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Cancer Medicine Quackery Surgery

Ranjana Srivastava: When cancer patients want quackery

Regular readers will have noticed that I haven’t been blogging nearly as much as usual. All I can say is that a combination of personal and professional issues and obligations have gotten in the way. Also, I have been a bit under the weather, as hard as it is to believe that a Tarial cell-driven […]

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Cancer Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Drs. Alberto Garcia and Alberto Siller’s Clínica 0-19: A mother’s story

A mother writes to Orac about her experience at Dr. Alberto Garcia and Dr. Alberto Siller’s quack cancer clinic in Monterrey.

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Cancer Medicine Popular culture Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Annabelle Potts tragically dies. The quacks at Clínica 0-19 didn’t save her.

Annabelle Potts was a girl with the deadly brain cancer known as diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) whose family was victimized by quacks. Unfortunately, that’s not how the media is reporting it. As is frequently the case, Annabelle’s story is being presented as one of triumph, and the quacks who treated her as legitimate experimental therapy.

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Cancer Naturopathy Quackery

The case of Omer Ahmetovic: Naturopathy, cancer, tragedy, and homicide

Last year, Fikreta Ibrisevic chose a naturopathic quack named Juan Gonzalez to treat her cancer. She had been planning on conventional therapy, but Gonzalez convinced her that “chemo is for losers” and that he could cure her without the toxicity of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. As a result, she died. Her distraught husband Omer Ahmetovic killed the quack. Here’s an update on a truly tragic case that shows why cancer patients should never rely on naturopaths.

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Cancer Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Cancer quack Robert O. Young loses a lawsuit to the tune of $105 million. We need more of this.

Robert O. Young is a cancer quack who claims to be a naturopath who promotes what he calls “pH Miracle Living.” He claims that cancer is caused by excess acid and that the way to prevent and cure cancer is to “alkalinize the blood.” Two and a half years ago, he was convicted of practicing medicine without a license. A week and a half ago, a woman whose breast cancer progressed to incurable while being treated by Young won a $105 million settlement in a lawsuit against him. Maybe civil suits can succeed where state medical boards have failed.