Finding Information about Cancer Therapies
" You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need." - Rolling Stones
One of the problems that the cancer patient who is interested in finding alternative and complementary therapies in the age of the internet is evaluating the reliability of the information provided about that particular therapy.
There is always plenty of anecdotal evidence (ie. individual patient experience) that is cited by every therapeutic modality. As one of my homeopathic colleagues once commented, and with which I generally agree, “Any therapeutic modality will have a minimal success rate of about 20% in any group of patients because of factors that include the placebo effect, the suitability of that particular patient to that particular therapy, and other unknown factors.”. This 20% of patients on whom that particular therapeutic modality has worked will be telling you the stories of success of that treatment. However, this does not mean that it will work for the other 80% of patients.
As a homeopath, I understand that therapies (and remedies) must be individualised and not every patient will respond in the same way to the same treatment (this has finally been recognized by orthodox medicine in the latest research into chrono-biology and genetics). There are some CAM therapies that have a higher rate of success than others across a diverse population, (psychotherapy, group work, and nutritional therapies are among some of these successful therapies - see Ralph Moss list on therapies). Each patient will have to inform him or herself and decide on the therapeutic modalities they would like to pursue. Be open to abandoning any therapy if it doesn’t work for you. Remember that you must approach your own healing process with conviction and an open mind.
One of the ways of getting reliable information on orthodox and CAM therapies is to use a professional research service like that of Ralph Moss (see the section on Cancer Report Services) or to inform yourself by reading some of the excellent books that now exist on the market (see the recommended reading section). These resources will also guide you to professionals who have experience in integrated cancer care.
CAM Therapies
There are numerous complementary and alternative modalities (CAM) that you will hear about in your search. Ralph Moss has created a list of those modalities which, in his opinion, are well-documented, less documented, and undocumented. This is not an absolute indication of their success in treating cancer since the conviction of the patient in the efficacy of the treatment (even toxic chemotherapy) may well play a key role. However, it does provide some guidelines as to which therapies might be more effectively pursued.
As you can see from Ralph Moss's list there are numerous therapies available. In the Information section on this website I have listed the main ones that I and some of my colleagues have used successfully.
Since (CAM) are currently in use by a lot of cancer patients, orthodox medical practitioners and their websites also discuss their use but usually with great (perhaps excessive) caution. These include the National Cancer Institute in the USA and CAM-Cancer website, for example. Since this site proposes to allow the cancer patient to make their own informed choice I have included these references. At the same time I would encourage any cancer patient to look at the track record of orthodox modern medicine by reading the article "Are We Losing the War on Cancer?"