The Emperor of All Quackery

I have some bad news. Chances are, you and I will likely develop some form of cancer during our lives. That’s right. You see T&T is more than just the land of Steel Pan, Calypso and drug trafficking, it’s also a land of Cancer.

According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) T&T has one of the highest incidences of Cancer as well as one of the highest Cancer mortality rates in the region. Men in T&T are particularly susceptible to developing prostate Cancer while women are more likely to die from Breast Cancer than any other type.

 But look on the bright side; there are worse things that could happen to you than getting Cancer. Like dying in a car accident, being mauled by a pit bull, or Lendl Simmons leaking those pics of you two having sex and the whole world knowing you did it with a second rate cricketer.There is however a depressing aspect of having Cancer; I am of course referring to those shameless fraudsters and quacks peddling bogus cancer cures to desperate and vulnerable people.

Take for example Coral Calcium. This popular drug advertised on local TV sells people on the moronic and bogus idea that invasive diseases such as cancer are caused by calcium deficiencies. It also relies on another equally bogus idea popular among quacks that somehow your body’s PH levels need to be more “alkaline”.  It should go without saying that Coral Calcium is useless and that its inventor Robert. R. Barefoot has no medical qualifications.  And it should come as no surprise that Barefoot’s co-author of his book, ‘The Calcium Factor’ is a former doctor who has been stripped of his license since 1983 for “potentially dangerous practices”.

Con men pushing bogus cures aren’t alone in targeting the sick. There are also people who try and pass themselves off as doctors, such as Naturopaths. Naturopaths are basically losers who couldn’t get into medical school. So they decided to form a whole branch of quackery called Naturopathy. Since Naturopathy doesn’t actually involve having to learn actual medicine or science, it was easier to get qualified in.

Naturopathy involves nonsense like homeopathy, acupuncture and being able to use the word ‘holistic’ a lot. All things which have been debunked over and over again as having no scientific merit  or medical value. A lot of smart people can get suckered by naturopathy with all its talk about natural living. For example Steve Jobs, the genius who made it possible for us to watch porn on our phones, turned his back on real medicine in favor of naturopathic treatment when he was diagnosed with cancer. And well now he’s naturally dead.

Of course if there is anything more stupid than Naturopathy it has to be Ayurveda ‘medicine’. This is a medical philosophy that has its roots in ancient India and mostly involves ingesting herbs, doing yoga and getting the occasional massage.  Ayurveda medicine is very popular in India, as evidenced by India’s high infant mortality rate, high rate of infectious disease and of course India having one of the lowest rates of survival among cancer patients.

Bestselling charlatans such as Deepak Chopra have made a  fortune promoting the nonsense of Ayurveda medicine. In his book ‘Quantum Healing’ Chopra claims to have cured a girl named Chitra of cancer, by convincing her to abandon actual hospitals in favor of the Maharishi Ayurveda Center in Massachusetts. Like any true snake oil salesman Chopra proudly proclaims, “There is as yet no scientific reason why any of this should work except that is does.”

Chopra is at least half right about that. According to Cancer Research UK, Ayurveda medicine is a pseudoscience that apart from maybe providing a nice massage shows absolutely no benefit in treating cancer patients. Furthermore a study into the nature of Ayurveda medicines in India, found that 41% contained arsenic with 64% containing lead and mercury. Rather than curing your cancer, Ayurveda medicine might actually increase your risk of getting it.

Thanks to the efforts of real doctors and researchers, we know a lot more about cancer than we ever have.  More people can be diagnosed earlier and have greater chances of survival. In his breathtaking book, ‘The Emperor of All Maladies’ Dr.Siddhartha Mukherjee chronicles the history of cancer, expertly dismantling  false assumptions, conspiracy theories and detailing  the efforts by researchers to find a cure, giving hope to cancer patients everywhere. 

It is because of the hard work of men and women like Dr Mukherjee   that the con men and quacks peddling lies and false hope should be viewed as tumors that need to be destroyed.