Those of us who work in oncology find the charlatans hawking fake cancer "cures" to be the bane of our existence. These predators take advantage of the most vulnerable of us at the most desperate time in their lives, taking their (large amounts of) cash up front and giving nothing in return but shattered hope.
I could go on for pages about this as it angers me so, but instead I'd like to share an impressive 25-minute short film made by Al Jazeera reporter Sarah Macdonald, herself a cancer survivor, about the business of alternative treatment clinics in Tijuana, Mexico. For the investigation, Ms. Macdonald took the extraordinary step of shaving her newly regrown hair to appear more like a patient actively seeking treatment, which can't have been easy.
She points out that many patients actually try these "treatments" when first diagnosed, and seek out conventional treatment only after disease progression, which is often too late. I have seen this thousands of times. I am caring for a lovely woman now who sought some odd treatment in Colombia when first diagnosed with stage I breast cancer (easily curable with conventional treatment today). While under the treatment, her cancer grew and metastasized throughout her body, even externalizing through her skin. Her "practitioners" there told her this was a good sign - that their "treatment" was "chasing the cancer out of her body." This is simply criminal.
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