Alternative Medicine for Cancer
May 31, 2007I haven't been back to this site in months & am happy to see that i.ph has taken out the ads. In February, there was some type of Google robot that picked out blog keywords in order to display "matching" links of possible interest. For a while at least, there was this weird situation wherein the blogger was promoting caution in the choice of cancer management tracks in a panel beside links for Chinese herbs, colonics, and such.
When reading the word "alternative" with respect to cancer treatment, I assume that the writer sits on the side of Western medicine and its data-driven standards of care. "Alternative" is a substitute for the therapies I was trained to administer, not even "complementary" to my service. ("Complementary" seems to belong to another category altogether.) I know so little about alternative, complementary, natural-holistic, integrative or what-have-you that, in truth, I tend to give a blanket admonition against their use while on active Western-style systemic antineoplastics, or at least until I've read up on specific items. Paranoid? In truth, my drugs are toxic enough without the possibility of further interactions with unnamed components labelled as "miscellaneous"… and I have the same paranoia about Western-style medications with insufficient data on their use & side effects anyway.
Perhaps a serious look at China No. 1, mushrooms, mega-vitamins, etc is warranted on an international scale. At the moment I just say that patients can take their chances with poorly documented "medicines" when I have nothing else to offer.




