This article arrived in one of my news feeds when it came out a few days ago. I get alternative medicine news and read a lot of it. I also this week got this image and it is related to this thread so I thought I would post it for you folks.

S&F on the thread OP.

Is laughing at that title bad?
I dont think so pharmacists # with us by giving us 'antidotes' that just make us worse paying them more and more. And this hapens to them. AHAHAHA they deserve exactly what they are getting. I just hope the die faster from the cancer.

Originally posted by arpanet

First this data has been collected from 9 states(San Francisco, Connecticut, Detroit, Hawaii, Iowa, New Mexico, Seattle, Utah, and Atlanta).

False. SEER collects from regional cancer registries based in about twenty states. These registries are not local, they are regional.

Secondly your failed attempt to somehow associate chemotherapeutics as the cause for this less than miraculous 10% increase in survival rate made me laugh.

When I post a link, please actually click it. The first page was very clearly labele "ALL CANCER SITES". When you combine the survival of ALL cancers, of course the survival increase won't look as impressive. Pancreatic cancer is still incredibly fatal, as are a few other forms.

If you took the time to click down just a couple of pages, you would see different cancers with twenty and thirty percent increases in survival.

I could say that the minor increase in survival rate starting in the 70's was due to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty being enacted, but it would have about as much relevance to the data as chemotherapy...

Quit using strawmen arguments. It is well documented that the introduction of modern chemotherapeutics has increased the survival of cancers dramatically. We are even reaching about 90% five year survival for breast cancer, something that was unheard of even a decade ago, and it is purely thanks to taxol and other chemotherapeutic agents.

If all these alternative medicines are as effective as you say, then why has the survival rate of cancer not increased to 100%? The same claim could be made about these alternative cures.

And asking the doctor to drink chemotherapy when he doesn't need it? What kind of crap is that. I call cowpoo on that one. A doctor won't take medicine he doesn't need and rightfully so, I wouldn't either. I guarantee any oncologist that came down with cancer would receive chemotherapy as a treatment.

You still fail to realize that the alternative medicine and traditional medicine fields make exactly the same claims against each other and spread the same propaganda and are both lucrative businesses.

Originally posted by dbloch7986
If all these alternative medicines are as effective as you say, then why has the survival rate of cancer not increased to 100%? The same claim could be made about these alternative cures.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, can be a sure thing in medicine. Not conventional. Not alternative. And I never said that the alternative methods were 100% effective (because nothing can be). There are too many variables in cancer that make that impossible. BUT if we could get conventional medicine to stop marginalizing natural therapies, maybe the cancer survival rate could be increased.

There is some fantastic research being done on graviola! It's even on pubmed to keep our conventional medicine friends happy.

I met a woman in the grocery store one day a few months ago. She asked me what I did for a living and I told her that I was in school to become a Naturopath but was already a Nutritional Consultant & Master Herbalist. She chose at that point to tell me that she was diagnosed with breast cancer 25 years ago. She went through chemo & radiation went into remission & it came back 5 years later. She decided to begin fresh juicing fruits & vegetables. She basically turned vegetarian and only eats meat on occasion. She has been back and the tumor shrank & disappeared and has not returned according to her story. And yet, conventional medicine counts her in the fold of their "survival rate" even though they had nothing to do with her survival.

I think there was a woman with Stage IV inoperable cancer that did the same thing and was on Oprah a few years ago. She went to juicing and vegetarianism (I am not vegetarian by the way), and the tumor stopped growing and she's alive & well.

I guarantee any oncologist that came down with cancer would receive chemotherapy as a treatment.

Actually, if you look at that research by Dr. Abel that I posted the link to, of the Dr's he surveyed, 75% would not take chemotherapy. To be fair, I think he only surveyed the doctors at his research hospital, so I am not sure how many doctors that included. I would have to dig further. Still your assertion is incorrect.

You still fail to realize that the alternative medicine and traditional medicine fields make exactly the same claims against each other and spread the same propaganda and are both lucrative businesses.

Forgive me, but I don't see any Naturopath's driving BMW's. And any one in the field that's worth a damn is going to tell you NOT to buy your vitamins at Walmart or the grocery because they are crap and are not bioavailable to begin with. The SUPPLEMENT industry is lucrative...and most of it is crap. Unless you are taking wholefood supplements that cover minerals as well, you aren't doing yourself any good.

If chemo is only 10% more effective in 40 years for some cancers, then why are they still using it? Why not move on to something else? With all the billions that have been dumped into cancer research, this is the best they've got? Okay...some have seen a 30% increase in "survival rate" (as bogus as I think that is), so continue using chemo for those cancers that it appears to help and come up with something else for the ones that have only shown a 10% increase in survival. Revamp the way "survival" is calculated because 7 years after your diagnosed with cancer and your counted as "cured" but "cured" & dead isn't fair, now is it?

I didn't say modern medicine should be done away with. If you read back over my posts, I said that it certainly has it's place but I think that true numbers of efficacy should be given. I actually believe quite a bit in integrated medicine. My allopathic friend above, does not.

It's not that I fail to realize anything. I simply disagree with you.

Originally posted by VneZonyDostupa

False. SEER collects from regional cancer registries based in about twenty states. These registries are not local, they are regional.

Then please explain to me why at the bottom of every page on there it says "Based on the SEER 9 areas (San Francisco, Connecticut, Detroit, Hawaii, Iowa, New Mexico, Seattle, Utah, and Atlanta)."

When I post a link, please actually click it. The first page was very clearly labele "ALL CANCER SITES". When you combine the survival of ALL cancers, of course the survival increase won't look as impressive. Pancreatic cancer is still incredibly fatal, as are a few other forms.

Oh I am sorry you should have mentioned beforehand that you wanted me to ignore certain sections of that data that negatively portrays your point.

Quit using strawmen arguments. It is well documented that the introduction of modern chemotherapeutics has increased the survival of cancers dramatically. We are even reaching about 90% five year survival for breast cancer, something that was unheard of even a decade ago, and it is purely thanks to taxol and other chemotherapeutic agents.

I understand when someone attacks an already incredibly weak argument it could look like they are using a strawmen, but when you realize that I haven't replaced any of your prepositions and just destroyed your original argument it becomes easy to see who is trying to use a strawman. If it is so well documented feel free to provide that data, and I hope it is better than the last link you posted.

Just to reiterate you were trying to use statistics from 9 states, claiming it was nationwide/worldwide. The data is purely survival rate, and your claiming the 10% survival increase from the 70's to 2006 is due to chemotherapeutics; which is fine because that is merely your opinion and not fact. I just want to make sure everyone is on the same page.


It is like talking to a wall sometimes...
Great thread OP sorry for derailing it

[edit on 15-7-2010 by arpanet]