This survey evaluated the attitude of healthcare professionals toward the use of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) to improve current care. A questionnaire on the current practice and opinions about SCAM use was sent to healthcare professionals in Amsterdam UMC, who work for the department of hematology or oncology. Oncologists, hematologists, residents, (specialized) nurses, dieticians, (hospital)pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians were asked to participate.
Among eligible healthcare professionals, 77 responded to the questionnaire (34%). Overall, 87% of healthcare
professionals indicated it is important to be aware of their patient’s SCAM use, and all find the potential of drug–herb interactions important. However, more than half of the healthcare professionals inquire about the patient’s SCAM use infrequently. In addition, only 15% of the healthcare professionals stated they had sufficient knowledge of SCAM to advise patients on their use of SCAM.
The authors concluded that healthcare professionals are aware of the potential risks of SCAM use in combination with anti-cancer treatment. However, SCAM use is not yet discussed with every patient. This may be due to healthcare professionals’ lack of knowledge about SCAM.
This survey would in itself be fairly irrelevant; it employed only a tiny convenience sample and its findings cannot be generalized. Yet, it produced results that have been shown dozens of times before, and it might therefore be a good idea to remind ourselves of their relevance and implications.
- Patients use SCAM whether we want it or not.
- Contrary to what is often said, SCAM is not harmless.
- Therefore conventional healthcare professionals need to know about their patients’ SCAM use.
- To find out, healthcare professionals need to ask specific questions about SCAM.
- Next, they must advise their patients responsibly (this is an ethical obligation, not a choice).
- In order to do that they need to learn the essentials about SCAM.
- Failing to do this means failing their patients.
49 Responses to The attitude of healthcare professionals toward SCAM for cancer
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I disagree with bullet point 2 (e.g. part of my own SCAM is eating mainly organic, whole food), but agree with all the other bullet points.
Also my oncologist seems interested in the SCAM I used to impose on him before covid-lockdowns etc when we used to meet, face to face (e.g. The Society of Cells by Sonnenschein and Soto – the SMT of cancer is wrong).
These days we examine my previous nuclear bone-scans together and while he sees “half empty” new spots “…progression…” I see the “half-full” old-spots that have vanished “…regression…” – so we agree to disagree – it’s all very amicable.
thank you – that must mean that point 2 is particularly true
And all healthcare professionals should endeavour to be better informed about SCAM by purchasing ‘Real Secrets of Alternative Medicine’ via Amazon!
Ernst, dear chap,
I think you may have overlooked some possibilities in your hit-list. Perhaps there is an unexamined perspective:
* Contrary to what is often said (by pseudo-skeptics and competing Pharma), CAM may possibly be helpful at several levels.
* in that regard, you will recall from your basic science that lack of evidence is not evidence of absence (of effect or of adverse effect).
* if something does actually help, and is not harmful, I submit that (contrary to common appeal to ridicule) it _does not matter_ that the claim may be novel or extraordinary. Further investigation may be prompted by such observations, and may be useful.
* if clinicians are CAM-phobic and uninformed to the extent that they dismiss all mention of CAM, and forbid their patient to use any (without any real evidence that they should forbid such things), then patients may well not tell the clinician what they are doing, and nothing is learned either way. This applies even when the clinician is simply trying to to be officious about protocols.
It is a basic principle of Quality Assurance to avoid blame in reporting, and that without data nothing can be improved.
* Also in that circumstance, covert use of CAM by patients would present confounding factors, distorting research results and possibly making medical compounds seem more effective than they are, which would be a terrible thing.
* in respect to uninformed prejudice, I feel that the honest economic observer should not discount that any positive CAM outcomes are not favourable to Pharma’s pretence to superiority, nor to their balance sheets. Bearing in mind that conventional treatments are mooted to be a major _cause_ of death (Starfield Report, #death-by-medicine), deaths which are unreported therefore un-addressed by US CDC on the feeble grounds that there is no relevant insurance code for iatrogenic injury – whereas CAM deaths are vanishingly rare. Despite the coffin-chasers.
I have certainly come across anecdotal evidence that these points pertain, but I do not know of any definitive results. How surprising. I recall (as an unsubstantiable personal anecdote), a liver disease patient who was told by his specialist that he was doing best of his cohort, and did not tell the specialist what else he was using because of the specialist’s attitude to such things. Feel free to come up with the first unexamined alternative hypothesis that may occur to you.
I believe that prejudice does not belong in open inquiry. Pseudo-skeptics and bean-counters may disagree.
And I realise your personal views may differ.
my personal views are fairly irrelevant; what counts in healthcare is evidence – not ‘anecdotal evidence’ which is no evidence. sadly your platitudinal outburst was devoid of it.
@Will
Do you have evidence for this? Because according to the evidence that I know of, SCAM has never been proven useful for any type of cancer. Yes, kickstarting a grueling Gerson diet regime with several daily coffee enemas and other forms of extreme self-abuse may give a cancer patient a certain feeling of taking control, of making a personal, positive contribution – but it is a false feeling of control and may even be harmful, as these ‘treatments’ often make people weaker instead of stronger.
Please don’t get me wrong, and I try to keep it as respectful as possible, but when you offer or even just suggest alternative ‘treatments’ to cancer patients, you better have damn good evidence that it is indeed beneficial for those people. I’ve seen too many sickening cases where alternative vultures rob desperate patients not just of large sums of money, but also of their last weeks or months of life – time that is wasted on useless but extremely intensive ‘treatments’ instead of on quality time with their loved ones. And perhaps less egregious but still very Wrong are all those well-meaning people who offer a cancer patient ‘advice’ about how their neighbor’s sister’s friend saw her cancer disappear through supplement X or superfood Y.
To put it rather more clearly: alternative treatment X has no evidence going for it? Then sod off with it.
Sure. But so far, not a single form of SCAM has been found effective in any way. And no, anecdotal evidence is no evidence – especially if this anecdotal evidence consists of testimonies from patients of the aforementioned vultures, or from some friend or neighbor who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Can you come up with even ONE more or less effective cancer treatment that was used as an alternative treatment, and subsequently discovered and developed into an even more successful treatment? Nope, neither can I. So no SCAM for cancer patients unless you can come up with very compelling science-based evidence that it actually helps.
Wrong. Clinicians have not come across even ONE effective form of SCAM, so ignoring it or dismissing it out of hand it in fact the most sensible course of action. They should not waste time on unproven quackery.
Doctors never forbid their patients anything. Worst case, they will refuse to treat a patient any further if the SCAM practitioner’s ‘treatment’ interferes with their treatment. And unfortunately, it DOES happen that SCAM practitioners e.g. persuade their victims to refuse chemo, or meddle in the real doctor’s treatment plan.
Once again: if you want to argue that cancer patients should receive certain SCAM treatments, then you better have damn good evidence that it is indeed beneficial for those people. No evidence? Then no go.
Are you really arguing here that patients who secretly undergo SCAM ‘treatments’ may make real medicine look better than it actually is? There is in fact good evidence for the exact opposite, in more than one way:
– Research shows that cancer patients who use SCAM are on average worse off than cancer patients who don’t. They tend to suffer more and die sooner.
– And in cases where patients get cured from their cancer while using both real medicine and SCAM, it often happens that they attribute the success to the SCAM treatment, whereas it was almost certainly the real treatment and not the quackery that cured them.
Yes, I may be seriously prejudiced against SCAM, but that is most certainly NOT because I am uninformed – quite the opposite, in fact. I am very much against cancer quackery because careful, thorough evaluation of all available evidence so far has turned up NO EVIDENCE AT ALL THAT IT WORKS – and especially Edzard has sought long and hard for any such evidence.
It is in fact always ill-informed people and of course the aforementioned vultures who argue that we should give cancer quackery a chance, because who knows, maybe it’ll work this time – no, we don’t, and no, it doesn’t.
Sure. But if quackery has NEVER been proven even moderately beneficial, then it is no longer prejudice to reject it, but good sense. I also saves patients from paying for and wasting time useless SCAM ‘treatments’, and prevents them from getting sold false hope.
So once again, if you have compelling scientific evidence that any alternative treatment is indeed beneficial for cancer patients, then please show us that evidence. If this treatment indeed turns out to be effective, the world will be eternally thankful, and it may even lead to a Nobel Prize. But I for one am not going to hold my breath.
Richard Rasker on Monday 12 June 2023 at 21:37 said:
“…if you want to argue that cancer patients should receive certain SCAM treatments, then you better have damn good evidence that it is indeed beneficial for those people. No evidence? Then no go…”
It is not up to you or anyone else, but the patient who decides what is going to happen.
Fury has no part in that, only reason and consideration.
Force is not the way.
yes, the patient decides – but he/she needs reliable info, not BS
@Old Bob
Cancer patients should NOT have the option to ‘choose’ treatments that do not work, and only serve to increase a quack’s bank balance and/or their status as a ‘guru’. Which means that quacks should be banned from offering any cancer treatments. I believe that England is one of the few countries where no-one is allowed to offer or advise cancer treatments for which there is no evidence (although I seriously doubt how effective this law is, given that in 30 years, only 25 persons have been convicted for cancer quackery).
And no, this does not infringe on a patient’s freedom to choose the treatment they want. Because many desperate patients with cancer or other terminal diseases will often try anything that is offered as a ‘cure’ – especially if the treatment is advertised as mild and painless. Alternative cancer treatments may well be the most sickening type of SCAM there is, because it preys on desperate, extremely vulnerable people, who believe that it may help them stay alive. Sadly, it never does.
So I would not mind if it takes (legal) force to stop those practitioners from offering their useless treatments.
Richard Rasker on Tuesday 13 June 2023 at 08:30 said:
“…So I would not mind if it takes (legal) force to stop those practitioners from offering their useless treatments…”
This is the argument used throughout history by Tyranny: “It’s for your own protection. We know best.”
@Old Bob
Ah, so protecting people from fraud and deception is now ‘tyranny’? Then again, exposing and correcting disinformation is ‘censorship’ according to you, so please forgive me for not taking your comments too seriously.
Richard Rasker on Tuesday 13 June 2023 at 13:22 said:
“Ah, so protecting people from fraud and deception is now ‘tyranny’? Then again, exposing and correcting disinformation is ‘censorship’…”
It is when it is done by force that it becomes the definition of tyranny.
Alternatively, by allowing freedom of speech (the right to one’s own life) one is allowed to choose for oneself, the opposite of tyranny: freedom.
The powers-that-be argue that the common-man is too stupid to choose for himself hence Authority passes laws against him, for “his own good”, “for his own protection”, “for the common good” – do you really want to live in a society like that? Where Matt Hancock is in charge?
I was told by my neighbor, who is a snake oil salesman that drinking a glass of snake oil every day is good for health. Therefore, I made a well-informed decision to have a tap installed at my home that supplies snake oil 24/7/365. It cost me a lot of money, but I got an unfretted supply of snake oil. Everyone has the right to have snake oil pumped into their homes, any laws that disrupt the supply of snake oil is considered tyranny. A famous person once said: “Give me snake oil, or give me death!”
Therefore, LET THE SNAKE OIL FLOW!!!
@Old Bob
Well, yes, this is basically true. Virtually no-one is capable of making a good choice about any medical treatments all by themselves without proper medical education. Which means that 99% of people base their choice on what OTHERS tell them – both doctors and alternative practitioners.
The problem is that the latter group is by definition deceiving these patients as they have woefully lacking medical knowledge. So we must try to prevent that patients listen to these people – in the interest of those patients themselves.
You must be one of the stupidest people alive – as we already live in such a society. In fact, EVERY society with functioning laws has countless laws that are meant to protect people – not just from what others can do to them, but also from their own misjudgements and mistakes.
I have no idea who Mr Hancock is, and I won’t waste any more time looking it up.
Yes, but it needs to be an informed decision. Not misinformed.
Mojo on Tuesday 13 June 2023 at 10:28 said:
“Yes, but it needs to be an informed decision. Not misinformed.”
And who is to be the judge of that, experts? As the fella said, “50% of what you have learned in medical school is wrong. The trouble is, we don’t know which half.”
YES!
Let’s all go to our hairdresser or car mechanic when in need of medical advice.
@Old Bob
Even if this were true, it still does not detract from the fact that 99% of what alternative practitioners do is wrong.
Furthermore, doctors are obliged by law to continuously update and improve their knowledge and skills after medical school – quite contrary to alternative practitioners, I may add.
Richard Rasker on Tuesday 13 June 2023 at 16:25 said:
“Even if this were true, it still does not detract from the fact that 99% of what alternative practitioners do is wrong…”
If “this were true” then the 50/50 rule divides 99%-wrong into 49.5%-wrong/49.5%-true.
“Furthermore, doctors are obliged by law to continuously update and improve their knowledge…”
Driving medicine by force-of-law further isolates the patient, putting the politician in the way of the physician: should he attend to his patient or the law? What does the Law know about medicine? Would Ashya King’s cancer have been cured by the NHS if his parents had obeyed UK law? No one knew at the time. It *has* to be the parent’s choice, not the choice of some court of law or the choice of the NHS or the choice of some doctor.
@Old Bob
Patients are always better off when quacks are not allowed to treat people with their useless and sometimes even harmful rubbish.
In fact, deceiving people by selling them bad products and services is explicitly prohibited by law – in all areas EXCEPT medicine.
So please stop your dumb drivel, defending quackery at all cost.
And people are constantly working to identify bits that are wrong and make them less wrong. As with any part of science it will never be entirely correct, but it can always be made less wrong than it was yesterday. Quacks and their apologists persistently try to portray this as a weakness of science rather than a strength.
The lack of this sort of examination is the reason that CAM continues to be a collection of fossilised mistakes.
Old Bob:
Would you like to tell when it was that the Dean of Harvard Medical School said that?
I am continually mystified why real health professions do not call out SCAM more. I constantly see social media comments like ‘well everyone has got to make a living!!!
hear, hear!
by that rationale peddling heroin is similarly acceptable
A friend of mine with colorectal cancer chose to go with SCAM all the way till his death one year after diagnosis. He lost 15 years of his life due to the idiocy of SCAM practitioners who misled him with fictitious gibberish. He wanted a cure, wanted to survive, but by the time he agreed to real treatment, it was too late. Keep up the good work exposing this deadly trade.
My step son was diagnosed likewise with cancer in his bowel. He had it removed successfully, and the colostomy reversed OK. The very last hospital test (the whole process was just over a year) showed that the cancer had traveled to his liver and he died three months later.
He had a terrible diet, was 50 years old, and I used to cook him fillet steaks to cheer him up, because I had the same terrible diet and thought it was the best thing to do.
During that entire time, 18 months or so, I had no idea that there was any alternative to surgery. I believed absolutely in it and in hospitals and modern drugs and this experience made no difference because, after all, cancer is so deadly.
When I was diagnosed myself with prostate cancer, I did the pelvic-floor exercises in preparation for the removal of my prostate and it was only two weeks before that date that I had the nuclear bone scan results that said it had metastasized to my bones and the operation was pointless.
It was only then, trying to find out how long I would last by scanning the internet (the hospital would not say, from that point on, I was on my own) that I noticed that diet might help and from that moment on, changed from meat-based to veg-based and started taking huge amounts of ascorbic acid (not the salts), avoided Na (except the latent amount of it in the food itself) and supplemented with K (using as protocol I have mentioned elsewhere but is frowned upon on this blog).
That was over five years ago.
@Old Bob
I’m genuinely sorry to hear about your prostate cancer, and perhaps even more so about your stepson’s tragic story.
But if it’s any consolation: bad lifestyle and dietary habits are estimated to only account for some 30% of the risk at most. The rest is just plain bad luck. Still, many people often find it very difficult to accept that, yes, bad sh*t just happens.
Also, this luck thing works both ways: once cancer is a fact, there isn’t much outside the realm of regular medicine that you can do about it. Yes, a healthy diet certainly helps keep you as healthy as possible, but there is no evidence that it does anything to slow down the progression of the disease, let alone cure it. Then again, if it makes you feel better, go with it. Just watch out for extreme dietary ‘treatments’ and especially the charlatans peddling them.
I wish you the very best, and hope that we may be annoyed by your comments for years to come 🙂
Thank you for your kindly sentiment, but let’s keep the tension up which makes for better debate 🙂
It is possible that my diet had no effect on my cancer, but I believe it is the reason for the cure of several other things namely fixing a certain loss of sense of smell, but best of all I lost 2 stone in a couple of months and my chronic sinusitis vanished, and I no longer needed to use Nasonex, so the cancer, that has never bothered me has sunk into the background while being able to breathe again and taste food is the big win here – also, I have started to eat a little of the good stuff now and again, we have (because my wife is the sole driver of the veg-food, without her I would be long gone), a couple of ounces of steak each, maybe four, five times a year. Finally I never get indigestion so bye bye Bisodol 🙂 – I think avoidance of sugar might be the reason behind that?
@Old Bob
The improvement you describe may very well be the result of your healthier diet and your weight loss.
I myself often notice that I develop a kind of chronic ‘hangover’ when eating too much carbs and taking too little exercise, usually around December (holidays, several family birthdays and less pleasant weather to go out in the fresh air). As soon as I stop overeating and climb on my bike again to make some mileage, things get much better almost instantaneously.
So I’d say keep up the healthy lifestyle on your side – and yes, there’s nothing wrong with indulging in a serious chunk of dead cow or some junkfood every now and then, just as long as it stays a special treat. I myself have some very tasty Bad Foods (e.g. home-made vegetarian pizza with several types of cheese … yum) that I must be careful about, so I cook just one of those ‘treat meals’ per month, usually when we have guests.
Anyway, it’s nice to agree on something for a change 🙂
@Old Bob
I don’t disagree with yourself analysis Bob…
RG:
I told you before but you might have forgotten – you need to apologize before being allowed back here.
Hey RG,
Without you it gets boring around here. You are our main source of
amusementnews from antivax world. Especially, when prominent antivaxxersfartblurt out asinine arguments against vaccines you waste no time to report on what theyate for dinnersaid.Have some remorse, apologize for what you said and EE may let you get back to commenting. We miss you, RG!
it’s my fault: I am not postig his comments until he apologizes for calling Richard a fascist.
@Edzard
I think the word ‘fault’ here is unjustified. It’s RG’s fault, and you simply ask for one civil response to correct that slip of the tongue before he’s allowed to participate again.
His stubborn refusal is alas something that I find consistent with lots of alternative practitioners, cranks and antivaxxers: never admit that you’re wrong, never apologize, and never change your mind. With the risk of sounding arrogant: I kind of feel sorry for him. Life is so much easier if you have a smile and some good words for everyone you meet, instead of assuming the worst all the time. (No, I do not always abide by that adage either – undue animosity can sometimes be quite a strong human trait.)
No one argues that a good diet can make anyone feel healthier, but this does nothing to support your countless assumptions about the causes, cures and treatments for cancers and your equally untruthful assumptions about medicine and Pharma.
“…countless assumptions…” ?
Quote one.
An example of Old Bob’s false assumptions…
Old Bob wrote: “after all, cancer is so deadly”.
Being born is 100% deadly, the end result is always death.
“cancer is so deadly”.
False assumption: cancer is a disease. Cancer is not a disease per se, it is the collective name for a type of disease. There are over 100 different known cancers that affect humans. In many, if not all, know cancers (pleural), the particular instance that the patient has, will be a defferentiated subtype of that known type of cancer.
At to mortality, see:
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancer_mortality_rates_in_the_United_States
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_survival_rates
Corrections:
defferentiated was supposed to be differentiated
At to mortality, see: — As to
Pete Attkins on Wednesday 21 June 2023 at 09:08 said
“An example of Old Bob’s false assumptions…
Old Bob wrote: ‘after all, cancer is so deadly’.”
That’s the penalty one pays for being unctuous.
“Prostate cancer
The National Institute of Health (NIH) attributes the increase in the 5-year relative survival of prostate cancer (from 69% in the 1970s to 100% in 2006)…”
So that’s alright then, no need to worry after all.
“So that’s alright then, no need to worry after all.”
Yet another of your false assumptions; a misrepresentation of what I wrote; and utter tosh.
Pete Attkins on Wednesday 21 June 2023 at 10:30 said
“ ‘So that’s alright then, no need to worry after all.’
Yet another of your false assumptions…”
Which is it to be, the literal or the sarcastic, that is false? – the one or its opposite?
Request has been completed.
Pete Attkins on Wednesday 21 June 2023 at 09:08 said:
“…Cancer is not a disease per se, it is the collective name for a type of disease. There are over 100 different known cancers that affect humans…”
James Watson disagrees. He thinks it’s a disease of metabolism.
And as Dr Paul Marik says, “Who am I to disagree with him? (video only 5 minutes long)”
https://vigilantfox.substack.com/p/cancer-demystified-the-untold-perspective?utm_source=substack
His pdf is:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Cancer-Care-2023-06-20.pdf
NB that today’s Daily Mail asks “What’s Behind the Worrying Rise of Cancer in Young People” (pages 30 – 31, DM, 27/06/2023) – it’s a mystery to the Establishment because they still believe in the SMT of cancer, although this article explains that diet (the lack of microbiome diversity) is likely a part of it…
Old Blob wrote:
James Watson is almost hundred years old and what he thinks is no longer in harmony with modern scientific knowledge. Paul Marik used to be a renowned clinician, with a strong emphasis on “used to be”. He seems to have lost his marbles some years ago and what he thinks is also not altogether in harmony with established facts.
Unfortunately it is frighteningly common for great thinkers to lose their mind and get caught up in grandiose delusions when age sets in. It is sometimes called the Nobel-disease.
Ignaz Semmelweis is 205 today, but what he said about hygiene back in the day, is still true, “madness” or not.
when I started working in Vienna in 1990, my first office allegedly had been Semmelweis’s
A friend with metastatic colorectal carcinoma decided to opt for tree frog venom, (harvested humanely of course!) herbal enemas and similar for the cure he wanted and only considered effective treatment when it was too late. He died one year after diagnosis and lost a decade or two of life. The idiots who advised him are nowhere to be seen after his demise and presumably, continue to extract cash from peoples pockets for the harm they cause. They are beneath contempt.
very sad – and unfortunately not an infrequent scenario.