So the fool was in clinic recently, and discovered a very alarming story. An unfortunate woman presented with a many month history of an exophytic, ulcerated, pedunculated breast cancer that was bulging out of one side of her chest! However, most alarming was that instead of opting for neo-adjuvant therapy, XRT etc… she was bent on using her “Naturopathy” therapy of Vitamins and special anti-tumor diet (she was proud to announce that she was paying $400/month in herbs from an “Educator”). What the heck??
If these “therapies” were soooo effective, then why was the mass growing to the size of a baseball on her chest! Oh, wait, it’s because the patient wasn’t taking her special sugar free diet! =) And she was using topical therapy for breast cancer! I’m not an oncologist, but hey– if you’re using topical therapy for breast cancer, that can’t be a good thing!
Also disturbing is that people selling these therapies have maybe case “reports” or “believe-it-or-not” type stories to sell their products, but when it comes right down to it, they are never responsible for patient outcomes. They just want the $! The poor medical doctors are getting sued for all sorts of ridiculous medical malpractice cases, while random kids and “healers” @ health food stores around the country are making a killing, selling random herbs and spices to cure the world’s ailments, and they never get sued! Nor are they even expected to be held accountable! So wrong on many levels!
And WHY, do so many people believe that if it’s “natural” it must be ok? First, who knows if it will work? I’m not denying that many plant products may have good effects, but why are they so willing to take a pill with some plant extract in it? How is that different than taking a “medicine?” And do people realize that many of today’s drugs are derived from plants, etc… and aren’t they “natural?” The stuff they sell in health food places is also processed to get to PILL form anyways!! And Hey, didn’t they know that stuff like Taxol is a natural product? I guess we should start telling people we’ll give them “Yew Tree Extract” instead. Maybe then people will go for it!
And at the end of the line, when this breast cancer takes over, what’s the health food guy gonna say then? Go Figure! – Fool