tests for the markers related to the cancer found 5. They look at a chart (which you can look at yourself) and stage your cancer 6. They look at another chart and prescribe your treatment 7. After a set period, you come back in and get retested 8. If he results show its receded then you’re in remission, if not, return to #7 So to determine if my cancer is in remission, I went back and got the markers and the CT scan done in the same place, on the same machines, by the same labs, and thus it was not diffucult for me do determine that it was in remission. Maybe I wasn’t clear about this and some readers assumed I just ‘felt’ better and that was some arbitrary decision. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/138 "2009-05-13T20:35:16Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > I did not use it, but the Gerson method has been around for many years and there are plenty of survivors to vouch for it’s efficacy, and it’s purely nutrition based. The Gerson method is not purely nutrition based. It involves the use of Laetrile ([cite](http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/69233.cfm)). Since you seem so concerned with the dangerous drugs used in evidence-based medicine’s treatment of cancer, it may interest you to know that the active ingredient in Laetrile is cyanide. [Cite.](http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/laetrile) > [@](#): > > Despite proponents’ claims of recovery rates as high as 70-90 percent, case reviews by the NCI and New York County Medical Society in 1947 found no evidence of the Gerson diet’s benefit in cancer. [Cite.](http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/69233.cfm#References) > [@](#): > > I don’t see any reason someone would write a 6 paragraph story about their experience to sell me a therapy that they make no money from. I am not making any money off of my posts here. And I would be willing to bet a reasonable sum that a good many of those pushing alternative “cures” on the Internet are, by odd coincidence, involving in selling them as well. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/139 "2009-05-13T21:54:51Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > I’m talking of the regimen I am taking specifically, it’s simply, non-patentable forms (though I just read some company patented the parts of the human genome so I don’t know anymore). You can’t patent herbs, but companies make millions collecting, drying and capsulizing those herbs. Here’ what wiki sez about Gerson \*"Gerson’s therapy has not been independently tested or subjected to randomized controlled trials, and thus is illegal to market in the United States. The Gerson Institute claims that Gerson’s observational studies and case reports are anecdotal evidence of the efficacy of the treatment.[8] In his book, Gerson cites the “Results of 50 Cases”; however, the U.S. National Cancer Institute reviewed these 50 cases and was unable to find any evidence that Gerson’s claims were accurate.[3] Gerson Institute staff published a case series in the alternative medical literature; however, the series have suffered from significant methodological flaws, and no independent entity has been able to reproduce the Gerson Institute’s claims.[3] Independent anecdotal evidence suggests that the Gerson Therapy is not effective against cancer. When a group of 13 patients sickened by elements of the Gerson Therapy were evaluated in hospitals in San Diego in the early 1980s, all of them were found to still have active cancer.[7] The Gerson Institute’s claimed “cure rates” have been questioned; an investigation by Quackwatch found that the Institute’s claims were based not on actual documentation of survival, but on “a combination of the doctor’s estimate that the departing patient has a ‘reasonable chance of surviving,’ plus feelings that the Institute staff have about the status of people who call in.”[9] In 1994, a study published in the alternative medical literature described 18 patients treated for cancer with the Gerson Therapy. Their median survival from treatment was 9 months; at 5 years out, 17 of the 18 patients had died of their cancer, while one was alive but with active non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[10] The American Cancer Society reports that “[t]here is no reliable scientific evidence that Gerson therapy is effective in treating cancer, and the principles behind it are not widely accepted by the medical community. It is not approved for use in the United States.”[2] In 1947, the National Cancer Institute reviewed 10 “cures” submitted by Gerson; however, all of the patients were receiving standard anticancer treatment simultaneously, making it impossible to determine what effect, if any, was due to Gerson’s therapy.[1] A review of the Gerson Therapy by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center concluded: “If proponents of such therapies wish them to be evaluated scientifically and considered valid adjuvant treatments, they must provide extensive records (more than simple survival rates) and conduct controlled, prospective studies as evidence.”[3]\* ---
**Author:** ![Diz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Diz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diz)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/140 "2009-05-13T22:41:57Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > The entire herbal supplement industry makes what 2 blockbuster drugs make. There’s no comparison to be made here - Bristol Meyers and Pfizer aren’t getting into this kind of bullshit supplement business they want real money because they spend real money. That still doesn’t make any sense. Sure drug companies would like to make billions and billions with a couple blockbuster drugs, but why would they pass up an opportunity to make a smaller amount of money for minimal effort? Profit is profit, no matter where it comes from. On top of that, if the drug companies conducted trials that showed the effectiveness of these cheap herbal supplements, the market for them would expand enormously. The market is comparatively small now because there aren’t all that many people that believe supplements are useful. Change that and the herbal supplement _becomes_ the next blockbuster drug. If you’re going to use the profit motive to argue against the usefulness of the drug companies, you have to follow that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. McDonald’s and Walmart didn’t make billions by selling expensive stuff to a small number of people. Cheap and effective is a fantastic way to make “real money”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894.md?page=8)