Happy New Year!

Is Marc Stephens Really A Representative Of Burzynski?

A few days ago jli blogged about a movie that claims to prove the efficacy of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s “antineoplastons” as a cancer cure.

After writing a post on Dr Stanislaw Burzynski, Andy Lewis of the Quackometer received legal threats from someone by the name of Marc Stephens, who claims to represent Burzynski.

This is not the first time this person threatens bloggers in this way. Peter Bowditch of Ratbags.com is another recent example.

The style of his emails does sound a bit lawyerish, but then again – not really.

Health Ranger Mike Adams And The Death of Steve Jobs

As was to be expected, it didn’t take Mike Adams long to inform the world of the cause of Steve Job’s death. It was of course, as it always is, conventional cancer treatments – chemotherapy and radiation in particular – and not cancer, for in Mike Adams’s world-of-miracles-that-never-happen, there is no such thing as dying from cancer.

Our Problem with Alternative Cancer Treatments

The purpose of this blog is to warn against alternative medicine, alternative medicine for cancer in particular. With alternative medicine we mean medical treatments which are used instead of standard therapy and for which there is no reliable indication of any efficacy.

No Blogging For The Time Being…

Due to personal circumstances I won’t be posting on this blog for the time being.

I thank you all for your input and wish you all the very best & hope to see you again soon.

Love,
Beatis

Why It Is Morally Wrong To Believe Something Without Good Evidence: Arthur Schafer on The Ethics of Belief

Some time ago we blogged about the “ethics of belief”, in which we discussed the question whether a person’s sincere belief can exonerate him when something goes wrong due to the consequences of his belief.

In October 2010, Professor Arthur Schafer, Director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba, gave a presentation for the  Winnipeg Skeptics, on the “Ethics of Belief” which we are happy to post here:

Suppressed by Scientists and Big Pharma: The Hidden Cancer Cure… But Which One??

Altmeds keep telling us that “they”  (science and “big pharma”) know there is a cure for cancer, but that this knowledge is hidden from us, “so that the multinational pharmaceuticals could continue to make money. Where would they be if diseases like cancer were easily curable?”

Alternative Medicine: Double Corruption

Last year we blogged about Kim Tinkham, who decided to treat her breast cancer with Robert O. Young’s alternative cancer treatment, which he proudly calls the “pH miracle” treatment.

On his website Young proclaimed that his pH miracle treatment had reversed Kim Tinkham’s cancer. Apparently Kim believed him, for she allowed Young to use her in several of his YouTube videos, in which she touted his treatment and stated that it had cured her of her breast cancer.

Why Are Breast Cancer Rates Increasing? Cancer Research UK Provides Some Answers

Breast cancer survival rates have been gradually improving for the past decades and more women are surviving breast cancer than ever before: 8 out of 10 women will now survive the disease for more than five years.  For stage I breast cancers the survival rate is even higher: 9 out of 10.

The downside is that the incidence rate of the disease has also gone up,  and the risk of developing breast cancer is now as high as 1 in 8. Sounds depressing, and the question of course is: why?

In their latest blog post, Cancer Research UK discuss some of the possible explanations.

Luckily, there are a number of things that we can all do to lower our risk of developing cancer:

• don’t smoke – or if you do, stop now
• limit your alcohol intake
• keep active
• mind your body weight
• eat sensibly
• avoid sunburn

Quack Victim Kim Tinkham Dies of Breast Cancer

I just read on Orac’s Respectful Insolence that Kim Tinkham has died of breast cancer.

A few years ago Kim Tinkham was diagnosed with breast cancer. Inspired by Australian Rhonda Byrne’s book The Secret, she decided to treat her cancer with alternative therapy only.

An important part of Kim Tinkham’s treatment seems to have been Robert O. Young’s acid based therapy, which claims that cancer is always caused by excess acid in the body and consequently the only way to cure it is by adhering to an “alkaline” diet.

On several occasions, Tim Kinkham publicly claimed she was cured of her breast cancer thanks to alternative therapy. She appeared in several of Robert Young’s promotional videos (most of which have now been removed) and was touted by him as one of his success stories.

Kim Tinkham also appeared on the Oprah Show, where she explained how The Secret’s “law of attraction”, which claims that we attract what we think and feel, had inspired her and led to her cure.

Sadly, it was not to be.