[net.med] Identifying Cancer Quackery

werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (08/09/85)

From Sylvia Porter, syndicated columnist.

	Health quackery is a $10 Billion/year business. The main targets are
cancer victims, arthritics, food faddists, and the healthy elderly who wish to
halt the aging process.
How can you spot them:
	-> Their treatment methods are often secret, and they refuse to consult
with reputable physicians or cancer specialists
	-> Their records are scanty, and they depend on stories of "cures" of
certain individuals.
	-> They claim that outside evaluation is prejudiced against them, and 
their chief supporters are not other doctors.

There are no miraculous cures for cancer, but most cancers can be treated
effectively by proven conventional means if caught early enough.
	Write to the American Cancer Society to get a copy of their pamphlet
"Unproven Methods of Cancer Treatment." It's available free from the
ACS at their offices across the US. Consult your phone book for the address.

-- 
				Craig Werner
				!philabs!aecom!werner
		"The world is just a straight man for you sometimes"

tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) (08/12/85)

In article <1843@aecom.UUCP> werner@aecom.UUCP writes:
>From Sylvia Porter, syndicated columnist.
>
>	Health quackery is a $10 Billion/year business. The main targets are
>cancer victims, arthritics, food faddists, and the healthy elderly who wish to
>halt the aging process.
>How can you spot them:
>	-> Their treatment methods are often secret, and they refuse to consult
>with reputable physicians or cancer specialists
>	-> Their records are scanty, and they depend on stories of "cures" of
>certain individuals.
>	-> They claim that outside evaluation is prejudiced against them, and 
>their chief supporters are not other doctors.
>
>There are no miraculous cures for cancer, but most cancers can be treated
>effectively by proven conventional means if caught early enough.

Isn't this like asking a Chevy dealer if Toyotas are good cars?  Unfortunately
there is competition between the two fields of medicine.  Avoiding the
sharlatins, on either side, is important.  What is the value in the above
report?  It does not describe any of the naturalpaths that I deal with?  The
naturalpaths I deal with keep up with the medical industry so that they can
better help their patients when conventional treatment is called for, can
conventional doctors say the same thing about their respect for naturalpaths?
I wish that people would spend more time studying the real natural health field
instead of associating it with quackes.  There are intellegent people that help
others with time-proven methods.  Those that are helped have to be intellegent
just to see above all the current medical hype.  And ignoring the successes of
these people by lumping quackes in with them is certainly a shameful form of
professionalism.  

My advice for finding the best medical help?  Search hard for a good
naturalpath/homeopath/holistic doctor or clinic, if needed they will send you
to a conventional doctor.  Spend time to learn and have an open mind.  Most
importantly realize thet your health is worth your time and effort and don't
trust it to anybody else.  If any doctor tell you what to do, watch out.  A
doctor should only advise you, decisions concerning your health are yours.


{allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs