Quoth Sayer Ji: Modern medicine is "cannibalism"

Wha...wait...what?

Words fail me at the sheer stupidity of this crank.

Wow, just wow......

I'm also pretty sure that his definition of "cannibalism" doesn't exist in Websters....or pretty much anywhere else for that matter.

they are non-continuous (like cancer cells), and therefore must be continually replaced

Cancer cells are non-continuous? And here I was, thinking that the special feature of the HeLa cell line and hybridomas is that they *are* continuous.
I get the impression that "preserving credibility" is not a high priority for Sayer Ji.

cannibalism (human consumption of human proteins)

If "injection" is part of his definition of "consumption", I guess transplants and blood transfusions are also cannibalism. Ah well.

has it occurred to you how close Gersonism is to Eliphas Levi style ritual magic? In Levis magic practitioners were promised vast results but only if all aspects of a ritual, sometimes lasting up to a year, were perfectly accomplished with no taint or flaw. sneezing could ruin a years work. This meant that when Baalberith failed to appear it was due to an imperfect ritual. always. Because it was next to impossible to get it right.
Consider Gersonating....all that fruit and veg has to be still "alive" and fresh and totally organic at all hours of the day or night. so if the cancer rots your tit off its due to you failing to follow the ritual....

"all that fruit and veg has to be still “alive” and fresh and totally organic at all hours of the day or night."

So you've gotta buy those expensive "live" lettuces they're now selling at the supermarket with roots attached? (because as we all know, other lettuce heads are dead and rotting without the roots).

I confess, I'm a medical cannibal - you should see the treats they leave for us in the docs' lounge...

The Gerson therapy requires huge amounts of these fruits and vegetables, up to 20 lbs. per day

*.*
O.O
I had a "hollow legs" phase as a teenager and in my early 20's. Even then, I don't think I could have eaten 20lbs. a day.
Would the enemas they take have something to do with needing to eat so much?

Lincoln bacteriophage (a vaccine made from killed Staphylococcus aureus bacteria) and influenza virus vaccine, both reportedly to stimulate “allergic inflammation,” a process Gerson believed contributed to healing

This has always confused me when it comes to the CAM-loons. I mean, BS aside, I thought they generally pulled their hair and gnashed their teeth anytime the V-word was mentioned.

Anyway, I'm starting to get really tired of these people hijacking and co-opting perfectly good words like "warrior" and "natural" and now "cannibal." I cannot help but physically roll my eyes now whenever I hear the word "warrior." I think it's actually become an autonomic response to hearing that word, I don't even think I consciously control it anymore.

Biotech’s Dark Promise: Involuntary Cannibalism for All

Shorter Sayer Ji: Soylent Green is made of people!

@Julian: The vegetables get juiced, so I'm sure it's a lot less than 20 pounds by the time it's processed. But juicing every hour, 13 times a day? When do people following this protocol have time for such things as having a life? The regimen strikes me as being incompatible with, among other things, having a full-time job.

Dangerous Bacon -- actually, there are advantages to buying the plants with the roots still attached. The biggest one is that they keep a bit longer. ;-) Heck, if you felt like it, you could pot them and keep growing them, though that would ruin a perfectly good head of lettuce by letting it flower.

herr doktor -- yes, presumably he'd object to transfusions on this basis. Heck, he should object to *motherhood* on this basis. It's not just baby drinking momma's milk or subsisting off of momma's blood; momma ends up with bits of baby in her blood! Bits far more significant than the stuff he's freaking out about here. I wonder how he'll stand looking at his mother during Thanksgiving dinner.

The regimen strikes me as being incompatible with, among other things, having a full-time job.

Indeed. Jessica Ainscough, for instance, basically devoted her whole day every day for three years doing the Gerson therapy.

But juicing every hour, 13 times a day?

I imagine it's cleaning the juicer between juicings that is the most painful part, worse than the enemas. I have a juicer that has been stuck in the back of a cupboard somewhere, since I realized that chewing fruit was less onerous than juicing and then cleaning the damned juicer.

If cannibalism and exchanging genes horrify Ji, I hope no one tells him what happens during normal, natural human sexual behavior, not to mention reproduction. His head might explode (which might not be altogether a bad thing, on reflection).

Seriously, many alt med regimes- not just the extremes like
Gerson- involves complicated rituals like juicing, ingesting handfuls of supplements, creating 80% raw meals and avoiding anything that a paleolithic person couldn't hunt or gather.

A daily plan advocated by the woo-meisters I survey might include several juices a day ( "juice- feasting") and vegan, organic, GMO-free foods - making shopping even more of a chore. Food preparation includes arcane juicers and food dryers- no microwaves- as well as special water filtration processes. Fortunately for believers, all of these wonders are sold at the websites' stores'. More conveniently, they also sell dried, powdered fruits and vegetables that you can add to your purified water or organic juices 6 or 8 times a day. Helps to simplify things.

Hilariously enough, my own tennis instructor- who's my age-occasionally puts himself on a diet free of highly processed food : subsisting entirely on grilled poultry and fish and salads and raw fruits for about a month, he becomes quite svelte and pleased with himself. Then he can indulge in slightly more processed distilled products from Russia, Finland and Sweden. They have pure glacial water or suchlike over there.

Sayer Ji is an an utter, true and complete moron, but he is a moron with two MDs on his staff: an antivaccine wack-a-doodle psychiatrist (http://gaia-health.com/gaia-blog/2013-06-25/a-doctors-awakening-on-flu-…) and a "concierge" anti-vaccine pediatrician (http://www.thornburgpediatrics.com/questions/ , and http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Brian-Thornburg/1259176285). Both physicians look like they have sold out for profit by going alternative, BTW.

It pisses me off that dangerous quacks get these MDs on their staff which confers undeserved legitimacy. To me, the worst thing in the world is a MD on woo.

@ Dr Chris:

Brogan has shown up on TMR, AoA and Gary Null's ( what is laughingly called a) show. IIRC she may also be fetaured at Alison MacNeil's/ Louise Kuo Habakus' new venture- Nurture Parenting- a blog, woo-distribution network.

FEATURED

So, if one ingests any form of human protein, one is then considered a cannibal. Saliva contains human proteins, so I guess we all have to spit a lot. Also, any kid who ever entertained him/herself by eating "nose produce" (every kid ever born??) is also a cannibal, probably this Ji whackadoodle too.
And, isn't juicing a form of processing? Or do I misunderstand the term? Those of us who have to watch every calorie we eat know that juice is waaaaaay more calorie-dense than the fruit itself, plus juicing removes the fiber. Maybe that's why they have to have the enemas. I'm sure paleolithic individuals gave themselves multiple enemas daily. Having read the Gerson protocol, give me standard chemo any day--it sounds way less invasive.
What idiots. Sigh.

The problem, it seems to me, is that the placebo effect is real, but only so long as the patient (and perhaps the doctor) doesn't know it's a placebo. The mind is unwilling to acknowledge its own potential effectiveness in the healing process and must project it onto the healer and/or the treatment. So alternative medicine assumes a variety of disguises and useless procedures to mask the fact that its doing nothing. What's important is that the patient expect positive results.

Of course, the placebo effect can't cure everything, and in the case of major pathologies like cancer, must remain ancillary to proven methods of cure. And it seems highly unethical for placebo peddlers, in whatever form, to charge excessively for their services. Of course, to the capitalist mind, higher cost equals better reward, so perhaps the price of some alt-med treatments adds to their efficacy.

At any rate, I think the placebo effect deserves to be exploited in any mainstream course of treatment, especially if the patient is skeptical of conventional therapy. If you're uncomfortable with homeopathy, acupuncture, reiki, or whatever, then contrive your own mumbo-jumbo to raise the patient's expectations. First, do no harm. Second, inspire.

Of course you are right to attack alternative treatments that take the place of proven therapy or become so outlandish that they cause harm to the patient. But I think you should be more tolerant of harmless woo as an adjunct. No matter how powerful a treatment is proven, we should always expect the addition of the placebo effect to lead to a better outcome.

janet:
"Having read the Gerson protocol, give me standard chemo any day–it sounds way less invasive."

I have to agree. Of course, I'm also one of those who'll refuse the nasal flu vaccine on the basis that I'd seriously prefer the needle to having stuff squirted up my nose. I *hate* nasal sprays.

And yeah, juicing is very much a form of processing. But it's done in the home and you don't cook it or add "chemicals" so I guess that makes it different somehow.

@janet

So, if one ingests any form of human protein, one is then considered a cannibal. Saliva contains human proteins, so I guess we all have to spit a lot.

Not to mention kissing. Couples who kiss are, according to Ji's definition, literally cannibalizing each other. Parents who kiss their children. Oh, the horror!

You know, if eating other people's DNA is that poisonous... Ever eat an apple someone else might have handled without gloves on? LOTS of human DNA! In your mouth! Way more than in medical products! OMG!

And, isn’t juicing a form of processing? Or do I misunderstand the term?

In the Woosphere, "processed" appears to mean prepared in an unapproved way. If it's done in an approved way (they'd probably call it a "natural" way), you can break down a foodstuff to its constituent molecules and put it into sugar pills without it becoming "processed" in the process.

What about that placenta eating thing the CAM folks love so much? Is Sayer campaigning against that too?

I suppose organ donation for saving other humans is out then too, hmm?

Just recently I found out about a neat project to make human collagen bandage/wound healing assistance that sounds pretty good. It's made in plants. But yeah--maybe people should really prefer unhealed wounds. It's natural.

In CAMworld the dividing line what is and is not “natural” is very fluid and arbitrary, apparently.

The line between "natural" and "unnatural" is fluid and arbitrary from the standpoint of the objective process or treatment, yes. But it seems to be rather solid and predictable when you look at it along the lines of tribal identity.

Who endorses it? What concepts and ideas do they associate it with? Do they use the right words? Do they seem like the right kind of people -- Nature-loving folks who fight against the authorities which advocate things which go against Nature? Are they pushing the right buttons? Invoking an appropriate world view? Are they spiritual?

It might be interesting to take some of the scientific "enemies" of the natural medicine movement and write essays extolling their worth as "natural forms of healing," hitting all the tropes and drawing from all the cliches -- including complaints about profit-hungry mainstream scientists and physicians who are fighting against this gentle new breakthrough (even though there is no such fight.) Give a warm personal testimonial and call yourself something like 'Spiritwind' or 'JustAmom.'

Then send them out into the woo world ... and watch what happens. Will the unnatural now "pass" as Natural?

Maybe.

Of course, the placebo effect can’t cure everything...

Evidence, please, that placebos can cure *anything*.

I would agree that placebos might make someone think they are better, but I have never seen anyone provide evidence of any objective improvement that cannot be explained by the natural course of disease or injury.

@23: Try new Greenflu. It's designed using principles similar to homeopathy, with highly dilute doses of flu, then combined with other ingredients to stimulate your immune system and activate your body's natural defenses.

It's carefully prepared using natural live eggs and purified using a special process, to make sure that the vital proteins remain intact.

Best of all, people who use Greenflu have been shown to purchase fewer drugs and spend less on health care during flu season. Don't let Big Pharma's puppets keep you away from this lifesaving, money-saving breakthrough!

Wesley Dodson,

The problem, it seems to me, is that the placebo effect is real, but only so long as the patient (and perhaps the doctor) doesn’t know it’s a placebo.

Sadly the placebo effect isn't real*, at least not in the way you appear to mean. It can make people feel better, but it doesn't objectively affect their condition at all. I'm not aware of any objectively assessed condition that is improved by a placebo as compared to no treatment**.

No matter how powerful a treatment is proven, we should always expect the addition of the placebo effect to lead to a better outcome.

On the contrary. Firstly proven treatments come with a free placebo effect, and secondly an unproven treatment that provides a placebo effect and nothing else can be downright dangerous. I the case of asthma, for example, feeling better may easily dissuade a sufferer from using an inhaler when their condition is objectively worsening.

* The best example I know of this is this study which is often cited as evidence that sham knee surgery (making an incision and then simply sewing it back up) is as effective as lavage (washing out the joint) and debridement (basically scraping out the joint), thus demonstrating the awesome power of the placebo. However:

The authors found that all three treatment groups fared equally: each reported subjective symptomatic relief, but no objective improvement in function was noted in any of the groups.

(My emphasis)

** Comparing after placebo to to baseline is a source of much confusion and error - a cold will get better if you give a placebo, but it will also get better without treatment.

@Wesley Dodson,

What you say might make sense if three things were true:

1. That the placebo effect has a medically significant therapeutic benefit and not, as appears to be the case, merely making people think they're feeling better.

2 That there were no ethical concerns with fooling people - telling them that this is a treatment when it isn't.

3. That people wouldn't pass on the information that the surgery, medicine, radiation, physical therapy, or what have you was absolutely worthless - but that PLACEBO stuff, man is it good for what ails you. If you ever get sick, skip all the rest of that stuff - go straight to the PLACEBO.

If you've got data on those that you'd wish to share, please feel free. I for one would be willing to look at good solid reproducible evidence that placebos have a significant therapeutic effect for something.

M.O'B.,

I for one would be willing to look at good solid reproducible evidence that placebos have a significant therapeutic effect for something.

Me too. Several years I had great hopes for placebos, but the evidence has slowly moved me to my current position of apostatic cynical skepticism. I would love to have my faith in psychoneuroimmunology revived with some good evidence, but I shan't be holding my breath.

@ Sastra:

Unfortunately**, I don't have the time but I can riff on creative descriptions for psychotherapy and counselling-

find your own true Self
allow your Spirit to thrive unhampered by the material***
Unleash your Innermost Sage and/ or Warrior
your vocation to serve the Universe awaits you
I am your living Spirit Guide
Connect with your Inner Goddess and Rule!
map out your path on your transcendental journey
Channel YOURSELF!

** others might say "fortunately".
*** clothing optional folk might also answer

@Denice Walter - Can I release my innermost Oregano if I don't care for Sage?

@Denice Walter

channelling oneself in the evening certainly helps you to drop off to sleep

Also notice how, even the hint of anything “unnatural” taints everything in the eyes of a quackery apologist

I really doubt this. Most of them drive cars.

Jessica Ainscough, for instance, basically devoted her whole day every day for three years doing the Gerson therapy.

Compare Jessica Ainscough's daily existence with bobh's account of how his wife lived with her terminal cancer. She went travelling, took holidays, cared for her grandchildren, saw old friends, went to family feasts and celebrations. She not only enjoyed the life left to her, but took care to spend as much time as possible with her loved ones, so that they would have plenty of happy memories when she was gone.
Meanwhile, Jessica Ainscough spent a huge amount of her time shut indoors, juicing, having enemas, endlessly thinking about diet and food, endlessly cleaning the juicer, endlessly cleaning the enema equipment, checking the clock to make sure she was right on the hour with her juice-drinking.... And even more than that, trying and trying to keep thinking positive thoughts, because any hint of negativity might destroy the magic.
If I ever got diagnosed with terminal cancer, I'd know which lifestyle I'd choose.

Denice Walter #29:

Thanks! I'll use it:

Vaccines are NATURAL HEALING!!!!

Look, I'm just a mom, but vaccinations helped me find my own true Self and allowed my Spirit to thrive unhampered by the material world. I didn't take anyone's word, I did the research and made up my own mind.

What I discovered is that vaccines naturally work with your own immune system, unleashing your Innermost Sage like a Warrior against the toxins we are constantly being bombarded with.

Don't listen to the naysayers and shills. Empower yourself with the CHOICE to get a vaccination! Your vocation to serve the Universe awaits you as you are filled with a living Spirit Guide, one which can connect with your Inner Goddess and Rule! Remember that every vaccination is a perfectly natural step on your path on your transcendental journey. Channel vaccines; Channel YOURSELF!

Through the natural healing method of vaccines. Namaste.

signed, SpiritWind

The regimen strikes me as being incompatible with, among other things, having a full-time job.

The Draconian requirements of the Gershon regimen are a guarantee that very, very few converts will be able to do it 100% correctly.

Giving supporters a convenient "out" for when (not if) it doesn't work.

Krebiozen, I agree that proven treatments come with a free placebo effect, unless the treatments, in the case of cancer, are downright scary, i.e. geared toward the destruction of cells--cutting, burning, and poisoning as they say. I'm not saying these treatments are ineffective, just that their nastiness is likely to inspire fear.

Mephistopheles, I don't agree that deception in the patient's best interest in unethical, as long as they are receiving the best possible treatment. So while it may be unethical to give someone a sugar pill in place of a clinically proven drug, I don't think it's unethical to give them a clinically proven drug and encourage them to get acupuncture or pursue meditation because it will improve their response.

But from what I am hearing my received knowledge about PNI is out of date. Would love to be pointed toward some recent studies.

Evidence, please, that placebos can cure *anything*.

There seems to be a good deal of evidence that people can get rid of warts via placebo. Also by hypnosis.

Wesley,
Point taken. It probably depends on how you think about the treatment; those who exaggerate the side effects of conventional cancer treatments and claim they destroy your immune system probably aren't helping in this regard.

I forget the name of the man who recommended visualizing chemotherapy as a white light destroying cancer cells, or similar. He claimed success in cancer patients' responses but this wasn't replicated in follow-up studies.

I don't believe that how you regard chemotherapy makes the slightest difference to its objective efficacy. However it might help a patient to endure it, if it proves difficult, which could be life-saving.

Luara,

There seems to be a good deal of evidence that people can get rid of warts via placebo. Also by hypnosis.

That's a good point, there is some evidence for this, but much of it isn't of the greatest quality (e.g. is uncontrolled), and/or it isn't very clear. This study, for example, that compared hypnosis, salicylic acid, and a placebo to controls, with ten subjects in each group. The controls lost more warts than both the placebo and salcylic acid groups. The hypnotized subjects lost the most warts, but given the variability it is hard to come to any firm conclusions.

I just finished reading Mary Roach's _Stiff_, and if Ji thinks modern medicine is cannibalism, he really needs to read chapter 10, "Eat Me," subtitled "Medicinal cannibalism and the case of the human dumplings."

With warts, there are methods that work better than hypnosis anyway - so not much incentive to research it. But it makes me wonder, if a sensing device were implanted near a tumor, whether a person could control blood flow to the tumor by biofeedback.

This is really weird since I watched this week's CSI, where the mystery protein was a killer ingredient.

Erg... the link in "CSI" works.

Wesley Dodson - I am not an expert in medical ethics and understand that doctors do disagree on the subject of withholding information from patients (or indeed telling a flat out lie if it's done with the best of intensions and for the perceived benefit of the patient). It strikes me as dodgy and ma/paternalistic. It also reminds me vaguely of a scene from The Bells of Saint Mary's.

Warts almost go away even if left alone because (unless someone's immune system is extremely suppressed) eventually the virus that is causing the wart is will be cleared by the immune system. As a pediatrician, especially with smaller children, I will do my best to convince parents not to have me try to freeze warts and instead just let them go away on their own.

Crazy thing is that aborted cell derivatives are used in a large part of the CDC immunization schedule - that much Ji gets correct. That it is cannabilism, not so sure about that. Good article, though I think you conveniently rolled over all the biopharm research his article discusses which quite frankly does disturb me. Human lactoferrin in cow's milk. Yuk!

Luara,
I do wonder about hypnosis and warts, and especially what the mechanism might be if it does actually work. I have come across some uncontrolled studies that apparently found hypnosis was able to remove warts on one side of the body only, which is hard to explain, but I would need to be convinced of the integrity of the study design before I was convinced of this. These kinds of studies tend to be carried out by people who are highly motivated to prove hypnosis works, with all the cognitive pitfalls that brings along.

Would simply reducing local blood flow eliminate a wart? It seems unlikely, but even if so, how do hypnotic suggestions to get rid of a wart do that? Does imagining a wart disappearing induce a person's brain to send out a signal to reduce blood flow just around a localized area like that? Is that even possible?

If not blood flow, then how could this work? What other mechanism that isn't already operating would kill a virus and could be turned on by hypnosis? The more I think about it the more problematic it gets. I can see a possible mechanism for relaxation reducing corticosteroid levels, thus reducing immunosuppression, and systemic effects like that, but local effects are harder to explain. I'm not saying they are impossible, but I have a problem with prior plausibility.

I also wonder about claims that hypnosis can raise blisters e.g. if a subject is told they are being touched with a hot object. I experimented with hypnosis quite a bit several years ago, and found it very interesting, though I found that you can get people to do most things associated with hypnosis even when they're not in a 'trance' (whatever that means). I suspect most of us spend most of our time in some sort of 'trance'.

I have used hypnosis to induce analgesia, but this happens out of trance too so it isn't particularly remarkable; we have probably all had the experience of injuring ourselves while our attention was elsewhere and not noticing until afterwards. To my regret I never tried raising a blister. I'm out of practice these days, but I might see if I can find myself a good hypnotic subject some time and give it a go.

@ Sastra:

Well, there you go twisting my finely honed prose in order to shill VACCINES!
Alright then, carry on!

When I was a grad student, a hilarious friend wanted me to tart up SB psychological information in New Agey garb whilst giving motivational lectures selling counselling or group therapy- which would also be SB
and based on my studies/ training- although we wouldn't tell THEM... he would be my manager @ 10%. I of course refused him despite the fact that I would wear flowy clothes-

Maybe it's not such a bad idea although it is quite unethical.

Still, the whole scenario is quite ridiculous- imagine me as a New Age guru, wearing drifty grey-blues in raw silk, on the hillside, wind in my hair, calmly
advising my acolytes... I could call myself "Laxmi" or latinise my name-
don't laugh, it sounds very cool-

Nope, It's still wrong to mislead people even if they LIKE it and it makes me rich.

Wesley Dodson:

Krebiozen, I agree that proven treatments come with a free placebo effect, unless the treatments, in the case of cancer, are downright scary, i.e. geared toward the destruction of cells–cutting, burning, and poisoning as they say. I’m not saying these treatments are ineffective, just that their nastiness is likely to inspire fear.

The excellent term "nocebo" has been coined to describe this phenomenon, where an expectation of harm negatively colors perception of the treatment.

Evidence, please, that placebos can cure *anything*.

There seems to be a good deal of evidence that people can get rid of warts via placebo.

I would like to read more about this. Citation, please. What has convinced you that doing nothing works better than doing something?

Johnny,

I would like to read more about this. Citation, please.

There are several studies on PubMed of varying quality, as I mentioned above. Some evidence does look interesting. See what you make of this study , for example, that used hypnosis to treat genital HPV in women. I'm not sure what to make of it.

@ Mephistopheles O'Brien

any doctor who failed to reveal to me the full details of my treatment for any reason good or bad would a) swiftly cease to be my doctor and b) possibly be hauled up before his professional body. Doctors should never treat without fully informed consent in my opinion. I have informed every doctor I have ever had of this, and had a variety of self serving arguments as to why they feel this is wrong, which almost always include the "how do we dumb it down enough for you" argument. These arguments result in them being fired.
In my view uninformed treatment is assault, pure and simple. It follows from this that placebos should not be given. I know that's a little black and white but its where i sit.

So, if Mr Ji were to have some mishap and say, get a big cut on his leg, and need to have a blood transfusion, can I safely assume he would refuse such, as it's *cannibalism* ?

If it's cannibalism, then it's quite in line with ancient more "natural" western medicine, which often used ground up body parts in its cures :-).

So the Gerson Therapy involves

Vaccines
Chemicals ("all these chemmicals" ;)
Motor oil base -- Castor oil was used a motor oil, famously in WWI airplanes and the Indy 500.

Natural, for some definitions of the word natural.

"If it’s cannibalism, then it’s quite in line with ancient more “natural” western medicine, which often used ground up body parts in its cures"

I was thinking of Traditional Chinese Medicine, in which preserved bits of one's ancestors were consumed.

*according to some, this is still a practice among traditionalists.
Grandpa is good for what ails you.

In all fairness he's not the first to see injection as equivalent to eating. See also the Jehovah's Witnesses. I mean, I'm pretty sure they're wrong too, but...just saying.

And now I'm wondering whether I should be upset that I was not offered a Soylent Green lollipop with my flu shot this year.

ozone treatment (given by enema or via infusion in autologous, heparinized blood or directly into patients’ blood vessels)

I know this has not much to do with the natural/unnatural discussion above, but are they seriously injecting ozone -- a gas -- into people's blood vessels? Isn't that dangerous pretty much regardless of the gas in question?

@ LW:

They 'inject' ozone into other places too.

and ozone is extremely toxic, corrosive and just generally nasty

Hey Orac, this is a bit off-topic but do you plan to watch this?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hunting-the-nightmare-bacteria/

LW: The IV ozone treatment is I believe generally done not by injecting gas into the blood (thankfully) but by removing the blood, perfusing it with ozone, and then putting it back in again. An alternate version skips the theatrical step of removing blood first and just uses an ozone-saturated saline solution.

Also slightly off-topic, but I'm due for some kip and can no longer defend Orac's good name on this shite-hole of an article in yesterday's UK press. Any assistance gratefully received: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10383724/I-feel-empowered-in-control-…

Mark McAndrew,
I think you have done an admirable job of exposing those people as the dishonest creeps they are. I'm resisting the urge to join the fray, as I have a million and one other things I'm supposed to be doing.

@ Mark McAndrew, I'm sorry, but i don't want to read those comments. Seeing someone mentioning dr Burzynski in the article really turned me of.

@ Mark McAndrew:

You ( and the other sceptics) did a great job there: the woo-enablers are spectacularly awful and disgusting. You deserve applause.

Oddly, one of them calls you a 'cyber bully': just yesterday, AoA's ( and TMR's) Jameson wrote about strategies for the faithful to deal with internet "bullying", i.e. challenges based on reality, SBM and scepticism.

I keep noticing how a phrase or what are laughingly called 'ideas' make the rounds of altie sites/ media quickly.

I'm pretty sure that soup and juice made from Hippocrates would constitute cannibalism?

So to follow the Gerson diet means becoming a cannibal? No wonder it carries such placebo value.\

One thing that really puzzles me is how coffee can be Evil if drunk, but somehow becomes Good if shoved up the bum.

And one other thing... if you have no underlying health concerns that prevent you from properly absorbing nutrients from your food, and you need supplements because your diet doesn't supply them, THAT DIET ISN'T HEALTHY, no matter what the woo-meisters say.

Mark McAndrew,
I think you have done an admirable job of exposing those people as the dishonest creeps they are. I’m resisting the urge to join the fray, as I have a million and one other things I’m supposed to be doing.

I couldn't agree more. What an appalling excuse for journalism.
First it starts with scary, non-specific statistics about the increase in cancer (let's not mention anything about screening picking it up earlier, eh?), followed by mentioning a BBC presenter's unqualified assertion that "the NHS refuses to accept the role of diet in fighting cancer".
Queue an "SB disclaimer" which would be fairly easy to accidentally skim over, and hey ho, let's advertise the blog of the first who happens to be an incredibly statistically lucky Gerson advocate! No wonder she says she's found her niche...

Then we move on past the second Gerson fan, only to mention the poor young woman who is quite possibly Dr. Burzynski's most fortunate patient ever (and naturally her cookbook) only for the woo to get wackiest in the fourth instance!

I thought I'd seen terrible cases of advertorials before - but this is even more shameful.

I do apologize: there were no statistics.

Also for the rant, in general...

What an appalling excuse for journalism.

It's Chinatown the Daily Telegraph. Does it even *try* to be journalism? I always had the impression that typical DT readers already know what they think, and are merely seeking to have their opinions reinforced.

I am trying to avoid making a crude generalisation; this is more an attempt to work out why anyone would buy a newspaper which leaves you knowing *less* after reading it.

Rant justified, I suspect.

@ herr doktor bimler

Again, I probably should apologize! I live in Australia...

Living in Australia does not itself require an apology.

We know that diet has only a modest effect on the prevention of some cancers, and in some cancers it has hardly any effect at all. I like to keep an eye on the EPIC study that has followed up more than half a million people in Europe, recording their diets and other lifestyle factors and their health, particularly cancer. Their key findings in brief for the three commonest cancers in this study:

Fiber, fish, red and processed meats affect colorectal cancer risk, the first two reduce it, the second two increase it. Dairy foods also reduce colorectal cancer risk (which may surprise 'China Study' fans).

Obesity after (but not before) menopause increases breast cancer risk, but consumption of fruit and vegetables is not associated with breast cancer risk.

Prostate cancer risk is not related to fruit and vegetable consumption.

I must admit to being initially surprised by these findings. I suppose I have absorbed by osmosis the idea that eating lots of fruit and vegetables prevents cancer, but this isn't really supported by the EPIC data for these cancers, bearing in mind that you don't have to eat fruit and vegetables to increase fiber intake and reduce colorectal cancer risk.

If the theories about antioxidant phytonutrients in various vegetables were correct, you would surely see some effects, on breast cancer for example, in a large study like this, but we don't. This makes the idea that consuming even more fruits and vegetables will cure existing cancers seem even more irrational, yet the idea is very common.

Eating lots of fruit and vegetables is still good for cardiovascular and bone health, and probably other areas of health too, so I'm not suggesting people don't bother eating them, but the effect on cancer risk is likely to be small.

@ incitatus,

"any doctor who failed to reveal to me the full details of my treatment for any reason good or bad would a) swiftly cease to be my doctor and b) possibly be hauled up before his professional body. Doctors should never treat without fully informed consent in my opinion...... In my view uninformed treatment is assault, pure and simple. "
In regards to this I fully agree personally. Although, that is our personal style and approach to health care. I have met many people who simply do NOT want to know what is wrong with them, what various treatment options might be, etc. They want their doctor to make the decision for them. Some are quite verbal about it and where does this leave the health professional when they get no input from their patient? It is an ethical dilemma as doing nothing without fully informed consent is regarded by them as a bad choice as well as making the "choice" for the patient. It is a terrible epidemic of indecision that leaves these professionals in bad predicaments.