Every week I get offered, via social media, some miracle cure for cancer.
I must have to block around 5 people a week offering me a diet-based cure, an alternative health system, a chemical or some sort of physical procedure. It’s frightening what’s being promoted!
There is no miracle cure for cancer otherwise my oncologist would be keen to tell me and I’m pretty sure that it would be splashed all over the news. What we have are false hopes, dashed dreams, and a whole lot of hype.
As most of know, the internet is a leading source of health misinformation and social media platforms are awash with half-baked ideas, bogus claims and hogwash hoaxes.
The thing is, when you are desperate, you might consider options and alternatives that otherwise you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.
When you are desperate, you are also vulnerable and this can make you easy prey for those wanting to make a fast buck and cash in on your illness.
Some people are willing to try these cures as a last resort but this makes them susceptible to pseudoscience and exploitation.
As Swire-Thompson and Johnson (2024) note,
This creates an information ecosystem with no shortage of disinformation sources who intentionally spread inaccurate information for their own monetary gain, and sell herbal remedies, educational books, establish treatment institutes, or serve as cancer coaches.
Cancer patients can be bombarded with so-called ‘cures’ because there are people out there who make it their business to target the vulnerable. They look for people on social media who have cancer.
Those that fish for the vulnerable are criminals and what they are committing is health fraud.
The quackademic ‘cures’ are hocus-pocus fake news of course and lack any scientific and medical evidence of effectiveness. They are nothing more than a cruel deception.
And there are loads of them too including bloodletting and applying cement to the skin!
Here are a few more:
- Take urine therapy as another example. Yes, you read that correctly – I’m not taking the pee – urine therapy. This is the practice of attempting to treat cancer by drinking, injecting or taking an enema of your own urine. Bonkers.
- Then there is the claim that cannabis or cannabinoids and pure CBD can be used to eradicate cancer. There is no clinical evidence of its anti-cancer efficacy.
- Some are saying that cancer is a fungus and baking soda is the cure. Mad! This is clearly another myth.
- Then there are those that promote the idea that lemons can cure cancer. Another myth.
- Chelation therapy says it can cleanse the body of toxins and cancer via the injection of a chemical agent but this is yet another entirely unproven claim. Try that and you’ll more likely end up with a fever and vomiting.
- Apparently, according to some ‘experts’, sharks don’t get cancer which has led to the slaughter of millions of sharks via the industry for shark cartilage pills and sold to cancer patients as a cure! Completely false.
- Black salve is an alternative topical therapy used to treat skin cancer but these contain ingredients that destroy the skin and result in permanent disfigurement and tissue necrosis.
- And how about this one – cancer can be cured with calligraphy art! Someone called Master Sha is confident that tracing Tao Calligraphy in the air mixed with a bit of chanting will do the trick. But that’s all it is a trick.
- Then there is The Healy, a miracle frequency ‘medical’ device that is nothing more than a small clip-on plastic box controlled by apps on your smartphone that emits individualized microcurrent frequencies to enhance wellness, cure cancer and it can also fix your boiler. Insane!
There are so many crackpot theories about what works but these are cranky treatments fuelled by charlatans that can and will do more harm than good. They can lead in some cases to serious injury and even death.
Gulp! You see the nature of the problem.
For those of us that are going through the cancer experience, we prefer to follow evidence-based, effective treatments rather than unproven interventions.
I certainly won’t be swapping my immunotherapy for Reiki, essential oils, mistletoe, an alkaline diet, drinking papaya leaf tea and a spliff that’s for sure.
Don’t be a lemon and fall for these things. Your hour of greatest need deserves better.
Cancer has more quacks than a village pond teeming with guff, gumph, humbug and sham.
P.S. Take a look at David Robert Grimes who busts a few myths being spouted by others.