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Simoncini cures cancer with sodium bicarb? It's only a fungus!

fls said:
When she dies very few people will hear about the story of someone who abandoned her children unnecessarily by succumbing to magical thinking.
Linda
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Hopefully the blog will remain on the internet, and be referenced at http://whatstheharm.net/ alongside with the cases described at http://anaximperator.wordpress.com/ I have notified Krelnik of the latter, but he is probably busy doing other important stuff.
 
I am just completely baffled that anyone could fall for such nonsense. It might sound appealing at first glance, but any modicum of thought would see the crater sized holes running through it. It is scary what effect cancer can have on people, to the point where they get so desparate to do something so obviously dumb.
 
Yeah, but if you read her blog, she also believes that God has the power to choose to heal her at any moment as well. She is waiting for that too.

No she won't. It will take several years for this to kill her. In the meantime she will continue to believe and spread the word to dozens or hundreds of people. When she dies very few people will hear about the story of someone who abandoned her children unnecessarily by succumbing to magical thinking.

Linda
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It may depend on how progressed her cancer already is, how aggressive it is, etc. Who knows, it may be spreading to her brain right now. Without being under actual care, she won't know, won't have a clue. The Quacks are telling her that she is beating it.
 
As it turned out, poor Beth is one of the extremely rare 10% of Simoncini's no-succes rate. Who would have thought that?

The good news is that she has finally decided on a lumpectomy - let's hope this will do the trick, after all the time she has been wasting.

The bad news is that the lumpectomy will be performed in Italy, in a private clinic of Simoncini's choice and that it wil be followed by more infusions with sodium bicarbonate. We don't know if Simoncini will be doing the surgery himself - God forbid - or that it will be done by one of his mates.

Recently when Dr. Simoncini was in town for the Wellness Expo, David and I were able to meet with him and re-evaluate where I’m at. After an examination, he said that while 90% of tumors totally collapse and dissipate after receiving the sodium bicarbonate injections, 10% respond by becoming really hard and encapsulated—a protection mechanism of the body to keep the cancer from spreading. I’m in the 10% category.

His recommendation was to have a lumpectomy (surgical removal of the tumor) with sodium bicarbonate infusions directly into the surgery site. This is the same principle of “cleansing” the area with chemotherapy . . . the difference of course being that sodium bicarbonate doesn’t harm the body in any way.

For myself I would be quite content to continue fighting the tumor with nutrition instead of surgery . . . but my dear husband is not. Since every single doctor we have seen (both conventional and naturalpath) and my nutritionist are all now saying surgery—surgery it is.

Since there is no one in the United States currently doing this approach, we once again have tickets to fly to Rome. We are scheduled to leave Sunday, May 3rd and will be there approximately 10 days.
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http://journeytowardhealth.blogspot.com/2009/04/return.html
 
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JennyJo said:
The bad news is that the lumpectomy will be performed in Italy, in a private clinic of Simoncini's choice and that it wil be followed by more infusions with sodium bicarbonate. We don't know if Simoncini will be doing the surgery himself - God forbid - or that it will be done by one of his mates.
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Sounds like another bad idea. There will be no feedback as to resection margins or other factors of significance to the risk of recurrence/develmonet of metastatic disease. And if the surgeon believes that the hard stuff he is cutting out is only "a protective encapsulating layer") then he really shouldn´t be allowed to operate on cancer patients.
 
Eos of the Eons said:
Soon, she will be sleeping with the daisies.
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Originally Posted by fls
No she won't. It will take several years for this to kill her. In the meantime she will continue to believe and spread the word to dozens or hundreds of people. When she dies very few people will hear about the story of someone who abandoned her children unnecessarily by succumbing to magical thinking.

Linda
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One of the figureheads of alternative medicine in my home country has been blogging about her decision to cure herself of breast cancer with alternative therapy only. She was diagnosed December 2007 and now has extensive metastases in her bones and her brain. This was discovered two weeks ago, after a period of extreme fatigue and unbearable headaches. She was feeling so bad that her husband called 991. She is now on pain medication, awaiting further treatment and has already been told that her cancer has become incurable. She always said she would rather die of the cancer than of the treatment, but reading her blog, you can see that now she regrets this decision and desperately tries to come to terms with it.

These things make me deeply sad and extremely angry and frustrated at the same time. All this unnecessary dying and suffering.
 
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Hi, I am a new member and I found this forum through this thread. I read a few articles on the theory that cancer is fungal related, became interested, and started searching for more information. I had not heard of this Simoncini guy until I saw this thread though. It would seem that there are a lot of doctors who are talking about the theory and I'm not so sure Simoncini is the guy who came up with it first. When I first starting reading this thread I got immediately turned off to the idea, but when I did some digging I found that a lot of things posted here about the situation were incorrect. I'm not saying I believe one way or the other. I'll keep an open mind for now, but I do need to point out some of these inaccuracies.

The first thing is that Simoncini does not claim that malignant tumors are composed of fungal material like everyone is saying. He claims that cancerous growth is actually the immune system producing cells to defend the body from Candida attack. His theory sounds more like an auto-immune response to me and it makes much more sense than how it has been portrayed in this thread. He says the sequence goes like this:
Candida is normally kept under control by the immune system, but when that becomes undermined and weakened the Candida can expand and build a colony.
The Candida eventually penetrates an organ and the immune system has to respond to the threat in another way.
This response is to build a defensive barrier with its own cells and this growth is what we call cancer.
He is simply stating that Candida is the cause, not what forms the cells of cancerous growth. I'm not saying he's right, but rather that many people were trying to debunk his theory, without knowing anything about his theory.
Also, the inhibitory effects of Alkaline substances on fungal growth are well documented and that information actually goes back hundreds of years. Just google it and you'll get more hits than you know what do with.
Simoncini is also apparently a working Dr. in Rome right now. ???
Next I need to say to all the people who are so mad at him for luring people away from these so called real therapies that work; I have known nearly 50 people who have had cancer and used conventional therapies. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, co-workers, friends, their family members and so on. Whether they were 79 years old, 57, 24, or 11, they are all dead and buried; all but one. She is 7 years free from breast cancer, and as far as I'm concerned, she is a ticking time bomb. I have seen it too many times before. The most recent victim was my girlfriend's mother. She started with a couple of tiny lumps in her breast. After several months of Chemotherapy it was gone. 4 years later it returned with a vengeance like it always does. It metastasized to her liver, lungs, brain, stomach, and bones. By the end she didn't know what planet she was on and the brain tumor was pushing her eyes out of her skull. She endured 3 months of living hell. My girlfriend was her caregiver and she is so traumatized by the experience I don't think she'll ever get over it. So don't tell me that conventional treatments work. I know from first hand experience just how ineffective conventional treatments really are, and I feel so strongly about that fact that I'm libel to punch someone in the mouth for saying otherwise before I could come to my senses. Results don't lie.
Conversely, I know 3 people who have had Cancer and used an alternative treatment called the Gerson Therapy. They had skin, stomach, and prostate cancer. All 3 are cancer free and ironically enough, they are in now in the healthiest shape of their lives. Now I'm no doctor, but again, results don't lie. I don't know them that well. I don't know for sure that the Gerson Therapy cured them, but I do know that they were diagnosed, they did the therapy, and they are cancer free now. For those of you who don't know the Gerson therapy is also an unrecognized and banned treatment. After studying the modalities and reasons for it too work though, I must say that is seems to make perfect sense.
It is an effort to achieve Homeostasis throughout the body and to restore the immune system and each of the bodies systems. This is done through detoxification, dealing with deficiency, and rebuilding the immune system. Tumors are broken down, processed by the liver, secreted into the bile ducts, and removed through the colon. It was developed by Dr. Max Gerson in the 50's. He claims to have cured 200 out of 200 patients including over 50 who were given less than 3 months to live. He brought his findings before Congress, was promptly run out of town, and then poisoned twice by arsenic and killed. His work is carried on by his daughter Charlotte who lives in San Diego and runs a hospital in Mexico. There are thousands of people who claim to have been cured of all types of cancer by the Gerson Therapy. However, It is not as effective at treating Leukemia and Brain Cancer. It is particularly effective at treating skin, stomach, and breast cancer. I know the National Cancer Society claims otherwise but I believe they are flat out lying. They are ignoring the testimony of thousands of people. They are ignoring the science behind the therapy and they refuse to even take more that a passing glance at it. They do not want to cure Cancer because the Pharmaceutical industry would stand to lose billions annually. What other explanation is there? Why are they ignoring such a mountain of evidence? Does it not deserve to at least be looked at? Don't let them tell you they have either. It's a lie.
Dr. Gerson claims that he observed saturated tissues around the tumors, which made it difficult for blood to travel to those areas and deliver essential oxygen. I have heard this from many other doctors as well, concerning the saturated tissue. He studied the tissue and concluded it was caused by a build up of Sodium. Restoring balance to the Sodium/Potassium levels in the body became a priority. This is accomplished through a sodium free/potassium rich diet. As sodium levels rise, potassium levels fall, and vice versa. A proper ratio is 80/20 potassium to sodium, but our poor diets have that ratio nearly flip flopped. This creates many problems in our bodies including hampering the bodies ability to fight cancer growth. Another key is to restore the bodies ph balance. I do not know why so many apparently bright people on here have just totally dismissed the connection between health and proper ph. I have read study after study proving a connection to many different areas of maintaining the bodies systems and proper ph. The human body in order to function correctly must maintain a very precise ph just on the Alkaline side of the scale. I really thought this was medical fact by now and I am shocked to see so many intelligent doctors who don't know this. Honestly, I can't even fathom how you don't know this. It has been well documented. Anyway, I digress.
Another key is restoring the balance of the essential fatty acids. Omega 3 helps the bodies ability to reduce inflammation, while Omega 6 helps the bodies ability to increase inflammation. While increasing inflammation is an important component to the immune response, the inability to reduce inflammation is a big problem. Study after study has proven that an inflammed body has trouble healing itself. The proper balance of Omega fatty acids is a matter of debate and I believe it could be a different ratio from one person to the next, and from one situation to the next, but generally it should be around 1:1. Again our bad diets have us taking in up to 50 times more Omega 6 than Omega 3. This leaves our bodies hopelessly inflammed and unable to heal themselves. To deal with this a Gerson patient takes organic cold pressed flax seed oil, which has 3 times more Omega 3 than 6. Over time an Omega 6 deficiency may develop, but Flax oil is great to restore the balance while it is out of whack. This is just the tip of the iceberg of reasons why the Gerson Therapy works.
The Gerson diet consists of 13 fresh pressed organic juices daily, including mostly apple/carrot, leafy greens, and 1 citrus. Juices must be made with a quality juicer that does not damage nutrients and enzymes, and must be pressed for maximum nutrient content. Apples and carrots must be pressed together because the folic acid in apples helps draw additional enzymes from the carrots, and those enzymes in turn help draw additional nutrients from the apples. The reason this produce must be juiced is because the sheer volume would be impossible for the body to process if eaten. As a juice the nutrients and enzymes can enter the blood stream quickly and carry their maximum effect to the body. For breakfast organic oatmeal is mandatory as it provides a soft cushion for the digestive tract to be able to handle the large amounts of fresh juice as well as providing necessary nutrients. For lunch and dinner the patient must have a bowl of Hippocrites soup. It is made in a stainless steel hand cranked food mill from organic potatoes, tomatoes, onions, leeks, and garlic. This provides support to the kidneys. The Gerson patient can eat as much as they want from the approved food list and are encouraged to eat as much leafy greens as possible, but all animal proteins, processed foods, artificial ingredients, inorganic foods, etc, are off limits. Only Rye bread is allowed. Many other things are off limits such as cucumbers and legumes as they have natural enzyme inhibitors to stop them from growing. Those inhibitors also effect enzymes in our bodies. Enzymes are crucial for our bodies to be able to process nutrients. Pesticides, herbicides, and pasteurization all serve to destroy natural enzymes. They have a cookbook with many good recipes, but it is still tough at first if your used to burgers and pizza like me. After awhile it is possible to have some homemade pot cheese made from 100% pure unpasteurized buttermilk, which can also be used to make yogurt.
The extreme nature of this detoxification program can draw out too many toxins at once and damage the liver and even kill a patient. This is why they started using organic coffee enemas. I know it sounds weird but the reasons are sound in theory. The caffeine stimulates the liver into over producing enzymes by around 700%. This allows the liver to process, well, 7 times as much toxins as it normally could. The Coffee can not be drunk because not enough caffeine would get to the liver, and it changes how the liver responds to it, not to mention that 32 oz's 3 times a day would make you a gittery lunatic. There are are also a number of injections and other biologicals administered daily. It's a full time job, but no one is claiming that curing cancer is easy.
I did the therapy for a month and I can tell you for sure, that the benefits to my health were astronomical. I cured myself of a pilonidal cyst (which is only officially cured by lancing or surgery, eventhough it almost always comes back) and irritable bowel syndrome in 2 weeks. My digestive system worked better than it had since I was four, and I felt great. Many other chronic conditions have also been cured by Gerson including Arthritis and Diabetes. Many people report permanent scars disappearing in weeks. Some people cure themselves of Cancer within 2 weeks. Others take a few months, and yet some may continue to fight the cancer for years. They recommend doing the therapy for at least 2 years regardless, and then following a 75% gerson diet, 25% whatever you like. That is also the recommendation for healthy people to stay that way.
Anyway, back to the main topic. I know that's hard to swallow for some, but I know it works first hand. I am also interested in some of the similarities between the fungus theory and some of the principles of Gerson therapy. For this reason I can't be so quick to dismiss it.
Professor Gerry Potter of the Cancer Drug Discovery Group and Professor Dan Burke published the following information.
Cancer cells have a unique 'biomarker' that normal cells do not, an enzyme called CYP1B1 (pronounced sip-one-bee-one). Enzymes are proteins that 'catalyse' (increase the rate of) chemical reactions.
The CYP1B1 alters the chemical structure of something called salvestrols that are found naturally in many fruits and vegetables. This chemical change turns the salvestrols into an agent that kills cancer cells, but does no harm to healthy cells. The synchronicity is perfect. The CYP1B1 enzyme appears only in cancer cells and it reacts with salvestrols in fruit and vegetables to create a chemical substance that kills only cancer cells.
But here's the point with regard to cancer being a fungus. Salvestrols are the natural defense system in fruit and vegetables against fungal attacks and that's why you only find them in those species subject to fungus damage, like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, blackcurrants, redcurrants, blackberries, cranberries, apples, pears, green vegetables (especially broccoli and the cabbage family), artichokes, red and yellow peppers, avocados, watercress, asparagus and aubergines.
What's more, the Big Pharma/Big Biotech cartels know all this and they have done two major things to undermine this natural defense from the fungal attack that is cancer.
The chemical fungicide sprays used in modern farming kill fungus artificially and this means the plants and crops do not have to trigger their own defense - salvestrols. You only find them in any amount today in organically grown food.
The most widely-used fungicides are very powerful blockers of CYP1B1 and so if you eat enough chemically-produced food it wouldn't matter how many salvestrols you consumed they would not be activated into the cancer-destroying agent they are designed to be.
So anyway, this Italian dude isn't the only one talking about Fungus, and they aren't all Hocus Pocus either. I think they have some very intriguing evidence and theories. Much of this fits in perfectly with the reasons why the Gerson Therapy works. Does that make them right? No, but honestly how can you all be so sure of yourselves too? Do you think information is correct just because you learned it at a University? Do you really think information is incorrect just because the powers that be condemn it?
Still not open-minded about it?
Consider these tidbits for a moment.....
More than a million species of fungi exist on earth, which can be classified into two broad groups: yeasts and moulds. Do you think we know everything there is to know about a million species? Fungi have various shapes, colors and textures, can live on land in the open air or in the aqueous conditions of rivers, ponds seas and inside living creatures. Fungi have the capacity to produce a fruiting body, reproductive spores, a covering like skin, arteries, and an internal fluid much like blood.
While plants, animals and humans are alive and well, the fungi around us are unable to overcome the natural defense mechanisms of higher life forms. But once death occurs, the fungi are the primary tool nature uses to reduce all that once lived into the basic elements from which they were made. This is what biologists call the carbon cycle.
However, the exception to this simple equation of life and death is that the fungi can attack plants and animals, while they are alive. Fungal spores are everywhere, millions of tiny particles are in the air, and the food we eat. They can enter the body in many ways, through the intestinal tract, the nose and lungs, and organs exposed to the world at large. We generally do not develop an infection from these intruders. However, when the immune system is compromised, the tissues are poorly oxygenated, and the body is malnourished, these spores become the dominant life form and begin to grow.
Cyclosporine is a drug made from fungi found in soil. Researchers have discovered that this drug causes cancer. Not only does it suppress the immune system, but it is actually infecting the body with fungal spores.

Substances found effective in treating fungal infections have also proved to be active against cancer. The following are examples of natural and chemical substances, active against both fungus and cancer: Griseofulvin, Berberine, Artemisia, Lapachol, Aloe Vera, Bee Propolis, Sesame Oil.
Lastly I must respond to information obtained through Quackwatch. I had a friend who got caught up in a pyramid scheme through Young Living Inc., a distiller and supplier of essential oils. I set out to prove that the founder Don Gary Young was a scam artist. I believe I accomplished that but in the process I also dug up a lot of dirt on Stephen Barrett, the founder of Quackwatch, as he was Gary's main opponent. It was actually much easier to prove Stephen Barrett's dubious past then Gary Young's. Stephen Barrett's testimony has been throw out of court repeatedly on the grounds that he has falsified his credentials, and given false expert testimony on subject's he knows nothing about. Barrett conceded in court that he was not a Medical Board Certified psychiatrist because he had failed the certification exam. This was a major revelation since Barrett had provided supposed expert testimony as a psychiatrist and had testified in numerous court cases. Barrett also had said that he was a legal expert even though he had no formal legal training. The most damning testimony before the jury, under the intense cross-examination, was that Barrett had filed similar defamation lawsuits against almost 40 people across the country within the past few years and had not won one single one at trial. During the course of his examination, Barrett also had to concede his ties to the AMA, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Everything he ever said was a lie, and that's a fact. He has attacked seemingly innocent doctors for studying vitamins for crying out loud. He attacks virtually everything that says that anything other that a drug or invasive procedure could have any impact on health what so ever. He also ignored the many drugs that have proven to be dangerous, as well as the people and companies that produce them, eventhough many have been proven to be far more dangerous than anything he tries to expose. He is also being sued by a growing number doctors nationwide for slander. This doesn't automatically mean that his opponents are right, but it does mean that he is wrong. Quackwatch are the biggest quacks of them all.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, but when I read how close minded people were in this discussion I had to say something. That is my biggest pet peeve, and it's a crime against truth and justice. If nothing else, I hope this has at least opened some of your eyes to the possibilities. That's all I ask is that people keep an open mind. Just what if there are some crooked people who don't want Cancer to be cured? Is it so hard to imagine that a fellow human being could do this for obscene profits? The world is rife with corruption everywhere we look. Just open your eyes and look around. What if they're right? What does that make all you doctors out there? It's no wonder you don't even want to entertain the notion. How painful that must be for you to have your whole world flipped upside down. What a difficult path that would be. To question the status quo would surely make you all the laughing stock of your peers. Could it be that vanity is the reason why we suffer so terribly. Or is it just good ole fashioned ignorance? Anyway you look at it, something just doesn't add up with the official story of things. Is there no one left with any heart?
Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance. ~ Albert Einstein
 
manmountain,

Here's some info. from the National Cancer Institute:

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/gerson/HealthProfessional/page6

No conclusions about the effectiveness of the Gerson therapy, either as an adjuvant to other cancer therapies or as a cure, can be drawn from any of the studies reported above.
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And the American Cancer Society:

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3x_Gerson_therapy.asp

What is the evidence?

There have been no well-controlled studies published in the available medical literature that show the Gerson therapy is effective in treating cancer.
In a recent review of the medical literature, researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center identified 7 human studies of Gerson therapy that have been published or presented at medical conferences. None of them were randomized controlled studies. One study was a retrospective review conducted by the Gerson Research Organization. They reported that survival rates were higher than would normally be expected for patients with melanoma, colorectal cancer and ovarian cancer who were treated with surgery and Gerson therapy, but they did not provide statistics to support the results. Other studies have been small, had inconclusive results, or have been plagued by other problems (such as a large percentage of patients not completing the study), making it impossible to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of treatment.

Some ideas put forth as part of the Gerson regimen, such as eating large amounts of fruits and vegetables and limiting fat intake, can be part of a healthy diet if not taken to the extreme. Researchers are continuing to study the potential anti-cancer properties of different substances in fruits and vegetables, but their actual effects are not well understood at this time. Because of this, the best advice may be to eat a balanced diet that includes 5 or more servings a day of vegetables and fruit, choosing whole grains over processed and refined foods, and limiting red meats and animal fats. Choosing foods from a variety of fruits, vegetables and other plant sources such as nuts, seeds, whole grain cereals, and beans is likely to be healthier than consuming large amounts of one particular food. Based on currently available evidence, diet is likely to play a greater role in preventing cancer than in treating it.

There is very little scientific evidence to support the use of other components of the Gerson regimen, such as consuming only fresh, raw juices prepared in a certain way, eliminating salt from the diet, and “detoxifying” the liver through coffee enemas and injected liver extracts, have very little scientific evidence to support their use against cancer.
Are there any possible problems or complications?

These substances may have not been thoroughly tested to find out how they interact with medicines, foods, herbs, or supplements. Even though some reports of interactions and harmful effects may be published, full studies of interactions and effects are not often available. Because of these limitations, any information on ill effects and interactions below should be considered incomplete.

Use of the Gerson therapy can lead to a number of significant problems. Serious illness and death have occurred from some of the components of the treatment, such as the coffee enemas. Along with other possible problems, they can remove potassium from the body and can lead to electrolyte imbalances. Continued home use of enemas may cause the colon's normal function to weaken, worsening constipation problems and colitis. Some metabolic diets used in combination with enemas cause dehydration.

Serious infections may result from poorly administered liver extracts. Thyroid supplements may cause severe bleeding in patients who have cancer that has spread to the liver.

Gerson therapy may be especially hazardous to women who are pregnant or breast-feeding. Relying on this treatment alone and avoiding or delaying conventional medical care for cancer, may have serious health consequences.
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I think I'll just eat a healthy balanced diet, take plenty of exercise and pass on the coffee enemas.
 
manmountain said:
The first thing is that Simoncini does not claim that malignant tumors are composed of fungal material like everyone is saying.
...
He is simply stating that Candida is the cause, not what forms the cells of cancerous growth. I'm not saying he's right, but rather that many people were trying to debunk his theory, without knowing anything about his theory.
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I understand that it's a long thread, but you did not look carefully at what those people with expertise (in particular jli) said on this topic, nor did you check to see what the source of their information was. The specifics of Simoncini's ideas were what was being addressed.

I snipped the information about your own purported experiences and about the Gerson therapy. None of it is the kind of information that can be considered credible.

Lastly I must respond to information obtained through Quackwatch. I had a friend who got caught up in a pyramid scheme through Young Living Inc., a distiller and supplier of essential oils. I set out to prove that the founder Don Gary Young was a scam artist. I believe I accomplished that but in the process I also dug up a lot of dirt on Stephen Barrett, the founder of Quackwatch, as he was Gary's main opponent. It was actually much easier to prove Stephen Barrett's dubious past then Gary Young's. Stephen Barrett's testimony has been throw out of court repeatedly on the grounds that he has falsified his credentials, and given false expert testimony on subject's he knows nothing about. Barrett conceded in court that he was not a Medical Board Certified psychiatrist because he had failed the certification exam. This was a major revelation since Barrett had provided supposed expert testimony as a psychiatrist and had testified in numerous court cases. Barrett also had said that he was a legal expert even though he had no formal legal training. The most damning testimony before the jury, under the intense cross-examination, was that Barrett had filed similar defamation lawsuits against almost 40 people across the country within the past few years and had not won one single one at trial. During the course of his examination, Barrett also had to concede his ties to the AMA, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA). Everything he ever said was a lie, and that's a fact. He has attacked seemingly innocent doctors for studying vitamins for crying out loud. He attacks virtually everything that says that anything other that a drug or invasive procedure could have any impact on health what so ever. He also ignored the many drugs that have proven to be dangerous, as well as the people and companies that produce them, eventhough many have been proven to be far more dangerous than anything he tries to expose. He is also being sued by a growing number doctors nationwide for slander. This doesn't automatically mean that his opponents are right, but it does mean that he is wrong. Quackwatch are the biggest quacks of them all.
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If the other information you presented wasn't enough, this paragraph is very damning if you wish to establish yourself as someone who is able to discover credible information. You have come across misinformation and outright lies about Dr. Barrett, but you were unable to recognize that the information was incorrect, because here you are passing it on as though we should trust that it is correct. For example, one does not need to be board certified to be a legitimate expert. He did not file or lose almost 40 defamation lawsuits.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, but when I read how close minded people were in this discussion I had to say something. That is my biggest pet peeve, and it's a crime against truth and justice. If nothing else, I hope this has at least opened some of your eyes to the possibilities. That's all I ask is that people keep an open mind.
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You have mistaken knowledge for a closed-mind. It isn't that anyone's mind is closed to the idea, it's that we already know about information which shows that the idea is wrong. That you are unfamiliar with this information does not somehow make you cleverer or us heartless. If you wish to suggest that the heavenly bodies revolve around the earth, does it really make sense to call the recognition that this idea is wrong, that the movement of heavenly bodies is best described by the effects of gravity and general relativity, "close minded"?

Linda
 
manmountain said:
I had not heard of this Simoncini guy until I saw this thread though.
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The first thing is that Simoncini does not claim that malignant tumors are composed of fungal material like everyone is saying.
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In your "research" of Simoncinis idea you have probably by now come across some video clips where he points at cancers, and say directly that they are fungal colonies. He can´t be more direct than that. If you agree that cancer is not a fungus, you have to dismiss Simoncinis idea.
 
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There is a Clinical study of Alternative versus Chemo Therapy

manmountain

This "Gerson therapy" is very similar to the "Gonzales Protocol" (Gerson took the idea from a man named Kelly, and Gonzales in turn copied from Gerson) ... coffee enemas and lots of supplements, and a very restricted range of foods in the diet to "detoxify" the body.

There was a clinical study of the Gonzales Protocol versus the current medical therapy for pancreatic cancer, with Dr. Gonzales setting up the treatment for the patients in the half of the patients who were using his protocol: "The National Cancer Institute, in 1998, sponsored a randomized, phase III, controlled trial of proteolytic enzyme therapy versus chemotherapy. Because most eligible patients refused random assignment, the trial was changed in 2001 to a controlled, observational study." This means they gave the patients a choice of which treatment and watched what happened.
(study is here: jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/abstract/JCO.2009.22.8429v1 ... I can't link because the forum hates me, so you have to copy and paste )

"Of 55 patients who had inoperable pancreatic cancer, 23 elected gemcitabine-based chemotherapy, and 32 elected enzyme treatment, which included pancreatic enzymes, nutritional supplements, detoxification, and an organic diet. Primary and secondary outcomes were overall survival and quality of life, respectively." In other words, how long did they live and how well did they die.

www dot sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1430 discusses the trial, as do many other doctors' blogs. The punch line is this, taken straight from the published article about the trial: Conclusion: Among patients who have pancreatic cancer, those who chose gemcitabine-based chemotherapy survived more than three times as long (14.0 v 4.3 months) and had better quality of life than those who chose proteolytic enzyme treatment.

This graph (at www dot sciencebasedmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Snapshot-2009-09-11-16-16-153.jpg ) says it all. - Look at the yellow line (Gonzales protocol) versus the blue line (chemotherapy) each downward drop in the graph is the death of one patient (or their becoming unavailable for medical follow-up)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaplan%E2%80%93Meier_estimator explains the curve and why it was used.
 
TsuDhoNimh said:
"...Because most eligible patients refused random assignment, the trial was changed in 2001 to a controlled, observational study." This means they gave the patients a choice of which treatment and watched what happened.
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In other words, any outcome that it might have had was declared in advance to be worthless from a scientific perspective. You do know why randomized, double-blinded trials are done, don't you?

If those who were less sick elected to try alternative medicine, that alone could seriously skew the results, even if alternative medicine was ineffective against cancer.

Also, the total number of patients of only 55 is not considered to be a sufficient number for a valid test, especially if it is not replicated.
 
casebro said:
Baking soda cures fungus? Tell it to my toe nail fungus. Nothing works.

But it does look somewhat improved after using a mix of ethylene glycol, boric acid, and borax. I'll know better after tomorrow's podiatry appointment.
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what about old fashioned long treatment with terbinafin?

is your liver dying?
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Why?
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Perhaps this will help.
And this.

The larger the sample size, the more reliable the results when extrapolated to the general population. Consider, as an extreme example, if you took a poll, and your sample size was 1, your neighbor. If your neighbor says he is voting for Candidate X, you could announce that 100% of the voters will be electing Candidate X!

Likewise, if patient X takes a pill and gets well, you could announce that there was a 100% cure rate. While you are not lying, you certainly are giving misleading results. Larger sample sizes are much better if you are really looking for the truth. Smaller sizes are better if you are deliberately trying to mislead.
 
Sherman Bay said:
Perhaps this will help.
And this.

The larger the sample size, the more reliable the results when extrapolated to the general population. Consider, as an extreme example, if you took a poll, and your sample size was 1, your neighbor. If your neighbor says he is voting for Candidate X, you could announce that 100% of the voters will be electing Candidate X!

Likewise, if patient X takes a pill and gets well, you could announce that there was a 100% cure rate. While you are not lying, you certainly are giving misleading results. Larger sample sizes are much better if you are really looking for the truth. Smaller sizes are better if you are deliberately trying to mislead.
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Thank you for the links. I was thinking the expected effect size needs to be taken into account before determining how large a sample needs to be to give meaningful results.

For example, imagine if 50 people with confirmed pancreatic cancer are randomly split into two groups of 25. One group is given the current standard of care and the other group given Quack Treatment number 10 (QTNT).

If after 5 years all but one person in the standard treatment group were dead and everyone in the QTNT group were alive, then I think most people would be confident that QTNT was an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer.
 
Sherman Bay said:
In other words, any outcome that it might have had was declared in advance to be worthless from a scientific perspective. You do know why randomized, double-blinded trials are done, don't you?
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You do realize that double blinded trials are sometimes impossible to do right?
 
I have cancer ...recurrent for years....I wouldnt fall for his crap.

Sadly,there are folks who would though. It is easy for patients who are ill and in pain to clutch at straws.
Sometimes they just do not make good informed choices because they are so tired and down.

This kinda of claime really makes me mad. Is he stupid enough to have me believe that doctors wouldnt have stumbled on a coorelation between taking soda and curing tumors before now?
 
technoextreme said:
You do realize that double blinded trials are sometimes impossible to do right?
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Yes, but not always. They are certainly worth striving for.

Ivor the Engineer said:
Thank you for the links. I was thinking the expected effect size needs to be taken into account before determining how large a sample needs to be to give meaningful results.

For example, imagine if 50 people with confirmed pancreatic cancer are randomly split into two groups of 25. One group is given the current standard of care and the other group given Quack Treatment number 10 (QTNT).

If after 5 years all but one person in the standard treatment group were dead and everyone in the QTNT group were alive, then I think most people would be confident that QTNT was an effective treatment for pancreatic cancer.
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And "most people" would be wrong. The scientific response should be: let's see the evidence, how it was gathered, how the study was done, what biases there might be, and can it be replicated, just to name a few concerns.

The FDA, bless their government hearts, would not consider a sample size of 50 and a single test to be sufficient to allow a new drug on the market. If they did, all the drug companies would have to do would be to do a hundred tests of 50 people each, and pick the ones that looked the best to submit for approval.

And therein lies the problem...in tests with small sample sizes, it is to be expected that some groups will have positive results. Use those to make an important decision, and you are deluding yourself, as not all the evidence is being considered.

I am not a statistical expert, so I can't spout P-values and N-values and tell you exactly what the sample number is to make a test valid. But the best tests use thousands of patients and are done numerous times, each time building a confidence level as long as the outcome is similar. A sample size of 50 is in the ridiculous category, especially if you have to divide it into controls, placebos, and treatment groups. Just think...with only 25 people in one group out of 50 total, if only one person is misdiagnosed to the wrong outcome group, that changes the results by 4 percentage points!
 
I must have missed the edit window.

In Igor's example, he postulated an outcome where all participants that died were in one group, and those that lived, in the other. Rarely are tests that clear cut. Tests involving CAM typically show such small differences between groups that the distribution alone becomes suspect.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Why?
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Because a lot of funny things can happen with small sample sizes, for many reasons. One of them is a thing called 'chance'. For research to be reliable, this has to be ruled out as much as possible, and with small sample sized you just cannot do that.

You'll probably know the example of heads or tails. Since there are only two possiblities, a coin has a 50% chance of coming up with Heads or Tails. Now, if you would throw a coin 20 times, and it comes up heads every time, you could conclude that coins have a chance of 100% of coming up heads. I hope you wouldn't though, for you would be very wrong.

But the more times you throw the coin, the more the anomalies will even out and the odds will show to be 50%, or at least very very close.

It happens, purely by chance - that is, for no known reason - that people with cancer live for 5 or more years after their diagnosis without any treatment. There are even people who live for 5 years or more with metastasized cancer. It also happens that cancer spontaneously regresses - not often, but still, it happens. To rule out any of these 'chance things', your research group has to be large enough and 55 is just too small for that.
 
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technoextreme said:
You do realize that double blinded trials are sometimes impossible to do right?
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Leaving that aside, why would anyone want to do a double blinded trial to see if baking soda cures cancer (= the fungus candida albicans) when there is so much evidence showing that cancer is not a fungus to begin with? What would be the point of such a trial?

Shouldn't Simoncini first prove that candida albicans compromises the pH-balance of our the body to such an extent as to cause cancer?
I mean, the whole pH-balance & cancer hypothesis is completely unfounded to begin with.
 
The chance of a fair coin coming up heads twenty times in a row is about 1 in a million. That would set off my "there's something funny going on here" sceptisense, which would prompt me to want to investigate the coin and flipping device further.

In the example of confirmed pancreatic cancer I gave earlier, the 5 year survival rate with standard treatment is about 5%. Using this value, the probability of all 25 people in a group surviving at least five years is 0.05^25 = 2.98e-33, or about 1 in 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The probability of 1 or more people surviving at least five years is 1 - (1 - 0.05)^25 = 0.723.

There's a nice little Binomial calculator here. Set n = 25, p = 0.05 and Prob. X is to 'at least'. Enter the number of people who survive in the box at the bottom right and press 'Compute!' to see the probability of at least that many people with pancreatic cancer in a group of 25 still alive at 5 years.

At least 4 people surviving for 5 years out of a group of 25 is enough to reach standard statistical significance (p = 0.05). The chance of 9 or more people surviving for 5 years is less than 1 in 20000.

In summary, when the expected effect size is large, small samples can provide useful information to base decisions on.
 
chance of a fair coin coming up heads twenty times in a row is about 1 in a million. That would set off my "there's something funny going on here" sceptisense, which would prompt me to want to investigate the coin and flipping device further.
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Then I don't understand why the outcome of the "50-subjects trial" you mentioned would not set off your sceptisense.
 
I'm not sure of the relevance of this little row about sample sizes and study design. At worst (if the study was too poor to draw any conclusions) it provided no evidence that the alternative remedy was any good, at best (if the design was adequate) it shows that the alternative remedy was much worse than the standard chemotherapy.

The debate about sample sizes and methodology is all very interesting, but it doesn't really have any relevance to this thread.
 
All-or-none case series are neither randomized, nor controlled, often involve sample sizes much less than 50, and are considered evidence as strong as good quality RCT's. The relevance is that this is how a novel and useful therapy, such as Simoncini describes, might come to our attention.

Linda
 
Sherman Bay said:
In other words, any outcome that it might have had was declared in advance to be worthless from a scientific perspective. You do know why randomized, double-blinded trials are done, don't you?

If those who were less sick elected to try alternative medicine, that alone could seriously skew the results, even if alternative medicine was ineffective against cancer.

Also, the total number of patients of only 55 is not considered to be a sufficient number for a valid test, especially if it is not replicated.
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Have you read the protocol, and all the discussions of it on various science blogs? The ethics of doing this experiment were called into question because there is no biological basis for thinking it could work, based on what we now know about cancer. You might as well recommend unicorn poop for rabies, because as we all know, unicorns are immune to rabies.

Yes, I know about randomized, double-blind studies ... but how would you propose to make it happen with a procedure that involves daily enemas, dozens of pills, and an extremely restricted diet versus one that involves chemotherapy, no enemas, and few (if any) dietary restrictions? The "pick one" choice is the best a researcher can do when blinding is impossible. That's how they compare surgical versus non-surgical treatments (you don't do a sham surgery with anaesthetics and incisions and stitches) , or IV versus oral administration of drugs (you don't hook up a fake IV).

55 patients is a small number, but the Gonzales protocol failed ... failed so abysmally ... compared to the chemotherapy that it is unlikely to ever be repeated.
 
TsuDhoNimh said:
The "pick one" choice is the best a researcher can do when blinding is impossible.
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It is important to distinguish between these two different issues. One is the random assignment to a treatment, which helps to prevent selecting groups which are likely to have different outcomes, regardless of which treatment is provided. Blinding is about whether or not expectation can influence the results, not about which treatment is chosen.

Many outcomes are not influenced by expectation anyway, so whether the control group receives a placebo or is blinded is irrelevant when the outcome is death vs. survival. And an all-or-none case series involves giving everyone the same treatment anyway, so random assignment is also irrelevant.

And this is how you would expect Simoncini to test his therapy and then bring it to our attention. He would apply the treatment to a series of patients who present to his clinic with the same terminal condition and see whether or not their survival is greater than expected. If it is, then he would publish the results in the place where it is most likely to be read by those who are best able to make use of the information.

Linda
 
Sherman Bay said:
Just think...with only 25 people in one group out of 50 total, if only one person is misdiagnosed to the wrong outcome group, that changes the results by 4 percentage points!
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In this trial, the "outcome" was death, and it was measured by how soon it happened. That's hard to miss.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=97 discusses the trial, with lots of links to relevant information such as the criteria for inclusion, and the ethics of even doing the trial.

The diagnosis criteria were strict, and the time between diagnosis and entry to the study was controlled so that the "death's door" effect couldn't affect either therapy.

If a drug in a Phase II (see wikipedia for the phases) trial bombs as badly as the Gonzalez protocol did, it never makes it to Phase III, which is the large-scale trial with lots of subjects you think is necessary.
 
TsuDhoNimh said:
If a drug in a Phase II (see wikipedia for the phases) trial bombs as badly as the Gonzalez protocol did, it never makes it to Phase III, which is the large-scale trial with lots of subjects you think is necessary.
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Yeah, considering how badly it did, I'd really question what sort of information was provided to justify performing the study in the first place. I suspect that Gonzalez has now poisoned the well for the testing of any other SCAM therapy in this situation - they are going to have to put together some high quality research to justify putting people at risk the next time they want to run a trial.

Linda
 
fls said:
Yeah, considering how badly it did, I'd really question what sort of information was provided to justify performing the study in the first place.
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Doesn't this beg the question of "justify it to whom"? Presumably, there is a an ethics board of some sort in any institution that does research, particularly with human subjects. And therefore experimental protocols have to be approved by them. And I have no concern that any board of legitimate doctors is going to hear the claim "Cancer is just a fungus, so here's what we are going to do" and not laugh the person out of the room (I think my negatives are right there). And no legitimate funding source is going to provide money on something that is so pathologically silly.

But what happens when you have Crank Research Money, Inc, which is providing funding for a study at the Clinic of Woo? The ethics board, made of of Hulda Clark followers with no education in pathology or medicine, hears the proposal and thinks, "we have a genius!"

Is there any oversight anywhere that would stop that?
 
fls said:
Yeah, considering how badly it did, I'd really question what sort of information was provided to justify performing the study in the first place. ...
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It began with "a prospective nonconsecutive case series conducted by the developer and an associate, included 11 patients diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas (stage II or stage IV)." http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=78

Apparently, the NCCAM rejected that. So, Gonzalez approached US Rep. Dan (The Loose Cannon) Burton (R, IN). Subsequently, the two met with the director of the NCCAM, and Gonzalez got his money.

In short, Gonzalez failed peer-review by quacks (how sad is that?) so he got an, unfortunately, influential Congressman to twist the director's arm.
 
pgwenthold said:
Doesn't this beg the question of "justify it to whom"?
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The National Cancer Institute and the NCCAM.

But what happens when you have Crank Research Money, Inc, which is providing funding for a study at the Clinic of Woo? The ethics board, made of of Hulda Clark followers with no education in pathology or medicine, hears the proposal and thinks, "we have a genius!"

Is there any oversight anywhere that would stop that?
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Not really. Sometimes these physicians are working out of legitimate institutions, so they have to pass institutional review. But on the other hand, physicians are not always very knowledgeable about SCAM research and may be fooled by claims about the findings from background research.

Linda
 
JJM said:
It began with "a prospective nonconsecutive case series conducted by the developer and an associate, included 11 patients diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas (stage II or stage IV)." http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=78

Apparently, the NCCAM rejected that. So, Gonzalez approached US Rep. Dan (The Loose Cannon) Burton (R, IN). Subsequently, the two met with the director of the NCCAM, and Gonzalez got his money.

In short, Gonzalez failed peer-review by quacks (how sad is that?) so he got an, unfortunately, influential Congressman to twist the director's arm.
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Sigh.

After reading parts one to four, I just couldn't take it anymore. Sometimes I think I'd rather just stay ignorant of this stuff.

Linda
 
fls said:
All-or-none case series are neither randomized, nor controlled, often involve sample sizes much less than 50, and are considered evidence as strong as good quality RCT's. The relevance is that this is how a novel and useful therapy, such as Simoncini describes, might come to our attention.

Linda
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I had in mind small RCT's instead of all-or-none, I stand corrected, thank you. :)
 
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