Never underestimate the slick and sly marketing of alternative medicine’s frontline troops. Just like cancer cells attack the human body, cancer quack doctors and clinics lay waste to the desperate and the deceived. Below are just a few of the deceptive and heinous tactics greedily and callously employed.
Anatomy of a Testimonial
All cancer quacks follow this almost
fool-proof step-by-step method:
“Typically,
what you will see or hear is a chipper-looking and -sounding person who claims
that this treatment ‘cured’ his or her cancer. These testimonials almost always
include many or all of these elements: First, the cancer patient receives the
diagnosis, after which she is lost and suffering at the hands of ‘conventional’
doctors, who either cannot or do not wish to understand and who cannot do
anything for her. Often, this will take the form of the classic alt-med cliche
that the patient was ‘sent home to die.’ Then, when all hope seems lost, the
patient discovers an alternative medicine ‘healer’ or treatment. It is not
infrequently described in quasi-religious terms, like a revelation or something
that brings the patient out of the darkness and into the light. Naturally,
there is resistance from the patient’s doctors, family, and/or friends, who
warn against it, with doctors warning of dire consequences if the patient
abandons conventional medicine. But the patient, convinced by dubious
practitioners, friends, and, of course, previous testimonials, ‘sees’ that the
treatment ‘works’ in a way that medical science cannot and survives. Infused
with fervor, the patient now wants to spread the word. Often, the patient is
now selling the remedy. Perhaps you’ve seen such testimonials or heard them on
the radio and thought: ‘Gee, this sounds great. I wonder if it works.’”
Understandable Fear Of Chemotherapy
is Exploited
Cancer
quacks know full well people’s aversion to and fear of chemotherapy and its
side effects. They take advantage of these obvious effects to scare people into
using and paying for their alternative and supposedly pain-free treatments. A
few of the more common side effects are:
Fatigue
Hair loss
Easy
bruising and bleeding
Infection
Anemia (low
red blood cell counts)
Nausea and
vomiting
Appetite
changes
Constipation
Diarrhea
Mouth,
tongue, and throat problems such as sores and pain with swallowing
Nerve and
muscle problems such as numbness, tingling, and pain
Skin and
nail changes such as dry skin and color change
Ignorance of the Agony of Dying From
Untreated Cancer
Cancer
quacks say their alternative treatments are more natural and less severe than
the debilitating side effects of chemo. They exploit people’s ignorance of the
horrors of dying from cancer that is unchecked and has continued spreading:
“Dying from
cancer can mean unrelenting pain that leaves you the choice of being drugged up
with narcotics or being in agony.
“Dying from
cancer can mean unrelenting vomiting from an uncorrectable bowel obstruction.
It can mean having a nasogastric tube to drain your digestive juices and
prevent you from throwing up. Alternatively, it can mean having to have a tube
sticking out of your stomach to drain its fluids……..
“Dying from cancer can mean your lungs progressively filling with fluid
from tumor infiltration. Think choking on your own secretions. Think a
progressive shortness of breath. Think an unrelenting feeling of suffocation
but with no possibility of relief.
“Dying from cancer can mean having your belly fill with ascites fluid
due to a liver chock full of tumor.
“Dying from
cancer can mean a progressive decline in mental function due to brain
metastases.”
Falsely Attributing a Remedy to Unsubstantiated
Treatments
“Many forms
of alternative medicine are rejected by conventional medicine because the
efficacy of the treatments has not been demonstrated through double-blind
randomized controlled trials; in contrast, conventional drugs reach the market
only after such trials have proved their efficacy. A person may attribute
symptomatic relief to an otherwise ineffective therapy due to the placebo
effect, the natural recovery from or the cyclical nature of an illness (the
regression fallacy), or the possibility that the person never originally had a
true illness ……
“Those who
have had success with one alternative therapy for a minor ailment may be
convinced of its efficacy and persuaded to extrapolate that success to some
other alternative therapy for a more serious, possibly life-threatening
illness. For this reason, critics contend that therapies that rely on the
placebo effect to define success are very dangerous. Scientifically unsupported
health practices can lead individuals to forgo effective treatments and this
can be referred to as ‘opportunity cost’. Individuals who spend large amounts
of time and money on ineffective treatments may be left with precious little of
either, and may forfeit the opportunity to obtain treatments that could be more
helpful.”
The Need for Complete Control Over
One’s Life
“It also
seems to be a question of human nature. The diagnosis of breast cancer can be
emotionally devastating. Formerly self-assured women feel themselves losing
control of their lives. Unfortunately, our system of medicine reinforces this
feeling of loss of control, as it is all too often impersonal and even
disrespectful of patients. Patients find themselves going to multiple doctor’s
visits, where all too often they have to wait for hours in crowded waiting
rooms to see their doctors, who then, thanks to the demands of managed care,
only spend 5 or 10 minutes with them discussing a life-threatening disease.
They deal with voicemail hell trying to reach their doctor when they are having
problems and endure many other indignities. They often conclude from this that
the system does not respect their time or them (which it often doesn’t) and
that they are considered nothing more than a number, a disease, an insurance
number, or money. In contrast, ‘alternative’ practitioners often provide the
human touch that is too often missing from modern medicine.
“They take
the time to listen to the patient and make her feel good about herself and her decision,
all too often giving erroneous information about chemotherapy and radiation
therapy. When a woman makes a decision to choose alternative therapy, she often
sees herself as ‘taking control’ of her treatment from uncaring doctors whose
treatments, she is told, do not treat the root cause of her disease.
Understandably, she may feel liberated from the tyranny of HMOs, cancer
centers, clinics, and hospitals and back in control of her own destiny. In
addition, many testimonials have religious overtones as well, where lost,
suffering women misguided by conventional doctors and without hope find a
savior (their ‘healer’) and/or enlightenment (the ‘alternative’ therapy) that
leads her out of the darkness and into the light of good health again.”
Crude
Medicine: Every Disease has a Single Cause and Cure
“In the real world, diseases often have distinct causes. What gives you
skin cancer is not the same thing that gives you diabetes. It then follows that
medical treatments must be tailored to the disease, which is why doctors don’t
have a panacea and must resort to an assortment of drugs, surgery, radiation
therapy, and lifestyle modifications to treat conditions.
“In the world of pseudo-sciences, however, gurus believe that every
disease is due to one thing. They have also, quite luckily for their bank
account, discovered the one treatment to cure everything.”
When the
Alternative Treatment Fails – Blame the Victim
“If you decide to undergo conventional therapy first, the ‘woo’ won’t
work. Of course, it won’t work anyway, but it’s very common for cancer quacks
to blame failures of their quackery to eliminate cancer or even arrest its
growth on the patient’s having used chemotherapy or radiation before. It’s a
classic ‘blame the victim’ technique, a particularly pernicious and despicable
ploy, because many patients who are desperate enough to try alternative
medicine only do so after they’ve exhausted conventional treatment. So
basically …….. alternative medicine
practitioners give patients who’ve exhausted conventional medicine false hope
and then tell them that the reason that hope didn’t pan out was because they
chose conventional medicine. Basically, if you try an alternative therapy but
don’t try it first, then it’s your fault that you’re dying.”
No Evidence
for their “Cures”? No Problem. “It’s a Conspiracy!”
Cancer quacks are forced to claim that modern medicine and
pharmaceutical companies are conspiring to suppress their “cures”. They have no
choice. There is no other way to explain their lack of evidence. These two
researchers completely take apart these conspiracies with ten sound, intelligent,
rational points. Number four is:
“Many if not most researchers are more likely to value fame, prestige
and personal achievement over sheer quantity of money.
“Even if we tacitly accept that scientists and doctors do not care about
making a difference the world or helping sick people, we still can’t assume
that the only thing they care about is money. Any scientist who finds or
participates in research leading to a breakthrough cure is going to be
instantly famous among colleagues and peers. It’s a chance to show all the foes
and detractors from your entire life that you are not a loser, that you are in
fact the very best at what you do. It not only means a Nobel Prize, it
virtually guarantees statues and entire buildings erected in your honor and a
mention in virtually every medical and science textbook.
“It means you can set your salary and work for any company you choose,
doing whatever research you like. It means adoration from millions of victims
and family members whom you have saved. Finding a cancer cure would mean a
reputation to rival that of Einstein’s and a legacy which will persist
throughout history. It’s not very easy to believe that any scientist would be
willing sweep these benefits under the rug along with the cure, and the more
shallow and selfish the conspiracy claims the scientists to be, the more likely
it is that they value total personal gain over mere financial gain alone.”
Ancient Knowledge Beats Modern
Science
Many cancer
quacks dupe their patients by appealing to this fallacy:
“It
generally takes one of two basic forms. Either they claim that something is
right/effective/safe because our ancestors thought so and they were somehow privy
to some ‘ancient knowledge’ that we don’t have access to today, or they argue
that a treatment is safe/effective because it has been used for many
generations and has stood the ‘test of time’…...
“The ‘test
of time’ argument is similarly flawed. There are thousands of ancient medical
treatments that were used for countless generations before science came along
and discredited them. Leeches are a good example. We used them for hundreds of
years before we realized that draining a sick person’s blood was a bad idea
(note: we do still use leeches medicinally today, but not for the same thing
that they were used for historically)…….
“When you
think about it, it is, of course, not surprising that many things would be used
medicinally for countless generations without anyone realizing that they don’t
work. Imagine that in some village, someone gets sick, eats an herb, then gets
better just by his/her body healing itself. It will appear that the herb worked
because the person took the herb, then got better. As a result, every time that
someone in that village gets that ailment, they will take that herb. Sometimes,
it simply won’t work and the person will get worse, but other times, the
placebo effect will kick in and the person will get better. Additionally, in
many cases, the sick person’s body will simply heal itself, thus giving the
appearance that the herb works. Every one of these ‘success stories’ will serve
to affirm the villagers’ belief that the herb works, and it will get used from
one generation to the next.”
Resources
Credible
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Websites https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4093414/
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Jerry De Luca is a Christian freelance writer who loves perusing dozens of interesting and informative publications. When he finds any useful info he summarizes it, taking the main points, and creates a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
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