The True Cost of Alternative Medicine

Whats the harm with alternative medicine if we are sure it doesn't work?

When normal means of medicine fails us, some will turn to alternative medicine for treatment.  However, when conventional medicine for extremely treatable conditions is subsided for alternative means of medication and therapy, the result can essentially be a fatality. Ultimately, the decision comes down to the patient, but not in all cases. A website called whattheharm.net shows just a small portion of a list of people who have died from using medicine outside the reins of evidence based science. Now, this is not the say at all, in any way that the medicine itself had killed them, but rather the lack of actual medication to treat these conditions. Probably the most recent prolific case is the case with Steve Jobs, who sought out alternative medicine to cure him of pancreatic cancer and sought out spiritualists to heal him, as opposed to doctors.
 

Whats the harm with Terminal Cancer?

Most stories that involve alternative medicine are orientated around cancer. So, if the patient is terminal, what is the harm in them seeking alternative care? One word; hope. Many of these naturopaths, who don’t have degrees in medicine and have no idea what they are doing, claim that they can cure the cancer. Granted, there is the odd case where the cancer will just go away on its own. The antibodies will destroy the cancer cells, and the patient will become healthy and normal again. This, by no means, is down to ‘alternative medicine’. This is genuinely just a luck of the draw. Then there are those that don’t survive, but have sought alternative treatment. In 1999, Ed Gochenour had his brain tumour treated using alternative medicine. The doctor was prosecuted by the FDA, with Ed testifying in court that the treatment worked and he was cured of his cancer. The patient died nearly two years later, from the original brain tumour. Again, in 2007 Mary Nedlouf had previously undergone treatment for breast cancer in the summer of 2006. In 2007, the cancer had reoccurred and she was told it was inoperable. After seeking alternative medicine, she was charged $3,000 (around £2000) a week for autosanguis and bioresonance therapy for her treatment from Dr Nakouzi. He told her, he would cure her cancer with these techniques and saying he would get to the ‘root of the cancer’ and prescribed a daily regimen of 40 pill supplements. Not too shockingly, but unfortunately, Mary died after two weeks of ‘treatment’. Her husband was quoted saying:

"[Nakouzi] robbed me of precious time to console her, to come to closure, to prepare for her departure."

That is pretty much the reality of alternative medicine. He gave hope to her and to her husband by using therapy which has absolutely no scientific merit at all.
 

11 Year Old Dies Through Alternative Treatment

In January of this year, an 11 year old girl named Makalya Sault from Ontario, Canada died from an acute case of lymphoblastic leukemia. This is a cancer of the white blood cells, which induces an overproduction of immature white blood cells (lymphoblasts). With chemotherapy, the prognosis is usually good, giving at least 5 years without re-occurrence. Makaylas parents were pastors, their faith being Christianity. On the basis of religious grounds, they had this 11 year old girl removed from chemotherapy treatment and put her in a health institution for alternative therapy. Here, she received ‘cold laser therapy’ and vitamin C injections. These, have absolutely no effect on leukemia. After she had died the family blamed the hospital in Canada for the chemotherapy she received, claiming it caused irrevocable damage to her heart. – Also, in that article, it indicates that this girl CHOSE to give up chemo. She really didn’t have a choice in this; this was her parent’s decision. Many of the news articles state this girl 'refused conventional treatment', but that is really hard to believe in an 11 year old girl would make that authoritative decision. It's ridiculous enough that freedom of religion allowed the means for this tragic death, let alone the decision of her parents were allowed to take effect. Actual real doctors, not alternative therapists, stated she died after suffering a stroke due to the relapse of leukemia.
 

Who is to blame?

In the case above, who do we blame? The parents blame the chemo, the doctors blame the cancer, the media blames the parents. Was it the parents fault for being so succumbed to the thought and promise of a cure? Well, that arguable. Should the government be blamed because they didn’t try to circumvent this occurrence, instead, they allowed it to happen? But, I believe, blame should really be placed on the practitioners that propagate these evidently false claims of cures for cancer. 

   

“People have been living on earth for about 250,000 years. For the past 5,000 healers have been trying to heal the sick. For all but the past 200, they haven’t been very good at it.”

– Dr. Paul Offit

Never has a truer statement been said. It’s is often discussed that alternative medicine is seen as a cult, drawing people in with good sales pitches and keeping them there. These people are phenomenally under educated in the realm of science. You have to be careful with the people who claim they know the ‘source’ of cancer and the ‘cures’ for cancer. Cancer is ridiculously complex and as I have discussed in another blog post (Is cannabis the cure for cancer?), does not have one unified treatment. There are several different cancers and several different treatments out there for some types of these cancers, but, there is no one universal, cure all, cancer treatment. It is alternative therapists who see a weakness in these people and take full advantage of it, and really it is despicable. Another case is discussed here, where a woman named Kim Tinkham was conned into using alternative medicine for her breast cancer. Dr. Young was quoted saying ‘there is no such thing as cancer’ and blamed her when the treatment didn’t work because she didn’t ‘truly believe’.
 

It really does work, I’ve read this story where…

No, it doesn’t work. As discussed earlier, there can be just a random occurrence that your body fights off the cancer with no treatment, which is often described as a ‘miracle’. These stories are through the words of a patient, there is no scientific proof or evidence behind these cases about the efficacy of alternative treatment. They provide a myriad of scientific inaccuracy and most often fail to point out the fact that alternative therapy is being used alongside actual medical techniques such as radiotherapy. Thus, the radiotherapy is helping the cancer recede, not the activated charcoal you are putting in your organic, no fat, no milk, no coffee and no chemical latte.

source

Belle Gibson, a shamefully despicable woman, built her business around her story of having healed herself of a brain tumour through the controlling of her diet. She sold recipe books, claiming to have the cures for cancer through eating the right ingredients. It has been discovered, now, that she never had cancer at all. Even worse, in that interview, she appears to have no remorse of fabricating these claims and profiting of scared people with life threatening ailments.
 

Conclusion

Believers in alternative medicine eve infiltrate the NHS, just a few months ago we had David Tredinnick, an advocate of astrological medicine and homeopathy, running for a seat allowing him to integrate alternative medicine into the NHS. A few months ago I heard of a friend going to the doctors with severe mood swings due to hormone imbalance and told to take some homeopathic treatment for that. You as a patient have the right to deny medicine and ask questions regardless of the situation. If you feel the medicine recommended isn’t correct, seek a second opinion. A feel a lot of people turn to alternative medicine because they don’t trust doctors or ‘big pharma’. But these people are trying to help, as much as you think they aren’t. They are much more informed than alternative therapists and will tell you the side effects of the treatment. Cases where people received coffee enemas for common ailments have a serious risk of contracting septicaemia, which isn’t exactly discussed as a side effect in alternative treatments.

source

The common thing to look out for and be careful off is an alternative medicine quackers use of the ‘historical use of herbal/alternative medicine’. This, in its basic form is an appeal to antiquity, which is a logical fallacy. They are essentially claiming that this medicine works, because it was used historically. This fact does not give any credence to evidence; these treatments were probably no more effective than they are now. Beware of buzzwords such as ‘oxidation’ and ‘cancer causing’, these are classic signs you are onto alternative pathways (but not always). This can be demonstrated here. To get to this website, I typed into google ‘cancer cured by cheese’, you can probably type in anything and get a quack result. The top result was ‘cancer cured by baking soda’, for the sake of my own mental capability; I am not going to click on it (I’m sure that another post will cover it). If there was evidence that alternative therapy works just as well as conventional medicine, they would stand up as one united treatment. They are completely separate entities, one based on myths and promises of cures, the other based on evidence and truth. Take your pick, but who’s to blame when you die from a lack due care with one of these?