MODERATOR at 1:00pm ET Stay tuned for our live chat with Dr. Stephen Barrett. Please click on "Show New Messages" to update your page and view new posts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:03pm ET Welcome Dr. Barrett! Thanks for joining us. You say: "I wish the word 'alternative' would go away." Are there any effective alternative cancer therapies, in your view?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:06pm ET "Alternative" is a slogan, not a definable group of therapies. If something works, it would not be proper to refer to it as alternative. The vast majority of cancer treatments referred to as alternative obviously don't work. It's unlikely that any others work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:06pm ET Dr. Barrett, when we asked our users to sumbit questions for the chat, we received a lot of angry messages from people saying you're discrediting many treatments that might hold promise. Why do you think people are so angry? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:08pm ET Some people have beliefs about health that they hold with the same fervor as people hold religious beliefs, and when their beliefs are stepped on, they get angry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:09pm ET Roger writes: "The cancer clinics in Tijuana are an easy pick for quackery. Have you ever researched the results for chemotherapy and radiation treatments? Where can I find documented information on these practices? Exactly how effective are these treatments? Why do 1500 people die each day in the U.S. of cancer with the use of American medical procedures?" Any comment? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:11pm ET The overall 5-year survival rate for cancer is about five years. There are thousands of studies that test different regimens for specific cancers at specific stages. This research is tabulated and is readily available through cancer specialists and through the National Cancer Institute and in medical databases. The people who promote so-called "alternative" treatments almost never even bother to keep score. If there were any genuine evidence that any "alternative" treatment works, the medical research community would be the path to the door. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:12pm ET Kali Ashcroft writes: "There are many cancer clinics in Mexico that are quite effective, but there are just as many if not more that are out to swindel you. As a breast cancer survivor I should know. I would be dead today if it were not for alternative medicine. The clinics that you featured in your story must have been the bottom of the barrel because I haven't heard of any of them, or any of the treatments they use." Any comment? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:14pm ET The 50 or so clinics to which the program referred specialize in ripping off Americans and are seldom if ever used by Mexican patients. Mexico does have some up to date facilities, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called "alternative" clinics. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Bob Beiswenger at 1:14pm ET Fleming's discovery of penicillin was thought to be quackery at one time and so was chemotherapy. What if YOU are wrong about what you belive to be quackery? You could be hurting a lot of people. Let the individual decide...don't take away freedom of choice! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:18pm ET Individuals can decide to do whatever they want. The issue is whether or not government should permit crime to flourish. There have been a few instances in modern times where the medical profession was a bit slow in accepting new ideas. But there's a difference between promising new ideas and quackery. To my knowledge, there has not been a single idea in the past 50 years that was thought to be quackery and was later demonstrated to be useful. It's not likely there will be many, because now that scientific methods have been developed, the scientific community is very likely to be able to tell the difference between a promising new idea and a piece of quack nonsense. It also should be pointed out that Fleming didn't try to sell penicillin for $15,000 a treatment. He and his colleagues understood what was necessary to develop the evidence. They did so, and it has been accepted. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Donna at 1:19pm ET Do you think the traditional medical field fails in helping people sometimes, which leads them to the "alternative" quackery? Traditional medicine has changed so much in the past 10 years that it seems there is no longer the doctor/patient relationship that there used to be. It's like "drive-through" medicine whether it is in the doctor's office or hospital. Doctors blame the insurance companies and the insurance companies blame the doctors. And the patient with a disease suffers the consequences of inadequate treatment and care. God help us all! If only we could get past the greed then maybe we would be like the good Samaritan. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:22pm ET Studies show that the main factor in seeking alternative methods is not a failure of the doctor/patient relationship but a combination of misleading publicity, patient fear or desperation, and a "miss-no-bets" philopsophy. Blaming quackery's success on medicine's failure is like regarding astrology's popularity as a failure of astronomy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:22pm ET What's the most common health-related scam? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:23pm ET It's the promotion of unnecessary vitamins -- the claim that it is difficult of impossible for people to get the nutrients they need from ordinary food. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:23pm ET What are some of the worst cases of medical fraud you've come across? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:29pm ET The most dangerous quackery is chelation therapy. This is a series of intravenous infusions claimed to clean out the clogging of coronary (heart) arteries. It's dangerous because it is marketed as a substitute to bypass sugery. People who really need bypass surgery but choose chelation instead are at high risk for heart attack and death. There are electro-diagnostic devices that are claimed to diagnose disease throughout the body by detecting "imbalances of electro-magnetic energy." These devices are fakes and can lead to large amounts of wasted money and to unwarranted patient anxiety. Another problem is that many chiropractors urge patients to have their spines examined and "adjusted" monthly or even weekly for long periods of time. Although appropriate spinal manipulation can help many people with back pain, treatment should be stopped when the pain goes away. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Catherine at 1:30pm ET You state, "If there were any genuine evidence that any "alternative" treatment works, the medical research community would be the path to the door." What percentage of research is funded by pharmaceutical companies and what percent by non-pharmaceutical concerns? Also, where is the most money for researchers? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:34pm ET I don't know the relative percentages, but several things should be kept in mind. Many people who do research decide for themselves what they are going to study. It's possible to do preliminary studies that cost little money. Once preliminary studies show that something has enough promise, it's relatively easy to get funding assistance. Quite frankly the idea that a treatment has not been proven because there's not enough money to study it is quack propoganda. Some of the people making this claim are taking in millions of dollars a year selling their treatments. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Terry Polevoy - HealthWatcher. at 1:36pm ET Biopulse is a publicly traded company in the U.S. Why were they closed, and then allowed to re-open by the Mexican government? Why hasn't the American government prosecuted these con artists? They all have offices in California, and should be charged with fraud ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:40pm ET Biopulse is a clinic that offers a number of treatments, the most noteworthy of which is a treatment in which people are given insulin and put in a coma. The insulin drives down blood sugar, but there's no logical reason to believe that blood sugar has any influence on cancer. It's a treatment that once was used in psychiatry but was abandonned about 50 years ago when better treatment became availalble. I believe that the Mexican government has for decades regarded these clinics as tourist attractions that can bring dollars into Mexico. I would certainly like to see the U.S. government put pressure on the Mexican government so that Americans will no longer be ripped off by these clinics. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Karen from s188.tnt1.nrf.va.dialup.rcn.com at 1:41pm ET To whom does one turn if they have been victim of these quacks within the United States? How do we stop them from hurting others? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:43pm ET In the U.S., complaints can be made to the State Attorney General. In some cases, there may be grounds for a private lawsuit. Anyone interested in exploring the question of a private lawsuit is welcome to send the details of their experience to my e-mail address: "vict...@quackwatch.com." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:45pm ET What can consumers do to safeguard against quackery and medical fraud? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:48pm ET We have an article on Quackwatch.com called "Signs of a Quacky Web Site" which we believe can help you avoid the vast majority of untrustworthy information sources. We also have a page called a "Special Message for Patients Seeking Alternative Cancer Treatments" which indexes about 75 articles and other sources of information about improper treatment. We're also setting up a separate Web site called "Internet Health Pilot" which will be an excellent guide to reliable sites. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- DR. STEPHEN BARRETT at 1:50pm ET We also have a free e-mail newsletter on Quackwatch.com called "Consumer Health Digest" which covers pertinent news as well as positive and negative consumer strategies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- MODERATOR at 1:54pm ET Thanks to Dr. Stephen Barrett and all those who joined the chat. If you'd like to join a message board discussion or browse through recent chat transcripts, please visit our community index. -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: silver-list-requ...@eskimo.com -or- silver-digest-requ...@eskimo.com with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <mdev...@eskimo.com>
