Categories
Cancer Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Yet another clickbait testimonial manipulates emotions to make cancer quackery appear effective

Cancer quackery, particularly the false hope it engenders in cancer patients, infuriates me. Earlier this week The Sun published an article suggesting that a form of quackery called the Berkson protocol allowed a mother with metastatic pancreatic cancer to survive unexpectedly long enough to see her daughter married. It almost certainly did nothing of the sort.

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The deadly false hope of German cancer clinics, part 2: Metastasizing to Australia and beyond

Yesterday, I wrote about alternative medicine clinics in Germany that offer a combination of alternative cancer cures plus experimental therapeutics administered improperly outside the auspices of a clinical trial. In particular, I discussed two cases. The first was British actress Leah Bracknell, who is raising money to go to one of these alternative cancer clinics […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The deadly false hope of German cancer clinics

A couple of months ago, I discussed patient deaths at an alternative medicine clinic in Europe, where a naturopath named Klaus Ross had been administering an experimental cancer drug (3-bromopyruvate, or 3-BP) to patients outside the auspices of a clinical trial. 3-BP is a drug that targets the Warburg effect, a characteristic of cancer cells […]

Categories
Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

Cancer patients do not need or want suggestions for alternative cancer cures

Over the last week or so, I’ve noticed (or had brought to my attention) a series of articles discussing a phenomenon related to alternative medicine that I don’t believe that I’ve addressed before, at least not directly anyway. I had filed some of these in my folder of topics for blogging, but somehow never got […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking Surgery

“Autism-induced” breast cancer

Gayle DeLong has been diagnosed with what she refers to as “autism-induced” breast cancer.” She’s even given it an abbreviation, AIBC. Unfortunately, as you might be able to tell by the name she’s given her breast cancer, she is also showing signs of falling into the same errors in thinking with respect to her breast […]