Orac is the nom de blog of a (not so) humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. (Continued 
About a month and half ago, we learned that über-quack Hulda Clark, the woman who said that she had the Cure for All Cancers, had died on September 3, 2009. I was criticized for entitling my post Requiem for a Quack, but, given how Clark's quackery had contributed to the suffering and deaths of an unknown number of cancer patients, I didn't really feel too bad about it, although I do realize that the taboo about speaking ill of the recently dead is a strong one.
At the time, I was curious what the cause of Dr. Clark's death was, because it seemed rather mysterious, being described as the result of a "spinal injury," with no further description. Then, a reader sent me a scan of Hulda Clark's death certificate, and this is what it listed as the cause of death:
Multiple myeloma. Cancer of plasma cells, a form of lymphoma.
Don't believe me? Check out Hulda Clark's death certificate (certain addresses whited out) for yourself. Even Hulda Clark's own website admits that she had multiple myeloma:
Dr. Clark helped many people get well, but she couldn't help herself. Her first symptom was excruciating pain in her arms. Pain medicines were ineffective. It would turn out she had deterioration in her neck vertebrae which was pinching those nerves. Her hands stopped functioning. It would turn out later she had carpal tunnel syndrome. So as soon as Dr. Clark knew there was something wrong, she physically could not use her Syncrometer techniques to investigate it because her hands and arms did not work well enough. Her health deterioration was a mystery.
Well, not really. The cause of her health deterioration, while perhaps a mystery initially, is quite clear now. She had multiple myeloma. It's also a pretty lame excuse. I mean, come on! Clark "trained" dozens of acolytes to use her Syncrometer. Are they really saying that not a single one of them could use her device, which she claimed as part of the "cure for all cancers," to cure her cancer, as she claimed she could cure all cancers? Not that it would have done any more good for Clark than it did for any of the cancer patients who misplaced their faith by putting it in her, but the excuse used to explain why Clark died of cancer when she had spent so many years claiming that she could cure it is lame in the extreme. Surely there must have been someone who could have operated the Syncronometer for her! In any case, this is how Hulda Clark's site describes what happened next:
Dr. Clark could see from her blood tests that she was anemic. She got a transfusion but was uncertain if the anemia was significant because she had occasional anemia all her life. She also saw reduced kidney function. She spent a lot of time trying to figure that out but unbeknownst to her, chasing that clue would not lead anywhere.She stopped being able to walk without severe pain. Dr. Clark lived with months of severe hip pain before two hip replacement surgeries and three months of rehabilitation let her walk again. Dr. Clark lived with unrelenting nerve pain for over six months before finding a medication that worked. She suffered more than she should have because she wanted to solve her problems herself, even in the face of her severe physical limitations.
In other words, like her patients, Hulda Clark suffered because she eschewed conventional therapy longer than she should have:
Dr. Clark was scheduled for a procedure to fix the vertebrae in her neck. While doing routine blood tests in preparation for the operation, high calcium levels were noted. The surgery was cancelled and the hypercalcemia was treated. Her doctors evaluated all of Dr. Clark's symptoms and decided multiple myeloma was the best explanation. That is a blood and bone cancer. No biopsy was performed, so it was not one hundred percent certain, but that didn't matter because the treatment would be the same in any case (monitor calcium and anemia).Ironically, Dr. Clark documented helping a multiple myeloma sufferer in The Cure For All Advanced Cancers. Perhaps if she had known what to look for earlier she could have better helped herself. But it was too late. In her last few months, Dr. Clark was physically unable to function well. Her family took care of her and was with her when she died peacefully one evening.
It is simply not true that there is no "conventional" treatment for multiple myeloma other than monitoring anemia and hypercalcemia. For patients under 65, the treatment is often high-dose chemotherapy with hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. Hulda Clark, of course, was 80, and thus almost certainly too old for such a harsh regimen to benefit her. However, for such patients, there is a more mild treatment, namely chemotherapy:
If you're not considered a candidate for stem cell transplantation, your initial therapy is likely to be a combination of melphalan, prednisone and thalidomide -- often called MPT -- or melphalan, prednisone and bortezomib (Velcade) -- often called (MPV). If the side effects are intolerable, melphalan plus prednisone (MP) or lenalidomide plus low-dose dexamethasone are additional options. This type of therapy is typically given for about 12 to 18 months.
Also, ironically enough, thalidomide has fairly recently been shown to be an effective treatment for multiple myeloma. Either Hulda Clark was so debilitated that she couldn't handle even the standard therapy of thalidomide, which is a pretty mild drug (unless you're a reproductive-age woman who becomes pregnant and whose child suffers the birth defects thalidomide causes, which Clark clearly was not), or she chose not to have any science-based therapies. Not surprisingly, I suspect the latter. After all, let's review the titles of some of her books, shall we? There are:
- The Cure for All Advanced Cancers (It sounds as though Clark's cancer was advanced. Why couldn't her methods cure it? After all, her book says she has the cure for all advanced cancers. Of course, that makes me wonder if maybe she didn't have the cure for early stage cancers.)
- The Cure for All Cancers (Never mind that last comment. Clark suffered from a cancer, period. Why couldn't she cure it if she really did have the cure for all cancers?)
- The Cure for All Diseases. (This is my favorite of all; I mean, shouldn't we "allopathic doctors" be out of business, other than trauma and orthopedic surgeons if Clark really had the cure for all diseases?)
It also occurs to me that Hulda Clark's death teaches us something important about quackery. Specifically, it tells us that many of the practitioners are just as deluded and misguided as those whom they lure away from scientific medicine and towards ineffective and even harmful quackery. There are two kinds of alt-med quacks. First, there are the ones who, like Kevin Trudeau, don't believe at all, ones who are basically con men. Then there are the ones like Hulda Clark, ones who really believe. While the former can do major harm, I fear the latter more. Because they believe the are the more persuasive for it, and, in the case of Hulda Clark, it is clear from her reaction to her deteriorating health that she almost certainly really believed in her pseudoscience. Of course, its lucrative nature probably didn't hurt, either, but at her core, I suspect that Hulda Clark really did believe that she had the cure for all cancers, even though it was clear from her own end that she didn't have a clue about cancer. How she could maintain that belief in the absence of any evidence that her woo did anything, in the absence of a single truly "cured" patient? Who knows? Whatever her motivation, she did incalculable harm to her clients and in the end, by rejecting science-based medicine in favor of her own quackery, Clark blew her best chance at treating her cancer and maintaining her quality of life for as long as possible.
I realize that the universe is not fair in any sense of the imagination. All too often, bad people prosper, and good people suffer horrible fates. However, in the case of Hulda Clark, if I believed in divine justice or some sort of karma, I'd have to believe that her end was completely fitting. The woman whose quackery caused so much suffering among cancer patients during her life ultimately succumbed to the very disease she claimed to be able to cure but was not. Having recently watched a love one succumb to stage IV breast cancer, I wouldn't wish such a fate on anyone--not even Hulda Clark. However, now that it's happened to her it's hard not to feel that, just this once, there were a certain symmetry and justice in the universe. Maybe there is such a thing as karma after all.
Medicine & Health
Comments
Tragically, the terminally ill good friend of a good friend went to Mexico in a desperate attempt to cure his cancer, when his money and time would have best been spent on his wife and newborn. I didn't say anything to my friend -- the guy was already there -- because I realized this was a desperate attempt to have some hope by a guy who had otherwise seemed rational. Orac, I'd like to see you write some mainstream op-eds to reach people like this.
Posted by: Amy Alkon | October 27, 2009 10:30 AM
I had seen an un-redacted copy of her death certificate and checked out the addresses. The family home was in a trust since 1995, a technique to keep property judgement proof. Quackery pays.
Posted by: FreeSpeaker | October 27, 2009 10:43 AM
Placing a home in a trust is an estate planning technique that is used all of the time by all sorts of people. There are probably millions of homes in the US that are owned by a trust. The implication you are trying to make is not legitimate.
Posted by: David C. Brayton | October 27, 2009 11:10 AM
It is truly sad that someone could ever believe they have the "cure for all diseases". Good riddance to bad woo.
Posted by: Richard Eis | October 27, 2009 11:17 AM
As the great poet, Justin Timberlake once said, "what goes around, comes around." (A person's actions, whether good or bad, will often have consequences for that person.)
Karma? Heh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyJdt6Q2Y-Y#t=4m4s
Is this how we say goodbye?
Shoulda known better when you came around
That you were gonna make me cry
It's breaking my heart to watch you run around
Cause I know that you're living a lie
But that's ok, baby, cause in time you will find
What goes around, goes around, goes around, comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around, comes all the way back around
Yeah
Posted by: marcia | October 27, 2009 11:28 AM
marcia, I'm waiting for the poet's "quack in a box" skit.
Posted by: Vindaloo | October 27, 2009 11:40 AM
I haven't written about this because I don't know most of it "first-hand"(I learned more as I grew up): my uncle was married to a woman who seemed quite smart and rational *until* diagnosed with early breast cancer.She refused surgery(despite argument from my relatives and doctors),got involved in prayer and healing groups(much to my atheist uncle's dismay),finally taking her life-savings and desperately flying to NM, then Mexico, for laetrile.After a few months,my uncle was summoned to take her home,needing an *air-ambulance*.While she did finally accept surgery,it was, at that point, not much help.She lingered for nearly a year in a hospital.This happened about 40 years ago,however I have heard quacks (and those who love them)still talking about laetrile.
Posted by: Denice Walter | October 27, 2009 11:52 AM
"The implication you are trying to make is not legitimate."
Sure it is. "Estate planning" is another term for "tax avoidance", and any approach that shelters property from taxation likely also shelters it from adverse legal judgements.
Posted by: Jon H | October 27, 2009 12:52 PM
Orac stated;
"Surely there must have been someone who could have operated the Syncronometer for her!"
1. Apparently there is not enough of a following to find anyone else to use the syncrometer for her.
2. Apparently there was no one smart enough that she trusted with her syncrometer.
3. Most of her followers are big on the cure hype however when it comes to following through with it they are difficult to find.
4. She knew she was screwed from the start (cancer) and realized the jig was up (this thing doesn't really work and I know it).
Posted by: Uncle Dave | October 27, 2009 12:52 PM
Eh, no.
My parents are looking at doing something similar (either putting the house in a trust or signing it over to one of their children), not to avoid taxes, but to avoid Medicare deciding, "Hey, you've got a house! Before we start helping you pay for assisted living, how about if we sell that? Oh, and any other nest eggs you have saved up for your childrens' inheritance? Yeah, cough it up. Then maybe we'll help you out."
Of course, I suppose one could still call that "tax avoidance" in a sense. If you really think it's right and good that people's life savings should be rapidly drained away just because they happen to outlive their ability to live independently... then I suppose you have a point.
(Not trying to defend anything Clark has done -- surely the amount of suffering and death she has wrought is something that is horrific to contemplate -- but in regards to "estate planning" being something that only under-handed rich people do, ah, no.)
Posted by: James Sweet | October 27, 2009 2:11 PM
or
5.) A lot of her followers used the Syncronometer on Clark, but it didn't work so they decided not to mention that part, and pretend they believed all along that only Clark could work the damn thing.
I remember reading about a famous health food guru who claimed that, if you ate only the right things, you would never get sick. She died of cancer in her early 60's. But, instead of realizing that she was wrong, she attributed her cancer to the fact that, in her early 20's, she had not eaten only the right things. It must have been that hamburger and fries.
Posted by: Sastra
| October 27, 2009 2:15 PM
RIP Quack. And RIP all your victims.
Posted by: S.M. Elliott | October 27, 2009 2:42 PM
James, not only is that "tax avoidance" medicare can go back for 5 years and "claw back" any property/money that is gifted to family or placed in these trusts. Right or wrong the government states that you should use accumulated assets to pay for your ling-term medical care before using taxpayer money. PS that clawback period is steadily growing (it used to be only 1 year IIRC). And from a moral standpoint frankly why it's not "the kids' inheritance until you're dead. Until then shouldn't it be, oh I don't know, "the money that we use to pay for ourselves".
Posted by: BladeDoc | October 27, 2009 3:12 PM
Didn't you recently recommend When Prophecy Fails by Festinger and two co-authors? If Festinger is right, it's entirely possible that Clark and the people around her believed, in part, because they never cured anybody.
When it comes right down to it, though, I don't really care whether she believed in her own extraordinary powers or not. When you have enough power over other people's lives -- and she certainly exercised power over other people's lives -- you have a moral obligation to ensure that you use that power responsibly, and there are ways to find out for sure whether all cancer is caused by liver flukes or not.
I don't rejoice in her death, and I don't rejoice that it was as unpleasant a death as it surely was, but I am glad that her career in snake oil is finished.
Posted by: Fannin | October 27, 2009 3:21 PM
Are you blind or what?
See what is on her website:
"Her doctors evaluated all of Dr. Clark's symptoms and decided multiple myeloma was the best explanation. That is a blood and bone cancer. No biopsy was performed, so it was not one hundred percent certain, but that didn't matter because the treatment would be the same in any case (monitor calcium and anemia).
Ironically, Dr. Clark documented helping a multiple myeloma sufferer in The Cure For All Advanced Cancers. Perhaps if she had known what to look for earlier she could have better helped herself. But it was too late. In her last few months, Dr. Clark was physically unable to function well. Her family took care of her and was with her when she died peacefully one evening."
http://www.huldaclark.net/
Posted by: emerson cardoso | October 27, 2009 3:22 PM
So if I'm a cannibal, and the person I just ate is giving me indigestion, does that make it rude to mention it?
The taboo against speaking ill of the dead is, indeed, strong -- but that doesn't make it less foolish.
Posted by: Warren | October 27, 2009 3:27 PM
@BladeDoc: However you feel about the ethics of that, my point is that it's stupid to act like "estate planning" is something that is only done by sneaky rich people.
Posted by: James Sweet | October 27, 2009 3:40 PM
And anyway, about this whole "paying for yourself", you are really going to say that a modest inheritance should be entirely obliterated by one or two years of basic assisted living, and that this is just and good? Especially when taken from people who have been paying into the system for their entire lives? Come on.
If you want to invoke personal responsibility, that's fine, but then you have to give back every dime they've paid into Medicare. But what's the point of taxing everyone to provide basic medical care to the elderly, if you intend to zero out everything they have worked for before you chip in?
Posted by: James Sweet | October 27, 2009 3:46 PM
They are everywhere!
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/10/26/bc-cancerequipment.html?ref=rss
Hope karma catches up with him too.
Posted by: nlgirl | October 27, 2009 3:51 PM
My assets are in a trust so that when I die, my kids don't have to give up most of it to taxes. That does nothing to protect my assets in a legal judgement and I asked my lawyers extensively if there was anything to be done in regards to that. My only defense against a legal judgement is my malpractice insurance which thankfully is pretty good and picked up by my employer. However, I am not a lawyer.
Treatment for multiple myeloma has changed. The last patient I had who had MM was treated with methotrexate and did well for a long time. Good to know that there are treatments out there.
Posted by: gaiainc | October 27, 2009 3:53 PM
@BladeDoc and James:
You have a right to bequeath any assets you leave behind to your designated heirs; you do not have a right to have assets to bequeath.
Beyond that, it becomes a social contract issue.
Seeing that Medicare is a social welfare benefit, it seems illogical to expect everyone to pay their own way on an individual basis.
Posted by: Karl Withakay | October 27, 2009 4:53 PM
Perhaps if she had known what to look for earlier she could have better helped herself. But it was too late. In her last few months, Dr. Clark was physically unable to function well.
I saw a patient a few months ago, a few years younger than Dr Clark but with the same diagnosis and in, if anything, worse shape than Dr. Clark was at diagnosis. Her kidneys had completely shut down due to the myeloma, her normal blood cells were being crowded out by the disease and her calcium level was sky high. She got treated with aggressive supportive care, bisphosphonates, and chemotherapy. Today she is in complete remission. Thanks to Big Pharma and even moreso to startup pharma. She's not cured, but she's not dying in horrible pain either.
So, why can't the author of the books on how to cure advanced cancer, cancer, and all disease cure herself? Why was it "too late" at any stage short of rigour mortis? Traditional medicine might well have had something for her-if she'd been willing to take it-even up to very late in the disease.
Posted by: Dianne | October 27, 2009 5:11 PM
"Seeing that Medicare is a social welfare benefit, it seems illogical to expect everyone to pay their own way on an individual basis."
That comment wasn't intended to be a stealthy libertarian jab at social welfare benefits, but it struck me that it might be interpreted that way by some.
Posted by: Karl Withakay | October 27, 2009 5:18 PM
Wow! Then it must be true! Who wouldn't trust a non-MD/DO practicing medicine out of an office in Tijuana?
Posted by: Joseph C. | October 27, 2009 5:37 PM
How is Tim Bolen going to spin this one?
Posted by: Chris Noble | October 27, 2009 6:08 PM
Hi Orac,
In the unlikely case that you are in the need for new targets, there is a new anticancer therapy that is starting to become more and more popular in the southeastern Europe (esp. in Hungary and Romania).
It is deuterium-depleted water. It comes with some cover in form of preliminary studies, but an oncologist's opinion on all this would be highly appreciated:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=DetailsSearch&term=%22deuterium+depleted+water%22
Posted by: M. | October 27, 2009 7:23 PM
Just imagine if you used the light water as the basis for a homeopathic remedy! Or maybe a homeopathic preparation of light water, diluted with regular water...
Posted by: Dave Ruddell | October 27, 2009 9:14 PM
James Sweet writes:
My parents are looking at doing something similar (either putting the house in a trust or signing it over to one of their children), not to avoid taxes, but to avoid Medicare deciding, "Hey, you've got a house! Before we start helping you pay for assisted living, how about if we sell that? Oh, and any other nest eggs you have saved up for your childrens' inheritance? Yeah, cough it up. Then maybe we'll help you out."
What about that isn't trying to shelter $$ from the government? Be it taxes or medicare - you're basically saying "the government has no right to take this asset so we're going to shelter it." Which is exactly the same trick as the con-person who wants to prevent the government taking an asset and turning it over to someone else as part of an adverse judgement.
Hurts when it's your ox getting gored, I know.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | October 27, 2009 9:46 PM
"The taboo against speaking ill of the dead is, indeed, strong"
Correctly so, when talking to or near family. It is incredibly rude to speak ill of the dead when they might not be able to avoid it.
However the taboo does not extend to distant people and third parties. Especially if they are effectively public people by choice. Why should it? Would anyone hesitate to speak ill of Hitler, just because he is dead? I recall raising a hearty toast the day Pol Pot died, and I will do the same again for Kim Jong Il.
The only reason for citing this taboo is fear that the truth is unpalatable.
Posted by: Mark P | October 28, 2009 5:24 AM
It's sad that all she could aspire to is that the world is a little worse off for her having been here.
I hope Kevin Trudeau gets kicked in the face by a camel.
That is all.
HJ
Posted by: Bing | October 28, 2009 12:56 PM
I've been doing HIV treatment education for 19 years. Over that time I've talked to or met hundreds of people who bought into quackery and denial. HIV-positive people used to send us quotes from Hulda's book, "The Cure of All Diseases", at the hotline at the organization I worked for, or call us and ask about it.
I've learned one thing over the years in dealing with sick people who've bought into quackery—especially the ones who want to believe that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, and that it's HIV treatments that kill people—they've made their decisions from a completely emotional place and so the only way to bring them over is also an emotional argument, not a factual one.
What I learned to do was to acknowledge to the person how frightening the prospect of HIV (or cancer) can be, how insensitive the medical profession can sometimes appear, and how the side effects and limited efficacy of many treatments can make sometimes make treating the disease, or deciding whether to treat it, so agonizing. I would then explain that there are a lot of people who work on the traditional side of medicine and science who care very, very deeply for those who are ill. I'd end by saying that I respected their right to do what they thought best for themselves, but that I genuinely hoped that they wouldn't wait too long to give the traditional meds a try, and that I would make myself available any time to talk about their fears and to walk through some of the decisions.
It was excruciatingly difficult to keep the anger and judgement out of my voice sometimes (not at the person, but at the people who were trying to take advantage of them through quackery), but I found that showing that anger and judgement never worked. I also found this to be the best approach, because, as is stated here, many quacks are actually "true believers."
For another example of this, Google Christine Maggiore. She's an HIV-positive woman who denied HIV as the cause of AIDS for most of her adult life and tried to get others to think her way. Her denial ultimately took her HIV-positive daughter's life, and Maggiore ultimately died (most likely of AIDS) as well. Nothing anyone ever said got through to her, not even her own daughter's death. That's what we're up against when we try to deal with this kind of thing.
Posted by: David Evans | October 28, 2009 1:35 PM
Regarding trusts - my grandparents put their assets into a trust less to avoid taxes and more to avoid probate. Why tie up the estate administratively for months and pay all the lawyers (note: my dad is a lawyer) even more, when a basic trust can avoid all that? Estate taxes were still paid, so it wasn't about the taxes.
Posted by: paxsarah | October 28, 2009 1:58 PM
RE: trusts and tax avoidance.
Not always. My major assets are in a trust for the rather simple reason that my kids are grown but as yet I have no grandchildren. I'm leaving the major assets to cover the educational expenses of the grandchildren (if any) but since they're not yet breathing it's necessary to set up an intermediary.
'Nuff said.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | October 28, 2009 2:02 PM
As an estate planning attorney, I am delighted to see Orac's website high-jacked by discussion of trusts! Trusts have multiple uses, the vast majority of them being perfectly innocent (such as privacy and probate simplification). As to tax reduction, if the law allows it, one would be a fool not to take advantage (why not take a deduction for a mortgage on your income tax return?) Imagine, though, having Hilda as a client?! Argh.
Posted by: science-based humanist | October 28, 2009 3:51 PM
Well, I'd argue that in an ideal world we'd all save for our own retirements, and government (i.e. taxpayer) money would go to only those who can't work/forced to retire because of medical or industry (=won't hire people over XX years old) issues. I don't think there's a 'right' to retire at 60, 65, or any other arbitrary age... it's a luxury, not a human right.
Posted by: intercostalwaterway | October 29, 2009 4:59 PM
I'm not so sure that she believed her own quackery. I think she was as big a con artist as Trudeau.
The way she often worked was to diagnose the cancer or AIDS herself, then claim to have cured it - so patients would believe themselves to be cured of a disease they never had in the first place.
She was run out of the US after she falsely diagnosed a Department of Health undercover agent with AIDS, telling her 'I can test you here. It's a one minute test and it's all electronic'. She then told the agent she was 'full of the virus. And we will cure it in three minutes'.
Wicked old fraud. Good riddance
Posted by: louise | November 2, 2009 8:59 AM
I have been doing research on Dr. Clark the last few months. I'm skeptical, I can tell a lot of people hate her. There are literally hundreds of people posting to the contrary though at
www.inmemoryofdrhuldaclark.com
Also,
My family has lived in San Diego for 9 years. We're not poor, I'm from Huntington Beach and we now live in a nice area of San Diego. We (all my family, friends & I) go across the border to Tijuana for Medical and Dental.
I knocked that too, and I guess I would think it was odd living somewhere else in the country, go to Mexico for medical!?! Until I put myself in a doctors head that didn't want to deal with the us insurance crap.
The Clinics in TJ are clean, fast, just as professional. And CHEAP!! San Diego has better health care than most cities because those who can't afford medical insurance, can all get quality care 30 minutes away.They even pick you up so you don't have to drive across teh border. It's great.
Posted by: Chris | November 3, 2009 9:56 PM
Are those clinics in Tijuana the ones practicing real medicine? Not every clinic in Mexico is a quack clinic, so of course you can find good inexpensive real medicine with very competent doctors. You just have to make sure to know which is which.
By the way, the clinic Hulda Clark worked out of was visited by the author of this blog post:
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/clark08.htm
Compare it to the clinics you are describing.
Posted by: Chris | November 3, 2009 10:15 PM
Chris @ 37 - louise @ 36 offered a good reason why many people would testify that Hulda Clark cured their cancer - they never had cancer in the first place. Another possibility is that those who plan to carry on the fraud posted a bunch of phony testimonials. If I were sufficiently devoid of ethics to become a cancer quack, my website would be full of testimonials before I fleeced my first "patient".
Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of biology would realize that Hulda Clark's treatment was totally implausible. Hell, it was ludicrous.
Skeptic Pro Tip - Anyone claiming a single cause or cure for all cancers, much less all diseases is deluded, a fraud or both. Always.
Posted by: Militant Agnostic | November 4, 2009 2:44 AM
Thanks for the response, but what did this prove????
http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/clark08.htm
Everything in Mexico looks like this, OR WORSE. Where are the photos from inside? The clinic my family visits looks worse on the outside than that. Once you enter it though, it's amazing, much nicer than any urgent care, emergency room, doctors office, or hospital that I have ever visited in the states.
I can see why anyone who has not visited Mexico, specifically Tijuana, for medical and dental treatment would find these pictures scary or unsafe.
I have full medical & dental through the VA as I'm a Marine Corps Veteran. I also have amazing Medical and Dental through my work. I have used both and choose to spend my own $$ across the border because I feel like I'm getting such better care. The VA Hospitals I've had to visit have been much worse.
Posted by: Chris | November 4, 2009 12:00 PM
"My parents are looking at doing something similar (either putting the house in a trust or signing it over to one of their children), not to avoid taxes, but to avoid Medicare deciding, "Hey, you've got a house! Before we start helping you pay for assisted living, how about if we sell that? Oh, and any other nest eggs you have saved up for your childrens' inheritance? Yeah, cough it up. Then maybe we'll help you out.""
Wait, rather than having YOUR parents pay for their own care, you think that I should have to pay for it via my tax dollars? How the hell am I supposed to save up my own nest eggs if I'm paying for everyone else?
Your greed has blinded you. It's pretty clear that you just want your parents' money.
Posted by: Chris C | November 7, 2009 3:12 PM