Alternative 'cures' on internet put thousands at risk

From: J (patooey_at_iinvalid.net)
Date: 08/03/04 

Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2004 06:03:14 -0400

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1274746,00.html

Warning to patients on cancer therapies

Alternative 'cures' on internet put thousands at risk, says
scientist

Alok Jha, science correspondent
Tuesday August 3, 2004
The Guardian

Misleading advice on complementary therapy available on the internet
is putting thousands of cancer patients at risk, according to a
leading scientist.

Professor Edzard Ernst, of the Peninsula Medical School at Exeter
University, holds the UK's only chair in complementary medicine. He
told a press briefing yesterday that patients need to exercise more
caution when looking for information on the web.

"If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is," he said.
"Don't believe ridiculous claims." Prof Ernst said that there had
even been cases reported of cancer patients dying as a result of
using complementary therapies promoted on the internet.

His team at Exeter analysed 32 of the most popular websites giving
advice and information on a range of complementary therapies to
treat cancer. Between them, they receive tens of thousands of hits a
day. He concluded that a "significant proportion" of the sites were
a risk to cancer patients. The study was published recently in the
Annals of Oncology.

"This was to us quite an eye-opener and pretty scary stuff," he
said. "We found that between these 30-odd sites, 118 different
cancer "cures" were recommended: complementary treatment which
claimed to be able to cure cancer. None of these 118 can be
demonstrated to cure cancer."

Three websites fell into the highest risk categories because they
overtly discouraged patients from using conventional cancer
treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The sites -
heall.com and healthy.net, based in the US, and
worldwidehealthcenter.net, based in the UK and Cyprus, were judged
to offer advice potentially harmful to patients.

Heall.com offers customers a way of "balancing the human electrical
system" by taking the nutritional supplements it sells. Yesterday at
healthy.net, an article justifying the use of complementary
techniques for cancer treatment said: "It is clear that humans are a
complex interplay of physical and metaphysical forces. As hu mans
become more spiritual or metaphysical, we tend to transcend physical
laws. Hence, the ultimate cancer cure may come from this relatively
untapped area of healing."

Two examples of bogus cancer treatments were shark cartilage and
laertrial, a chemical which can be made from almonds or the stones
of apricots, cherries or peaches. Demand for ground-up shark fins
has been so high as a result of its perceived health benefits that
the trade has brought two species of shark close to extinction, said
Prof Ernst. There was "not a shred of evidence" that it helped cure
patients.

Prof Ernst also says that the Gerson diet is "not supported by
convincing evidence". Research comparing the retrospective survival
rates of cancer patients on the diet - which involves eating lots of
organic fruit and vegetables and having coffee enemas - apparently
found that the Gerson dieters lived longer. However, Prof Ernst said
that the methodology was too flawed to allow any firm conclusions.

"Not everything that is natural is risk-free," he said. "People
should use their common sense and think twice about the motives of
these websites."

Prof Ernst said that patients should ask complementary health
practitioners for proof of their experience and find out whether
they have insurance if should something go wrong.

He added that GPs were often uninformed about the potential risk of
complementary treatments, especially with regard to their
interaction with conventional medicines.

In a survey he conducted of 2,600 patients prescribed the
blood-thinning drug warfarin, he found that 9%were also taking
herbal medicines which could interfere with the drug. GPs and
pharmacists needed better training in complementary medicine, he
said.

Prof Ernst said that the public needed to be made aware of the lack
of scientific evidence to back up the claims of most complementary
therapies. "One way forward would be to flag up these websites for
patients, because how is a patient going to know this is reliable
and this is not reliable?" he said. Government agencies or cancer
organisations could even vet health sites to help patients.

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