Quackpots to the Rescue! We're Saved! We're Saved! [n/t]

I'm going to admit to you right up front that I haven't carefully researched Hulda Clark 's theories. In fact, I've spent a total of about fifteen minutes looking over her book, The Cure For All Cancers, in a local health food store. That's all the time I needed to figure out if there is anything worthwhile there, but take my advice for what it's worth.
Briefly, Clark believes that cancer is caused by parasitic infection, and can be cured in just a few days with an herbal mixture. In her newer book, the even more grandiosely titled, The Cure For All Diseases , she claims that an electronic device called a zapper can also cure cancer, along with whatever else might ail you.

When I looked at The Cure for All Cancers, the first thing that caught my eye was the list of 100 documented cases. To paraphrase the watchwords of the '92 Clinton Campaign, "It's the Data, Stupid!" So I turned right to the cases to see what there was, and what I saw was "Stupid Data".

Hulda Clark 's cases are classic examples of rotten methodology. She doesn't provide good documentation of the diagnosis of her cases (Such as the biopsy report), but, based on what she says, most probably did have cancer. But that's the least of the problems. What's really laughable are the methods she uses to determine if a patient is "cured". In one case that sticks in my mind, Clark actually told a woman with advanced pancreatic cancer that she was "cured" after two days! She also reports, without a trace of humor, that the woman was "incredulous" on hearing this. As well she should have been!

What is wrong is that she determines whether a patient is "cured" by doing tests for "Ortho-Phospho-Tyrosine", or a hormone called HCG, using an electronic device of her own invention called a "Syncrometer." She presents NO independent verification at all that these tests really work (Though HCG, tested for using reliable methods, really is a marker for a few cancers, including testicular cancer). Her cases validate her tests and her tests validate her cases. The snake swallows its tail! There is no excuse whatever for her not to monitor her patients with standard methods such as X-Rays, MRI's and valid antigen marker tests. If you have the book, you might want review her cases after reading my article on Evaluating Alternative Therapies which talks about how to evaluate cases.

In addition to her bogus tests, the follow-up times she reports for her patients are absurdly short, often just a few days or weeks. As too many of us know by hard experience, cancer is a disease that can recur years after apparently definitive treatment. But Hulda declares her patients cured in a few days on the basis of her quack tests. There is no data.

If there's no data, I don't believe it. And neither should you. In fact, I wouldn't believe anything from someone who, based on these case reports, apparently has as poor a grasp on what constitutes evidence as Hulda Clark does. I have to say that I find the popularity of this therapy extremely disheartening evidence of a low level of critical thinking. If you have no rational skeptism, you'll fall for the first alternative therapy you encounter. And since there is so much nonsense out there, you'll very likely pay the price. In this country, the price of relying on nonsense can be very, very high.

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