Jess Ainscough finally admits her condition is deteriorating

Beautifully written, Orac. Very, very difficult subject to address.

Thanks for keeping up with these cases Orac.

Probably her deterioration will be blamed ( by die hard advocates) on her lack of resolve or her earlier SB treatment.

Of course it will. You know the drill: woo cannot fail, it can only be failed.

I can feel some sympathy for Ms. Ainsclough. She didn’t have any good options, only bad and worse. The problem is that she chose one of the “worse” options.

My suspicion is that any addition of conventional therapy at this point will, in hindsight, be blamed for the adverse outcome by her followers. The exact sequence of events will become irrelevant with the passage of time – the narrative will become that she appeared healthy for years in the photos while doing her Gerson therapy and coffee enemas. But then she slipped in a transient moment of weakness. And with just few months of conventional medicine it all fell apart, the story will go. Correlation by imagery will be far too powerful to be challenged by reason or chronology. Gerson: happy smiling girl. Chemo, radiation, surgery: dead Warrior.
So very tragic.

So young and pretty, and obviously smart. The ones to blame are those who sold her the woo. I see her as yet another victim of peddlers of unproven treatments.

@Lawrence,
To be fair, we all are dying. Her case was just a bit more obvious.

SBM has a real problem with these rare or aggressive diseases. The tools to treat and cure are slim to none. When SBM tries its limited approaches to dealing with these intractable problems, it fails often. Rather than accepting the inevitable, people find themselves victims of fools, cranks and charlatans.

She is already getting comments telling her she wasn’t doing Gershon properly:

http://www.jessainscough.com/2014/12/merry-christmas-overdue-update/#comment-320674

Steve-

Interesting how in that post the author is implying that only the original virgin text of Gerson’s method will work. A parallel to religious thought and the assumed ‘sanctity’ of their given holy book, and how if you err in any way no matter how small, you are a failure/will fail.

Back to the main story, I must say I feel decidedly mixed about accounts such as this. Cancer sucks. The fact she is going through that at her age is beyond unfair. I am 34 and can’t imagine dying now, let alone when I was 22. But when you look at the fact that she was going out of her way to hide her arm while still stumping for SCAM is deeply unsettling to me.

How many of her readers will follow her lead in avoiding SBM for any cancers they develop? IMO she has done some pretty great harm with her ‘Wellness Warrior’ campaign.

I wish her well and hope that SBM can return her health and perhaps she will understand her error and try to put things right.

I’m sorry to hear she’s doing poorly.

I’m disgusted by the backhanded ‘sympathy’ from Gerson advocates.

I hope she chooses amputation and evidence based medicine – she’s too young to lose her life to woo.

whatever the universe has up its sleeves to help me
Not the best choice of imagery, under the circumstances.

I was sorry to see Jess’s post yesterday. Hard situations almost always lead to bad choices, and for a 22 year old the choices must have looked pretty grim. Let’s hope she can be made comfortable and find some peace in the very confusing (to her) place she has landed.

i feel for her. but part of me is pissed at her too. she turned her own mother away from conventional treatment; she might have lived longer if she hadn’t pushed all that baloney on her. and people have bought into her malarkey. i’ve had the occasional dust-up on teh faisboox with people i consider friends over this shit.

According to Jess, her mum was the one who actually came to her with diet as a means to cure cancer:

I read her post slightly differently to you Orac. Rather than “The Secret” type of thinking I think she is opening up to whatever needs to be done. She is still clouding it in woo terms though with words like “surrendering to the universe”.
I felt particularly hopeful when I saw this statement
“My beliefs have been completely shaken up and I’ve had to drop any remnants of fear and ego that were preventing me from exploring these options sooner.”
I sincerely hope she does pull through. I know people say that she lied but I think she was just as deluded as any of her followers. I think it is brave of her to come forward and admit that she was possibly wrong.

@Nikhil Autar:

I can’t be a hundred percent certain, but I suspect most here actually have a great deal of sympathy about the choices she has been left with. Their comments instead reflect their frustration that woo is shared everywhere with the credulous accepting its claims. Because some of its proponents knowingly or unknowingly (depending on circumstance) sell its cures as 100% effective with no side effects, a frightened patient can feel comfortable choosing an unproven alternative because glowing testimonials assure the patient there are no risks and guarantee a cure.

They care deeply for patients. They loathe woo and its ultimate outcomes.

A good chunk of my frustration doesn’t come from Jessica. The psychology is simple and easy to understand. Amputating a limb is more than a loss of function, it’s a loss of identity and in some respects it’s a loss of control and control is a lot of what woo is all about.

It’s the selling of a someone who happens to be a stereotype of what a young, healthy woman should look like:
white, slim, long blonde hair, gleaming smile.

A lot of people are going to look at her and think “She doesn’t look like she has cancer. She doesn’t look sick. Whatever she’s doing must be working!”.

Is that it? Is that all it takes? Wanting something to be so and finding someone who appears to prove that all you need to do to beat the C-word is to eat better and think positive thoughts?

[sigh]
People beat up on doctors for not telling them what they want to hear. They find Suzy Spokesmodel who does tell them that everything will be okay and that’s all they need.

I understand the appeal but if it wasn’t cancer and Jessica, it would be another disease and another set of perfect white teeth and beguiling smile.

In the last 12 months, as well as bearing witness to her own body’s betrayal, she has seen and made mention on her blog/FB page of two similar Nutrition-Cures-Cancer inspirations as they’ve gone down the same path. In July Belle Gibson – “Healing Belle” admitted her cancer has vastly metastasised, though after that one brief mention it ‘s been back to rose-coloured inspirational Instagrams ever since ( probably due to her current promotional tour) Like Anj mentioned above – another young vibrant pretty young thing – you could almost mistake her pic for Ainscough in the news article. Polly Noble’s death from cervical cancer in May affected her similarly – perhaps she had been as in the dark about the true deterioration of Noble’s condition as anyone else following her website (To this day not a mention of the fact that she is dead on the “Polly’s Path” site.)

Coffee doesn’t occur in nature.

You mean I woke up to a cup of unnatural coffee this morning? Say it ain’t so, Joe!

It is hard to read this article but it is well done and an important message. I hope it helps others understand how science-based medicine is trying to help us.

And, of course people with devastating diagnoses are worthy of our empathy, even their fear is worthy. It is understandable to ask about alternative therapies but one must make decisions based on evidence, not the rhetoric snake oil salesmen peddle with their woo. It is dangerous to follow the advice of faith healers, which is what these people are. They are relying not on evidence, only on faith. I have looked into so-called alternative therapies for my health and my children’s but I also discussed everything with an MD and made sure there was actual evidence to back up claims. And I never risked anyone’s life in doing so.

MOB

You mean I woke up to a cup of unnatural coffee this morning? Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Unless you tossed some raw unroasted coffee beans in the blender, I am afraid so and stop calling me Joe.

Militant Agnostic

Unless you tossed some raw unroasted coffee beans in the blender, I am afraid so …

I prefer to think of that as minimally processed. But I am not a raw beanist.

Ms Ainscough is also a big fan of Louise Hay, the Godmother of cancer quackery. That affirmation at the end of her post is straight out of Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life” — a book about how every illness from leprosy to muscular dystrophy is caused by negative thoughts and lack of forgiveness/acceptance, and of course can be healed by the affirmations in the book. (The only thing Hay can’t cure and can’t accept is wrinkles — she’s clearly had several face lifts.)

I think Dr Orac is exactly right about the central dogma being the law of attraction. It takes on many forms, but a strong element of it is that it stands as a proxy for OId Testament -type “God’s judgment”. Hay is a fanatical Christian, but she toned it down in the late 70s and aimed straight at the New Age market rather than the Christian faith healing market.

This poor woman will be blamed repeatedly for bringing the wrath of God (aka like attracts like / negativity >< negativity) upon herself.

Oh and -btw-
S.A. Wilson has a website as well.
The coffee itself is GOLD.
At least, that is, on the way IN.

to the young med student above, I think all of the commenters have a deep sympathy for Jess and indeed anyone with cancer. And we’re not arguing her treatment choices were utter crap. The thought of a major amputation at the age of 22 should give anyone pause for a good long think. But what frustrates everyone here is that instead of going with through with the amputation (horrible as it is) her best shot at survival she did a 180 straight into the arms of quackery. Then, not content to use it herself, she then became a major promoter of the quackery to the extent that her own mother used it to the exclusion of conventional therapy which for her could have almost certainly saved her life. That is the part that sticks in the craw of those of us who want to see SBM flourish. I understand they mean well, they always mean well. The people pushing the snake oil are ‘nice’ and ‘friendly’ and they guarantee good results, heck not good, great results! Its the old adage personified, if something sounds too good to be true it probably is. I feel for this young lady and I hope that she accepts treatment and its not too late for an amputation to save her life. At the very least I hope that she can get effective palliative care and pass from this world as pain free as possible. But I can’t forgive the woo marketing. She has done harm, good intentions or no, and that is not a good thing.

@ EBMOD:

Oh no! They want highly caffeinated coffee!
See the S.A. Wilson website.

Did any of you guys insisting that this woman should rush to an amputation in the hope that her undeserving life can still be saved actually read the description linked to? This woman would not just suffer massive physical trauma, from which she would probably never recover if it was not curative, and a level of disfigurement seldom seen on an animate being outside a horror movie; she’d be severely disabled for the rest of her life, probably unable to work or do common activities, probably suffering pain every single day. And for all that, the doctors don’t even promise a cure (nor will they help you die, if they’ve rendered you too disabled to commit suicide; and remember, Australia has strict gun control).

Is this a good deal, given that you are going to die anyway? Doesn’t that depend upon how much real living you would buy yourself? One of you sneers at her refusing to submit out of “fear”, but indeed you want her to fear. You think she should fear death so much that, like the Roman poet Epictetus so contemptuously savaged for saying so, she’d accept any quality of life whatsoever just to keep breathing a little longer. That says more about you than about her.

Jeez Jane, you are a precocious idiot, aren’t you?

“Is this a good deal, given that you are going to die anyway?”

The operation does have a chance of allowing her something approaching a normal life expectancy. Clearly, it is her choice. If she wants to reject the amputation, I don’t begrudge her. But to imply it wouldn’t have any benefit is disingenuous, don’t you think?

“Doesn’t that depend upon how much real living you would buy yourself? One of you sneers at her refusing to submit out of “fear”, but indeed you want her to fear. You think she should fear death so much that, like the Roman poet Epictetus so contemptuously savaged for saying so, she’d accept any quality of life whatsoever just to keep breathing a little longer. That says more about you than about her.”

The fact that that is the conclusion you are coming to from this discussion shows that you either have very poor reading comprehension or simply like to make wild assumptions and leap to conclusions.

Her advice for the Gerson method is causing people with otherwise curative cancers to delay or simply never seek proper treatment. People who don’t need to die will die if her advice is followed. We aren’t saying that people should fear death, we’re saying that pointless, avoidable early deaths are just that, pointless. No one benefits.

EBMOD,

I know that coffee enemas are generally viewed as more comical than harmful, but I do have to wonder just what damage you can cause with them.

Not coffee, but I do I remember reading of a fatal magnesium overdose through epsom salts enemas, in a child sadly. Found it, and there are two others on PubMed. It’s rare but it does happen.

Also, coffee or not, I’m sure you could rupture the rectum, or colon if you are really enthusiastic, with a poorly inserted enema nozzle (is that the right word?).

I’ve been watching this train wreck since just before Jess’ mother was diagnosed with breast cancer – well the doctor was pretty sure it was breast cancer, but Sharyn refused a biopsy/mammogram and instead jumped on the Gerson bandwagon.

You think her death would have woken up Jess but no, she wiped the blog clean of her “Mum reports”, including an I ter view with her on how well she was doing .

We’ve watched her hide her arm while declaring she was “thriving”.

It must have cost her a lot to finally ” come clean” – well, as much as she has.

I’m sure there’s a lot we weren’t told.

@Woo Fighter:

That actually should be pointed out to Apple.

“You think her death would have woken up Jess but no, she wiped the blog clean of her “Mum reports”, including an I ter view with her on how well she was doing .”

That is likely a large part of why she hasn’t been able to let it go earlier. To preserve her own sanity she probably had to double down on SCAM after her mother passed lest she have to confront the fact she may have contributed to her mom’s early death.

On that aspect I too sympathize with her, the line that was crossed for me is how she decided to try and persuade many others to follow her down that same path.

For those on the outside looking in, I realize it can look like SBM is piling on in her darkest hour, but these conversations are ones that MUST be had.

People will die if they follow her lead.

prognosis, not progress. Doggone auto correct, old age and tired eyes.

An excellent article reviewing some cases where extreme palliative amputation surgery has been carried out in cases similar to Ainscough’s. http://www.ijps.org/article.asp?issn=0970-0358;year=2012;volume=45;issue=1;spage=16;epage=21;aulast=Burd

-“Apple doesn’t allow any apps that are not “family friendly” or are in any way controversial, pornographic or criminal, and yet they allow this Whole Pantry app? With all its misleading and dangerous “information”?-

@Woo Fighter? Are you seriously claiming woo hurts more people than the rape trade? You think porn is harmless fun, while you fap to women being raped on film? Porn is the only crime where endless filmed evidence exists but nobody cares because liberals believe that women’s bodies are public property. It’s fucking bullshit. I am sick of all rape trade supporting assholes in the skeptic movement. This is one of those issues when even people who pride themselves on empiricism can’t see through their bias that women need to be public cum dumpsters for any and all men (cum dumpster is a word created by pornsick men not me, their word). I would love top see a rational conservation on the Nordic Model in the skeptic movement but its never going to happen. The only “feminist” atheist/skeptics like Skepchick are idiot liberals pro-prostitution, pro-porn. The sex trade harms more people than woo. I am sick of ppl like woo fighter acting like the only ppl who have a problem with porn are right wing religious freaks. Porn is male violence against women. The end.

Light’s Bane: In case you didn’t read the article, let me just point out that Ainscough’s mother died due to woo, and so did Polly Noble. Belle Gibson will probably die, and Miss Ainscough’s prognosis isn’t good. So that’s at least three people added to Louisa Hay’s body count. But I suppose woman on woman violence doesn’t count, even though Hays was a conservative Christian and therefore despised most other women.

Thinking about Ainscough’s being presented with the option for amputation, and turning away from it, I am reminded of my mother’s strength with her cancer. Before I was born, so about 40 years ago, my mom was diagnosed with a cancer on her arm. Melanoma, I think. The doctor told her they could excise near it, or excise a large piece. The former more aesthetic, the latter safer. She didn’t even hesitate before requesting the larger excision. A woman of good sense, my mom.

Way to totally miss Woo Fighter’s point, Light’s Bane: the argument was not that pornographic apps represent harmless fun but that woo-promoting apps are potentially harmful.

@Denice Walter:

Thanks; yes, I live in Sweden, tho in the southern part, way south of the arctic circle.

@Calli Arcale:

Apple already vets and QAs apps for lots of stuff that has nothing to do with legal restrictions or potential damage to the devices. Not publishing woo would be completely in line with their existing practices.

To be fair, I don’t think The Whole Pantry markets itself as a cancer-cure in any way. It seems to just be a collection of healthy recipes. I don’t think there is any need to ban it. As for Jessica, it’s a sad story indeed and it is very difficult to judge someone who is in this, the most horrible of positions. However, I hope that if she does have an amputation that she is honest about it and explains that this was her only hope of survival.

Yeeeeah, the notion that somebody who’s lost a limb belongs in a “horror movie,” or that amputation is a fate worse than death is pretty bizarre to me. What about our soldiers who come home missing a limb? Do they belong in horror movies or sideshows? I’d like to think we’ve moved beyond that attitude. And, luckily, science based medicine is able to do more and more to help people who lose a limb live as happily and productively as possible.

Also, Light’s Bane’s comment was OT, weird, and way too vehement, to mention a few problems with it, but let’s maybe not use “you need some counseling” as an insult.

@lilady:
I don’t want to get into a protracted argument about this, but I disagree. In both instances, actually, saying “you need counseling” or “you need professional help” is just another way of saying “you’re crazy/mentally ill” and essentially meaning it as insult – at least that’s how it’s always come off to me in such discussions. You can easily pick apart what’s wrong with said person’s post without resulting to ad hominems, and ones that basically use mental illness (or the suspicion thereof) as an insult.

Now, if the post had mentioned hearing voices, or suicidal ideations, or any number of such things, I think it would be entirely appropriate to suggest, probably strongly, that said poster see a trained professional. I’ve done this numerous times IRL.

But yeah, off-the-hand comments like “you need help” and genuine concern for somebody’s well-being are two different thing. There’s also a big difference between being wrong, misinformed, or just plain dumb and having a mental health problem.

No, I don’t think that it was germane to the topic of this thread at all. I never said it was; I’m not sure where you even got that. Call out every drive-by poster as a troll, by all means. “Troll” and “somebody with mental illness” are two different things, though. That’s what I was saying.

OK, OK, I see what was meant by lilady above: I probably should not have even suggested that the post be dissected, since it doesn’t really make any sense and is not on topic to begin with. Someone who does something like that is, by definition, a troll. The best thing to do with trolls is maybe call them trolls and ignore them, in any case.

@PGP: “Hays was a conservative Christian and therefore despised most other women”

@JP: “this troll has clearly been succesful in raising peoples’ hackles, which is what trolls do”

Hmmm. Pretty trollish there PGP–facts (as usual) and citations definitely not in evidence.

BTW, has anybody actually examined the Whole Pantry app? It’s $0.99, after all.

Brew and Ferment: In my experience, fundamentalist women come in four main varieties: the mouse who uses her faith to retreat from the world, the woman who hates being a woman, and takes several extreme positions and lobbies to make other women’s lives miserable, the sheltered- a woman who has lived all her life in a fundamentalist community and cannot function outside, and the guard at the gates, who usually can be found running for some sort of office so she can punish everyone in the school district/state/ congressional district for not being Christian enough. (We used to have one of the ‘guards’ in office.)

As for citations, I’d like you to look at Phyllis Schlafly, who’s entire life has been basically trying to stuff women back into the house. Hay’s true genius is in managing to convince other women that they’re better off dead than dishonoring themselves by seeking help. Someone ought to try and figure out why women are more vulnerable to woo and fundy religion than men.

PGP: I’ll pile on to Shay’s comment and say that since I’m guessing I’m about 2x your age based on Denice Walters’ references to your youth, AND have spent 20 years in the military with all the variety of experiences that entails, I can firmly state that you have nowhere near enough experience to make such a silly statement. Phyllis Schlafly?? how about you tell me what her actual impact figure is (you know, using things like google stats, facebook, wikipedia). The actual facts for just one section of society which I have about as many years experience in as years you have lived since kindergarten, namely the aforementioned military, are completely opposite of your baseless assertions. Tell me, please, (hint–it’s on other posts of mine on this site in response to you) just how successful Schlafly has been in getting what she wants for women in the military. Or will you do the Sir Robin bit you do when I ask you about actual facts in evidence?

Besides you should know by now that secondary (or probably tertiary at minimum) sources such as Schlafly, TV preachers, random internet fruitcakes like Hay, are as trustworthy as Dr. Oz. You’re the counterpart to all those silly people who say “I heard it on Dr. Oz.”

@Kathy

Why do they completely reject modern medicine?

It seems like the typical reason is because they’ve been told not to trust real medicine. Part of the alt-med way is to villify actual medicine by describing it in the most horrible terms possible (e.g., cut-poison-burn). Downplay it’s effectiveness, emphasize it’s shortcomings. And then demand strict adherence to the magic spells you’re selling, emphasizing that even the slightest deviation (e.g., going back to actual medicine) will ruin your chances of success.

When real medicine is portrayed as not just awful, poisonous nastiness, but also ineffective, it’s little wonder that some people would give up on it completely, rather than pursue it alongside whatever potions they decide to try.

My heart goes out to this poor woman. I have a chronic disabling disease, not cancer like her thankfully, but I did woo for the first six years until finally realizing it wasn’t working and just making me broke. She’s now about to find out who her real friends are, and get a lot worse abuse for speaking out about how she’s now doing SBM. It’s like a damn religion. Share your experience all you want and people will always find a way to tell you that you didn’t search hard enough, or long enough, or spend enough money…

I’m at the stage of having completed four of six chemo cycles for CLL. It’s a bit rough, especially when the counts are low and you get an infection that you can’t fight off. My ANC was only 340 yesterday, so I’m just waiting for the next febrile neutropenia to come along and spoil Christmas. BUT, it’s far better than what will happen if I don’t do this. No way diet and vitamins (please, get that enema hose away from me!) are going to fix this. I know that the chemo can’t cure it either, but I’ll get back to work as a GP for a few years, and five to ten years from now I’ll find out if I was right to be an atheist. I’ll take what I can get, and I want to be here for my wife and son just as long as I can. It sounds like this woman still has a good chance of long term survival, and, believe me, I’d have my left arm cut off in an instant if it could offer me that.

lilady, I think you are wrong to tell ANYONE they need counseling. That is not the purpose of blog comments and it’s just rude. Other people made comments that were critical of those two others without the personal insult trope being used. You defend yourself in the same way as a woo devotee, never admitting or questioning, just defending yourself blindly. Your “standing by” your remarks doesn’t change the inappropriateness of them.

There is clinical evidence that THC and CBD in conjunction with chemo or radiation is more effective than any one of them alone.

It wonders me that those drugs make people so crazy.

On top of that Donald Abrams, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California San Francisco and Chief of Hematology / Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital, is (horrors) a herbalist and cannabis fan. He is also a fan of nutritional medicine. If all this is so wrong how can he still be practicing? Wouldn’t insurance companies decline to insure him? Wouldn’t he have been sued out of practice?

MSimon, what does this have to do with Jess Ainscough or Orac’s post?

Vicki
December 23, 2014

MSimon, what does this have to do with Jess Ainscough or Orac’s post?

It is about herbalism and cancer.

The comment sections to the recent exactly on topic posts are not open.

Orac did not respond to my emails on the subject and I thought he might have something to say if I commented.

Obviously he has seen my comment. He had to approve it.

THIS is about Rockford:

Rockford For Safe Access

Vicki
December 24, 2014

Orac approved my first two comments. That would be:

There is clinical evidence…..

and

A nice general introduction….

Since those no blockage.

What is interesting is that so far no one has addressed those comments despite there being a number of anti-herbalists hanging around (judging from this thread and previous threads).

It is my estimation at this point that the endocannabinoid system responds better to a combination of up regulators and down regulators together than to either alone. Our current theories of medicine do not account for such possibilities in the design of trials although giving patients multiple drugs is quite common.

Or course I’m just a layman only modestly educated in the field. But the herbalists have a name for it. “Ensemble medicine”. We are seeing the beginning of that with the trials of CBD, THC, and chemo or radiation for cancer.

My field is aerospace electronics.

So all Jess Ainscough has to do is smoke enough pot, and her sarcoma will vanish?

MSimon: “My field is aerospace electronics.”

So you are unqualified, which is why we are ignoring you.

Narad,

I don’t announce everything I’m involved in.

Chris,

Well, they paid me well for my work. But if I was you I’d never get on an A320 or a 747 again. Given your opinion.

Vicki,

Well, there have been no human trials on that point either way. Anecdotal evidence says that high CBD, high THC oil would be the way to go. But of course that is not proof. We won’t get proof until the Government reschedules. Or until a proper test is done in Israel or Spain. The two countries I’m aware of where human trials can proceed.

I don’t announce everything I’m involved in.

Given that cannabis trolling isn’t exactly novel around here, much less “herbalism,” I think you need something to really distinguish yourself.

Could you present all of your future comments in Forth?

Oh, by the way, I meant you were unqualified in medical and oncology issues. Obviously that point went over your high head.

Well, they paid me well for my work.

I suppose prying out the upshot of this tense construction wouldn’t be worth the effort.

But if I was you I’d never get on an A320 or a 747 again. Given your opinion.

The nearest cat is giving me a belly-up on the sense that this is a random instance of FBW blobovianism.

Here is the paper “Drug Testing…) (edited) at a non-paywalled site:

http://www.drugwar.com/news11.shtm

An excerpt from the ACLU comment on the paper:

A recent study applied a standard productivity analysis to 63 “high tech” firms in the computer equipment and data processing industry – some having drug testing programs and some not.Overall, the researchers found that drug testing had “reduced rather than enhanced productivity.” Firms with pre-employment testing, compared with firms with no drug testing at all, scored 16 percent lower on productivity measures. For firms with bothpre-employment and random testing, productivity was 29 percent lower. The authors suggest that “companies that relate to employees positively with a high degree of trust are able to obtain more effort and loyalty in return.

And of course MSimon never bothered to use the search engine atop the page for Orac’s existing opinions on:

Cannabis research — seriously wanting

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2014/07/10/medical-marijuana-and-the-new-herbalism-part-1/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2014/08/18/medical-marijuana-and-the-new-herbalism-part-2-the-cult-of-cannabis-cures-cancer/

Cannabis legalization — not a medical issue.

Flounce away, MSimon, flounce away. I doubt you’ll stick it.

Thank you, MSimon.

Yea, before I ever smoked cannabis I’d already become quite ‘jaded’ will all things *system*. I remember the repugnance of the ads on talk radio for what was basically on-demand, walk-in urine test clinics which essentially came off as sounding like “….Now you can be pissing in the cup and start your new job pissing on the burgers all in the same day!…”

Never mind if one is ‘high’ at work or not, It has always been political and, of course, a stamping out by the ‘competition’ (whatever entities thay may be). How ludicrous it is that the test measures *if one has used or been around someone who used marijuana in the not so recent past* even if some arguments may be sticking flounces for degrees of ‘highness’ while fulfilling a particular job description.

Sport and this ideal of the ‘role model’ athlete at the top of his game is a bit silly when it became *…Amongst those who submit to being required to piss in cups, these are the finest in the league…*

Some studies have shown that high tech companies that drug test don’t perform as well as those that don’t.

Yes. It is another form of inducing homogeneous idiocracy akin to one’s first (and seemingly predominant) qualification being “can you at least hit the cup”??

^^ Where this policy leads and the quality of the ‘product’ finally delivered may be attested to by walking into any MalWart, these days.

Pip Cornall,

They are cancer ‘cure’ pied pipers, luring desperate cancer patients to leap off the alt/med cliffs.

The ironic thing is that most of those who claim that CAM cured their cancer were either, very probably, successfully treated conventionally, or didn’t have cancer in the first place (no biopsy).

In other words these pied pipers are urging people to leap off the AltMed cliffs without a parachute, having survived their leap with one.

Kreboizen

In other words these pied pipers are urging people to leap off the AltMed cliffs without a parachute, having survived their leap with one.

I

This is the perfect metaphor.

No, Gerson therapy lines the pockets of Gerson practitioners.

“The treatment at the Mexico clinic costs $5,500 per week (the cost is 5,500 Euro in Hungary) and usually lasts around two to three weeks.4,5 The weekly fee is inclusive of accommodation, meals and treatment. People are encouraged to continue the therapy for approximately two years at home. This involves ongoing expense including regular telephone consultations with a private physician, juicing equipment, large quantities of organic vegetables and the cost of supplements. In total the Gerson therapy consumes large amounts of time, money and other resources and only dedicated individuals will be able to stick to the demands of the therapy.”

That adds up to a lot of money, not counting the cost of dying unnecessarily (if effective mainstream therapies exist for a given situation), since Gerson treatments are pure quackery.

http://www.cam-cancer.org/CAM-Summaries/Dietary-approaches/Gerson-therapy/Does-it-work

I’m curious to know if our dear Orac has heard of the “Pink Vaccine?”

I’m curious to know if our dear Orac has heard of the “Pink Vaccine?”

Seems pretty clever (PDF), although limited in terms of prophylactic use.

@Elyn Jacobs – did you only use alternative treatment for your own cancer? If so, how was it diagnosed and staged?

“Too young to die of conventional treatment?” My 68-year-old aunt is a five-year breast cancer survivor, conventional treatment only, and my 96-year-old grandmother had colon cancer more than 40 years ago and was treated with surgery only.

No – I am not saying it is perfect and always works. For all the survivors I know, I have lost both parents and several good friends to cancer.

What is “good backing?” Usually when I hear things like that I think business ventures. When it comes to medical treatment, I prefer scientifically plausible modalities that have been researched and demonstrated safe and more effective than doing nothing.

Do you counsel patients on what to choose?

What is your track record on survival rates?

Do you earn money doing this? Are you insured in case a family member decides your advice was harmful?

5% increase in effective allopathic conventional treatment in 75 years is nothing to brag about or hang your hat on as the ultimate worthwhile treatment for breast cancer. Who’s the real Quack?
Mother around the world or telling imaging centers with boob smashing mammograms that also squash cancer and spread it, and including biopsies are telling their oncologist to stuff it and finding their way to successful gentle healing from breast cancer, naturally assisting the body to heal itself. Orange is the New Pink. Cannabis Oil is the greatest healer and combined with flaxseed oil is bringing rapid healing. Spain has 3 decades of worthwhile research. American’s have been duped by DuPont and Rockefeller. When it comes to Cancer America’s Medicine has failed miserably. Do You Own Research and Join FB pages of survivors sharing their stories and protocols. iCureCancer FB, radio show, and documentary. iCureCancer. com . Mums Not Havin Chemo Book and blog, and Orange Is the New Pink. com and radio show. Cure Cancer Now ….book and website. Blessed By Cancer support group in Nevada City, CA.

Boy, all those “altie” treatments that Sandi mentions don’t seem to have helped Jesse, have they?

The Gerson Clinic is running on borrowed time. How much longer can they go on charging $$$ for coffee enemas, when the cannabis/flaxseed oil enema is obviously the wave (or flush) of the future?

http://www.gro4me.com/enema.htm

Note the link to something called “Portlandsterdam University”, which brings new meaning to the term “liberal arts education”.

The Gerson Clinic is running on borrowed time. How much longer can they go on charging $$$ for coffee enemas, when the cannabis/flaxseed oil enema is obviously the wave (or flush) of the future?

_ttp://www.gro4me.com/enema.htm

Note the link to something called “Portlanderstam University”, which brings new meaning to the term “liberal arts education”.

Sandi White,

5% increase in effective allopathic conventional treatment in 75 years is nothing to brag about or hang your hat on as the ultimate worthwhile treatment for breast cancer. Who’s the real Quack?

Where did you get those figures from? More than 90% of breast cancer patients survive for more than 5 years after diagnosis, as compared to only 75% in 1975. Ten year survival has increased from 25% in the 1940s to 83% today (SEER again).

If you know of something that has been proven to work better, do share.

Mother around the world […] are telling their oncologist to stuff it and finding their way to successful gentle healing from breast cancer, naturally assisting the body to heal itself.

They may be telling their oncologists to stuff it, but they aren’t finding a way to healing, sadly. As UK cancer surgeon Michael Baum wrote on a UK medical professional site (PulseToday, no longer available):

In the UK, there is the “cancer act” to protect patients from the claims of CAM in treating cancer, sadly this is seldom enforced. As a cancer surgeon and professor of medical humanities I can attest to the tragic consequences of patients with breast cancer refusing modern humane treatment in place of barbaric alternatives. I call them barbaric as it allowed me to follow the natural history of untreated disease. Although I rarely endorse the use of mastectomy, if there is one thing more barbaric than radical surgery, it’s the disease itself being allowed to run riot. The cancer leaves behind a rotting stinking ulcer and a swollen arm as the involved lymph nodes block the drainage from the lymphatics.

re: Meph #137

@Pip Cornall – I am honestly confused by your statement that “Many are dissatisfied with conventional cancer medicine thanks to, arrogant doctors and oncologists,”. Could you please explain?

Obviously, I’m not Pip, and I definitely want to hear the details (Come back, Pip!). But I certainly didn’t find the statement confusing. It doesn’t assert that all doctors are arrogant, or even that all patients of those doctors are dissatisfied, only that the percentages in each case are high enough that they are a significant causal factor in thousands of preventable cancer deaths from quackery yearly in Oz.

I’d guess that Pip is not asserting “arrogant doctors” as the cause of dissatisfaction directly so much as reporting that patients attribute their dissatisfaction to “arrogant doctors”. I’d also guess these patients are over-attributing the roots of their dissatisfaction to the doctors. And I wouldn’t suggest the way to fix the problem is just to fix the doctors via some sort of sensitivity training, though some effort at something like that might be in order.

It’s ‘human nature’ for folks to blame people rather than things, so I’d guess major systemic factors are a work in the patient dissatisfactions, but they don’t really see or understand these things, and focus their pique on the MDs. The key point, IMHO, is that many of the patient relations tasks where doctors’ arrogance/sympathy may come into play may not properly be parts of the physicians’ jobs.

It seems like everyone I know has at least one hospital horror story (with self/family/friend as patient) where the patient suffered horribly, was not cured, maybe misdiagnosed, maybe even harmed by improper treatment — and in which the doctors acted with either callous detachment or were out and out assholes. Anecdotal, of course, but I have noted the incidence of these complaints steadily increasing over the 43 years of my adult life; and based on the changes I’ve observed and felt in the delivery of medical care in the longer period of my memory, I can understand why.

As sincere as Orac, the Minions and other sbm advocates may be, the whole anti-quack project could be viewed as a (subconscious) attempt to deflect attention away from serious problems in the sbm treatment deliver system. The unconscious motives would include:
1. Doctors don’t want to change their well-entrenched habits in general, and especially don’t want to accept responsibility for dealing with the psychological issues attendant to dealing with patients facing serious health issues.
2. Like psychology, the systemic/institutional issues raised are outside their field of expertise. They don’t necessarily have time or interest or background in these things, and may consider with some justification they just wouldn’t ‘get it’ if they ventured into that terrain.
3. To the extent they do have background, interest, and the ability to ‘get it’ the institutional issues seem so imposing and intractable that taking a whack at them seems like a poor use of their limited time.

SO: Step outside the habits-of-mind framed by work in medical practice and the sciences, and look at the attack-on-quack from the POV of a patient advocate who knows enough about science that quackery or spiritual healing of physiological disease are simple off the table (a Pip, perhaps). You’re looking to the institutions of modern Western medicine to deliver the health care goods. How are those institutions doin’? I don’t think it should be hard at all to imagine such an advocate saying, ‘I’m all for whack-a-quack, but why the fuck don’t you folks clean up your own house first?” I use that trope because my guess is the HOUSE is more the problem than the Greg-Houseiness of any of its occupants.

Patients are human beings, not machines, and in human terms there is no excuse whatsoever for treating a patient facing the horros of chemo with anything less than extraordinary sympathy. None. Zilch. Nada. Zip. You treat your dog better than a lot of patients get treated in hospitals. A lot better.*

I could toss out some rough underbaked ideas about how to clean and reorganize the house — it’s not that hard to come up with a few starters for discussion at least — but the point is the sbm advocates aren’t doing anywhere near enough toward that or making anywhere near enough noise about it. Physicians and scientists may not be equipped to figure out how to clean and reorganize the house. But as they say, ‘If you don’t know, you better ask somebody who does.” There are experts in these fields, too.

Sbm-ers should not only identify practical solutions, — one way or the other, if not by themselves, then with the aid of qualified professionals — they should FIGHT for them like hell with tool and nail like my life depends on it. Because it does. And there are lots of me out there.

Based on my lived experiences, if a wave of a magic wand could erase for earth AND memory all the quack scammers and pseudo-science mythologies, we’d still have a serious problem with the house, with all the things wrapped up in the dissatisfaction (to put it criminally mildly) directed at “arrogant doctors.” Some people would invent their own new woo and spread it around. Many more would just say ‘fuck this shit’ and just stop going to the clinic/hospital/whatever. I wonder what the measure is of people who’ve already done that now. (Anyone track that? Anyone know?)

OK, here’s just one idea. How about creating a new professional category of Physicians Assistant that would combine some of the basic diagnostic training of a traditional PA with some of the counseling skills of an MSW? A Patient Interaction Assiatant? The PIA would make no medical decisions, but be qualified to extract the necessary information from patients to pass along to doctors, and present the doctors’ findings and recommendations back to the patient. As a PIAs time ought to be less expensive than an MDs, especially a specialist, the PIA would have the skill and could be given the time to deal with the human side of the equation, letting the doctor concentrate on what the doctor does best.

If just for the sake of argument we assumed that idea had merit, what would it take to put something like that into practice? I’m guessing a major campaign with plenty of foundation funding and tons of active grass roots support in the medical and medical science communities.

Anybody want to try and get that ball rolling (or one like it)? Or are we all content to point and laugh at our Friday dose of woo served up from some loony blog with <100 subscribers on its RSS feed?

@sadmar – thanks for your attempt, but since you continually say you’re guessing, I’m not getting much out of it.

Let me expand on what I don’t get:

1. How is arrogance being defined in this context?
2. By what actions are the doctors/oncologists involved showing themselves to be arrogant?
3. What proportion of the population of doctors/oncologists are claimed to be arrogant?
4. Arrogance doesn’t apparently turn off the fans of professional sports (when was the last time you heard someone say “that wrestler is so arrogant! I’m never watching the WWE again and switching to tiddly winks!”); why would an experience with an arrogant doctor/oncologist send one out to look for bogus or ineffective treatment?

Arrogance doesn’t apparently turn off the fans of professional sports (when was the last time you heard someone say “that wrestler is so arrogant! I’m never watching the WWE again and switching to tiddly winks!”); why would an experience with an arrogant doctor/oncologist send one out to look for bogus or ineffective treatment?

My wild guess is it might be because people like seeing bravado when watching guys fight each other but would rather have sympathy when going to someone else for help with a serious problem.

A friend of mine just died from breast cancer after a year of surgery, chemo and radiation. A year of pain and feeling unwell, I don’t know if we can judge anyones choice until you’re actually in a life or death situation yourself.

elin,

A friend of mine just died from breast cancer after a year of surgery, chemo and radiation. A year of pain and feeling unwell, I don’t know if we can judge anyones choice until you’re actually in a life or death situation yourself.

That’s horrible, but the course she pursued was her best chance of surviving, though she was unlucky, sadly. You seem to presuppose that without treatment she would have had less pain and felt less unwell. From what I know of untreated breast cancer it is even nastier than unsuccessful conventional treatment.

I have just watched Jess Ainscough talking with Jon Gabriel on the Mind Body Weight Loss Summit, free for the next 24 hours. she looked amazing. Her story is very inspiring. This is her story, her life and she has chosen her path and how she wants to live her life. I applaud her bravery for taking all the information and advice available to her (both allopathic and complementary) with regards to her condition, but never giving up the responsibility for her health to anyone but herself in the process. I applaud her bravery also for being able to let go of her ego and continue to work her oncologists and continue her ‘alternative practices’. I believe we all get hung up on the word ‘alternative’ confusing it for meaning, ‘instead of’, whereas health is so complex, the more you can do to support the body’s innate ability to heal itself has to be a good thing. I will continue to follow her story, because I am grateful from how I learn from her story and also how this post can contribute. This page would never have been written if she had kept her silence.

“I applaud her bravery also for being able to let go of her ego and continue to work her oncologists ”

Do you applaud her dissemination of really rotten medical advice as well?

I think her ego has been dragged, shrieking from her by finally acknowledging the months of pain and bleeding and ignoring of the evidence-based symptoms of advanced cancer. Shame it took letting go of her mother, and letting go of her best chance of recovery before she decided to “let go” of her ego. Ego is a poor soldier in the face of malignant pain.

Leave the girl alone! Everyone that views her site does it voluntarily. I have witness first-hand the western medicine treatment approach to cancer. Using poison on an already poisoned body makes one die!! Nothing wrong with her trying to find a better way to die than the barbaric treatment offered to many…Cut..poison…burn. There are many natural cancer survivors that you can scoff at….80 year old Ruth Heidrich outlived her oncologist. She outlived her oncologist and wrote 4 books and has a website. Check it out. Don’t put your faith in an Oncologist. Put your faith in God. Oncologists are making lots of money on cancer patients. LOTS!! Cancer is an industry…a big industry. All these cancer walks..and awareness…ridiculous. Everyone is AWARE of cancer. How can you not be? Bald-headed concentration camp souls looking for the perfect oncologist to cure them. I hope I live long enough to see every oncologist go “out of business”. Until then….let everyone search for their own cure whether you like it or not she will die on her terms not on yours!! Please post the “Real” survivor stories of people you have saved!!

“Cut-Poison-Burn!” Seriously do you alt med doofuses not have a single original thought? Is this the best you can do? You are just going to repeat over-simplistic slogans from quacks?

And Orac mentions that people die while getting conventional treatment all the time. Unlike the charlatans you worship, Orac is ethical about cancer and its treatments, and so he has zero problem honestly and opening discussing the success and failures of conventional treatment. That alt med person you listen to has no moral conundrum about lying, and so what he tells you will of course always SOUND better. But since you have no critical thinking skills, you believe the lying quack, because his stuff always sounds “positive.”

Why is it that the alties never tell a patient there isn’t anything they can do?

Helianthus thank you for playing too. I forgot that sheep like yourself live on sites like this. Good luck with your health, eat McDonald’s, fry your food, and follow the herd yourself. It is easy, you and Renate and Narad with you.

Helianthus thank you for playing too. I forgot that sheep like yourself live on sites like this. Good luck with your health, eat McDonald’s, fry your food, and follow the herd yourself. It is easy, you and Renate and Narad with you.

Jack what makes you assume that because we are criticising Jess’ choices that we nosh on fast foods and don’t care for our health? And while you’re congratulating yourself on you and only you knowing how to eat well, look at all that good food Jess ate and shoved up her bum? What has that done for her?

I forgot that sheep like yourself live on sites like this. Good luck with your health, eat McDonald’s, fry your food, and follow the herd yourself. It is easy, you and Renate and Narad with you.

Maybe a nice coffee enema would help with that asshurt, Jack. Or you could, you know, actually make the case that a “big fungating tumour mass” is a “better way” of doing anything.

Leave the girl alone! Everyone that views her site does it voluntarily.

Leave Orac alone! Everyone that views his site does it voluntarily.

I was prayed over at a Sons of Confederate Veterans meeting once (don’t ask). I can’t recall that it did me any harm. On the other hand, substituting faith for medical treatment will result in negative outcomes sooner or later.

Usually sooner.

Orac has nothing better to do than beat somebody down about using something other than conventional poisons – chemicals – treatment to cure.

And how well did that cure work? Did it work well enough to recommend to others?

In what way was that treatment not chemicals, by the way?

Correct me if I’m wrong Col. Tom, but I took your #183 to mean that faith in and of itself doesn’t cut one way or the other medically. I’d say if belief in particular faith to a particular degree keeps people away from needed conventional treatment, that’s bad. But if faith makes it easier for people to accept difficult medical treatment, or withstand it’s often painful rigors, that’s good.

In the case of Jess Ainscough, if holding onto (x) amount of her woo is the only pre-condition by which she can abide doing whatever a real oncologist tells her she needs to do, I have no problem with that. If she does that, and survives, that will surely limit anyone selling a Gerson’s scheme’s claims that it can cure the big C all by itself, and open a path for more people to seek conventional treatment.

By the same token, if Makayla Sault had experienced a vision of Jesus, but The Christ had told her, “Do not fear Child. Yea, though you walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death that is this hospital, thou art with me. I will protect you from the chemotherapy. After darkness comes the dawn.” that would have been a good thing.

Of course, visions are but projections of some aspect of our consciousness, casting our desires into some external authority that justifies them, and that’s probably true of any form of faith in general to one degree or another. Not being a psychologist, and based just on (a fairly large number of) anecdotal observations, it seems to me that epiphanies are mechanisms for people to resolve internal conflicts, including the displacement of deeply-rooted self-destructive behavior patterns with some better alternative, and that this works out for the best more often than not (e.g. the ‘surrender to a higher power’ in 12-step programs).

But the thought of 12-step leads me to another thought: perhaps every hospital offering scary-but-effective cancer treatments such as chemo, amputation, radical surgery etc. ought to have faith-based support groups designed to mobilize whatever faiths patients have as a means of getting them through the psychological obstacle course of beginning such treatments and sticking with them.

You wrote:
“If Jess decides that Gerson treatment is necessary to help her deal with chemotherapy or surgery, I’d be OK with that (at least I wouldn’t object too strongly) as long as she’s using science-based medicine and Gerson therapy isn’t interfering with it.”
Honestly, I *really* don’t think Jess gives a rat’s behind what you would be “OK” with. In the end, it is NONE of yours or ANYBODY’S business what she does!!!!! Get over it!!

Honestly, I *really* don’t think Jess gives a rat’s behind what you would be “OK” with. In the end, it is NONE of yours or ANYBODY’S business what she does!!!!! Get over it!!

We’ll get over it and she’ll become a cautionary tale. The question is, will she get over it?

Mary: “In the end, Chris & Science Mom, people can *STILL* choose to do whatever they want to do”

So how did that work out for Penelope Dingle?

Mary…. I followed Jess when I was searching for dietary help during chemotherapy. I hung onto her every word, felt guilty that I couldn’t afford all my food to be organic as I had a family and I felt inadequate that I was a bald mess whilst this beautiful girl was kicking cancer’s arse. The reason I am posting is to demonstrate that I was most likely one of many that was drawn in by her ‘journey’ but my cancer was too aggressive to even attempt a natural treatment…thank goodness I say. Well after 8 torturous rounds of chemo, surgery and radiation which I wouldn’t wish on anybody – it was hell, I came out the other side and at worst I was able to see my first grandchild and at best I will still be around to annoy her into teenage hood. I truly feel for Jess and hope her next phase and acceptance of conventional treatment will give her either so much more time and hopefully even a cure. In regard to what others discuss about Jess, you should know that if anyone puts themselves on social media they are in fact open to criticism and discussion even if it is against the poster. I think Jess accepts that as she is a social media entrepreneur and even makes money from selling her ideas to others. Hopefully, most that have been affected by cancer will not follow her path. Chemo being mustard gas is such an old misinformed bit of nonsense and just to let you know, one of the hardest chemos I had with horrid side effects is actually an extract from the bark of the rare Pacific yew tree I am so grateful for our amazing scientists, researchers and doctors.

i think the best thing everyone can do for Jess and themselves, is to be supportive, send positive thoughts and prayers and non-judgemental. We don’t know her path, what the universe has in store for her, or what lessons she will need to learn from this. I pray for her utmost healing and learning and I do think she is a very strong young woman to put herself out there.

“It’s as if you abhor the notion that there could be other possibilities beside proven science. ”

Once they’re proven, they’re science. Unproven, they’re…what, exactly?

@Dannie – beyond vague generalities, then, what evidence is there that the treatments Ms. Ainscough chose (and recommended to others) have shown any clinical benefit for, well, anyone? What is the quality of that evidence?

I was watching a YouTube posting about Food Matters where Jess Ainscough was interviewing the Founder and CEO of Food a Matters James Colquhoun which was enlightening to say the least. I was impressed by Jess so decided to google her and landed on this site. Even though I do not know Jess it is Devastating to hear of her illness and my thought and prayers are with her and her family.
For what it’s worth, my fathers law was given 6 months to live and decided to go natural and survived an additional 6 years of quality living but eventually surcummed to the disease.

Maybe we should have respectful insolence for Lorena Rojas. She fought using conventional treatments and gosh darn, she died. Stop attacking people who choose a different path than you.

I bet Lorena Rojas would cringe if she knew “Jack” was using her death from metastatic breast cancer to advance his “different path” philosophy. Ghoul.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2957104/Mexican-telenovela-actress-Lorena-Rojas-died-long-battle-cancer.html

Jack originally said

Stop attacking people who choose a different path than you.

He later said

Tell that to Orac … his whole website attacks “different paths”.

Orac attacks medical advice (among other things) that is not backed by good solid evidence. He also calls out those people who promote treatments not backed by evidence, particularly those who make a buck from it.

That is not the same as attacking people who pick a different path.

Thank you Orca for your clear and wonderfully written blogs on this important subject. Such a sad update for Jess and her family and an all too familiar story with more and more people following the new age fundamentalist path for major health decisions. In September 2012 Jess was interviewed for an article “Holding out for a Miracle in The Australian one of our mutual country’s most respected and widely read national newspapers (link below) I was also interviewed about my colleague and close friend of 30 years ATHENA STARWOMAN the famous celebrity Astrologer and new age author who also denied conventional medicine to treat her breast cancer to go natural therapies and positive thinking. Athena’s husband is one of the presenters on the original ‘The Secret”. Athena’s cancer was slow growing she could have had conventional help but by the time it has spread throughout her body and she was in her last weeks of life she did regret not trying everything the world had to offer to help her including operations, chemo as well as natural health maintenance but it was too late and my dearest friend, clever, smart and successful passed away 10 years ago. Please keep your mind open people on what nature truly is. Nature also helps our minds invent and develop medicines to help us and life is a precious gift.

#215 @rachel – I think you’ll find a lot of her old blog articles are rehashed and stolen by other bloggers. That article you posted is 2 years old and has been lifted from Jess’ blog. http://www.jessainscough.com/2012/12/stop-wishing-for-things-to-be-different/

Sadly, Jess Ainscough passed away today. RIP.

Jess passed away yesterday, 26 Feb 2015.

There hasn’t been an announcement yet, but rumour has it that Jess has died. Her facebook page seems to have disappeared.

I just saw on social media Jess passed away on the 26th of Feb. All her sites are shut down with just a memeorial on her page. So sad but now I wonder what must everyone be thinking?

RIP Jess, now may you find peace and comfort with your sweet Mum x

I don’t know what anyone else is thinking, but I want to know what happens to money?

Is it going to end up in court and the lawyers get most of it?
Did they plan for the money machine to continue on in the event of her inevitable absence?

That’s where the real drama is.

Gosh, how *fabulous* it is to know that ‘medical science’ can offer a 100% solution to cancer! Here was I thinking that patients treated with Western medical treatments also happen to die, yet with all the self congratulatory tone of this post I’m certainly realising that I was wrong- if only individuals would stop all these alternative treatments and just get with the 100%, no worries at all cure that Western medical treatment provides! Gosh darn it, why would *anyone* want to go any other way when it’s so *patently* obvious that the Western medical model has cancer cured completely?

Perhaps its because *they don’t*. Perhaps its because individuals *have the right* to choose their path and how they live their life, regardless of the sanctimonious tones that those who *aren’t* living those choices like to utter because yes, Western medicine has demonstrated it knows *exactly* what it is doing. I have seen individuals heal themselves of diseases that Western medicine states *emphatically* cannot be cured- what then? Oh, of course, it’s all bunkum and snake oil- unless Western medicine happens to be involved, at which the doctors are more than happy to take credit for what has happened even when they have *no idea at all*.

My mother did everything her doctors told her to do when she had breast cancer, even when the procedures ended up giving her medically induced PTSD; guess what? *She died*. As did many of her aunts and her grandmother before her, who *also* followed to the letter the dictates of medical professionals. Where is the sanctimonious smugness then?

What utter heteronomy is here. No wonder the medical ‘profession’ has taken to the practice of *forcing* medical treatments onto those that don’t want them, even by using the courts to enforce their will: with such arrogance and self righteousness, what else can be expected?

RIP Jess. Thank you for changing my entire perception – taking me from being a careless, unhealthy, unhappy person to finding the strength within me to have a voice, do my own research, follow my heart, and surround myself with goodness and love. Your journey was a journey of inspiration and love, and your star will shine for ever. You have inspired me to change my life for the better and for that I will always be truly
grateful. Rest in peace earth angel xxx

Jess xx you were a true hero to so many people x RIP sweetheart.

you fought so hard & gave hope to so many people, you are the wellness warrior & always will be.
It’s a known fact that when you lose someone in your life, like your beautiful mother, it rocks your world including you immune system. Go now to join your mother sweetheart…. to good for this world xx RIP. Our deepest sympathy to Talon xx

Thanks RIMFIRE, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Interesting that people will swear black and blue that the medical industry heals people of cancer and yet Doctors themselves will never make the claim that they cure cancer, people generally die of the cancer treatments. The medical industry has the highest rate of deaths and lowest rate of survival, just don’t try to tell the general public that.