This is an article from The Desert Sun written about my book, Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who are Curing Cancer and How to Prevent Getting It in the First Place.  It came right after a party I threw at my desert home for the doctors and professionals who contributed to the book.  As mentioned in this article, I looked around that table and felt honored to be in the presence of the most forward-thinking minds in treatments and cures for cancer.  I felt emotional  because in my heart, I really feel that the cure for cancer is within reach with these outstanding professionals.  It’s a hopeful way to start this new decade.  For more information about alternative treatments for cancer, read Knockout. 

The Desert Sun – Mydesert.com

By: Bruce Fessier

December 6, 2009

The limits of America's arsenal in the fight against cancer became clear to Kathleen Greene of Palm Springs last month when a family member was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Chemotherapy seemed inevitable, but a Reader's Digest article told her of a promising alternative called laetrile.  “They said a group of scientists from around the world had gone to the Himalayas 10 years ago to try to find out what these people were doing differently than everybody else,” Greene told The Desert Sun. “They found they were eating the pits of apricots and they called (its vitamin) laetrile.  “The frustration is they're still doing chemotherapy. They're still doing all these other things when other treatments are available. They're killing your cells and you lose your hair from this chemo and maybe all they had to have was laetrile. I think we're in the dark ages in medicine.”

The success of Palm Springs resident Suzanne Somers' latest book, “Knockout: Interviews With Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer and How to Prevent Getting It In the First Place,” indicates more than a million readers also are interested in alternative cancer treatments. The book shot to No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in its first week of release in October.  Somers, who campaigned for alternative medicine with three previous books on bioidentical hormones, wrote “Knockout” after being misdiagnosed with cancer just over a year ago at a hospital she won't identify. She threw herself into a search for possible cancer cures, interviewing health experts and both alternative and conventional doctors to help others deal with a trauma she's been through twice — she was treated for breast cancer with radiation and alternative therapies in 2001.  Somers, however, has faced criticism for hyping alternative cancer therapies that haven't been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and in some cases, have yet to be peer reviewed or published.

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, confronted her last month on “Larry King Live” and told The Associated Press, “I am very afraid that people are going to listen to her message and follow what she says and be harmed by it.”

But Somers, who at 63 still has the youthful smile that brought her fame in the 1970s as the ditzy blonde on “Three's Company,” says her book sales indicate people are hungry for more information on cancer treatments.

“What that says to me is people know there's got to be something better,” she said at her multi-level Palm Springs home. “I talk about chemotherapy and where it doesn't work, but that's not really the focus of this book. It's to get you thinking about options.  If I had had this book available the two times I was diagnosed, I would have been so grateful. When you're presented with a cancer diagnosis, you get the standard of care (options) — surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and whatever after-care drug is for your particular cancer. No one has ever said to me, ‘If that doesn't appeal to you, you can always try X — the other way.'”  Doctors must present patients with standard of care options that have been established by the medical community and reinforced by insurance and court mandates. But not everyone in the medical establishment believes the options need to end there.

Dr. Joseph E. Scherger, Vice President for primary care at Eisenhower Medical Center, is spearheading that hospital's effort to create a new model for primary care using tools of the Information Age. He says patients and doctors should consider all valid treatments for chronic illnesses. “It used to be that the general public really did not have access to enough information to make their own decisions well,” he said. “They'd go to doctors and be told what to do. But now, in this Information Age, patients really have the opportunity, if not the obligation to become an expert in themselves.” Scherger says different cancer doctors have different biases.  “If you're a cancer surgeon, you like to do surgery. If you're an oncologist, you give chemotherapy. If you're a radiation oncologist you provide radiation.

He encourages conferences with various doctors and invites patients to hear their advice and evidence about the different options available. He says even the idea of getting a second opinion from an outside source is outdated.  “Now, patients are capable of talking to their own social network,” he said. “If they go on a web site like PatientsLikeMe (.com), they can log into thousands of people who have the same cancer they do. There's an interesting book, ‘What Would Google Do' (by Jeff Jarvis). At the end of the book, he's got a ‘What a Google health system would look like,' and he basically says, ‘Go public with your medical information and you'll get the best care because there's a wisdom of crowds to help you out.' So it's really not about one or two doctors' opinions any more.”  Scherger, founding dean of the Florida State University College of Medicine, says the 21st century model for primary care should include alternative medicine if patients want it.  “If alternative therapies are not going to be harmful and the patients believe in them or want them, you need to be supportive,” he said. “I think the goal is not an either or when it comes to alternative medicine versus conventional, scientific medicine. What you've got to realize is, it is their body. You want to keep them on the program to get the best medical care while being supportive of their beliefs.”

‘Truth about healing'

But Somers and some alternative doctors say a medical community supported by pharmaceutical research grants won't listen to advocates of natural health products that aren't eligible for patents.

“The thing I didn't say (on ‘Larry King Live') was, ‘Until you can say after all the billions of dollars that have been thrown into research that you have a cure, you owe it to us — the patients — to listen to what everybody is doing,” Somers exclaimed. “If (Dr. Stanislaw) Burzynski has a 60 percent success rate with the most virulent brain tumor, like Ted Kennedy just died of, why won't you go to Burzynski's clinic (in Houston)? I walked through his lab and different floors. The Burzynski kids with brain tumors are running around. This is a happy place because they're not all drugged out.”  Burzynski, who has been approved for Stage III clinical trials by the FDA on a cancer treatment that activates what he calls cancer protective genes, was one of many doctors Somers recently praised at a party at her home.  Another was medical author Ralph Moss, Ph.D., who was fired from a public relations job at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York in 1977 after accusing Sloan-Kettering officials of stopping their fight for clinical trials on laetrile because they had “lost their nerve” in the face of opposition from the FDA and the medical establishment.  Another was Bill Faloon, director and co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation, which has been fighting the FDA for non-pharmaceutical cancer therapies since 1980.  “The reason there is not a cure for cancer is the regulatory structure,” he said at the party. “There are enough effective therapies to cure cancer, but the regulators themselves impede the progress. The FDA is the roadblock.”

Somers looked at the doctors sitting at a U-shaped table in the natural amphitheater that is her back patio and said, “I think the answer to cancer is sitting around this table. I think you are leaders in your fields. You have forced those on the other side to take a good hard look at themselves.  “I am so proud to be the filter, the messenger.”  But alternative doctors say their work would probably fall on deaf ears without her.

“She's only the messenger, but she's the truth,” said Dr. Stephen Sinatra, a cardiologist and psychotherapist. “She's got the big name to warn the United States and expose the myth and tell the truth about healing. She's a beacon of light and a diamond in the rough. She will change the way cancer is treated in this country.”  Somers said meeting with the doctors gave her hope.  “When I finished writing this book, I said to my husband, ‘I no longer fear cancer,'” she said. “I don't ever want it again, but, if I get it, I'm never going to fear that hopeless panic I've felt now twice. I know which doctor I would go to and which protocol I would use depending on the cancer.  “What I want from this book is to happen to the reader what happened to me. If reading this book can do that for the reader, that's very empowering.”

Sincerely,

Suzanne Somers

For more information, visit www.SuzanneSomers.com

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