cancer

Never let it be said that Orac can't match Mark Crislip in shameless promotion. The world might indeed need more Mark Crislip™, but I like to think that it needs a bit more of his friends, too. So, in that spirit, here are the videos, recently released by the James Randi Educational Foundation, of Bob Blaskiewicz, myself, and some key SBM players that you've come to know and love. The first video is a talk by my best "friend" in the world at The Amazing Meeting in July about Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, PhD. It's entitled Why We Fight (Part I): Stanislaw Burzynski Versus Science-Based Medicine.…

Like many cases of children with cancer whose parents tried to deny them curative therapy in the past that I've written about, I've become intensely interested in the case of 10-year-old Amish girl with lymphoblastic lymphoma. Her name is Sarah Hershberg, and, in a rare instance of the state actually stepping in to protect the life of a child whose parents choose quackery over effective therapy, the court actually named a guardian to make medical decisions for her, leading the quacks and quack apologists to lose their minds. Sadly, the Hershbergers have reportedly fled the country, although,…

Here we go again. Over the last month or so, I've been intermittently writing about a very sad case, a case that reminds me of too many cases that have come before, such as Abraham Cherrix, Kate Wernecke, Daniel Hauser, and Jacob Stieler. All of these are stories of children who were diagnosed with highly curable cancers who refused chemotherapy and were supported in that decision by their parents. Generally pediatric cancers have an 80-90% five year survival, and recurrences after five years are rare; given that children can be expected to live many decades, the consequences of refusing life…

Having just discussed yesterday the demonization of chemotherapy and how bad its side effects can be, I was thinking last night that it was time to move on, that I had gotten stuck in rut writing too many cancer-related posts in a row. Then, as so often happens, I came across something that so irritated me that I realized that I had to take one more dip into the same well. Before I do that, let's go back a couple of weeks to a man named Chris Wark. You remember Chris Wark, don't you? He's the man responsible for the Chris Beat Cancer website. In that website, Wark claims to have beaten stage…

A marriage of public health science and civil rights is one way to describe the lifework of John Froines, PhD, professor emeritus at UCLA School of Public Health. After a 50-year career in academia and public service, and the untolled contributions from it, Froines was recognized this week by the internationally renowned Collegium Ramazzini. The nomination letter submitted to the Collegium by his colleagues captures many highlights of Froines’ impact over several decades, such as: His high-profile role in the 1960’s anti-war and civil rights movements His position with the Vermont State…

If there's one medical treatment that proponents of "alternative medicine" love to hate, it's chemotherapy. Rants against "poisoning" are a regular staple on "alternative health" websites, usually coupled with insinuations or outright accusations that the only reason oncologists administer chemotherapy is because of the "cancer industrial complex" in which big pharma profits massively from selling chemotherapeutic agents and oncologists and hospitals profit massively from administering them. Indeed, I've lost track of the number of such rants I've deconstructed over the last nine years.…

Yesterday's post about Sarah Hershberger, the Amish girl from northeast Ohio with lymphoblastic lymphoma who refused chemotherapy, prompting a court battle that led to the appointment of a medical guardian for her to make sure she receives treatment, got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing). Actually, I had to think back over the years about all the similar cases of unfortunate children with cancer whose misfortune was compounded by having been born to woo-loving parents, such as Daniel Hauser. These stories are depressingly similar, as are the arguments that go on over them. First, a…

Earlier this month I wrote about the merits of policies that require conflict of interest disclosures. Last week, two items also about conflicts of interest landed in my in-box. They were just too juicy to not take a bite, and write about here. First came a commentary from the October 2013 issue of the Annals of Occupational Hygiene written by the journal’s chief editor Noah Seixas, PhD, MS.  The lead paragraph reads: "On 6 June 2013, a court in New York handed down a decision that calls into question the validity of research that was sponsored by Georgia-Pacific [GP] and published in eight…

A couple of weeks ago, I commented on the story of 10 year old Amish girl in northeast Ohio with cancer whose parents, alarmed by the side effects of chemotherapy, had decided to stop the chemotherapy and treat their daughter with folk medicine instead. As a result, alarmed at the likelihood that Sarah Hershberger would suffer and die unnecessarily at a young age, the hospital treating her, Akron Children's Hospital, went to court. It lost the first round, but earlier this month the original ruling was overturned, and it was ordered that Hershberger undergo chemotherapy to save her life. The…

On October 17, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced that it has classified air pollution as a human carcinogen. Although the composition of air pollution and exposure levels vary widely from place to place, IARC says its assessment is applicable worldwide and notes that exposures in rapidly industrializing countries with large populations have increased significantly in recent years. According to the IARC review of the latest scientific studies, exposure to air pollution increases the risk for lung cancer and for bladder cancer. IARC…

First it was the balloon at the grocery store in the shape of a pink ribbon, and the front page of the newspaper printed on pink paper. Then it was the specially-designed package of pink lipstick, and the NFL players decked out with shocking pink shoes, socks, and sweat towel. It's "Breast Cancer Awareness Month," and it’s pink, pink everywhere. Others have been writing this month about pink-washing. That’s the phrase describing firms and organizations which sell products and host events to make the public think they are contributing in a meaningful way to the breast-cancer cause. (This week’…

I was doing my usual browsing of the web yesterday in search of topics for today's post when I came across an excellent article by a colleague and friend of mine, Dr. Rachael Dunlop, who nailed it in a post entitled Anti-vaccination activists should not be given a say in the media. In the article, Dr. Rachie nailed a point that I and other skeptics have been trying to make time and time again, namely how the press all too frequently inserts false balance in stories about medicine, particularly vaccines. As Dr. Rachie put it, we don't give equal time to flat earth believers. My favorite…

Blogging is a rather immediate endeavor. Over the last nine years (nearly), I've lost track of how many times I saw something that I wanted to blog about but but by the time I got around to it was no longer topical. Usually what happens is that my Dug the Dog tendencies take over, as I'm distracted by yet another squirrel, although sometimes there are just too many targets topics and too little time. Fortunately, however, sometimes the issue is resurrected, sometimes in a really dumb way, such that I have an excuse to correct my previous oversight. This is just such a time, and the manner in…

Over the years, I've not infrequently noted that there is a serious disconnect between what most people would think of as "natural" and what is considered "natural" in the world of "complementary and alternative medicine," or, as I like to call it, CAMworld. I started thinking about this again after yesterday's post about Jessica Ainscough's decision to treat her rare sarcoma with the quackery that is the Gerson therapy and how her mother's decision to use the same quackery, instead of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, resulted in her untimely demise. Reading over Jessica Ainscough's blog…

This being Breast Cancer Awareness Month and all, stories about breast cancer are frequently sent my way. This one is depressing and sad, mainly because it's the story of death from breast cancer. From what I can gather, it is the story of a death from quackery, a death that didn't have to occur. Even worse than that, it appears to be a death facilitated by the daughter of the deceased, a woman named Jessica Ainscough, who bills herself as the "Wellness Warrior." It's a horrifying story, the story of a woman who followed her daughter's lead and put her faith in the quackery known as the…

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the things I do on this blog that I consider to be a public service is to analyze cancer cure testimonials that are used to sell alternative medicine. Indeed, I did just that yesterday for a testimonial by someone Chris Wark, who will probably feature again one more time this week; that is, unless I have another Dug the Dog moment. In the meantime, this being Breast Cancer Awareness Month and all, a related article came to my attention. Although it doesn't have anything to do with alternative medicine, it does, like the story of Chris Wark, have everything to…

I like to think that one of the more important public services I provide is my deconstructions of alternative cancer cure testimonials. After all, one of the most powerful marketing tools cancer quacks have in their arsenal is a collection of stories of "real patients" with cancer who used their nostrums and are still alive and well. These sorts of analyses of alternative cancer cure testimonials began right near the very beginning, way back in 2004 and have continued intermittently to this very day, most recently with a bevy of posts showing why the testimonials of Stanislaw Burzynski's…

One type of story that I've fairly frequently commented upon since the very beginning of this blog is the story of children or teens with cancer whose parents decide to pursue quackery instead of effective therapy or children with other serious diseases whose parents reject effective therapy for them. Think way, way back to Katie Wernecke and Abraham Cherrix back in 2006. (Cherrix is still battling his lymphoma seven years later, having blown his best chance at cure back in 2006; I do not know how much longer he can continue.) More recently, there was Chad Jessop and Daniel Hauser. Just in…

Here we go with another one. Three weeks ago, I mentioned in a post that the week of October 7 to 14 was declared by our very own United States Senate to be Naturopathic Medicine Week, which I declared unilaterally through my power as managing editor of Science-Based Medicine (for what that's worth) to be Quackery Week. One wonders where the Senate found the time to consider and vote for S.Res.221, which reads: S.Res.221 – A resolution designating the week of October 7 through October 13, 2013, as “Naturopathic Medicine Week” to recognize the value of naturopathic medicine in providing safe…

Who paid for the study?  That's an important piece of information to have when considering a study's methods and reported findings.  Financial ties are the most obvious conflicts of interest, but others include pre-publication review and other requirements imposed by a study’s sponsors. Scientists publishing papers in the leading biomedical journals have, for at least ten years, been providing readers with disclosures of real or potential conflicts.  The editors of more than 1,300 medical journals require authors to comply with specific disclosure policies. Researchers from other disciplines…