When Alternative Practitioners Promise More Than They Deliver

BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT

How can you best evaluate the claims of those who say they can prevent or cure complex diseases such as cancer?

Claims and Counterclaims

From what some opponents of alternative therapy say (see Alternative Therapy Critics and Skeptics), mainstream medicine is the only model for health. From what some proponents of alternative therapy say (as discussed below), these methods can not only promote health, they can "prevent" and "cure" complex diseases such as cancer.

As with many things in life, evaluating therapies that lie outside the mainstream of medicine is not quite as easy as dismissing them all or accepting them all. The crux of the matter lies in the claims of the people who practice these techniques or promote these products.

Responsible professionals will not make claims for what cannot be demonstrated through rigorous studies and empirical evidence. Certainly there are thousands of people whose back pain has been relieved by a visit to a chiropractor. But if you believe a chiropractor can cure cancer, I have a bridge I want to sell in Brooklyn. Aspirin can do wonders for headaches, but it won't straighten a broken bone. Acupuncture has been shown to relieve pain and nausea, but no reputable practitioner would claim it can cure multiple sclerosis..

Thus, we will all be better off when we get past the idea that conventional and alternative medicine are opposites. Medicine is medicine. When acupuncture is used for cancer pain, it's a medical practice. When acupuncture is used for curing cancer, it's quackery.

In other words, if there is a therapy outside the mainstream that can produce results, it should not be considered an "alternative" to standard treatment. It should become one of the standard treatments, at least to the extent that all treatment choices carry a statistical probability of success or failure. For example, some chemotherapy drugs have low rates of success but are still considered part of the arsenal of treatment because they appear to at least have a chance of working. When a patient can tolerate the side effects, it may be considered better than nothing at all. When therapies that are currently called "alternative" are shown to work in more than a few anecdotal cases, they will no longer be an alternative to conventional treatment.

Yet even when reputable studies of "alternative" approaches point to an improvement in survival, there are many questions that must be explored in order to define the factor that made the difference. For example, was a statistical improvement the result of the technique per se, the selection of subjects for the study, or something else? In David Spiegel's much noted study, women with metastasized breast cancer survived twice as long as a control group when they participated in a support group that included imagery exercises. What made the difference? Was it is the camaraderie of the women, the coping skills they learned or the imagery (or self-hypnosis) they learned?

Although we may not have extensive research on many alternative therapies, if any seem to be effective in improving quality of life and have no known harmful side-effects, then they should be included, together with standard treatment, in what is called an "integrative medicine" approach. This greater sense of well-being may then contribute to longer survival in ways we don't yet understand. Of course, it may even be possible that it is the technique itself which can make a statistically valid contribution toward survival and even cure — but this will require a level of proof that will have to be demonstrated over a long period of time with many patients.

We have a long way to go before many claims for alternative therapies can live up to their hype. Consider the following.

When Alternative Success is "Suppressed"

In 1997, when I was executive director of CancerOnline [a program no longer active], I received a request for information about a Dr. Nordstrom's claim for a cancer cure based on electric currents. In my reply, I offered my skepticism about therapists who claim their work is suppressed. Here is what I said.

Dear Mary,

While I wish you good luck in finding the information you want and would very much like to get a copy of it, together with the results of any of his research, for several reasons I am very skeptical of anyone who claims to have THE answer to cancer (let alone THE answer to all cell biology) and who says his or her treatment has been suppressed by the medical establishment. Why?

1. It is tempting to have a single answer to a complex disease like cancer, but not very logical.

I find this especially true because I have heard of dozens of theories that portend to be THE answer (one of the "unifying" theories some people believe has to do with cells not having enough oxygen). They can't all be THE answer. So one of the questions that comes to mind is this, "How is that there are more than one hundred different kinds of cancer and they have different rates of cure? If there is ONE thing that underlies all of them, why such discrepancy?"

2. It doesn't make sense to talk about conspiracy theories and claim the medical establishment has conspired — because of greed and power — to keep their treatment out of the hands of the public.

Consider this. There are tens of thousands of researchers around the world working to find a cure for cancer. Are they all altruistic? Of course not. There will always be people who would suppress the research of others, just as there are college students who would cheat on tests or destroy another person's paper just to get ahead. But I know a number of researchers with a great deal of integrity who are working with tremendous diligence and intelligence to find a cure. However, let's assume that an unreasonably high 90% of cancer researchers are selfish, power- and money-grabbing. There would still at least 10% who would NOT suppress the results from someone else's research just because it wouldn't give them prestige and money.

3. What kind of argument can be made concerning those who are doing research and want to save the life of a loved one — or their own life?

What possible purpose could there be of suppressing what would be a very personal cure? This argument, for me, seems the most compelling of all.

4. If anyone really had a cure for all cancers, that person would make a zillion dollars and be more famous than any other person in the history of cancer research!

Any researcher who paired up with someone like Dr. Nordstrom and was willing to promote the cure would get a big piece of the action. Why would no one be interested? Is no one else as intelligent as they?

Finally, in the specific case of Dr. Nordstrom, I would point out that the knowledge about electric currents in and between cells has been known for many years and there are many scientists who are exploring what it might mean. About twenty years ago I worked for a short time with a man who was testing a simple bandage with positive and negative ends on either side of the gauze. This allowed current to flow across a gauze and preliminary trials seemed to show that it could decrease the time needed for healing. Don't know what happened to that idea since then, but while Dr. Nordstrom may have done some work in exploring what these electrical impulses mean, he wasn't the only person to notice it.

However, for me this brings up another bothersome issue concerning those who would claim they are the originator of a unique idea. Results of one researcher always build on the work of others, although some scientists may have a more intuitive grasp of a new concept and make greater progress than another person.

Didn't intend to bend your ear this much, but wanted to set down my reasons for being very skeptical of such claims. I DO believe the medical establishment doesn't have every answer and may overlook a good idea if it doesn't fit the prevalent theory at the moment. The history of medicine is replete with examples. However, to put total faith into someone who claims he or she has THE answer may waste time when evidence-based treatment has a better chance of success—though never a guarantee. Even if such treatment isn't available, you might be wasting money on questionable treatment.

On the other hand, as we note several places in CancerOnline, hope is extremely important, and if you (or the loved one for whom you're searching for information) wants to use an alternative treatment, your faith in that treatment MAY be the very thing that makes it work.

Sincerely,

Arlene Harder

When Alternative Medicine is Oversold

I once received a request to link to a website selling a product deemed capable of curing cancer and a variety of other ills. When I asked them if there was any evidence of the efficacy of the product, the response was that no, he didn't have studies to back up his claims, but he didn't need statistics. He "knew" his product worked. That same unsubstantiated confidence in alternative therapy is found in the mission statement of the Alternative Medicine website:

My name is Burton Goldberg, the founder and publisher of alternativemedicine.com. I've been a businessman for over fifty years. My interest is in results, so let us get right to the point.

Two systems of health care are available in this country today: conventional Western medicine and alternative medicine. Conventional practitioners are medical doctors who practice by the book, and commonly align themselves with the multibillion dollar pharmaceutical industry. Sanctioned by the American Medical Association, these doctors practice medicine that is superb when it comes to surgery, emergency and trauma.

But there's no question that alternative medicine works better for just about everything else, especially for chronic degenerative diseases like cancer, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and for more common aliments such as asthma, gastrointestinal disorders, headaches, and sinusitis. Alternative medicine also focuses on empowering the mind and body to achieve optimum health in order to prevent illness. It reverses the underlying causes of disease to provide a lasting cure, instead of treating only the symptoms. I know this approach has a lot to offer you.

That's the reason for our website, books and magazines. They represent the collective wisdom of thousands of alternative physicians and practitioners worldwide who are practicing the medicine of the future today for your benefit.

I wonder where Mr. Goldberg gets the evidence to support his statement that "alternative medicine works better . . . for cancer." I certainly couldn't find it on the site, although I did find opportunities to make some money off alternative therapies. Certainly it would be wonderful if these approaches could really "provide a lasting cure." But I'm left with the old question, "Where's the beef?" In other words, where's the proof?

Like the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, we believe you should have access to scientific studies that explore the effectiveness of these techniques. Read everything you can and make up your own mind.

© Copyright 1998, Revised 2002, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT