It'll come as no surprise to some of you that the culprit of the most recent of these claims is "Dr" Nancy Malik, who yesterday posted the following on twitter:
That's right, people, apparently mesothelioma is curable with "alternative and natural treatments". And so, with bated breath and already-slightly-higher blood pressure, I followed the link provided by I'm Not Really A Dr Malik. What I was faced with was, to say the least, rather misleading and made my blood boil. Take this paragraph for instance:
"If mesothelioma patients have the desire to maintain quality of life, often they will choose alternative and natural treatments for the disease. The survival rates for those having success with natural treatments greatly enhance quality of life during treatment due to the fact that they forego poisoning their systems using toxic chemicals that hamper the body's immune system."
In other words: if you choose conventional medicine, you're an idiot who is essentially killing themselves by choosing poison. So what would they recommend instead, this website which has no references at all to back up their claims, and who appear to be desperately trying to sell me various nonsense books?
There is one thing I can say in defense of this website is at least it appears to be peddling herbal medicines rather than homeopathy. I wonder if "Dr" Malik has realised this, as she seems to have been furiously retweeting and promoting things from this website.
They recommend Nigella sativa, celandine, mistletoe, and cat's claw. Oh really? let's check that, shall we, by having a lookie at the evidence for these products in mesothelioma, brb....
...
Nigella sativa: no evidence.
...
Celandine: insufficient evidence to rate effectiveness for cancer.
No evidence in mesothelioma
...
Mistletoe: insufficient evidence to rate effectiveness for cancer. No evidence in mesothelioma
...
Cat's claw: no evidence.
Well, that was quick then. For transparency, I checked the evidence using the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, a gold standard resource for information on herbal medicines.
This website does of course close with the obligatory "It's all a big conspiracy and big pharma and the medical profession just want everyone to die horribly" statement, so any teensy tiny miniscule scrap of plausability has gone out the window even without the total lack of evidence to back up their claims.
Do these people really not realise the danger they put people in by encouraging them not to use conventional medicine (which we have evidence to say it works at least some of the time) and to use alternative medicines (which there is zero evidence to say if it works or not) So where is the conspiracy here, folks? Is it really from the people who know about physiology and pharmacology, and who are primarily motivated to help people? Or does it come from the "alternative" camp, who seem hell bent on selling various books and expensive remedies and are happily peddling misinformation like there is no tomorrow?
H xxx
