# 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:** 13\ **Page:** 8
**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, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/141 "2009-05-13T23:26:02Z")
> [@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? > [@brooklynn](#): > > 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. You miss the point. We would be happy to discuss your evidence. You claim ‘thousands of people’ have been cured by ‘alternative’ medicine and include claims going back 1000 years. Please give details. > [@brooklynn](#): > > 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. The same can be said of the millions of people who report being abducted by aliens. And they say you should wear a tinfoil hat, else you will be abducted. Do you believe them? > [@brooklynn](#): > > 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: > … > 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. We understand that you can tell you’re in remission. How do you know what caused it? Without scientifically monitoring, you can’t tell whether a treatment works. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/142 "2009-05-14T00:10:11Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > No Sir, all I am saying is that the general tone of the responses was in doctors we trust, in science we trust…. 1. The general tone of the responses was _not_ that we should trust doctors. I explained that at some length above and am somewhat irritated that you chose to ignore my long posts and direct questions and instead concentrate on just a few posts. However I will repeat it for your edification: The general tone was that we should trust _nobody_ until they have evidence for their claims. Not doctors, not door to door salesmen, not “health food” companies. Nobody. Trsust no-one until they provide evidence of their claims? Now, do you find that to be an unreasonable position to put forth? It certainly doesn’t seem like an unreasonable position to adopt on message board that is supposed to be about fighting ignorance, and you won’t convince many people here if you hold that it is an unreasonable position. Well guess what? Doctors _DO_ have evidence for their claims. So they can be trusted based on the principle thatwe can trust people when they have evidence for their claims. Not _all_ the doctors, _all_ the time. No system that involves humans is perfect. But the vast majority of doctors have evidence for their claims the vast majority of the time. I take it that you don’t dispute that fact? So since we presumably agree that we only trust people after they present evidence for their claims, and we presumably agree that doctors can present evidence for their claims, then what is unreasonable about trusting doctors? In contrast people, including yourself, who tout “natural therapies” have no evidence for their claims. There may be one or two natural therapy promotors that have evidence for their claims, but I have never encountered them and your are by your own admission not one of them. So as far as I am aware no promoter of natural therapy has any evidence any of the time. So since we presumably agree that we only trust people after they present evidence for their claims, and we presumably agree that natural therapy promotors can not present any evidence for their claims, then what is unreasonable about not trusting doctors natural therapy promotors? I am genuinely having trouble understanding what you find so confusing about this position. It seems perfectly reasonable and straightforward to me. Ask your doctors why they recommend a treatment and they will be able to point you to references which in turn reference peer reviewed, double blind studies showing the efficacy of the treatment. IOW they have evidence upon which they base their treatment decisions. Now you may of course dispute the evidence or the conclusions drawn from it, which is your right. But you can not deny that the evidence exists. That is in stark contrast t yourself and anyone else I have seen who touts alternative treatments, where there is no evidence at all for the claims made. It’s not a case of disputing the evidence. The evidence simply doesn’t exist. Why in the world would anyone trust a therapy with no evidence whatsoever hat it works, while distrusting therapies with sound evidential bases? I could almost understand people distrusting _all_ treatments because they believe the evidence for conventional medicine is weak. But this willingness to trust something with no evidence at all while rejecting conventional evidence based medicine simply makes no sense at all. > [@](#): > > …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. Once again, I explained this at length above, and once again you have chosen to ignore it. So once again I will repeat what I said: In 99.99% of cases science isn’t tainted and it is perfectly accurate. In 99.99% of cases doctors haven’t sold anything which they had any evidence was harmful. 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 doctor’s recommendation is helpful and accurate until he sees evidence otherwise because the vast majority of past experience has been that this is so. And once again we have this strange dichotomy. One the one hand you say we should reject evidence based medicine because a tiny minority of doctors may have sold something harmful in the past. But at the same time you say we should embrace alternative therapies with no evidence at all despite the fact that the vast majority of natural therapies sold in the past are provably harmful. Can you please explain this? Why are you unwilling to trust evidence based medicine because there have been a minsicule proportion of harmful outcomes in the past, yet willing to whole heartedly embrace “alternative therapies” with no evidence despite the fact that the vast majority of past efforts have been provably harmful? > [@](#): > > How many of you have been prescribed superfluous drugs? How many people have been mis-diagnosed over and over. I know the answer to that: Far fewer proportionally than the number that have been prescribed superfluous drugs and mis-diagnosed over and over by proponents of alternative medcine. So, once again, can you please explain this? Why are you unwilling to trust evidence based medicine because there have been a miniscule proportion of misdiagnoses and superfluous prescriptions in the past, yet willing to whole heartedly embrace “alternative therapies” with no evidence despite the fact that the vast majority of past efforts have been misdiagnoses and superfluous prescriptions? > [@](#): > > 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. Because it isn’t obvious. That is why you cannot explain it. > [@](#): > > … Coca Cola, one of the largest purveyors of high fructose corn syrup worldwide, a proven accelerant of all forms of cancer That statement is absolute nonsense and reduces my respect for you immensely. You have obviously bought into a lot of ignorant “whole foods” nonsense without making any attemt to establish the facts. > [@](#): > > 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. I repeat: You make this claim repeatedly, but have yet to providence any evidence that it is true. Do you actually have any evidence for this claim? Simply rewording the same assertion is not evidence that the assertion is true. > [@](#): > > 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) OK that might be evidence, if we had anyhting more to base it on than your claim that it is true. What are the names of these “high profile whistleblowers“? What inquiry did they present their evidence to? Did the inquiry confirm their claims? > [@](#): > > I’m not implying this HUGE CONSPIRACY here, I’m only saying it makes perfect sense that there are known alternative treatments… And we are saying that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there are any known alternative treatments. There are many _claims_ of alternative treatments made by people like yourself. Those claims range from diet, to herbal supplements to tantric meditation to tiger penis to prayers to Allah. But they all have one thing in common: there is no evidence whatsoever that they actually _treat_ the illness. So if you think that there are known alternative treatments then please name them and present evidence that they actually treat the condition any better than doing nothing. > [@](#): > > … that are suppressed by a comment to a researcher here, and a speaking engagement for some doctor there. Once again, where is the evidence that this occurs? You repeatedly claim that it does occur. Your entire position seems to hinge on the fact that it occurs, but you can’t produce any evidence that it occurs. > [@](#): > > Am I nuts? Your position certainly is. I have no hesitation at all in saying that the position that you have presented here is totally illogical, inconsistent and irrational. IOW it’s totally nuts. It all hinges on a complete and total mistrust of evidence based medicine because there have been a small number of failures in the past, while simultaneously having a wholehearted trust in “alternative therapies” despite the a total lack of evidence of efficacy and the fact that the vast majority of such treatments in the past have been failures. And that position, my friend, makes no sense at all to a rational person. It is totally nuts. ---
**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 14, 2009, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/143 "2009-05-14T02:33:35Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > 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. Really? And that makes them worth following, because other desperate people are following them? I prefer to base my health decisions on something a little more concrete than the herd mentality. And if there are 40 alternative therapies, am I not risking excluding the one true miracle if I limit my trials to the top ten? How will I live with myself if I don’t try them all? > [@](#): > > If you’re wife is suffering from something her doctors gave up on, don’t you think it’s worth at least trying? No. For one thing, the doctors have not given up. And for another, there is an emotional toll every time a patient embarks on a new therapy, no matter how benign. Every new therapy kindles hope; maybe this is the one! And when that hope fades, and we realize our hope has been dashed again, the emotional let down can cause a deepening of the symptoms she already suffers. No thank you, we need to have more to go on than “a friend of a friend swears by it!” before we make that emotional investment, not to mention the financial investment some of these woo-woo therapies require. > [@](#): > > 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?! If you knew what the effects of scleroderma are, you would know that many vegetables are difficult to digest for a person whose GI tract has been compromised. Not to put too fine a point on it, but when my wife eats many vegetables, they come out in the same condition they went in. > [@](#): > > 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! Now you are starting to piss me off, and you have a right to know why. A few months ago, we went to a scleroderma support group of about 8-10 scleroderma patients and their spouses. We know everybody in the group, but that day there was a new face, someone nobody else knew. As we usually do, we went around the table sharing our experiences, and when we came to this guy, he pulls out a book and starts reading from a screed about DMSO, and how it cures not only scleroderma, but cancer, diabetes, arthritis, thinning hair, fallen arches and bad breath. After several minutes of lecturing, i interrupted him, and asked him if he had scleroderma, or knew someone who did. “No,” he replied, “but I wanted to share this information that will change your life!” This touched off an exchange that became more and more heated, and he became more and more condescending, until I lost my temper and told him to get the hell out or I would throw him out. I would have kicked his ass if were not for my wife, who prevailed on me to leave the room and let the others deal with this unwelcome interloper. So when I start hearing the same infuriating logic (“You never know!”), it really ticks me off. We are making the best decisions we can, using the best information we can find. We are not going to start chasing rainbows just because some credulous stranger can’t understand why we won’t take his word for it. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/144 "2009-05-14T03:42:11Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > Coca Cola, one of the largest purveyors of high fructose corn syrup worldwide, a proven accelerant of all forms of cancer. You know **brooklynn** , by and large you come across as sincere, genuinely interested in learning, and open-minded. But then, you come up with an assertion like the quoted one above. An assertion with absolutely no evidence to back it up. By that I don’t mean that _you_ fail to provide cites. No, I mean there _are_ no cites to provide. Indeed, there are exactly zero research papers showing that fructose corn syrup promotes or accelerates cancer. In other words, of the millions of articles listed on PubMed, not a single one proves what you claim. In fact, there are almost no research articles about fructose corn syrup, period. So, from where does your claim originate? Are you simply repeating the ‘party line’? The alternative mantra? The anti-big business shibboleth? With this crowd, that type of behaviour ain’t gonna help your cause. Come on, lose the knee jerk stuff. It will go a long way towards helping the folks around here, well, certainly me at least, take you more seriously. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/145 "2009-05-14T03:50:00Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > 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. This sentence shows that what everyone has been saying here, has not sunk in for you yet. This one sentence highlights the disconnect, so please pay attention and try to let this sink in. Anecdotes of how a person took a treatment and then got better are not good evidence that the treatment worked. Just like in your case. At most, the anecdotes are indicators that something should be studied formally. But here’s the key point (again): it’s not a question of them being honest, it’s that without controlled studies, there is no way that ANYONE knows whether the treatments work or not. Not you, not the people you spoke to and read about, NO ONE. I think everyone here understands what you’re saying. We’ve listened to you and considered your point, but in the end, we disagree. On the other hand, I think you have not understood the point we’ve been making. Please try, really try. Read Blake’s post above - it was excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/146 "2009-05-14T04:08:21Z")
> [@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. They spend real money because that’s what it takes to market their drugs. Billions of dollars are absolutely real money to these companies. [The WHO says that sales of herbal supplements in Bhutan, Canada, Czech Republic, Iran, Madagascar, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sudan, and Sweden alone were more than $1 billion in 2001.](http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js7916e/7.12.html) That was eight years ago and given the lack of regulation and oversight for many of these products - I can buy a lot of herbal supplements at any local bodega without even knowing what they are - I think it’s clear there are many billions of dollars to be had in this market. The best selling prescription drug in the world is Lipitor, and sales last year were $12.4 billion worldwide. Compare that to $1 billion in nine countries, most of them developing nations, in 2001. Where are you getting the impression this is an insignificant business? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/147 "2009-05-14T11:35:59Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > Even after I went back to get tested (negative, which they were very surprised at) - as soon as I mentioned what I’d been doing, they got angry! Can we hear some more about this? What did the doctors say when they saw the test results, and why were they angry? Did they tell you that they didn’t think the remission would last based on herbal treatments? Had they told you in the past that you could experience a remission at some point and needed to continue chemo anyway, for example? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2009, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/148 "2009-05-14T11:59:28Z")
Rather belated,. but my prayers and best wishes on behalf of your wife, **Fear Itself**. And I would pay money for video of that support group. Regards, Shodan ---
**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 14, 2009, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/149 "2009-05-14T12:39:35Z")
In regards to the “alkalizing” diet that was mentioned: Eating more fruits and vegetables is in general part of a healthier diet, though not because it “alkalizes” your body. You cannot significantly change your body pH, which is tightly controlled within a narrow range by multiple mechanisms. If you could alter it markedly through diet, you’d die because many metabolic reactions could not be carried out properly. The common altie assumption that “alkalizing” your body prevents or treats cancer is also hooey. And yes, I do autopsies. As a pathologist, that’s about 0.001% of my work, which almost entirely deals with living patients. ---
**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 14, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/150 "2009-05-14T14:33:59Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Rather belated,. but my prayers and best wishes on behalf of your wife, **Fear Itself**. > > And I would pay money for video of that support group. > > Regards, > Shodan Thanks, **Shodan**. We’ve had our differences, but your kind thoughts are appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/151 "2009-05-15T14:14:23Z")
> [@brooklynn](#): > > 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… It’s always sad to see people who are suffering being taken for a ride. However I can offer your wife two ‘alternatives’: - send me $50 (one-off payment) and I will invoke the power of my religion to cure her - send me just $5 a week (probably less than you spend on alcohol) and I will not only cure her using my psychic powers AND prevent the disease recurring The chance of success are 72.8%. ---
**Author:** ![dr\_kay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@dr\_kay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dr_kay)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/152 "2009-07-31T21:40:55Z")
Dear Brooklynn- Firstly, I would like to congratulate you on taking the initiative to cure yourself. I am pleased to hear that your cancer is in remission. Secondly, as a current student of allopathic medicine, I would like to add the following to your thread. There should not be any surprise or confusion as to why your MD’s never put you on the healing path that you are on today. Furthermore, there should not be doubt in any suffering individual, as to why their MD’s will only treat them with the standard of care. As you know, medicine is an ancient science, and only in the recent century has it become the modern day medicine as we know it. Needless to say that our progression forward has surpassed barriers that have deterred all preceding generations. Let me provide a simple analogy to help make the following point. Say you go to get some gas for your car at the local gas station, as the gentleman is filling the gas, you say to him, “since you want to provide me with your service, can you please repair my tire”? He responds to you by saying, “perhaps you should go down the road, since I don’t provide that service hear”. You are comparing the apple with the orange. Asking (or even expecting) a doctor who has studied allopathic medicine, to provide you with anything other then his standard of care, you will undoubtedly get a similar response as in the analogy. One might take this further and demand that perhaps an MD should study homeopathy and naturopathy. But you are again left at the same dead end of apples and oranges. I consider myself open minded to all real cures, and I support any patient that finds relief in alternative care, but as a medical student, I know that although there might be alternative options of treatment, we are only allowed to practice healing that can be proven from the histological level, to the biological level, and to the physiological level. If microscopic pathways of healing can not be validated with large scale studies, it is not a tool we can use to cure. This is not because of some conspiracy to make money off of the backs of the wounded, quite the contrary, this is to provide a guideline that effectively produces the most accurate and current medicine. If we didn’t have these measures i.e. large scale research, clinical studies, grants etc., we would be no different then the vitamin industry, which is unregulated, not science based, and simply a means to make a profit. On another note, I have read a fascinating book years ago by Dr. Andrew Weil, who I am sure you have encountered in your research for a cure. It is entitled ‘Spontaneous Healing’, and I highly recommend it, especially for someone of your experience. > **[Spontaneous Healing](https://books.google.com/books?id=zpjfPgkTY94C&dq=dr%2Bweil%2Bspontaneous%2Bhealing&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=xlNzStHeFY-IMom3pLEM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4)** > > The body can heal itself. Spontaneous healing is not a miracle but a fact of biology--the result of the natural healing system that each one of us is born with. Drawing on fascinating case histories as well as medical techniques from around the... My best of luck to you, and I hope you continue to successfully fight your cancer! Your Old Pal, Chaim K ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894/153 "2009-07-31T22:28:22Z")
Given that the OP has not been back since May 13, I don’t see much point in reopening this particular thread. If you want to discuss the benefits of allopathic medicine, I would suggest opening a new thread in Great Debates. Colibri General Questions Moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-my-oncologist-tell-me-about-alternative-cancer-treatments/495894.md?page=7)