About Cancer

When I first learned about 'natural' medicines the topic resonated with my overall life philosophy and love of nature. Trained as a teacher my job was to teach so it seemed a logical step to hit the forward button when natural cancer cure information arrived in my inbox. After all I wanted to help people, to teach them of my new discoveries. Thus I joined millions of other well-meaning folk unwittingly fanning the 'tsunami' of miracle cancer cures. Although good intention drove our collective proselytising, at the end of the day an alternative medicine cancer death is just another needless death regardless of intention.

After 4.5 years working in the cancer industry, I now know differently. I've seen the increase in alt/med deaths. I now believe promoting alt/med material is a crucial moral issue, especially when we consider many cancer patients suffer from PTSD (whether they recognise it or not), and therefore may lack the ability to make rational choices.

Much of my life I've been involved in river, mountain and surf lifesaving rescue, but now, as a director of a cancer help centre, I witness more tragedies than I have seen in 40 years of outdoor rescues. The majority of these are among patients who used alternative treatments and abandoned or delayed conventional medicine. Steve Jobs is alleged to have delayed conventional treatment while he trialled various alternative methods. Surgeon colleagues are shocked that in the last year we have referred to them five female patients presenting with 'fungating' breast tumours in; something more common in the dark ages.

So here is my blunt message. When it comes to giving alternative cancer treatment advice - stop it! You may never have thought that forwarding a viralled email may cause patients to delay conventional therapies while 'fiddling' around with alt/med methods. A GP colleague said recently, "Patients don't seem to realise they have just this one life to practice trial and error cancer cure methods - until it is too late."

Don't give alt/med cancer advice unless you're prepared to be responsible for the outcome of the advice you give. I'll repeat this because it is so critical. Don't give alt/med cancer advice unless you're prepared to be responsible for the outcome of the advice you give.

Before hitting the forward button, we should ask ourselves, are we prepared to be the full time care giver/financial supporter of the patient or family when it goes wrong? Ethics must override any attachment to nature ideology. On jury service we'd not send a person to the electric chair unless we had no doubt. Can we have no doubt about our alt/med recommendations? Have we presented both sides of medical science or 'cherry-picked' that which supports our ideology? Have we thoroughly researched conventional (allopathic) medicine papers about the alt/med treatment we want to forward to all our friends-especially those who may have cancer?

Attachment to natural cure ideologies can border on fundamentalism and may override science and rationale. As a multi-decade sometimes vegan/vegetarian, now more a more balanced eater, I've done it myself and proselytised the 'natural' food path to cure illnesses. But it is hard to ignore all the patients I see dying from alternative cancer treatments or delaying treatment while experimenting with alt/med like Steve Jobs is alleged to have done. With 43,000 annual cancer deaths in Australia I suspect alt/med deaths are 10% of that figure or more-4300 is much higher than our annual road death toll-now at about 1400.

Yet 'good' people, who have no idea about the alt/med deaths or experience of treating cancer patients, will pass natural cancer cure advice. M, the local yoga teacher who is loved by her pupils is a classic example. Her pupils assume her expertise in yoga therapies and this gives her some authority. Her advice to a yoga student, who was also our patient, was to do it the 'natural way.' I understand. I'm a yoga teacher too and I could have been her once. I'll talk to her but I may not get through her belief system or mindset. A wiser approach is to use yoga therapies as an ajunct to conventional medicine; not an alternative.

It's easy to succumb as the following scenario illustrates. Your good friend has cancer; you want to help. You research 'Dr Internet.' Like M our yoga teacher, you mistrust big pharma and modern medicine. You Google 'cancer cures' - you find 14,000,000 results, most are for 'natural' cancer cures. It is unlikely that you will examine the reputable cancer medicine sites like NCI, Sloan Kettering or Australia's Cancer Council because you mistrust science and favour alternative ideology.

Another scenario: You get one of the many emails promoting 'black salve' for skin cancers. You find 10.5 million Google results for the black salve and it sounds convincing. You don't know it is the newest recycled fad (it resurfaces every decade or so) and you won't have seen the deaths caused by it like we have; deaths in fit and healthy people who ate the 'right foods.' The Googe advice sounds good so you pass it on.

You pass on dietary cures for cancer not seeing as we do patients who have eaten every manner of 'anti-cancer diet' for long periods; up to 3 decades and swallowed 4-6 juices fresh raw juices daily. They still got cancer. More juice will not make them better; in fact their blood tests inevitably show deficiencies and imbalances from too much juice. It is not natural to eat a wheelbarrow load of fruit and veg a week and certainly doesn't stop cancer

A cancer expert I know, in nearly 4 decades helping 13,000 + cancer patients, has not seen one cancer cure solely attributed to 'alternative medicine.' Successful patients also used conventional medicine but often played this down. Today we call this complementary medicine but that arena is complicated and needs a rare level of collaboration.

Despite the stampede to follow alt/med, alt/med cancer deaths are rapidly rising while conventional medicine cancer deaths are steadily falling. This trend is accelerated because some patients treated in the medical system end up with poor treatment. Their stories are sometimes horrific and include abuse, apathy and inefficiency to name a few.

As you can see I'm not blindly promoting allopathic medicine as perfect, because it's not. As one prominent Gold Coast GP recently said, "Medicine is a whore, but at least it has mechanisms to keep it honest and processes for complaint, where alt/med has none."

We meet patients who have tried all the 'latest' alternative cancer cures. Some have spent up to six figure amounts on these fads but we've not seen that any of these internet touted regimens have altered the progression of their cancer. Worse still precious time has been wasted while the disease has been spreading. In many cases it is too late!

In concluding I repeat; don't give alt/med cancer advice.

As Bob Newhart says in that delightful skit found on YouTube - 'Stop it.'