Do you lot ever worry that someone takes your idiot advice seriously and tries to treat cancer with quackery?

Question

Do you lot ever worry that someone takes your idiot advice seriously and tries to treat cancer with quackery?

Answer 1

Hopefully people are aware of the Full Disclaimer at the bottom of the page below all the flags which suggests that the advice offered in Yahoo! Answers should not be regarded as a substitute for professional advice from professionally qualified health professionals.

Yahoo! does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any Yahoo! Answers content.

Answer 2

Oh, that'll get you reported.  

They don't worry, because they truly "believe" in this stuff.

Like the religiously deluded, they are convinced that they are right, and 400 years of progressive cumulative scientific knowledge in a wide variety of disciplines is wrong.

We will never convince the true believer.  They have many reasons why they need to believe the silly stuff.  My reason for hanging out here (besides being a glutton for abuse and false reporting) is to speak to the person who is sitting on the fence, who wonders if there just might be something to all these odd ideas.

EDIT  LISA N.  You've missed the point.  Yes there are some plants and herbs that do have some medicinal properties.  Nobody denies that.  Herbal treatments are at the plausible end of the AM spectrum.  Tamoxifen comes from the bark of the Yew tree. Digoxin comes from Foxglove.  Medical science is constantly looking to plants and herbs for new useful pharmaceuticals.  Most don't pan out as clinically useful.  

However, there are hundreds of other really wacky things that people recommend on this board all the time.

The question is whether people who come to this board may take unproven advice from unqualified believers, and may have negative health outcomes as a result if they decline standard medical care.  Most people who have minor self limited conditions will have neither harm nor benefit.  This is the grey area where AM thrives.

Answer 3

The treatment has to agree with the lifestyle of the patient.  There are numerous herbs that are backed by sound medical testing and are used to fight cancer.  You need to do some research before making an ignorant comment.  I am sorry if you have recently lost a loved one but with cancer there are no guarantees.  Until we find a cure we must try whatever works and for some its the cocktail of poison called chemo for others alternative medicine.

Answer 4

That's funny because the Cancer Treatment Center of America uses Alternative and Naturopathic treatments as well as Conventional Scientific medical treatments...

are you going to call them quacks as well?

By the way the Chinese have used herbal medicines for 5000 years compared to our "what" 400 years?

things that make you go hmmmm...

Answer 5

I suggest you research a nutrient called "fucoidan" .  It's a poly saccharide only found in a few "brown" seaweeds in the world.  Research is quite impressive - not only what the fucoidan itself can do - but for how nutritious limu moui (brown seaweed) is that also supports the body.

Answer 6

No  because I have had cancer and any advice that I give is based on knowledge and experience.

Answer 7

I prefer the term complementary therapies as it does what it says on the tin.  It complements conventional medicine.  

I will and have treated cancer patients for relief of their symptoms, but this is only when it has been agreed by the patients doctor.  

I would never dream of being arrogant enough to say to someone that reiki/massage/aromatherapy would cure cancer or will be able to treat every single symptom.  Instead, in combination with conventional treatment I use reiki, massage and aromatherapy.

I can understand your question, but feel that you are misjudging folk on these boards and think that they take every answer that is given as gospel.  Everyone is aware of disclaimers and no professional practitioner (I would hope)would advocate conventional medicine being stopped.

Answer 8

No,

I'm an altmed practitioner but we don't treat cancer as it is out of our remit.

We do however help people with it become more comfortable with osteopathic treatment but as far as i know do not offer a cure or anything that will slow down the progress of the disease.

However, In the UK and many other countries it is illegal for anyone outside the allopathic field to "treat cancer".

I could accept this if the treatment was especially successful but as it stands you can excise cancer, poison it with chemo or blast it with radiation.

These treatments all have terrible side effects and it is not uncommon for people to choose to die rather than have another blast of chemo.

The long term survival rate is very poor for many cancer sufferers.

I'd like to see decent clinical trials were other types of treatment are given a go to see if they can do better.

Allopaths might actually learn something....

...Actually we all might!

Edit:

Skep Doc, you are over looking the fact that you also follow a rigid belief system. Its such a shame you can't see that.

Answer 9

I hope I never give "idiot advice".

I certainly would not dabble in advice about cancer(unless it is one that I know something about)

People asking questions don't really expect free health care--they are usually just curious and pre-empt the visit to the doctor.