They call them Necromancers.
Necromancers have an uncanny ability to resurrect an old thread by commenting on it months, even years, after the last comment. Unfortunately, as hard as it is to believe, the version of Movable Type used by Seed to power our blogs does not have a preference panel that allows us to turn off our comments on posts after a set amount of time, for instance three months. Consequently, every so often I"m plagued with Necromancers bringing long deceased comment threads back from the dead to the annoyance of all. Of course, the most annoying Necromancers are the one who resurrect threads over a year old. It really makes me wonder how someone can be so clueless as not to notice that the post he's about to comment on is over a year old and that the most recent comment is also a year old.
Be that as it may, sometimes a Necromancer can not only cause me some amusement but provide a ready topic to blog about. So it was that this happened just yesterday, when someone named Chris popped up in a post from late last year about Kim Tinkham, the unfortunate woman who died of breast cancer, having relied on a quack named Robert O. Young to treat her breast cancer. She paid the price. While it's true that a post that's only around four months old might be stretching the limits of the definition of Necromancer when a commenter revives the comment thread following it, I think it's appropriate enough in this case. Chris was none too pleased with the topic of my post:
Just another guy who beat Stage 3 Colon Cancer without chemo or radiation crashing this party!There is no magic potion.
I did every alternative therapy I could find and my body healed itself.
One thing I know for certain. This "brain free zombie" is ALIVE!
7 years and counting.Life's too short to argue with trolls.
I'm only interested in helping people who want it.
Elsewhere, Chris writes:
In 2003 I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer. There was a golf ball sized tumor in my large intestine and the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. It was two weeks before Christmas and I was 26 years old.
My doctor told me I was "insane" but I decided against chemotherapy after surgery.
I radically changed my diet and did every alternative holistic therapy I could find.
Within one year of my diagnosis I was cancer free.
Here we go again.
To your credit, you my readers immediately recognized this as a testimonial of the sort that I first wrote about over six years ago and have been writing about periodically ever since as they pop up. Chris was even kind enough to link me to his website and blog Chris Beat Cancer: A Chemo-free Survivor's Health Blog. Also to your credit, you my readers immediately knew the reason why this testimonial wasn't particularly convincing. Different cancer, same reason. Still, I do think it's worthwhile every so often to dissect a testimonial such as Chris' because they are so common and every time I see one I still see permutations that I haven't seen before. Let's see if we can see that with Chris:
Hi!
My name is Chris Wark.
I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer in 2003, at 26 years old.
I had surgery and instead of chemo,I radically changed my diet and did every alternative therapy I could find.
By the grace of God, I'm still alive and kicking, and cancer free!!!People are always asking me what I did. So I started this blog to share my discoveries about health and what I did to beat cancer without chemo.
One thing I've noticed right about these testimonials is that the people promoting them often take on what is best described as an evangelical fervor. It's as though it's a religious experience more than anything else. Indeed, you can see this even in the snippet of Chris' testimonial that I posted above. Chris has not only converted to "alternative" medicine, but he's now on a mission to persuade you that it's the best thing for cancer. There's just one problem.
Colon cancer is not treated primarily with chemotherapy.
Many solid tumors, including breast cancer and colorectal cancer, are treated primarily with surgery. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy might play a role, but the main curative modality is surgery. Indeed, for breast and colon cancer, before around 50 years ago surgery was pretty much it. The multimodality therapy that we surgeons and oncologists have come to know and love is a relatively recent development that didn't really come into common use until the 1960s and 1970s. Before that, if you were going to be cured of your breast cancer or colorectal cancer, you were going to be cured by surgery, which sounds as though that's exactly what almost certainly happened to Chris. Surgery cured him.
Let's take a look at his story in a little more detail. First, Chris has a post entitled Why I didn't do chemo. In it, he describes chemotherapy as "poison," which is true but misleading in that it is designed to be more toxic to rapidly dividing tumor cells than it is to normal cells. It's all typical anti-chemotherapy misinformation, and then he pulls out one of the most deceptive bits of anti-chemotherapy propaganda of all, the infamous "2% gambit":
An investigation by the Department of Radiation Oncology, Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, Australia, into the contribution of chemotherapy to 5-year survival in 22 major adult malignancies, showed startling results: The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA." [Royal North Shore Hospital Clin Oncol (R Coll Radiol) 2005 Jun;17(4):294.]
The research covered data from the Cancer Registry in Australia and the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results in the USA for the year 1998. The current 5-year relative adult survival rate for cancer in Australia is over 60%, and no less than that in the USA. By comparison, a mere 2.3% contribution of chemotherapy to cancer survival does not justify the massive expense involved and the tremendous suffering patients experience because of severe, toxic side effects resulting from this treatment. With a meager success rate of 2.3%, selling chemotherapy as a medical treatment (instead of a scam), is one of the greatest fraudulent acts ever committed. The average chemotherapy earns the medical establishment a whopping $300,000 to $1,000,000 each year, and has so far earned those who promote this pseudo-medication (poison) over 1 trillion dollars. It's no surprise that the medical establishment tries to keep this scam alive for as long as possible.
Sound familiar? It should. It's this study. I've discussed it in detail before at least twice. Basically, it's a study custom designed to produce a number as low as possible for the estimated survival benefit due to chemotherapy. It omitted leukemias, which are cured primarily by chemotherapy and ignored T-cell lymphomas and highly curable Burkitt's lymphoma. The study's authors neglect to mention the survival benefit achievable with high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem-cell transplantation to treat newly-diagnosed multiple myeloma. It underestimates the benefit of chemotherapy in some malignancies.
Let's take a look at the survival benefit that Chris might have experienced if he had agreed to undergo chemotherapy. I'll use my favorite online tool for this purpose, Adjuvant! Online and look at several different scenarios. I do this because all I have to go on is what Chris says about his cancer, and that is that it was stage III upon diagnosis. However, there's stage IIIA, IIIB, and IIIC in colon cancer. Let's start with the lower end of stage III, stage IIIA. In this case, the five year survival benefit due to 5-FU-based chemotherapy is in the range of 5%; in other words, with treatment after surgery, a patient's estimated five year survival rate will climb from around 87% to 92%. Not bad, but not spectacular. (Note that newer FOLFOX-based therapies do somewhat better in producing a survival benefit.) However, if you look at it as decreasing your chance of dying from 13% or so to 8%, that's more than a 30% decrease.
Now let's look at a case where chemotherapy would have a more impressive effect, a stage IIIC tumor. In this case, we'll choose a tumor that has grown completely through the wall of the colon and started to invade adjacent tissues (T4) with a large number of positive lymph nodes. Here are what the improvements in survival attributable to chemotherapy. First, here's "old-fashioned" 5-FU-based chemotherapy (click picture to enlarge):
And here's the same graph using more modern FOLFOX chemotherapy (click picture to enlarge):
That's a 19-25% increased chance of surviving five years, 19% for 5-FU and 25% for FOLFOX. Note that, whatever chemotherapy is used, a patient's odds of surviving five years go from less than 1 in 3 to better than 1 in 2. These are real numbers based on real clinical trials, and it bears repeating that the reason Chris is alive today is because of two things: the skill of whatever surgeon operated on him to remove his tumor and luck. By refusing chemotherapy, he reduced his chances of beating his cancer, but was lucky enough to survive anyway. Moreover, since recurrences after five years are uncommon in colon cancer, now that Chris has made it seven years, more than likely he's home free, at least from this cancer. Of course, that doesn't mean he won't get another or that he'll be as lucky next time. After all, he was only 23 years old when he developed colon cancer, which makes me very suspicious for a genetic predisposition such as HNPCC and that he very well might be at risk for developing another colon cancer or other cancer.
Looking at Chris' anecdote, his odds were quoted as being a 60% five year survival. It's not clear whether that is with or without chemotherapy, but it is clear that, at stage III, Chris would have benefitted markedly from chemotherapy. That he was lucky enough to win his gamble doesn't mean that he was any less reckless to have taken such a huge risk, especially at such a young age with so much more life in front of him to throw away if he lost his gamble. But take it he did, and fortunately for him his luck was good.
Unfortunately, instead of having maximized his chances of survival and attributing it to science-based medicine, Chris has decided to embrace all manner of quack remedies. For instance, he thinks that juicing until his skin turned orange and a raw vegan diet, meanwhile embracing detox and acid-base quackery. (In case you don't remember, Robert O. Young is one of the foremost purveyors of the latter form of woo, including in cancer.) Moreover, I can provide another, less happy testimonial about a man who decided to treat his colorectal cancer with juicing and various other woo. His story didn't turn out so happy.
Meanwhile, Chris lays down napalm-grade burning stupid with these alt-med cliches:
If you have cancer, your doctor is not allowed to prescribe any treatment other than surgery, chemo, or radiation; or they can lose their license.
Unlike other countries, American doctors cannot prescribe changes to lifestyle, diet, or increased exercise to treat illness. They can only recommend them along with conventional FDA approved therapies like the ones listed above.
Which is silly. Doctors prescribe dietary changes all the time to treat type II diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and a number of other conditions. Ditto exercise. They do it because these therapies are validated by science. Using diet to treat cancer, not so much. In fact, not much at all. True, there is evidence that certain diets can reduce one's risk of cancer, but once the cancer has developed , the horse is out of the barn, so to speak.
However, if you want to have a true idea of just what Chris is about, for all his self-righteousness and rants about chemotherapy, greedy pharmaceutical companies, and the joys of curing cancer by juicing, there's really only one thing you need to see in Chris's blog:
I am not a doctor. I'm just a guy who beat cancer without chemotherapy.
All information presented on this website is drawn from my experience and research, unless noted.
This information is for education purposes and should not be interpreted as medical advice.
I must issue the disclaimer that I'm not making an attempt to prescribe any medical treatment -- and the information contained on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a doctor or qualified health practitioner.
My statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and the information on this website is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Yes, it's a quack Miranda warning.
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Orac, it's a conspiracy! No one is digging up old posts just to annoy someone who is already annoying.
By the creed set for by the almight regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, you sire, are a CONSPIRACY THEORIST!
People do not believe this conspiracy theorist wo makes things up. Henceforth his name shall be added to our list right under Glen Beck's name of dangerous conspriacy theorists.
Oh and I know Chris is annoying. She (she?) has been stalking my posts for months. Too bad I find it quite amusing.
@ T. Brute McNeedy
BTW, you need to do something about your face. I am a doctor and can take care of my own psychosis.
@Gay falcon
Have you been smoking dried up dog turds again? "Medical" weed running low? Them dried dog turds smoke good, but have terrible side effects. Trust me. Been there done that. part of an experiment on curing liberalism. It went terribly wrong. I took a perfectly good liberal and made him smoke a dog turd. Then he bit me. I haven't been the same since. I think I may have rabies of the asshole. That's defintely a side effect of liberalanusobia.
I intentionally do not spell it correctly becuase it is a corrupt backwards system. Hence, I spell it wrong as a symbol that the whole medicien world is wrong about many things.
Did you read about the nazis in detroit that tried to kidnap a woman's daughter becuase the woman was treating her with natural medicien instead of the government mandated meds? I also heard many people talking about putting up warnings on their property to give heed to any federal fascists that they they can tell free citizens how to raise their kids. many of those warning included warnings of hangings, being shot on sight, et. People are getting sick and tired of these federal pigs raiding sovereign property and infiltrating privacy in the name of far left marxsist causes such as global warming, vaccines, growing vegetables, etc. This government has gotten way out of control. it is time to fire many of them and lay down the constituton and boot these thugs out the country for their crimes.
This lady is suing and I hope she sues to get these thugs' citizenship stripped and them deported from here. Government officials who think they can rule evry aspect of each individual's life deserves no less than being booted from this country forever. They do not deserve the title AMERICAN. They are traitors. Eventually they will push themsleves into civil war with the public. When the public has had enough bullshit, they will fight back.
This lady's child has been kidnapped by federal thugs who think they know more than the parents. Perhaps if this lady kidnaps their children as a result, they might think harder next time before they destroy the fourth amendment.
Anyone who is acively taking care of their own children and has broken no sensible laws (light bulb laws,etc. are not sensible), has the right to defend their home and property of anyone trying to destroy and/or confiscate them, their children, or their property, including federal agents. The second amendment is based on the concept that individual sovereign citizens have a right to defend themsleves against their own government should that government become a dickheadship. The founder knew that for individual freedom to prevail, the right to self defense was a given. We have goober grabber turd smokers for brains in the government these days. What ever happened to civility and the rule of law? These criminals are ruthless and care not for citizens. This sytem is screwed up. we need to seriously fire every single person in the government and start over.
I have the right to spell it any way I choose. Now, if you will excuse me, I feel a turd wanting to take a river ride.
When the feds come and kick in your door and take your child by use of deadly force, that is kidnapping. The only difference between the mexican drug cartels doing the sasme thing is that the feds have a license to use force to kidnap.
You will not like it, but the story was top headline at natural news this morning. It also made headline news at some leftist "news" sites too like The Daily Mail, The Examiner, a number of Michigan newspapers, including the Detroit paper. It also made numerous left wing blogs like "the classic liberal", etc.
Damn the kidnappers. I she sues the frauds into oblivion.
No, constipation is behind my outburst. I'll consult my brother Doctor Smart on what to do about it. Wait, if the government gets their head out of my ass, I will not be constipated anymore. What a brilliant solution.
@ LW
You dimwit moron. I told you where to find the story. That's just like a damned lazy liberal. DO IT FOR YOURSELF! Stop depending on someone else to do things for you. I told you The Daily mail, The Examiner, etc. Hell google the name Maryanne Godboldo. Idiot.
Another outrage. Detroit must have some pretty pathetic cops. It took armored trucks and machine gun toting armor wearing SWAT to detain a single mother and her child. Either they are the weakest most pathetic cops in America, or she is a female Rambo. Why the hell would it take machine gun toting amrored special forces to detain single mother and her sick child? That is sort of hilarious in its own perverted twisted way. God only knows what it would take to bring down a dangerous felon. Marine batallions? Air Force stealth fighters maybe?
She did the right thing by protecting her child and herself from these brutes. That does it. I'm buying gas masks, and host of other federal asshole repellant devices. Investing in some serious lethal booby traps inside the house and outside wouldn't hurt any. Luckily there are special forces manuals still in print available at most pawn shops, gun shows, and bookstores that teach the basics of escape, survival, and some really nasty booby traps.
To this woman I suggest she be ready for them when they come next time. Maybe hire a local milita for protection or something.
Of course this happened in detroit. Not too surprised. Message to conservatives: Get the hell out of most norther states and the west coast. Come to the deep south where the marxists cannot touch you without a fight. To hell with these states. May the South rise again!
@Narad the arab
Take off your turbin and go smoke a dried camel turd. Do you like one hump or two?
I bet on your days off you smoke dried turds and wish the tea party would let you join them. Sorry. We don't accept turd smokers.
You are welcome in the communist/democrap party though. I hear they smoke turds, weed, cock, whatever. They accept anything and anyone except traditional americans. Those they have on the assasinate list that was sent to flag@whitehouse.gov when our muslim president without proof of birth was "elected".
Better luck next time chump. Let me know how that camel turd tastes.
@ jay
She shot at police in defense of her child being unconstitutionaly taken from her becuase some nimrod somehwere thinks they know more than the parent.
Of course it is never smart to shoot at cops in the first place, but her sovereign territory and rights were under direct attack.
The "neglect" that you speak of is codeword for "you didn't take the medication that we dear know it all leaders ordered you to take". The medication that she was ordered to take was doing more harm than good. It had multiple nasty side effects that was actually worse than the disease itself. How can this be? It was a peer reviewed FDA approved medication. It has no side effects. It is absolutely perfect and without question. Everyone knows that peer reviewed medication studies along with FDA approval automatically means the medication is a s perfect as God himself with no possibility of negative side effects at all. You people need to come down off you high horse and realize that some medications are dangerous.
Lots of kids have STDs. It happens when absitenince is not taught in school or church or at home. Another example of me being right again.
I hope Obama pardons here, orders her child to be returned and imprisons those who are guilty of the constitutional/parental rights violation here.
I bet you guys' eye sockets would crack if you ever looked at the Prison Planet website.
@ gay falcon
Birther? Well, I did see a fake Obama birth certificate shown on ABC News one night. They showed it. it was fake. The name on the Birth certificate was barack H. Obama.
It should have been his real name that his mother named him - Barry Soetoro. This is what the birth certificate should have read. besides. a real birth certificate will say the whole name anyway. It would not have just had the letter "H" in there. It would have spelled out Hussein.
The birth certificate that ABC News showed was a fake.
Why does he not show his long form doctor signed birth certificate? Is he scared? I say the next Republican president march into HI and demand a public live viewed of the unveiling of the brith certificate. of corse this will never happen becuase the real one is not in HI. If it is, it may be fake. Back around that time, many people who were not born in the US bought their birth certificate in HI to be legal here. He may have been one of those.
@JayK
Let me guess. You were a butthole baby? If I had turd to throw at you ...
"BTW, I live in the UK, and so got this all free on the NHS"
FREE? I seriously doubt that. You probably pay taxes till numbers crawl out your ass. That's how your system works. I bet you are not a free citizen. i bet you cannot opt out of this "free" system can you? I bet they force you to be part of it wether you like it or not. That is not freedom, that is tyranny.
If I could opt out of social security i would have done it 10 years ago. I would have the money to retire own includng some gold and silver stashed back in safe in my own private hidden bunker just in case shit hits the fan.
If the government is as wondeful and all for human rights and human freedom as they claim, they should let its citizens have choices, not force them to participate in programs they have no desire to participate in. "Freedom" in our government is code word for "shut up and do as you are told."
Racist? Really?
I did have this one black woman one time to get pissed at me and call me a "y humpy" (white honkey). I pissed her off even more when I explain to her that racial insults did not count unless she had the intelligence to pronounce it correctly. Boy, was she pissed. Oh well. Was't my fault.
@ narad
Yeah go ahead and sneak in. It doesn't hurt my feelings. You might learn something. As for me I will be sneaking into two George Soros backed events in may with a hidden recorder or maybe even a hidden video recorder. Maybe I'll catch their plans for their Turdtapper Tugboat ("Freedom Flotilla" headed to gaza in may. I can give the IDF a heads up.
Did neanderthals need a government to trade tools and weapons and such? NOPE! Yet they did it without government.
Did the native Americans need a federal buearacracy and the FED to tell them what Buffalo skin was worth? NOPE! Yet they did it.
Government does not decide what things are worth. The free market does. Incidentally the free market has not truly existed in over a hundred years. Your line of thinking is anti-American and anti-capitalist and anti-freedom.
Example. If I own the last gold coin on the face of the earth who get to decide what it's worth? The government? NOPE! I sell to the bidder who is willing to pay the most for it. Some bidders will loose interest becuase they no longer wish to pay a higher bid. Some will be willing to big higher. The one who wins, wins. That capitalism.
Under your system, federal Swat teams would raid my house, shoot me between the eyes, slice the gold coin into trillions of pieces and distribute it's microspoic peices over the population which would in turn render it useless and worthless. Like everything else they redistribute.
Now which one worked better. capitalism or national socialism?
Not much has changed. Gardasil still kills gilrs and I doubt it has alcohol, heroine, or cocaine in it and it has been "peer reviewed" and FDA approved. Ever watch tv? How many drugs are bing sued over becuase it caused death, stroke, heart attack, or some other injury? Avandia? There are a number of drugs that are government approved and peer reviwed that do more damaged than the actual disease they were meant to treat(not cure). Lawyers have an entire market becuase of your government's failed regulations on medication. Peer reviewed? By whose peers? The pharma companies who made it?
Again, government does not say what things are worth. That is communism. The market (the people) decide what it is worth. Government has nothing to do with it. Or at least that's how things were when freedom was still intact.
Well I will take lower taxes so that I get to keep more of MY earnings, if you don't mind. See, the lower the taxes, the more incom you can have to spend on more important things than funding an abortuary or arresting wheat farmers or studying water on the moon or about 200,000 other useless things money is spent on. Instead we could be improveing the economy by letting INDIVIDUALS spend more of THEIR earned money on products and services. They cannot do so becuase government takes too much of their income. The fair tax is the best idea going.
Who is stripping women of rights? Infanticide is not a right, it is a crime. If that is what you are referring to. What rights do you refer to and where is your proof?
How is it that the left always says someone is being denied some kind of right? That must be some kind of new fangled fetish or something. I hear it too much but have never witnessed it happening. Must be something else that MSNBC made up.
Ok. You pay more taxes. let me pay less. We will both be happy then. I say let those who wish to pay more taxes pay more, and those who wish to pay less, pay less.
In the words of George W. Bush. "If you wish to pay more taxes, the IRS still accepts personal checks."
Unlike other countries, American doctors cannot prescribe changes to lifestyle, diet, or increased exercise to treat illness. They can only recommend them
Exercise is prescription in other countries? Which one?
What a maroon.
Awwww...how sweet of him to include the quack Miranda. Just makes me want to pat him on his widdle head and then tell him to go away, the grownups are talking.
Not long after my breast cancer surgery, and facing chemo and radiotherapy, I visited a homeopath (if there was a 'blushes' emoticon I would insert it here).
In her waiting room were several copies of a 'natural health' magazine; one edition carried a story of someone who 'beat breast cancer without chemotherapy!'. I was desperate to avoid chemo, so I grabbed it. The women was indeed in remission from early stage breast cancer, and was crediting a radical change in diet. She had also had surgery and was taking Tamoxifen.
Reading Chris's post also put me in mind of Suzanne Somers; her stage one breast cancer was successfully treated by surgery and radiotherapy. She now claims she treated herself with alternative therapies, and makes a mint selling what she claims are anti-cancer vitamins to vulnerable people. She makes a big noise about having refused chemotherapy - which I would think is actually unlikely to have been offered, given the very early stage of her cancer.
I have yet to see a testimonial from someone claiming a miraculous alternative cure where it didn't emerge at some point that they'd had conventional cancer treatment too. Oh, except for those where it turned out they hadn't actually been diagnosed with cancer - not by a doctor, anyway.
Consider me something of a reformed altie. I had chemo, rads and hormone therapy for my stage 3 breast cancer, and have been in remission for over 6 years.
"Unlike other countries, American doctors cannot prescribe changes to lifestyle, diet, or increased exercise to treat illness. They can only recommend them along with conventional FDA approved therapies like the ones listed above."
I've always wondered how these alt-med loons got the idea that docs weren't "allowed" to make recommendations about lifestyle, like it was illegal or something.
I guess he'd be mighty shocked if he'd heard my ENT prescribe (GASP) diet changes and...wait for it....exercise for my inner ear disease. He didn't even prescribe meds, he thought it best to wait and see if my lifestyle changes would help.
I wonder if he should worry about the med-police coming for his license!
@MarciaC: Well, you obviously aren't seeing a Real Doctor (TM) since he suggested non-medical means of treatment. Goodness, don't you know he should have suggested surgery, tons of medications, and stuff like that?
/sarcasm, just in case anyone doesn't figure that out...(augie)
So, let me see if I got this right...
"Chris" was quoted a 60% 5-year survival and at seven years he's claiming to have "beaten the odds"?
In a simple Las Vegas / Monte Carlo sense, the odds were always "with" him, so he didn't actually "beat the odds". He had a better-than-even chance of 5-year survival.
Even if he had only a 31.8% chance of 5-year survival without adjuvant chemotherapy, that's still better than your odds of winning on the come-out roll in craps (22.2%). Those aren't "long odds" by any stretch of the imagination, so it's not exactly "mind-blowing" that he survived despite his best efforts to decrease his chances.
There's no reason to attribute his survival to a special diet or magic potions when it can easily be explained by simple chance. I'd have been much more impressed if "Chris" had "beaten the odds" on pancreatic cancer. The last time I looked, the 5-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer was about 0.3%.
It's not that I'm not glad that "Chris" is cancer-free, I just wish he'd not try to talk other people into decreasing their chances of survival.
Prometheus
When Chris showed up, I knew that immediately without going to his website. I must be psychic.
Louise
"without chemotherapy" & "taking Tamoxifen" WTF? How did she manage that cognitive dissonance?
Wouldn't "juicing until orange" imply toxic doses of Vitamin A? Great choice, to avoid chemo he kills his liver.
Let us assume the "Chris" really had colon cancer, we could also assume that he may be genetically predisposed to having additional cancerous lesions. Colon cancer at age 23, I believe, would always warrant genetic testing to rule in/rule out colon cancer genetic disorders, yet Chris has not shared that information with us....hmm?
I know I am a cynic and a skeptic when it comes to CAM treatments and cures, but I also can't help wondering if there is a surgeon out there, seething, because he/she treated Chris for hemorrhoids or removed a benign growth and cannot speak out.
CAM practitioners don't know squat about disease process but they are hugely proficient in their ability to discern a cancer patient's emotional state...when faced with decisions about "traditional" treatment. Patients know only too well that "traditional" treatments are prolonged and can sicken them, may cause them to lose their body hair, may cause incontinence and may impact on their fertility and virility; the CAMsters play into this.
Quackery...What's the harm? Minimal harm if you buy their supplements and treatments to stay young and virile...maximum harm when you allow CAM practitioners to treat you for cancer.
"American doctors cannot prescribe changes to lifestyle, diet, or increased exercise"
Uh oh, I've been exercising without a prescription. I hope the FDA doesn't come after me.
Chris is quoted as saying:
Uh, huh. Then how does he explain this Nutrition & Exercise for Women Study:
(I knew someone who was in it, we were in the same water aerobics class)
I'm wondering something about the 60% number.
How much of the dataset used to determine that 60% number was otherwise healthy 23 year olds? If that 60% number includes everyone from 20 year olds to 80 - 90 year olds, then it is not unreasonable to think that the probability for the sub-group of 23 year olds is much better than the mean for the group. The problem is that finding a statistically meaningful sample of otherwise healthy 23 year olds with colon cancer to study the benefits of follow-up treatment gets pretty hard. Hence, the group has to be expanded to include more people with a bigger range of confounders.
One thing that has been in my head lately is about how medicine is an exercise in applied statistics, and, in that respect, they apply to groups, and not individuals. The goal is to sufficiently refine the characteristics of the group to the point where there is a high correlation between those characteristics and a specified outcome. So on one hand, you might have a group of people with characteristic A for which a treatment is 50% successful. That means that half the people in the group will be treated successfully, and half will not.
Your goal is to try to identify those factors that allow you separate that group into subgroups A1 and A2, half into each, where the success rate is 100% for A1 and 0% for A2. Unfortunately, it is never that easy. Even in the best cases, you might be able to separate into A1 being successful 95% of the time, and A2 is successful 5%.
Regardless, the underlying message is that for individuals, there is no 50%, 95%, or 5%. An individual is either treated successfully, or not. Given the statistical nature, however, there are almost always going to be cases where there are "exceptions" - although they aren't really exceptions - they are exactly as expected. If I have a procedure that is 95% successful, and I do 100 trials, I am almost guaranteed to have at least one negative outcome (there is a 99.5% chance of at least one negative outcome). Shoot, I expect to have 5 negative outcomes.
So when I get those outcomes, does it tell me anything? No, of course not. Sure, it is a bad situation, and never something we want to happen, but at the same time, that those problems occur does NOT mean that my procedure is bad or wrong. Those who had the negative experience can complain loudly and all, but that does not change the fact that the procedure worked exactly as expected. Their individual experience does not represent the group.
In the same way, a good result for someone in group A2 does not indicate that A2 is a good procedure. Given the statistics, there are going to be people in group A2 who have positive outcomes. It HAS to happen! (if it doesn't happen in a large enough group, then someone is lying about the 5%).
Meanwhile, that person who had the good outcome in A2 can sing the praises to high heaven about how great it is, but then again, dead men tell no tales, as they say. Someone going into relapse isn't going to start a website advertising how they lost their battle with cancer.
The most important thing to remember is that, with applied statistics in realistic situations, anomalies MUST occur when you have large data sets.
Despite miniscule odds, someone DOES win the lottery.
Life's too short to argue with trolls.
I'm only interested in helping people who want it.
Only a very sincere person would espouse this sensible attitude while explaining his medical delusions on a long-dead thread on a blog devoted to alt-med skepticism.
My family is full of people who have beaten cancer without chemotherapy ... because none of them had cancers where chemotherapy was an indicated treatment. One of the malicious myths spread by the woo-inclined is that chemo is all science-based medicine has to offer cancer patients. This is simply not true.
The complete list: mother with benign kidney tumour cured by surgical removal of the relevant kidney, father with prostate cancer treated by surgical removal of the tumour, aunt and grandmother with breast cancer treated with surgical removal and follow-up radiation, other grandmother with bowel cancer treated with radiation alone. Then there are my two grandfathers who sadly didn't survive their cancers but did not have chemotherapy either. One had prostate cancer that metastasised to his bones. The other had bladder cancer that he received only palliative treatment for - he was eighty-six and suffering dementia when diagnosed, so nobody saw much point in prolonging his suffering.
So that's seven close relatives treated with science-based modalities for various kinds of cancer, and zero who have been through chemotherapy. It's a very important tool for science-based treatment, but alt-med practitioners need to stop scaring people by acting as though its the only one.
Yeah, doctors totally don't prescribe lifestyle changes, just ZOMGZORZ TEH DRUGZ! Tell that to the two docs who told me to lose some damn weight when I was in the hospital last year.
Stupid-ass alties who don't go to the doctor shouldn't talk about things they don't understand. Like reality.
Exercise can be prescribed here in the UK, and has been for around a decade:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_prescription
But it's never done for cancer because there's no evidence for it, so it's still a stupid point.
Good call, Anne.
You gotta love these people who a) create a straw version of what medicine does, b) has a successful outcome by using a medically indicated process, but contrary to the strawman, c) chuckle maniacally how they beat the system.
Add in the problems with statistics, and you have a serious helping of woo there.
"Unlike other countries, American doctors cannot prescribe changes to lifestyle, diet, or increased exercise to treat illness. They can only recommend them along with conventional FDA approved therapies like the ones listed above."
Dope, moron, idiot- you pick the epithet. My internist prescribes sensible diet and exercise all the time.
BB, I often wonder if these alt med types have ever even *met* a doctor, or if they get their information about what doctors do and think and are, exclusively from "The Protocols of the Elders of Allopathic Medicine" (Antaeus Feldspar's immortal coinage).
Why is the "quack Miranda" a big deal? I see similar notes on blogs written by practicing doctors - for example, Orac, Mark Crislip, Peter Lipson, etc.
I totally agree that Chris Wark doesn't grasp statistics, or the idea that surgical intervention is the main treatment, or as others have pointed out, that lifestyle changes are part of mainstream medicine. But why point out the warning, when the same style of warning is employed by pretty much everyone who blogs in health?
@Epinephrine: The difference is that Orac, Mark, Peter, etc ARE doctors. They don't want anyone coming after them saying, "well, I read the information on your blog so I..." so they specifically state they are NOT giving medical advice.
The quack blogs are rather "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" in that they are saying, "follow our advice, but if you get sick, you can't blame us since we told you in writing we couldn't guarantee the results."
Read the statements by the quacks and by the doctors. There is a difference.
So how would one of these diet prescriptions work? Would I have to go to the drug store to get some of that dietary fibre my doctor recommended after my last physical? Would we then be prevented from buying Quaker Oats or whole grain bread at the grocery store?
And exercise...just wow!! The gym I attend would likely go bankrupt if it had to hire people to check prescriptions.
My doctor regularly asks how much exercise I've been getting. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I can get the health insurance company to pay for my gym membership.
LW:
Well he "met" a surgeon. He was crowing all about curing his cancer alternatively, but missed that surgery is a convential medicine.
Well, it's true that my American doctor didn't prescribe diet when I wasn't regaining the weight I lost during a serious illness. He referred me to a registered dietitian. And last I checked, dietitians undergo serious scientific training.
Just Sayin' -- prescriptions don't have to be filled at pharmacies if they're not for prescription-controlled drugs. "Prescription" just means "thing a doctor tells you to do". Or anyone, really. An optometrist can give you an eyeglass prescription. A beautician can prescribe olive oil washes to improve the luster of your hair. Geek Squad can prescribe a virus check for your computer. Drug prescriptions are only special because they're regulated.
So if your doctor prescribed exercise, filling it would be up to you. (Same, actually, as if your doctor prescribed vitamins or OTC drugs or bed rest.)
I was so focused on the deficient math skills of "Chris" that I overlooked another gem:
In reality, doctors can "prescribe" (i.e. write a prescription for) changes in lifestyle, diet, exercise. The purpose of such a prescription is questionable, however. My health insurance company will cover part of the cost of a gym membership without a prescription and some others will cover it if it is "prescribed" (i.e. a physician fills out a form justifying the medical necessity).
My question is how do doctors in "other countries" get their prescriptions for changes in lifestyle, diet and exercise "filled"? My doctor is always advising (read "nagging") me to get more exercise, more sleep and eat better, but there is no place I can take these "prescriptions" to get them filled except my own head. I rather suspect that this is a problem in those "other countries".
I suppose that an oppressive and intrusive totalitarian government might be able to enforce changes in diet ("Naught but bread and water for you until your BMI is below 25!") and exercise ("We sentence the accused to hard labour for ten years.") and even certain lifestyle changes (some prisons are now going "smoke-free", which seems like an easy way to stop smoking). However, in most countries, it's up to the patient to make those changes.
Now, if "Chris" is claiming that doctors in the US aren't allowed to tell their patients that lifestyle, diet and exercise changes would help their medical problems (including cancer), he is terribly mistaken (or lying - either one).
Of course, doctors aren't encouraged to tell patients that changing their diet will cure their cancer without the need for surgery or chemotherapy, for the simple reason that it hasn't been found to be true. Most Medical Boards strongly discourage lying to patients, especially if the patient ends up dying as a result.
Prometheus
Wrong "Chris", genius.
The subject of your fixed delusion is not the subject of this post.
BTW, you need to do something about your psychosis.
I don't think "Medicien man" is smart enough to understand that more than one person can be named Chris.
Wow. "Medicein man", that was probably the least clever thing I heard in months. You still think Chris is a stalker, you mistook another commenter entirely for her simply because they have the same name, and you still can't spell "medicine" correctly. You are in no position to lecture people about intelligence.
Do you have a link to the story about the mother in Detroit? I ask because I'm pretty sure the Feds almost never kidnap children, but I'm willing to be educated otherwise.
Like most liberpropertarians cantspellman considers children to be property of their parents and without any rights.
I'm guessing things being pretty slow at the Atlasphere are behind this outburst.
Around where I read, the story's about how the government saved a child from being treated by fraudulent medicine and was given medicine that worked. If you have evidence, as in double-blind studies, showing that "natural" medicine is better than the conventional treatments, I'd love to see it.
Oh, and misspelling "medicine" is about par for the course for fundamentalist cleverness, which is to say, about nil.
I note that you still haven't given any links to the story about the Detroit mother.
@MM
Way to "stick it to the man."
Here's a clue for you: It doesn't make you look like a principled rebel, pointing out the corruption in the system. It makes you look like an illiterate doofus.
Of what, pray tell are you a doctor? And, the adage about lawyers applies here too: A doctor who has himself as a patient has a fool for a client.
No, constipation is behind my outburst.
I'm talking about you, not to you. Mind your place, redass.
You didn't even give us the name last time, which would have been helpful. That makes you the lazy one, I should think.
Multiple filed complaints of neglect, the dumb biatch shot at the cops and it turns out the kid has an STD. Nah, she was a great mother, definitely parent of the year candidate there.
I hope she rots in prison.
Narad the arab
Wrong etymology, hilljack. Might be time to lay off the burgoo.
And before the turd fetish guy can claim it: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/27441654/detail.html
Hawthorne has a pretty good record, it has a high number of guards to patients, video and the wards are separated. I'm sure there are people that read this blog that are even more familiar with Hawthorne Center, so turdfetish, make sure you don't make more of a claim than you have right to.
No surprise, you're a racist and a birther as well. Any chance of them being taken seriously was lost when they identified the "Kenyan" birth certificate a legit, even though it was an obvious fake.
Thanks for the link, JayK! That's how you do it, "Medicine Man", you don't just make claims, you actually provide information to back it up. Knowing the typical attitudes of the armchair reactionary, you'll probably challenge one of us to a fight soon. We're not worried, you'd probably demand we punch ourselves and scream at us for being lazy when we refuse.
JayK, it appears that the child was tested for STDs when taken into custody and did not have one at that time. While in the custody of CPS, she apparently developed an STD. That could indicate a false positive on the first test, but it could also indicate statutory -- or forcible -- rape while in the hands of the CPS. This could happen even in a place with a generally good reputation.
It's a pity the troll has worked so hard to turn people against it, as this would be an interesting case to discuss. (Note that, however you characterize the actions of the authorities, they were not the Feds, which is what I suspected and originally asked about).
Sorry, false *negative* not false positive.
I bet you guys' eye sockets would crack if you ever looked at the Prison Planet website.
Those guys are amateurs. That's the reveal?
LW, where did you see that there was a preliminary test for STDs before she entered Hawthorne? I haven't been able to find that little factoid.
Prison Planet is a site where conspiracy theories are born from Alex Jones' diseased anal cavity. I would probably rip out my eyes if I had to read the crap they put up there on a regular basis.
I am a doctor and can take care of my own psychosis.
By smoking Datura, evidently.
"Medicien Man":
Sometimes people really do legitimately know more than the parent. I've seen several cases.
The right to disregard legitimate medical orders? Of course, if you can show the medication wasn't doing any good, I'd like to see the evidence.
The "neglect" that you speak of is codeword for "you didn't take the medication that we dear know it all leaders ordered you to take". The medication that she was ordered to take was doing more harm than good. It had multiple nasty side effects that was actually worse than the disease itself. How can this be? It was a peer reviewed FDA approved medication. It has no side effects. It is absolutely perfect and without question. Everyone knows that peer reviewed medication studies along with FDA approval automatically means the medication is a s perfect as God himself with no possibility of negative side effects at all. You people need to come down off you high horse and realize that some medications are dangerous.
Do you always argue things that nobody said? Peer review and the FDA aren't perfect, but it's better than the previous system, which was "take our word for it."
It actually happens just as often when abstinence is taught in schools:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/14/us-sex-abstinence-idUSN142367…
I'm hoping you develop a nasty finger cramp, but we both know you can't wish yourself an inch taller.
I'd bet your soul would break to nothingness if you ever looked at Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", which is what you would get if people like you had their way.
JayK, I found it here. "The teen was examined at Childrenâs Hospital prior to her placement at Hawthorn, which returned no results of an STD infection."
I found it at http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/04/05/stand-off-daughter-allegedly-sex…. "The teen was examined at Childrenâs Hospital prior to her placement at Hawthorn, which returned no results of an STD infection."
I tried to answer but it got sent to moderation so I'm trying without the embedded link.Â
Let me guess. You were a butthole baby? If I had turd to throw at you ...
Keep 'em comin', man, you sound very serious.
I bet on your days off you smoke dried turds and wish the tea party would let you join them. Sorry. We don't accept turd smokers.
But that's the thing. I'm going to have to sneak in or something. The tutorial in the general lingo I'm sure will prove broadly useful.
Thanks LW, that is indeed unfortunate news. As I've always been led to believe, Hawthorn has a good reputation. Of course, it appears that there is a bit of hearsay going on, as the STD is still "alleged" and I don't see where they cited where they received the information that the child was moved to Children's Hospital because of the STD. Given that privacy requirements wouldn't allow anybody that would be knowledgeable of the case to comment, the information seems to only come from the mother herself.
I'm also aware that there is no definite knowledge of the neglect that the mother has been charged with. At this time it appears that only the family themselves are informing the press of anything so everything must be taken with a grain of salt.
So it's not entirely certain what happened. This is definitely a complicated issue, and will definitely take some time to sort out, as well and skill and patience. This is not a job for "Medicien man", who appears to be coasting on being voted "Cleverest Guy Ever" buy his classmates in second grade.
Also stupid and paranoid.
OK, here's my anecdotal testimonial. I had cancer two years ago, and after surgery I had chemotherapy and radiation. And though not pleasant, they really weren't too bad. A few months out of my life feeling tired and periodically grotty, but by Christmas I was fine. (Oh, and I was recommended diet and exercise too.)
These Alt Med people who try to talk people out of chemo and rads by exaggerating how awful they are, are guilty of incitement to suicide.
BTW, I live in the UK, and so got this all free on the NHS, promptly and to a very high standard. Any UK readers out there, don't let them steal our NHS - and any yanks, don't beleive what you're told about "socialist medicine."
Actually, I bet the "second test" is actually the lab results from the preliminary exam. The timeline is that the STD test was taken prior to placement at Hawthorn, and 11 days later she was moved to the hospital because she tested positive for an STD. Standard turnaround for STD testing in Detroit is about a week and a half, unless there's a rush.
Most likely scenario: the physical exam showed no symptoms of an STD. The lab results from that exam came back positive about ten days later. Patient was admitted to hospital, and a second round of tests are being performed to confirm STD.
Actually, in the good-old USofA, exercise is routinely prescribed by physicians and is reimbursable.
Some of it is called "physical therapy".
However, my sister-in-law, who has Type II diabetes, is currently enrolled in a medically supervised diet and exercise program. The costs are being born by the insurance carrier.
So, not just wrong. Stupidly wrong on a level that doesn't even require a google to get right.
One other thing: doctors do prescribe diet and exercise all the time. The two issues are reimbursement and adherence.
I take a hypertension drug -- my current insurance plan doesn't cover prescription drugs until after I've spent $500 a year. Thankfully, my meds cost mere pennies.
But I also have to take the damn thing -- every single day.
My doctor also recommended I lose some weight via -- guess what -- diet and exercise. I'm better at taking the drug than I am at taking a walk every day (or laying off the fries). That doesn't mean the doctor's prescription that I do both isn't warranted.
Doctors can only advise and prescribe. It's up to the individual to adhere to the treatment plan.
And one doesn't really need an expensive plan in order to diet and exercise ... in fact, most diet tips save money (cuz you're not eating junk food), and exercise is as easy as getting up off the couch and taking a brisk walk a couple times a day.
Which I'm going to do right now. Thanks for the incentive.
What is gold and silver worth without a government to say it's worth something?
For you, freedom is a code word for "Having the benefits of society but none of the obligations.
Indeed. But the free market does not always work to your benefit. For example, gold only has value because people agree it has value. Otherwise, it's just a shiny rock. And if you really think that society is going to collapse, then you'd be stocking up on something with inherent value, like iron or pickled vegetables.
Under pure capitalism at the early 20th century, there were no regulations on medicine and one did not need peer-reviewed studies, just testimonials as to how the medicines worked. Most medicine of the time consisted of alcohol, but cocaine and heroin was available over the counter. I'd say our current situation is an improvement.
Again, government does not say what things are worth. That is communism.
No, communism is when your neighbor's old lady comes in and rinses out her homemade tampons in the tub while you're sitting in it.
Oh medicine man, you're either taking too many drugs or not enough.
The Daily Heil is so far right it's in danger of falling off a cliff, and is not a credible source for anything.
Average UK income tax and national insurance combined is about 5% higher than your average yank tax. However, we don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for insurance plans, check our bank balances before calling an ambulance, or sell our houses if we get cancer. We also aren't polluted by TheoCon nutjobs who hate women so much that they're stripping rights from them one by one, or you.
I'll take the higher taxes any day.
Complaining that the FDA doesn't work because there are reports on TV about bad drugs falling through the cracks is like complaining that having a police force doesn't work because you hear about crime on TV. You're only seeing the failures, you aren't aware of the successes. For example, thalidomide was not approved for sale in the US because insufficient studies had been performed.
Please stick to the topic at hand, namely, medicine and cancer. Also, our tax rates our some of the lowest among industrialized nations, but too much of the working class' money is going into healthcare and not into other parts of the economy. In other words, what we need to get done what you want done is, in fact, more taxation, not less.
Please stick to the topic at hand, namely, medicine and cancer. Also, our tax rates our some of the lowest among industrialized nations, but too much of the working class' money is going into healthcare and not into other parts of the economy. In other words, what we need to get done what you want done is, in fact, more taxation, not less.
OK?
Sorry.