Updated: ALTERNATIVE CANCER TREATMENTS: CAUSES OF FAILURE

[Guest guest]

ALTERNATIVE CANCER TREATMENTS: CAUSES OF FAILURE

The central purpose of the Center for the

Study of Natural Oncology, a California

not-for-profit corporation, is to help cancer

patients find the most effective, yet non-toxic,

cancer therapies that are available within their

resources and then assist in obtaining and

commencing therapies. We have no standardized

protocols, nor do we sell any product or

service. We have extensive informational

resources and we help clarify all issues pertaining to therapeutic choices.

There is a wide range of effectiveness in

the hundreds of alternative strategies and

thousands of supplements. The purpose of this

discussion is not to advocate nor denigrate any

treatment. Instead, this is a survey of the very

human factors that can undermine even the best

alternative cancer treatments.

1. Money Management. There are usually many

paths to success in cancer treatment. The

smartest choices are rarely the most expensive

choices. Don’t overspend. Often a number of

strategies must be tried before the right one is

found. Set aside funds to allow for

this. Likewise, don’t under spend. Most people

try to accrue assets for a rainy day. A cancer

diagnosis is that rainy day. Raise funds for

cancer treatment as quickly as possible in case

they are truly needed, but no cancer has ever

been cured by simply throwing money at it.

2. Silly Syllogisms. Examples: Cancer

loves sugar. Carrots contain sugar. Therefore,

don’t eat carrots. Another example: Cancer

requires iron. Beets contain iron. Therefore,

don’t eat beets. What is wrong with this

logic? First, it ignores contrary clinical

evidence. Second, simple syllogisms are not

useful tools when analyzing complex systems

containing homeostatic cybernetic loops.

An explicatory syllogism: whose cogency depends

only upon what is within the domain of consciousness.

An ampliative syllogism: supposes a generalizing character in nature.

A contentious syllogism: a fallacy, whose author

only seeks victory in argument.

3. Profit. Granting treatment decisions to

those who have motives that cater more to their

own welfare rather than your welfare. The whole

medical treatment paradigm is predicated on the quest for profit.

4. Unuseful Clinicians . Granting treatment

decisions to those whose skills are inadequate

for the task. Keep in mind that 50% of all

physicians graduated in the bottom half of their

class. Overlay that with the inexperienced, the

rigidly indoctrinated old guard, and those that

are too fearful to try any therapy that didn’t

come through, what they consider, proper channels.

5. Biases. Examples would be patient biases

(e.g., all natural, no needles, mustn’t hurt),

physician biases (e.g., casual dismissal of

anything a patient finds on the internet),

cultural biases (e.g., nothing derived from pork,

must be alkaline). Biases are like opinions:

they might be correct and useful, but there is

scant evidentiary foundation and that is why it

is a bias. Your job is to identify biases and

then consciously decide whether to retain them or chuck them.

6. Scientistic Marketing. There are tens of

thousands of medicines, supplements, herbs, and

therapies that are available to cancer

patients. Their promoters bathe them in

glory. You are rarely informed of their

limitations. Most will have skewed science, a

fanciful history, cheerful testimonials, and

weasel-worded assurances to support

sales. “Scientistic” is not “Scientific.” Real

science doesn’t describe cancer cells as

“exploding” nor tumors as “melting away.”

7. Ideological Purity. A true believer of

any simplistic theory will reflexively close the

door to any treatment or theory deigned

heretical. Examples of theories that often

ignore the larger picture would be trophoblastic

theory, candida origin, stealth viruses,

pleomorphic bacteria, mycoplasma, liver

parasites, acid pH, oncogenes, emotional trauma,

hypoxic tissues, low membrane potential, DNA

unraveling, aneuploidy, centromere instability,

DNA hypomethylation, local inflammation,

nutritional distortions, frankenfoods, and

environmental pollution. The human mind is

greatly discomforted by no explanation and is

annoyed by complex explanations, but fanciful

plenary explanations can be quite satisfying.

8. Too Simple Fixes. All too often patients

drop their critical guard when it comes to the

acceptance of suggestions from well-meaning and

genuinely sincere friends. It is easy to think

that the suggestions may be innocuous, but

occasionally these can undermine more considered

therapies. If a simple fixes such as baking

soda, hydrogen peroxide, homeopathy, or zeolite

cured cancer then it would soon become a

historical disease. For a lucky few a fervent

belief in a simple fix may greatly reduce

cortisol levels thus allowing the body to heal naturally.

9. Impatience. What is essentially an

immature indulgence has become the norm in our

modern time-is-money rat race of a culture. It

leads to a loss of making subtle observations, a

lack of finesse in steering the course of a

treatment, and then a manic flitting from therapy to therapy.

10. Unrelenting Stress. Some stress is

good. It keeps us on our toes and even helps us

grow brain cells, but non-stop stress is a

merciless killer. One must routinely self

examine to determine if fruitless stress is

taking too dominant of a role in one’s life.

11. Mixed Psychological Intention. Everyone

consciously wants to get well, but there are

often influential naysayers doing a little

back-seat driving from the netherconscious

regions of the mind. It should be suspected in

patients who find fault with every proposed

treatment no matter how benign, and in those

patients who consistently forget to take their meds.

12. Fighting Nature. Every med that produces a

seemingly desirable effect also affects many

other pathways and quietly contributes to the

lessening of effectiveness of nature’s default

healing pathways. Parsimony in prescribing has

faded from the healer’s lexicon.

13. Conflicts in Mechanisms of Action. This is

far more common than one might think. An example

would be the use of stroma-digesting enzymes

along with matrix metalloproteinase

inhibitors. It is very common that effective

cancer medications often become far less

effective when combined, thus the importance of clinical trials.

14. Secondary Benefits. This is most

uncomfortable for most cancer patients to think

about. It is human nature to enjoy or even

expect the sympathy, attention, and even

pampering that is often bestowed on cancer

patients. For many this is hard to give up. It

is attractive enough that there are cases of

people who have feigned cancer just for the

attention, the donations, and the opportunity to

turn their friends into a coterie of servants.

15. Inexperience With Cancer. Few cancer

patients realize how quickly their condition can

become acute. Inexperience with cancer has

patients making treatment decisions too quickly

or too slowly. Either way it lessens the chance

of a favorable outcome. As soon as you know the

stage and grade you should determine how much

time you have to make smart treatment decisions.

16. Emotional Distracters. Go ahead and

squander energy on blame, bitterness, fear,

revenge, guilt, etc., and see how long you

last. The same goes for argumentativeness in personal relationships.

17. Quality of Life. Poor QOL is a

killer. Give serious consideration to QOL

consequences of treatment options. A pyrrhic victory is no victory.

18. Rationalization of Bad

Habits. Self-discipline is a common trait of

winners. Some patients have little

self-discipline. The job of the practitioner is

to find a protocol that is doable for the

patient. Most cancer patients will lie about

their weaknesses, so the cautious practitioner

works around this reality. Say, for example: “I

have cancer diets that can include sugar. I

prefer those that exclude it. What is your

preference?” This invites candor. Among the

worst patients are those who pride themselves on

their discipline. Example: “You just tell me

what to do, Doc, and I’ll follow it to a T. I am

the world’s best patient.” Do you see what just

happened? The patient just abdicated all

personal responsibility and made you the fall guy

in case his expectations are not met. This is

why the effective practitioner always, always,

sets up the relationship as a partnership.

19. Over Reliance on a Therapy. If a therapy

is not working it is not working. The prestige

of the institution or the physician, the past

financial investment, the desire not to offend or

disappoint the doc are all invalid reasons to

continue with a therapy that is not working.

20. Therapy Fixation. Too often a person

becomes overly focused on obtaining a single

therapy. Once a person called me and desperately

asked, “Where can I get Laetrile? Only Laetrile

can save my mother!” People who think this way

will overlook other therapies that might work much better.

21. The “Cure” Word. Few words are better at

clouding judgment in a desperate cancer

patient. Few words are more effective at

separating a person from his money. Few words

are more certain to disappoint. It is human

nature to be seduced by treatments that claim to

cure. One must always examine the evidence with a critical eye.

22. Driving Blind. It is well known that

ionizing radiation is mutagenic. It is amazing

though how often we at the cancer retreat center

hear program participants tell us that they have

no idea if their treatments are working as they

fear diagnostic x-rays, PET-CTs, etc. They do

not stop to consider that the evidence of the

harm is statistical. That is, there is evidence

that there is a demonstrable statistical risk of

getting cancer years from now. For so many of

these patients I can only say: if they can only

be so lucky. These diagnostic tools can be a

major factor in selecting treatments or in

discontinuing treatments. There are often other

ways to get much of the same information and you

can inquire about this, but don’t automatically

rule out conventional assessment tools.

23. Burning Bridges. All too often a patient

will say things to a physician that will make

him/her back away. Sometimes a patient may want

this, but it is usually a mistake. Negative or

cautionary comments might find their way into the

patient’s chart and this will put other

physicians on guard. There are times when you

need a physician to do you a favor such as a

blood test or a prescription. It is good to

nurture your relationships with any and all healthcare providers.

24. Proprietary formulations. The euphemism

“proprietary” in this context means the purveyor

is more interested in protecting profits than in

helping patients. Proprietary on the label also

means that purchasers implicitly accept

faith-based medicine. Their faith is in the

integrity of the marketeers and the skills of

formulators who operate in secrecy.

25. Heaven Bound. For those of a strong

religious faith, the existence of an afterlife is

just as real as our familiar physical

world. Sometimes that faith can help shepherd a

patient through rough patches, but at other times

it does quite the opposite. When each passing

day brings only increasing misery and decreasing

financial resources, throwing in the towel can be

quite attractive. “Transition” offers eternal

peace, a homecoming with family and friends who

are gone, communion with angels and saints, and

the presence of the Almighty. Most religious

faiths have equivalent life-after-death

teachings. It is very difficult to help such a

patient because of their tendency to rationalize away their obligations.

26. Treatment Consensus. “Alternative” cancer

treatment is a catch-all phrase for everything

that is unconventional. Proponents of the many

therapies are often very opinionated and there

can be strong disagreements among

practitioners. If a cancer patient has a number

of holistic/alternative advisors, it can be very

disconcerting that there are few core

agreements. They will disagree over muscle

testing, homeopathy, marijuana, meridians, diet,

and if prescription meds should be allowed. Any

patient who waits for agreement among his

therapists will eventually watch the clock wind

down. Keep in mind that the practitioner MUST

advise something different from other

practitioners so he won’t be seen as a totally unnecessary co-signer.

27. Testimonials. You can be sure that the

purveyor carefully selects any testimonials used

in advertising. The deceased, of course, are

unavailable to tell their side of the

story. Testimonials can be useful if YOU are the

one who tracks down several

patient-consumers. You can ask the one question

that never seems to get asked, “What else were you using?”

28. Lower Wattage Patients and Advisors. At

least once a year I hear some version of, “My

holistic practitioner muscle tested me and said

that you can cure me!” It has always been our

goal to put major healthcare decisions in the

hands of those who would benefit or be harmed by

those decisions, that is, the patient. But how

do we help those whose critical thinking skills

are so low that they are probably unteachable? I am open to suggestions.

29. Alternative Cancer Treatment Folklore. A

lay literature search of alternative cancer

treatments includes a plethora of stories of

those who experienced fantastic results doing

treatments that most would consider

outlandish. These include those who consume

extremely large amounts of aspartame, stevia,

flax seed oil, rosemary, selenium, and any number

of herbs, and vitamin or mineral supplements –

often in toxic amounts. These stories are

usually unverifiable, and even if they were, they

may have been used by only a single

individual. To try these things on oneself can

be seen as desperate and foolhardy. Nonetheless,

it is easy to understand the attractiveness for

the worried patient. So, if attempted, there are ways to minimize risks.

Ø Decide in advance how much time one is

willing to give to such a therapy­three weeks? Two months?

Ø Determine in advance how results will be

assessed. It is very important that one gets a

coherent picture using a variety of objective and subjective measures.

Ø Never use unrelated extreme regimens

concurrently. If the treatment does have some

merit we rarely know the true mechanism(s) of

action. Using additional extreme stressors

concurrently is likely to nullify any advantage.

Ø Use the time of the trial to work on follow-up Plan B and Plan C.

Ø Before trying an extreme regimen, ask

around the alternative cancer forums to find

others who have experience with such a

regimen. Don’t lose sight of the fact that

others who have tried the treatment might no

longer be around to answer questions.

30. Anthropomorphizing Cancer. Cancer is not an

intelligent foe. It is all too easy to see the

struggle against cancer in metaphorical terms

that ascribe intelligence to its behavior. The

exchange of moves in ridding the body of cancer

is usually characterized in the adversarial

language of the military, of sports, of chess, or

of outsmarting a clever rogue. This is a lazy,

but picturesque way of thinking. “The tumor has

not yet metastasized, but I think it is dodging

our bullets so we have to head it off at the

pass. Lets just remove the other breast while

you are still under anesthesia.” To a great

extent productive thinking and successful

communication must rely on metaphors, so pick

metaphors that bump up against the reality, e.g.,

“Your case is very similar to several cases we had last year…”

Rather than envisioning cancer as having human

attributes (“Biopsies just make cancers mad and

then they really go on a rampage!”) we are far

better served if we think of a tumor as a

recapitulation of evolution. It would be a very

accelerated evolution because of its aneuploidy,

its genetic instability. Many/most cancer

cells within a tumor are reproductive

failures. Their effeteness make them easy

targets for our immune system, and their

pathological variances offer us attractive

targets for therapy. Those transformed cells

that we can’t so dispatch will, through brute

mitotic fervor within a hostile milieu, blindly

and mindless self-select their own path to

impunity. This is possible because of the

massive numbers of cancer cells involved and the

fast speeded up mitosis. It is called survival of the fittest.

31. Egregious

Misdiagnosis/Mischaracterization. Most

alternative treatments are based on conventional

diagnosis. If the follow-up alternative

treatment provider is a one-trick pony, for

example, “Alkalinize everyone!” then misdiagnosis doesn’t really matter.

Both diagnostics and pathology are difficult

sciences and it behooves the cancer patient to

always inquire exactly how the diagnosis was

arrived at. Get copies of all pathology reports

for later scrutiny. If a treatment that should

work, doesn’t, then it would be a good time to

further confirmation of type, grade, and

stage. Misdiagnosis and erroneous assessment of

progress are very, very common.

32. Abstractomancy. One of the most useful

tools to track scientific research is the perusal

of Medline abstracts, but after you read tens of

thousands of abstracts you see a sameness about

them: The science is usually reductionistic to

the point of irrelevance, findings commonly

conflict with those in other abstracts,

researchers never look outside their own

indoctrinations, and they kowtow to those who issue grants.

It is against this backdrop that patients,

practitioners, and marketers search for a novel

idea that they just know will give them a winning

combination. Their incautious enthusiasm quickly

yields creative and superficially plausible

ideas. Coalesce a few puzzle pieces and you have

a new potential cure that would have patients

become guinea pigs. It doesn’t seem to matter

that this is a crazy quilt that gives equal

weight to cell cultures and to different animal

models. None of this hinders many practitioners

from exercising their dime-a-dozen theories on

naïve patients, and then charge them for the privilege.

33. Failure to Recognize Failings in

Reasoning. When presented with the same set of

facts, rational people will come to a wide

variety of conclusions – sometimes diametrically

opposed. Now, add to this all the wrong-headed

or irrational predispositions that all of us

have. It could be impatience, or

misunderstanding the nature of one’s cancer, or

misinterpreting test results, or unconscious

avoidance of any unwanted news, or balking at

learning any new technical explanation, or

perhaps our thinking is distorted by panic, fear, or depression.

The central problem is not our screwed up

brains. We can actually perform rather well in

spite of our looniness. Every day tens of

millions of morons and lunatics drive billions of

miles in the planet’s 700 million cars and there

are far fewer crashes than one might

think. Human survival instinct redirects the

vast majority of our self-destructive thoughts.

The central problem is that in alternative cancer

treatment there is NEVER enough evidence, NEVER a

clear, rational path. This is a sad fact of life.

We can actually perform rather well

in spite of our looniness. Every day tens of

millions of morons and lunatics drive billions of

miles in the planet’s 700 million cars and there

are far fewer crashes than one might

think. Human survival instinct redirects the

vast majority of our self-destructive thoughts.

The way to deal with this is to recognize one

additional fact: Intelligent reflection will

USUALLY guide us to smart decisions in spite of

inadequate evidence and every imaginable mental

frailty.As an example, not a week goes by that I

don’t hear some form of “I can’t afford the

recommended treatment because I spent the last of

my savings on _____.” And this would be some

exciting device or some proprietary

supplement. One of our better tools to screen

potential treatments is to ask ourselves a few

common sense questions just as if we were making

a calculated business decision: “What is the best

possible outcome? The worst possible

outcome? The most likely outcome?” It will be

a rare day that the most likely outcome would

justify borrowing money or spending the last of your savings.

34. Blocking out the Difficult. In the

pursuit of answers, both clinicians and patients

draw the line at difficult material. Most cancer

studies during the first half of the 20th century

are understandable to anyone with a high school

education. During the last half of the 20th

century, as all medical research become

increasingly reductionistic, there were fewer and

fewer grand theories from professionals. Cancer

research marched on; billions and billions of

dollars were spent. Millions of pages of

peer-reviewed research are published around the

world, but not even the cancer wonks have time to

keep up with it, much less the busy clinician or

the person with cancer. It is just too technical

and one has to be technically adept, have time on

their hands, access to unusual chemicals, bold,

and lucky to stumble across and recognize

pertinent material to make any use of this.

It is small wonder then that

alternative clinicians and patients rely so

heavily on simplistic theories from the past even

though they have been superseded by far more

explanatory (but technically forbidding)

understandings and theories. A century ago it

was possible for the physician to be a de facto

researcher and try his theories without asking

permission from government agencies. Today there

is a sharp separation between research and

clinical practice. These only meet in contexts

that are supervised by those whose highest values

do not seem to include the welfare of

patients. Thus all too often alternative

clinicians and their patients are stuck in a time

warp. The solution for the alternative

practitioner is continual education, cultivating

relationships with a wide variety of 21st century

scientists, and a willingness to set aside revered theories of yesteryear.

I have listed many weaknesses in overall strategy

that can undermine one’s chances to

recover. There are many more that I will lay out

in the future, but this is a start.

(Excerpted from the Monday afternoon

seminar. As the Center for the Study of Natural

Oncology, Inc. owns my seminars, all rights are reserved.)