It was reported that the controversial Totnes Cancer Conference is to go ahead tomorrow even after Trading Standards Officers had contacted the Town Council asking for the event to be cancelled and even after the organiser had received a letter this morning from Trading Standards informing him that
Even the title of the conference and the title of your clinic, in our view, are likely to breach the legislation because of their promotion of cancer treatment.
In order to sidestep this, the Alliance for Natural Health reported that
a ‘private conversation’ for invited guests will take place at a private location, namely the Eden Rise, just outside of Totnes
Complaints had been made by several concerned individuals, including the local MP, Dr Sarah Wollaston, who had been contacted by constituents.
As a result of this, Totnes Town Council withdrew permission for the Civic Hall to be used as a venue but organiser Dr Stephen Hopwood ploughed on regardless.
As recently as yesterday evening, according to his interview on Totnes FM, Hopwood was hopeful that since Tullio Simoncini is no longer to speak at the conference
…Trading Standards will drop any issue they have with the speakers and we can persuade the civic to proceed.
Simoncini is indeed controversial. He believes baking soda is a useful cancer treatment and in his native Italy, he has been struck off and convicted of fraud and involuntary manslaughter.
Hopwood explained on Totnes FM that he believes Simoncini has ‘overstepped the mark’ with his theory that cancer is a fungus.
However, Simoncini is not the only planned speaker to hold controversial, misguided, incorrect views that are likely to cause harm to vulnerable members of the public.
Let us take a closer look at the others…
Dr Stephen Hopwood
You’d never guess it by looking at the list of unusual unproven or disproven therapies on offer at his Arcturus Clinic, but event organiser Stephen Hopwood is actually a qualified doctor. Nor would you guess this from listening to his Totnes FM interview, where he discussed some of his unconventional views on cancer and the body.
For example, Hopwood explained that an acidic environment in the body will lead to candidiasis which would predispose the body to cancer. This is not the view of a reputable doctor but in fact sounds remarkably like the theories put forward by the outrageous cancer quack, ‘Dr’ Robert O Young.
Dr Hopwood’s unconventional views are not limited to the field of medicine. He also seems to believe in a wide range of wacky conspiracy theories, examples of which are discussed at his Truth Juice meetings and explored in documentaries shown on the TV channels he works on, www.bbc5.tv and www.paradigmshift.tv. Among these is the Burzynski Movie (as discussed elsewhere on this blog.)
Hopwood also stood as an independent candidate for Totnes during the 2010 General Election, on the single issue of Truth.
Barbara Wren
Barbara also has some very strange ideas, some of them rather alarming.
BBC South West’s Inside Out reported that she had claimed to have successfully treated a friend’s thyroid cancer with a combination of an external compress of urine and castor oil and dietary advice.
She also advised her students to recommend massive doses of an iodine supplement only available from pet stores. As dietician Catherine Collins explained, this could cause you to develop hyperthyroidism and in some people could boost the production of thyroxin to the extent that they would need to be admitted to hospital.
Matthew Manning
Matthew Manning is a psychic healer who believes he can treat a wide range of conditions, including cancer. His website contains recommendations from celebrities such as Maureen Lipman and Sir David Frost, as well as favourable press cuttings and patient testimonials. I find these two particularly worrying:
We visited the Royal Marsden yesterday to get the results of recent scans and blood tests. Although I have had no chemotherapy or other treatment, the marker had been 766 in August and has now fallen to 17; also the scan shows a continuing stable situation.
Several months ago you sent distant healing to my cousin in Poland. He had an inoperable tumour in his spine and the best we hoped for was a peaceful ending. The last scan showed the tumour had disappeared and all the doctors were very surprised. They could not explain it. There are no words to express our gratitude and appreciation for what has happened. He has returned to work and has regained his strength and mobility.
These statements clearly imply that Manning is able to use his healing abilities to successfully treat cancer. If people are misled by this view and persuaded to forego conventional treatment, this could have tragic consequences.
Alan Papier
Alan plans to discuss cancer from a Traditional Chinese Medicine viewpoint. According to the Totnes Cancer Health Centre website, Papier
has worked with world renown Chinese master Dr Shen and holds his lineage of herbal formula including one for treating the common in-balance found in women with breast cancer.
My interpretation of this is that Papier will be promoting Dr Shen’s range of products, with a particular focus on the range he believes are useful for breast cancer patients.
According to ‘Dr’ Shen’s website, the three causes that underly most breast cancers are stagnation, damp accumulation and toxicity and what is missing from our modern-day understanding are several traditional Chinese concepts, such as the concept of ‘flow.’ Although this makes little sense in physiological terms, TCM practitioners like Shen believe that cancer can occur when poor ‘flow’ causes prolonged exposure to toxicity. Shen recommends professional help by Chinese herbologists experienced in treating cancer, who will combine herbs into formulae which will differ from person to person.
I need hardly say if there were any firm evidence of efficacy of any of these herbal preparations, then they would have been explored and developed by conventional medicine.
Papier will also discuss how
acupuncture and chinese herbs can help nourish the blood, clear toxins, boost the immune system and balance hormones all essential to sustainable health care cultivation and optimal health.
This view makes no sense in terms of human biology. It is also not supported by evidence.
John Hagger
John, a cancer survivor, will be talking about the principles of Gerson therapy.
According to Cancer Research UK, this is an alternative therapy diet which is usually used in place of conventional treatment for cancer. Therapists mistakenly believe that people with cancer have too much sodium in their body compared to the amount of potassium and that this may be corrected by diet and coffee (and perhaps also castor oil) enemas.
There is no medical research to support any claims that Gerson therapy can prevent, treat or cure cancer. It can also have serious side effects which may include infections, dehydration, fits, mineral imbalances, heart and lung problems and even death.
Dr Robert Verkerk
Dr Verkerk is not a qualified medical practitioner. It is therefore misleading to use this title in advertising unless this point is made clear.
Verkerk represents the Alliance for Natural Health and plans to discuss ‘environmental causes of disease and their possible effects on causing cancer’. The ANH lobbies against regulation of dietary supplements and herbal medicines and run campaigns in favour of supplements and traditional medicinal cultures (eg TCM).
Dr Hedda Kraker von Schwarzenfeld
Dr Kraker von Schwarzenfeld may be a GMC Registered Medical Practitioner, but her views on medicine are far from conventional. She plans to speak to the conference about the effects of mistletoe therapy and its use in cultivating immunity in people with cancer.
Professor Edzard Ernst discussed mistletoe as a treatment for cancer in a recent BMJ article. He concluded that
mistletoe has been tested extensively as a treatment for cancer, but the most reliable randomised controlled trials fail to show benefit, and some reports show considerable potential for harm.
Dr Sarah Myhill
Myhill is also, albeit controversially, still registered with the GMC. Following a so-called ‘witch-hunt‘, she appeared before the GMC and was banned from prescribing drugs and ordered to take down part of her website. This warned patients against oral contraceptives and the MMR triple vaccine, as well as mammogram tests and biopsies for cancer.
Dr Claudius Van Wyk
I don’t think Claudius is a doctor. Even his own website does not make this claim, but instead describes him as a Principle officer of Transformation Strategies Ltd. (UK & SA) and Master Practitioner of Neuro-linguistic programming. In case you haven’t encountered it before, NLP is a pseudoscience relating to a supposed connection between neurological processes, language and behaviour. There is no reliable evidence to support such a theory.
Claudius plans to discuss “the emotional influences which may be contributing to the causes of the current epidemic in cancer”. I only hope he does not suggest that NLP can be a useful treatment. He wouldn’t be the first to do so.
Kevin Wright
Kevin Wright is the founder of Bobby’s Health Fund and plans to speak about his son’s natural therapies designed to cultivate health.
Bobby’s Health Fund was closed down after what Wright described as ‘negative publicity’ relating to a probe by the Gambling Commission.
Wright is no stranger to negative publicity. He has appeared in the local press on numerous occasions, usually in relation to violent crimes. In one interview, he even admitted that he has a criminal record stretching back to childhood. According to the article in question, his crimes include violence, battery, fraud and drink-driving.
Kevin’s son Bobby’s ‘natural therapies’ include iodine solution, zeolite, colloidal silver and baking soda. These are not licensed medicinal products but are still marketed to treat and prevent a wide range of health conditions – including cancer.
Some of the suggestions are quite eye-watering, for example vaginal use of transdermal magnesium chloride and internal use of hydrogen peroxide.
Robin Daly
Robin will be representing Yes To Life, a charitable initiative which supports an ‘integrative approach to cancer care’. This means integrating conventional medicine with complementary and alternative medicine.
Yes To Life promote “every quack cancer therapy you can name” as well as the highly controversial, much-blogged Burzynski Clinic.
Marianne Greenwood
Marianne is a live blood analyst. As I have discussed many times before, live blood analysis is based on a completely ludicrous theory put forward by ‘Dr’ Robert O Young.
Young teaches that all illness is caused by acidity and that your own blood cells transform into yeast and mould. Although these ideas are laughable, they also have the potential to do harm. Young also believes that cancer and diabetes (Types 1 and 2) can be ‘reversed’ by following his ‘alkaline diet’ and has been known to advise clients against conventional treatment, with tragic consequences.
I’m glad to see Trading Standards taking a firm stance on this and hope the National Motorcycle Museum (due to host a similarly controversial Cancer Convention) are taking note.
Further Reading
The Totnes Cancer Health Centre: A Quack Pascal’s Wager Andy Lewis, The Quackometer, 08/03/12
Town Council shuts Hopwood’s cancer conference down Totnes FM, 20/03/12
Totnes cancer conference investigated by Trading Standards BBC News Devon, 20/03/12
Cancer in Totnes Zeno, Zeno’s blog, 20/03/12
Totnes cancer conference will go on vows Hopwood Totnes FM, 21/03/12
Totnes cancer conference venue withdrawn BBC News Devon, 21/03/12
Trials of the Totnes Cancer Health Care Conference Alliance for Natural Health Europe, 23/03/12
___________________________________________________
UPDATE
The conference went ahead at Eden Rise, but without Tullio Simoncini. Although at the time, it was claimed to be a private event, by invitation only (and is now claimed to have been cancelled), it was streamed live on Hopwood’s paradigmshift.tv. For more on this, see “Quack Totnes Cancer Conference Ends in Farce” on the Quackometer blog.
Josephine Jones 
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A veritable cornucopia of fruit and nut-cases. Some of their theories are beyond all reasonable belief. If I had any one of these powers to really cure people, I would be out there, healing people for free as fast as I could go!
I do think that Dr Hopwood is treading a very dangerous line at the moment and needs to be watched very carefully. Congratulations to MP Dr Sarah and Trading Standards for showing some spine.
Stephen Hopwood cured my disabling illness of 20 years. Before he helped me I had next to no quality of life. At no point did he ever claim that he could ‘cure’ me. He explained that he would support my immune system and give me some energy. I saw him every week for nearly 7 years and made a near total recovery. I am now leading a pretty much normal life. Dr Hopwood is a very fine physician and I owe him my life. As it happens Sarah Wollaston was my GP for 15 years and could do nothing to help me at all.
Katy please give details of your ‘disabling illness of 20 years’. Is it not possible that even without the treatment after 7 years you would have recovered anyway?
Congratulations on exposing these charlatans and frauds. Hopwood needs watching closely, these people prey on vulnerable and naive people and have no molaity honesty or scruples.
Katy – interestingly I have seen your post elsewhere under the name Lucy. Hopwood has some skill as an acupuncturist but every week for 7 years! That must have cost a packet!
You dont know what you are talking about. How can you write that defaming people when you have NO experience whatsoever of them. Youre the nutter.
I Fishbarrelled Kevin Wright’s idiotic online shop recently. There are some quite fantastical claims of medical benefits for some of these concoctions. Not just implied benefits, actual claims. Scary and insane.
It is indeed scary and I’m pretty sure you’re not the only one to report that shop to the relevant authorities.
You are right, I did talk about my experience using Gerson Therapy to heal a secondary melanoma. I went to a hospital in Mexico in 1992 with a metastasised melanoma. The consultant in this country told me i had a few months to live and that any treatment he could offer would not be effective. I had no choice but to seek alternatives if I wanted to live. A homeopathic doctor (yes I do mean doctor) suggested Gerson Therapy as the only possible cure he knew of. Yes we are talking about cure and healing not remission.
Within 2 weeks of a secondary diagnosis I was in Mexico at a clinic being treated with Gerson Therapy a rigorous nutritional regime of fresh organic juices and coffee enemas. It is an intense detoxification designed to stimulate the immune system to do its job properly and destroy cancer cells and tumours. This it did very effectively in my case. I had a lymphatic tumour which started to grow in size. It became swollen hot painful and very scary. My doctor, a Mexican woman, who spoke pretty good English was relaxed and seemed happy at my response to the treatment. When I asked her how I would know if the therapy was working she said “inflammation around the tumour site”. That is exactly what was happening. This kind of response is well known by the pioneering naturopaths of 100 years ago. Charlotte Gerson, daughter of Dr Max Gerson who pioneered the therapy in the 1930’s said I was a textbook case.
After 10 days, in the evening it was as if the mass under my arm exploded internally. I felt euphoric, as if I had taken 100 happy pills. The pain had changed and the pressure had released. It was bed time but I was unable to sleep. I felt energised, awake and high as a kite.
In the morning I awoke and had physical bruising on my front and back around my axilla. My blood test that following day showed readings off the scale. It was as if a battle had been fought in my right axilla. The good guys won. My healing continued and the tumour disappeared 11 weeks after starting the therapy.
I could tell a lot more but this is the most dramatic part of my healing journey.
It is impossible to conduct a clinical trial on Gerson Therapy. However Gar Hildenbrand, Charlotte Gerson and others authored a peer reviewed study which claims 5 year survival outcomes. The figures make it look like a far better option than “conventional” medicine.
I stayed to listen to all the other speakers at the informal discussion at a private residence. I found them all to be articulate and intelligent with a deep understanding of cancer as a disease. The one thing they all had in common was that they understand the importance of treating the person and not just the symptom. We all, and the medical profession in particular, have to understand that healing is not just about removing a symptom. at the symptom is the tip of the iceberg. To heal properly the underlying problems that gave rise to the illness have to be addressed. The symptom can be removed by surgery, chemo or radiation but if the cause is still there where’s the healing
I thought all the speakers were great but hey I’m just unconventional. They may be too strong for your blood but why damn them with your criticism. Read about their work with an open mind and you may learn something.
You will find more of my story on http://www.gloriousorganics.blogspot.com
Thank you for sharing your story. It’s very inspiring and I completely understand why, having lived through it, you may feel that Gerson therapy cured your cancer.
However, as I’ve said many times before, testimonials and anecdotes are not reliable evidence of efficacy. There is no reason why, if there were reason to believe Gerson therapy were worthwhile, it could not be subjected to well designed clinical trials. As an objective and open-minded person, it is my understanding that there is no reliable evidence that Gerson therapy is a useful cancer treatment and there is considerable evidence that it can cause harm. The claims about detoxification and stimulating the immune system also don’t make sense in terms of modern understanding of physiology.
I’m not damning anyone with criticism for no good reason. It is my concern that some alternative cancer treatments are harmful, either in their own right or by persuading patients to forego conventional treatment. It is not only misleading to promote such treatments to the public but is also potentially dangerous. As I’m sure you understand, given a stark diagnosis, you could be very vulnerable and willing to believe anything, no matter how unlikely it might seem.
Nice response to an insanely ill informed and ill experience article – Josephine Jones, go and find something that does work and write positively on it instead of damning something you know nothing about.
I went to the private lunch and discussion,on saturday. I met some extremely intelligent and interesting people with some very valid ideas, Ihave read through your posts on this subject and I find them eye wateringly ignorant. I suggest we look at the suffering and side effects and general ineffectiveness of conventional medicine when it comes to cancer, before we start damming those who are at least trying to think outside the box. I am a cancer patient of 6 years and am very much alive and well because of intergrated medicine. The small mindness of those who are dismissing and trying to stop alternative medicine are responsible for many more people’s deaths. I would also like to point out that the people that gain the most out of cancer patients isnt the alternative world but the huge profites made by the pharmicutical industry. If this wasnt such a serious matter your comment would almost be laughable!!!!!
This is the only post I have written on the subject of the Totnes conference, so I’m not quite sure what you mean by “Ihave read through your posts on this subject and I find them eye wateringly ignorant” but I’ll do my best to respond to your comment.
I understand that conventional cancer treatments have unpleasant side effects and don’t always cure people of their cancers. Doctors should make patients fully aware of the side effects (and potential side effects) of their treatment and of the likelihood of it being successful.
Alternative medicine practitioners, however, seem to claim or imply efficacy without having any robust evidence to back this up. They also often fail to mention well-known risks of their treatments. Also, the theories upon which their treatments are based are often biologically implausible.
For these reasons, it is potentially dangerous to imply that the ‘alternative’ treatments discussed the conference are:
a) Effective
b) Safe (in many cases)
It is even more dangerous to denigrate conventional medicine at the same time. Cancer patients considering treatment are very vulnerable. To delay or rule out conventional treatment in favour of what is best described as quackery could be fatal. There can be good reasons for choosing not to undergo conventional treatment. Opting for an alternative quack treatment in the belief it will cure you is not one of them.
This is why I think it’s a good thing that the conference was a private event in the end. To promote potentially dangerous and unproven alternative cancer treatments to the public is illegal for a very good reason.
I’m not sure why you’re raising the issue of the pharmaceutical industry’s profits. Are you implying that there is some sort of conspiracy between conventional doctors and the pharmaceutical industry to ridicule and suppress alternative treatments? Surely, if any of these treatments actually worked then the pharmaceutical industry would be able to profit from them too?
Good point
I work for Macmillan Cancer Support as a cancer Information and Support Officer and it is very common for people to request information around the benefits of any kind of ‘alternative’ therapy. A lot of the time it may be appropriate for complementary therapies to help manage any side effects or symptoms the patient may experience. We would always advise that it is something they are fully informed about and make sure they seek information from clinically approved sources. As you so rightly pointed out Josephine, people can be very vulnerable and it is so important that they are getting the right kind of support to make well informed decisions to suit their own individual needs. Macmillan produces a range of free publications and have plenty of information the web site about complementary therapies. I have attached a link below.
http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertreatment/Complementarytherapies/Complementarytherapies.aspx
Lots of charities like Macmillan have trained cancer specialist nurses and offer a free service for any kind of general information if they wanted to know whether or not a specific therapy has been clinically approved or get information regarding.
Thanks for your comment. Perhaps I should have made the point clear that there is, of course, a place for complementary therapy for cancer patients. Nell Barrie of CRUK also made this point on BBC Radio Devon recently during a discussion about the Totnes Cancer Conference.
I’m not railing against CAM in general here. The issue isn’t with complementary therapies, which for example could help patients cope with the side effects of chemotherapy or simply help them to relax. The problem is when practitioners claim or imply that the therapy may treat the cancer itself or is a suitable alternative to conventional treatment. That is what the conference was all about.
What is the most worrying about of all josephine has reported is the large number of people. otherwise sensible, who believe all the nonsense produced by these, possibly well meaning, nuts. How do you explain to them the difference between scientific studies and anecdotal accounts?
Anecdotal evidence is totally random and uncontrolled and often very incomplete. And typically, only the favorable result is touted. The anecdote does not take into account the probabilities that a disease states can and DO have ebbs an flows of symptomology regardless of the treatment modality. Spontaneous remissions do occur. Attributing any remission or “cure” with anecdotal evidence is a sham.
Large scale scientific studies, by their nature and design and process, are structured and controlled for confounding issues. Blinding assures non-biased collection and interpretation of data. Complete analysis of all data includes both positive and negative outcomes and well supported conclusions are made. The scientific study is also subject to peer review and the opportunity for replication (or not) by other independent researchers. Thus, the body of knowledge on the subject is grown and validated.
Kevin Wright- he’s a wrong ‘un alright.
http://www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/newsandevents/news/2012/april/30/husband_and_wife_charged_in_connection_with_defrauding_charities/
I just dont get why you hate other people so much and feel you have the divine right to decide what human beings should and shouldn’t be doing and who they should be taking advice from when they are ill, It is creepy and weird. Cancer is a serious condition, that frightens the person who has it, how dare you condescend to prescribe how they should deal with it. Your blog sucks, and if you do get ill and the NHS can’t help you, which is so often the case, will you oh interent searcher with the mostest, sit down and quietly take your prognosis and discomfort or will you do everything you can to get good advice and treatment from whichever channel works? People don’t care about double blind randomized placebo controlled trials (which is the only thing that evidence based medicine is, that is its definition) they care about what works for them, people are not statistics, humans are not lab rats, there is so much more to health and wellbeing that the RCT, if you had any medical knowledge you would know that, but cleary you really don’t do you. The people you have ‘examined’ for us have more scientific knowledge in their pinky than you have in your entire brain. Science is the pursuit of why and how, not “no no no, there is only one way, close down all other discussion”, science evolves, new theories emerge all the time, how do you think we got to where we are with science and medicine today, if people like you tried to close every bloody talk and discussion down
What it is your aim in life, to be some sort of spanish inquisition to emerging scientific theory?
Josephine Jones your blog is absolute disgrace to the pursuit of science and wellbeing.
you are going to hang onto your developed in 1991 RCT terminology, you obviously don’t read the lancet, you don’t understand scientific methodology or the different forms it takes, you don’t understand medicine, you don’t know anything about emerging fields in medical science, in short you are dullard who gets enjoyment out of bad mouthing things you are too dumb to read about or understand.
We got where we are with science and medicine today by applying the scientific method and critical thinking. That doesn’t mean being narrow minded. You seem to be labouring under a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works.
Cannabis Cures Cancer CHECK THE VIDEO
It’s all one big lie there is cures for cancer but they all come from nature and could not be patented by a group of pharmacuetical companies so the pharmacuetical companies and governments in USA, UK and Canada did everything they could to discriminate them
check this video THE FORBIDDEN CURES
To silence people from learning about the cures The UK Government in 1939 made “THE 1939 CANCER ACT” which forbids anyone to offer any help or cure for cancer and if that don’t make you sick it’s still being enforced today to stop public debate, The 1939 Cancer Act is there to stop the cancer cures that WORK! not the ones that don’t!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/2-3/13
Long overdue. The majority of GP’s and cancer specialists believe the statutory treatment for cancer initiated in the 1939 Cancer Act is the solution. They delude themselves and those they serve. The 1939 Cancer Act was also a political decision, hence the shortcomings of the treatment in its highly limited legal form. (A worry at the time by many doctors).Rather than criticise those who successfully choose to take ‘other’ treatments, usually named ‘alternative’, but in many cases equally or more ‘scientific’ than the orthodox route, these doctors should make a priority of finding a much healthier treatment for cancer than what is conventionally offered. There are charlatans around in all professions. Most of the charlatans invoved in cancer treatment would not be there if the current system of treating cancer did not fail so abysmally. Read ‘Choosing to Heal’ – How to survive the breast cancer system. Janet Edwards.
Josephine Jones, you are clearly ignorant on the efficacy of alternative cancer treatments, there are thousands of testimonies that clearly show they work, whereas conventional treatment only makes people sicker, see before your eyes the blog below with photographic evidence showing these alternative treatments do work.
http://billolearyphuket.com/ArticleView.asp?ArticleID=33
I love reading these type of things as it makes me chuckle. Some jumped up idiot thinks they have the intellectual monolopy on all things pertaining to health and anything that differs from ‘corporate scientific study’ is quackery. Brilliant.
I could go on but it would be a waste of my time and energy. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would see right through ‘Josephine Jones’ as either the corporate shill or the brain-washed fool she is. Still, as statisticaly 1 in 3 fall victim to cancer at some stage I hope she’s comfortable that the slash, poison or burn approach that she advocates will probably be coming home to roost one day. Good luck.
You do seem to attract some particularly venomous commentators – that’s almost certainly an indication that you’re pretty much on target (after all, why would they waste their bile if you weren’t impacting their bottom line?)
Keep up the good work.
Perhaps nobody should be allowed to make medical/scientific claims on blog comments unless they include the reference to the evidence. But then we would miss the delight of seeing how abusive and ignorant some people are. The authors of the insults here do more to weaken their case than they could imagine.
For example, if orthodox cancer treatment does not work, let’s see a string of papers which show that overall prognosis has not improved over time.
I cannot believe your blog of March 25th, Josephine Jones, implying there is no scientific evidence to support Gerson Therapy. I have in front of me Dr Max Gerson’s book “A CANCER THERAPY … RESULTS OF FIFTY CASES” .first published in 1958 by Totality Books in California.
Part 2 of the book spans 130 pages and is an account of 46 Case Histories of people with very serious cancers: in his Preface Dr Gerson says that 90-95% of his cases were far advanced. Each case has very scientificated and well -documented notes and Before and After Xrays, showing remarkable improvements in many cases. As an example the first case history shows an exceptionally large tumor mass of the pituitary gland with the surrounding bones partly destroyed .
On the front cover of the book Dr Albert Schweitzer acclaims “I see in Dr. Max Gerson one of the most eminent geniuses in medical history”
Naturally far more up-to-date books are available, but I trust this is one example of valuable evidence that CAM therapies often have years of devoted research behind them. We owe those who have been inspired to give years of their lives to seeking non- toxic and far more holistic methods of healing serious diseases our very deep gratitude.
Further details of his book are available from me if you are interested.
I’m not merely implying there’s no scientific evidence to support the use of Gerson therapy, I’m stating it plainly.
I’ll say it again: there is no robust evidence to suggest that Gerson therapy is effective against cancer (or anything else, for that matter).
The fifty cases do not constitute reliable evidence. Claims for Gerson therapy were debunked by the NCI decades ago.
I’ve been through these arguments already, here:
You may be interested in my responses to Peter Burns.
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Even evidence based medicine is subjective. Just respect other people’s choices. Cancer is a very scary diagnosis for anyone. But please stop battering people for the choices they make. Live and let live and practice some humility. We don’t know it all!
So, if we see people deciding to kill themselves with fake treatments, we should just let them?
Seriously, that’s a messed up attitude to have.