CANCER QUACKERY lecture notes from
Ed Friedlander, M.D., Pathologist

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A sorry monument to human greed and stupidity (mostly the latter).

As a nation, we spend more money on health frauds every year than we do on medical research. 

* The major cancer frauds of this century: 

     apricot pits ("Laetrile" -- generated >100 new millionaires) 

     cryptococcus ("Glover serum") 

     distilled water ("Koch antitoxins") 

     fecal bacteria ("Hett serum") 

     grapes ("Brandt Harmony Healing nature cure") 

     magic box ("Orgone energy" -- collected "cosmic blue bions") 

     magic raw-liver-and-fruit chopper ("Gerson cure")

Luigi di Bella cure -- melatonin, vitamins, and so forth in a secret mix. Italian far-right-wing politics. It was reported that out of his 3000 patients, 1500 never had cancer, and of the ones that did, he had four possible responses, all of whom had received other therapy. All of this strongly recalls the laetrile business. Br. Med. J. 317: 366, 1998

     mineral oil and creatine ("Krebiozen") 

     mistletoe ("Iscador" -- collection times based on astrology) 

     mucor and rhizopus bread molds ("Mucorhicin") 

     novocaine ("Gerovital") 

     pepsin, cascara, herbs ("Hoxsey cure" -- anti-Semitic) 

     placenta extract ("Bahamas cure" -- Science 241: 1285, 1988) 

     powdered diamonds ("Ayur-Vedic diamond carbon compound") 

     shark cartilage 

     unknown substance ("antineoplastons"; JAMA 267: 2924, 1992; for political reasons, the NCI began a study in 1992) 

     unknown substance ("Greek cure") 

     unknown substance, tooth extractions ("Issels cure") 

     unknown substances ("Maharishi Ayur-Vedic medicine"; little or no relation to real Hinduism) 

     Venus fly-trap extract ("Carnivora") 

     warts ground up in sour milk ("Sanders cure") 

     weird diet ("Zen macrobiotics"; no relation to real Zen or Buddhism)

In my opinion, after careful review, today's claims that "cancer is caused by negative attitudes, and meditation helps the body fight cancer" are groundless. * New Age guru Carl Simonton, M.D., a "Silva Mind Control" buff, based his claim that "negative emotions cause cancer" on his study of his radiation therapy patients. He told his patients they were "responsible for having cancer", but promised each patient a good result if the patient practiced "visualization" to enhance treatment effects. Afterwards, the patients who got good results "had good attitudes", while the treatment failures acted bitter, hurt, and angry. Cause and effect, huh? Read Dr. Simonton's own account in The Holistic Health Handbook, 1977.

* I hope Dr. Simonton and his followers are right. However, this cruel travesty is still the basis for most current pop-culture claims that "a positive mental attitude helps fight cancer", etc., etc. Don't confuse this stuff with honest studies of the mind-body link. These do exist (and generally fail to support New Age "whole person", "you create your own reality" claims).

Dr. Simonton's book, Getting Well Again, contains a grisly account of his asking each new patient, "Why did you want to die? Why did you need to have cancer?"

One current scam is Mexican clinics that offer "the same chemotherapy and immunotherapy as you would get in the States, plus natural healing remedies that both fight the cancer and prevent chemotherapy side effects." In fact the "methotrexate", "interferon", etc., etc., administered here are placebos -- explaining the marvelous lack of side effects!

* Another disturbing event in recent memory was the planting of a series of false research reports by the Maharishi's people ("transcendental meditation") in refereed medical journals. (Suckers included "Lancet" and "JAMA".) The pattern of deception by this particular group was massive. (Stealing university department stationery was just the beginning....) As one former participant put it, "We thought we weren't doing anything wrong, because we were told it was often necessary to deceive the unenlightened to advance our guru's plan to save the world." See JAMA 266: 1471 & 1749, 1991.

"Live cell analysis" shows people their own cooled blood under phase contrast microscopy on TV. As the blood cools, the plasma proteins precipitate unpredictably, forming interesting little structures which look and move (Brownian movement) like micro-organisms. The operator (who may be sincere) tells the patient that the doctors missed a serious infection that underlies his/her symptoms.

* The anti-science philosophers have has a bonanza with this recently ("My cultural prejudice is as good as your cultural prejudice"; "It's only our technologies that differ", etc., etc.; Med. Anthro. Quart. 10: 657, 1996).

Quacks are convincing because they:

tell people what they want to hear
use the terminology of science (though not its methods, i.e., no quack ever does an honest blind-controlled study)
quote honest papers out of context, or even present fictitious data referenced to published papers where no such data appears; oddly, this technique, also a mainstay of the classic "creation science" movement, violates
no U.S. law, and the public will not believe anyone would lie so grossly)
make many statements that are obviously true (commonplaces of preventive medicine, statements about the limits of conventional cancer therapy)
phrase their grandiose, false claims as true statements or rhetorical questions ("If laetrile cures your cancer, you avoid the side-effects of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy." "It is better to treat the real causes of
disease rather than just the symptoms." "You should treat disease early, before it become symptomatic." "Doctors should focus on the whole person, not just treating the disease." "Has the other shoulder started hurting yet?")
pretend to love their clients, and share their values (especially "family values", "freedom", "positive wellness",
"treat the whole person", "taking part in your own care", "natural healing", "New Age mysticism", various religious
faiths, and various right-wing and left-wing political ideologies)
claim their remedy is "natural" (how else could substances exert a real physiological effect without ever
producing side effects?!)
present themselves as reasonable humanitarians, and their critics as ignorant monsters ("Liar!" "Conspiracy!"
"Nazi!", "Murderer!", "Genocide!" etc., etc.; I have been subjected to this kind of abuse several times)
allege that all claims by physicians and scientists (and even "reality itself") are entirely motivated by politics and
dogma (the "social causation" model, a liberal New Age spinoff; read Science 255: 613, 1992, then either laugh
or cry)
peddle paranoia (no one ever went broke telling the public that there is a "huge conspiracy" against them, that
familiar things are deadly, etc., etc.) and ridicule the hated "medical establishment"

The cancer quack cannot lose. Whenever a patient:

seems to get well: "We cured you"
seems to improve: "We helped you"
seems to stay the same: "We stabilized you"
dies: "If only you had come here sooner / hadn't gone to the greedy, wicked AMA physicians / hadn't eaten those Twinkies"

Warning to medical students

It's fine to "keep an open mind", but if you get involved with these people, you will be bitterly disappointed. It is of no consequence whatever if some quacks are "sincere". (Most are decent, altruistic people who are misguided. Suspect a pathological grief reaction when a scientifically-trained person becomes the staunch advocate of an unproven remedy -- Linus Pauling, the krebiozen testimonials).

The best response that you, as an ethical medical student, can make to quackery is to practice honest, informed medicine while making full use the quack's main techniques:

take time with your patient, listen carefully, and show a real interest and affection
explain the pathologic process and what you are doing
let the patient take as active a role as possible in his or her health care
try to be kind to everybody, even when this is most difficult.

You can find a guide to complementary cancer medicine -- such things as diet, massage, meditation, and so forth -- in Curr. Opin. Onc. 9: 327, 1997. Less friendly: West. J. Med. 163: 463, 1995. The similarities to, and differences from, what's listed above are obvious. Note that unlike quacks, decent complementary practitioners talk about helping rather than curing, and do not offer radical new ideas about the body or cosmos.

CANCER QUACKERY lecture notes from Ed Friedlander, M.D., Pathologist

Quacks are convincing because they:

The cancer quack cannot lose. Whenever a patient:

Warning to medical students

CANCER QUACKERY lecture notes from
Ed Friedlander, M.D., Pathologist