“Uncertainty is an
uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.”
Voltaire
I recently learned that the old adage “when life gives you
lemons, make lemonade” has a new meaning:
lemon juice is a cure for cancer. A friend of mine promised a
well-meaning individual that she would tell me about this fantastic cure.
Apparently, all I have to do is drink a glass of lemon juice a day and I can be
certain that my cancer will go away.
Being a skeptical sort, I Googled it and discovered that the
lemon juice cure has many important elements of a good scam. They are:
- The
proponents (whoever they are) fake an e-mail communication allegedly
arising from a credible health institution, the Institute of Health
Sciences in Baltimore, MD, as touting the dramatic curative effects of
lemons.
- They
erroneously assume that credible research showing cancer cell killing
properties of citrus fruit extracts in lab cultures can be generalized to human
beings. This is not true. Many chemicals—natural and synthetic—have been
shown to kill cancer cells in lab cultures but have shown no efficacy as
actual cancer treatments.
- The
proponents prominently state that pharmaceutical companies are conspiring
to keep this information secret while they develop a synthetic substance
or drug with the same properties so that they can make millions off its
sale.
The only thing that didn’t pop up in my Google search was
the usual anecdotal claim by Aunt Millie about miraculously curing her cancer
by drinking lemon juice. But, I’m sure that a deeper search would reveal such
anecdotes.
I have received other suggestions, including a package of
information on a Mexican Clinic touting CAM (Complementary and Alternative
Medicine) treatment by doctors. While I acknowledge that the material was given
to me by a very kind and well- meaning friend, I have a lot of difficulty with
these types of clinics. I actually have a lot of concern and skepticism about
CAM in general. I used to think that it was OK because, at the very least, it
“couldn’t hurt”. But then, one of my students from the yoga class I taught for
cancer patients came back from a Mexican clinic with severe kidney failure. She
was in hospital for a long time and I found out that one of the herbs she was
on in Mexico is widely known to cause kidney failure. The kidney failure
contributed to poorer quality of life and, likely, to a shortening of her life.
I have since learned of many problems and deaths associated with CAM. When
these facts are set alongside the certainty expressed by CAM practitioners that
their treatments will work, an important distinction between modern medicine
and CAM emerges. Modern medicine admits its uncertainties and unknowns and tends
to self-correct. CAM does not.
I have been reading Siddhartha Mukerjee’s book,
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of
Cancer. Mukerjee won a Pulitzer Prize for it, and no wonder. This is a
fascinating and beautifully written book and, while I’ll have more to say about
it in another post, there is one thing from the book I’d like to share now that
is relevant to the self-correction attribute of modern medicine. In the 1980’s,
an oncologist in South Africa falsified his data concerning the efficacy of a
particular breast cancer treatment. This treatment consisted of mega-dose
chemotherapy followed by autologous bone marrow transplant. He presented data
showing that the treatment offered 80% chance of remission. As a result,
patients demanded this treatment, oncologists all over the world began using
it, insurance companies were persuaded to pay for it and the patients died.
After a short time, suspicious oncologists and researchers demanded to see the
South African’s clinical data. He was exposed and those oncologists who had not
already ceased using the treatment stopped immediately.
Modern medicine is not immune to the fallibility of human
beings. Mistakes are made. But it has the capacity for self-correction, growth
and the development of new knowledge.
Despite the fact that clinical trials and other research
studies have been done on various CAM treatments and have shown no efficacy and
even harm, CAM clings to them on the basis that they are holistic and natural.
Their certainty is absurd.
I haven’t always been so skeptical. In the past, I have been
persuaded to do various CAM therapies. The lemon juice hoax mentions avoiding
the difficulties and sickness of chemotherapy. When my first cancer diagnosis
occurred, I was definitely afraid of chemotherapy and, in my fear, accepted
some naturopathic ideas that I should have known, given my scientific
background, were suspect or just could not be true. Playing on the fear of
chemo and other modern medical cancer treatments is a CAM tactic.
Fear was not the only thing that drove me to CAM. Mine was a
complex situation. But, in my fear, I failed to carry out due diligence on
understanding the state of cancer treatment at the time. Therefore, fear
combined with ignorance, were big factors in my decision- making. I have
resolved not to be as ignorant this time round. That is the reason I am reading
The Emperor of All Maladies.
Besides fear and ignorance, another factor needs to be
acknowledged—how we respond to certainty and uncertainty.
As well as being self-correcting, modern medicine is pretty
honest about the chances of cure and remission. Oncologists don’t say, “just do
this, and you will be cured” unless it is warranted. And, in the world of
cancer, this does not happen very often. My oncologist said that with the
treatment regime he was suggesting, I had a chance
at longevity. This is pretty positive but it is hardly a statement of
certainty. CAM practitioners, on the other hand, are sure that their treatments
will work or at least that is what they tell their patients. Whether they do it
deliberately or not, they tend to play on our fears of uncertainty.
Reflecting on the quote from Voltaire – “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd
one.” – we need to ask ourselves
how can we deal with the discomfort of uncertainty? This is our deep,
existential question and mostly we just ignore it partly because it is so uncomfortable: We tend to accept
the absurd rather than deal with the uncomfortable. Rife in our society, for
example, are absurd notions about happiness as something we all deserve and
have a right to, and about health and ageing that make it sound as if illness
and degeneration were moral failures.
We are quick to take any good sign or test result as
something that will eliminate uncertainty. But it won’t. It may be good news
for now but only if we live as fully and with as much self-reflection,
thoughtfulness and learning as we can everyday while not forgetting the reality
of our transience.
One of my ways of dealing with uncertainty is to be
skeptical of things that presume to be so certain. There are many categories of
“certain” things. Many religious beliefs, New Age beliefs, UFOs and alien
invasions, libertarianism, many philosophical ideas, humans cannot possibly
alter the earth’s atmosphere, studies that supposedly prove that girls and boys should be separately schooled, and
on and on it goes. On and on…I better stop now before this turns from a blog post
into a rant!!!
