How bogus cancer treatments prey on the most vulnerable
This week, a Twitter thread advertising to followers that cancer can be fought “naturally,” mostly through changes in diet, got 200,000 likes in just 48 hours. The post tells patients to fast in order to “starve” the cancer, and to “hack your DNA” and “boost your stem cells” by eating certain foods. It attracted scores of supportive comments.
Scientists and doctors then chimed in to debunk the misinformation on the thread. Dr. David Robert Grimes, a cancer researcher, was one scientist who responded, challenging some of its claims. “This kind of advice doesn’t help patients, and often shames them needlessly, or drives them to dangerous restrictive diets,” he wrote, describing how “dietary quackery” for cancer is a huge, widespread problem that can push patients into dangerous choices.
Grimes told me last year that anyone with cancer is especially vulnerable to “snake oil.”
“In those circumstances, even the most sober-headed realist can be taken in by those who promise miraculous cures with no side-effects,” he said.