Its a simple fact that Alt-Med doesnt work, and yet you wouldnt believe it if you just looked at what the Press constantly claims. The fact is, flawed studies get press time while studies debunking the Alt-Med claims get dusted under the rug. Take the results of a trial which studied the effects of using chemotherapy to treat pancreatic cancers vs. Alt-Med treatments especially the Gonzalez Protocol (a combination of diet change, detoxification, vitamin dosing and natural supplements (130 capsules a day), vegetarian diet, proteolytic enzymes and coffee enemas (twice a day)) Now pancreatic cancer is one of the worst, untreated survival time (without surgery or chemo) is on the order of 3-4 months. Removing the tumor increases median survival to 6-12 months. Basically, its a deadly cancer and less than 5% of pancreatic cancer patients survive more than five years. Because of this, stupid studies like this one show up, where the trial began in 1999 and patients had the option to choose chemo therapy or Alt-Med treatments, and then when the trial ended in 2005, the researchers see who lived longer and with better health. I say stupid study because it is very unethical to run a study just as this, and stupid because the outcome was just as expected. Alt-Med therapy was actually worse than useless and some of those on the Gonzolez Protocol would have lived longer if theyd had chemo instead. Obviously coffee enemas wont do anything for cancer and the Gonzalez Protocol is Tooth Fairy Science in which undefined toxins are responsible for cancer and can be cleansed from the body to remove the cancer; ignoring the fact that cancer is primarily genetic (i.e. many non-smokers get lung cancer simply because of bad luck genetics). The results were quite striking, as there was a median 9.7 month survival difference between chemo treatment (median survival 14 months) vs. Alt-Med Gonzalez Protocol treatment (median survival 4.3 months). At year 1, 56% of chemo patients were still alive, vs. 16% of the Alt-Med patients. The quality of life ratings were better in the Chemo group too (probably because a coffee enema twice a day is f*cking horrific). The pain scores of the Alt-Med patients were much higher as well. This is why the study was unethical, after seeing the year 1 results, the study shouldve been terminated. What reason was there to subject the surviving 16% Alt-Med patients to a treatment that clearly doesnt work? I agree with the writer, its inhuman. It wasnt just that the Gonzalez Protocol did worse than the chemo patients, it was that they did 3 times worse, and in fact, did worse than the average survivial rate for a patient with no treatment at all. You could eat cheeseburgers all day and get better results than this. Finally, the most disturbing issue of this trial is why it took four years just to publish the results. Dr. Atwood suggests that the report was delayed to cover up results that were unfavorable to the Gonzalez Protocol (and really, the entire Alt-Med community). Its this sort of trial that needs to be shown to every person who ever cried Whats the harm? when it comes to Alt-Med treatments. Dying 3 times sooner than you would under conventional treatment seems a pretty big harm to me. And yet, as the author mentioned, these results were released without any fanfare at all. Had the results been opposite or even more even, the press would have trumpeted the study on every news channel. Gonzalez as good as Chemo! We would have heard, and yet even though the results are striking, we hear nothing. The Alt-Med crowd remains oblivious. sciencebasedmedicine.org/tom-harkin-nccam-health-care-reform-and-a-worse-than-useless-cancer-therapy/
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 15:04:46 +0000
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