A victory of reason over SCAM: Britt Hermes wins an important court case!

Time for celebrations and congratulations!

Why?

You might remember the story; over a year ago, I reported that a SCAM practitioner was suing a critic:

‘Doctor’ Colleen Huber (DCH) is the US naturopath who is currently suing Britt Hermes. For me, this is enough reason to do a bit of reading and find out who DCH is and what motivates her. Here is what I found out (I added some * to the quotes [all in italics] and comments below).

DCH has an impressive presence on the Internet. One website, for instance, tells us that DCH is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor* in Tempe, Arizona. Her clinic, Nature Works Best Cancer Clinic, has had the most successful results of any clinic in the world reporting its results over the last 9 years **.

Dr. Huber authored the largest and longest study*** in medical history on sugar intake in cancer patients, which was reported in media around the world in 2014. Her other writing includes her book, Choose Your Foods Like Your Life Depends On Them ****, and she has been featured in the books America’s Best Cancer Doctors and Defeat Cancer. Dr. Huber’s academic writing has appeared in The Lancet *****, the International Journal of Cancer Research ***** and Molecular Mechanisms *****,  and other medical journals ******. Her research interests are in the use of therapeutic approaches targeting metabolic aspects of cancer…

*I am puzzled by this title. Is it an official one? I only found this, and it omits the ‘medical’: Currently, 20 states, five Canadian provinces, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have passed laws regulating naturopathic doctors. Learn more about licensure from the Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges. It seems that Arizona is the only state where the ‘medical’ is allowed. However, don’t take this to mean that DCH went to medical school.

** ‘most successful results of any clinic in the world’? Really? Where are the comparative statistics?

*** the study had all of 317 patients and was published in an obscure, non-Medline listed journal.

**** currently ranked  #1,297,877 in Books on Amazon.

***** no such entries found on Medline.

****** sorry, but my Medline search for ‘huber colleen’ located only 2 citations, both on arthritis research conducted in an US Pfizer lab and therefore probably not from ‘our’ DCH.

Another website on or by DCH informs us that her outfit Nature Works Best is a natural cancer clinic located in Tempe, Arizona, that focuses on natural, holistic, and alternative cancer treatments. Our treatments have proved to be an effective alternative to traditional chemotherapy and radiation, which we do not use in our treatments. Rather, we have developed a natural method of treating cancers based on intravenous vitamin therapy which may include Vitamin-C, Baking Soda, and other tumor fighting agents as well as a simple food plan. *

Our team of naturopathic medical doctors have administered an estimated 31,000 IV nutrient treatments, used for all stages and types of tumors. As of July 2014, 80% of patients who completed our treatments alone went into remission, 85% of patients who completed our treatments and followed our food plan went into remission. **

* Give me a break! Vitamin-C and Baking Soda are claimed to have proved to be an effective alternative to traditional chemotherapy and radiation ? I would like to see the data before I believe this!

** Again, I would like to see the data before I believe this!

Finally, a further website proudly repeats that her academic writing has appeared in The Lancet and Cancer Strategies Journal, and other medical journals. It even presents an abstract of her published work; here it is:

Recent recommendations for the more widespread prescription of statin drugs in the U.S. have generated controversy.  Cholesterol is commonly thought to be the enemy of good health.  On the other hand, previous research has established the necessity of cholesterol in production of Vitamin D and steroid hormones, among other purposes, some of which have been shown to have anti-cancer effect.  We compare total serum cholesterol (TC) in cancer survivors vs cancer fatalities, and we assess the value of deliberately lowering TC among cancer patients.  We also examined diet in the survivors as well as those who then died of cancer.

In this original previously unpublished research, we conducted a double-blind retrospective case series, in which we looked back at data from all 255 cancer patients who came to and were treated by our clinic with either current dietary information, and/or a recent serum TC level, measured by an unaffiliated laboratory or an unaffiliated clinic over the previous seven years, comparing TC in the surviving cancer patients versus those cancer patients who died during that time.

Surviving cancer patients had 24.0 points higher mean total cholesterol than the mean for deceased cancer patients.  A number of dietary differences between cancer survivors and those who then died of cancer were also found to be notable.

Caution is advised before attempting to lower cholesterol in cancer patients with close to normal TC levels.  Those cancer patients with higher TC were more likely to survive their cancer.

I don’t know about you, but I am not impressed. Surviving cancer patients had 24.0 points higher mean total cholesterol than the mean for deceased cancer patients. Has DCH thought of the possibility that moribund patients quite simply eat less? In which case, the observed difference would be a meaningless epiphenomenon.

At this point, I stopped my reading; I now knew more than I needed to know about DCH (if you want to read more, I recommend this or this post).

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, DCH is currently suing Britt Hermes for libel…

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Yesterday Britt Hermes reported that she has won the court case:

On May 24, 2019, the District Court (Landgericht) of Kiel, Germany ruled against naturopathic cancer quack Colleen Huber in a defamation lawsuit she brought against me. Huber filed suit in September 2017 over my opinions about the dubious treatments and human subjects research at her cancer clinic in Tempe, Arizona (USA), and also over my suspicions that Huber was cybersquatting domains in my name…

In a blog post from December 2016, I theorized that Huber or someone in her close orbit had registered domains using my first and last names to misrepresent my position on naturopathic “doctors.” You can view the archive of brittmariehermes.com from 31 March 2016 here. In my post, I also wrote about Huber’s dubious cancer treatments of intravenous baking soda, mega-doses of intravenous vitamin C, and a strict sugar-free diet. Huber advocates against state-of-the-art oncology, especially chemotherapy and radiation, because she thinks these therapies strengthen cancer…

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I am sure that many readers of the blog want to join me in congratulating Britt.

VERY WELL DONE INDEED!