Alternative/Complementary/Holistic Resources

Hi Janet - Good stuff! Thanks for sharing!

Here's your link "hot" :  Herbal and Natural Products for Cancer Prevention and Therapy

Deanna- Thanks for sharing the Simms Mann link!  You had shared that before and I forgot to save it to my favorites and couldn't remember it.

From Aetna/Harvard Medical School : 

Finding a Doctor Who Understands Complementary and Alternative Medicine

HealthNewsReview.org

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Hi Yazmin,

Thanks for sharing your resources!  I'm not familiar with all of them, but I'll definitely check them out.  I'm always looking for good credible information.

Unfortunately, I don't consider some of them credible,reliable, or accurate.  Please don't take this as a personal affront - I do appreciate your sharing, but hopefully I can explain why I feel this way.  I'm not looking to attack anyone, nor invite an us-vs-them battle.  I'm looking for subjective information to help distinguish credible sources from non-credible sources.

Cancer Decisions is Ralph Moss' personal commercial site, which to me is a huge red flag.  His information is most often very vague, deliberately incomplete/inaccurate, and without citations to confirm the information.  Evidently, to get to the "meat" of his information, you have to pay exorbitant fees for his reports that likely don't contain anything you can't get for free by doing your own research. I haven't paid for his reports, though, so this is speculation on my part, so I'd love to hear or read otherwise.

Annieappleseedproject - has a lot of useful information, but unfortunately also presents a huge amount of misinformation on unproven/disproven cancer treatment mixed in with credible information, so for me personally it loses all credibility.  Also, most of the links on the site are merely regurgitated from other sources I consider very unreliable and unprofessional.

Breast Cancer Choices - I'm not sure where to begin with this one.  That site, for me, is the epitome of quackery and misinformation.  It's a commercial site pretending to serve breast cancer patients, and instead it's fearmongering, misinterpretations, and very heavy reliance on bad sources (such as Jeffrey Dach, Mike Adams, etc)

Dr. Weil - another purely commercial site, lacking in substance and depth of information.

 Again, these assessments are my own opinion, and I'm perfectly comfortable with disagreement and discussion/debate.  If anyone disagrees or finds errors in my assessments, please post so that we (and anyone looking for more information) can discuss and learn.  

Hi DesignerMom - I absolutely agree about recommendations to avoid, as much as possible, chemical based cleaning products and cosmetics.  BreastCancerChoises does have some valid and credible information, but for the most part I don't consider it a credible resource in general.  I know they say they're a nonprofit, and to be honest I don't know all the ins and outs of nonprofit status.  However, for example, I find the site overwhelmingly supportive of iodine therapy - oh, and they just happen to sell it.  To me, that's a huge red flag. They have lots of links to  other commercial sites, and I just don't find it to be impartial and unbiased at all.  Not to mention that I find their information to be very cherry-picked, inaccurate, incomplete, and misleading.  Again, that's my assessment, which may or may not agree with yours, and I'm totally okay with that. 

Hi Yazmin, 

You said, "We'll just leave it for everybody to decide for themselves, right? Wink We'll also let it to everybody to decide whether or not some of your claims are as unfounded as they are one-sided."

I say - absolutely, we let everyone make their own choices.  That's why I think it's important to bring out and discuss differing opinions and data - so that we can all learn from it and make our own decisions.  Exactly!  And that's precisely why I was hoping that, instead of just calling my claims unfounded and one-sided, people might share their thoughts and clear up any of my errors or oversights.  Seriously - I'm asking for your discussion, corrections, and even disagreement. Isn't that how we learn?  I don't presume to have all the answers, or to be "right" or that anything is black vs white or alt vs conventional or whatever. Yazmin, your tagline says to question and question more.  I agree wholeheartedly!

No argument about that the price gouging that's going on surrounding the Japanese radiation disaster is just despicable.  It's taking the economic theory of supply and demand to a new level of unconscionable business practices, if you ask me!

I know what you mean about the CEO salary issue, but actually, I looked up the Red Cross on Charity Navigator, and it shows that  their administrative expenses at only 4.4%, fundraising expenses at 3.6%, and the top three execs each receiving salaries of 0.01% (which is still an enormous salary by any standard!).

I was hoping to find Breast Cancer Choices listed on the Charity Navigator site, but it wasn't there, and I wasn't able to find any financial reports on the site itself, but I'd be interested to see their records. I also wonder what percentage of people who take their free lab tests end up with results indicating they need supplements or services provided or sponsored by the very ones offering the tests.  It just seems like a huge conflict of interest to me.

As for the "not-enough-money-to-run-a-trial" excuse, I think it's often repeated as fact but in reality the "Big Pharma" companies spend a much larger percentage of their profits on research than the "Big Herba" companies, despite disgustingly enormous profits from both.  In fact, I started a thread yesterday with a link to an editorial about why it's not a valid excuse.  If you're interested, you can find the discussion here: 

http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/79/topic/766926?page=1#idx_6

Hi Yazmin, once again, you seem to be either responding to a different discussion or deliberately changing the subject.

You said, "if you search hard enough, you will find that, more often than not, Big Pharma and Big Herba are actually the same "entity". Many "herbas" [love that expression! LOL] are actually made by well-knowns pharmas."

If  Big Pharma and Big Herba are the same "entity," then why is it that one of the basic tenets of the pro-alternative crowd is that Big Pharma is evil and Big Herba is good? Interesting concept, but irrelevant to this discussion (maybe you could start a new thread to discuss your ideas?)

The point of the article I posted was that the Big Herba companies making the claims (whether they're manufacturers or distributors or whatever) aren't  putting their money where their mouth is, and funding the research to prove the claims.  At least not to the extent that Big Pharma companies are. It's pretty simple, really.  Why aren't those companies stepping up to fund the research?  I guarantee you they could exponentially increase their profit margin if they'd prove their claims.  So why don't they?  Why aren't consumers demanding it?

You said, "I feel it is about what works best for which breast cancer type, and certainly not about loading everybody with a standard, heavy (or even toxic) treatment."

We can absolutely agree on that!  But honestly, who would disagree or argue that statement?  Think about it.