Among the most devastating things any person can hear is being told: “You have cancer.” I know this well, because I have heard these words.
Imagine, then, being told that your cancer is perhaps terminal. I have not heard these words, but I have known people who received such news. It is worse than awful to hear such words and requires a realistic and honest assessment of one’s life and future.
I once knew a woman who had terminal lung cancer. Despite all of the opinions of some very fine physicians and against the advice of her heartbroken family, she found a clinic that offered her “hope.” The clinic put her on a special diet, fed her alternative herbal products and performed procedures that were, at best, questionable. She paid for these treatments out of pocket – and I imagine they were very costly.
I recalled her saying that “Western medicine didn’t work,” along with reflections as to how “Big Pharma” wanted only to profit but never to cure. The clinic did nothing to help her. As I recall as well, they blamed the fact that she had come to them so late in the game. The last time I saw her was only two or three days before her death.
These lousy memories have come up for me because on an article I have just read from Discovery News (November 18, 2013) entitled: “Cancer doctor under fire for providing false hope to patients.” The story concerns a Houston-based physician, who has been dispensing very unorthodox cancer therapies to patients since 1977. According to the article, the doctor:
“…has some prominent supporters, including TV’s ‘Dr. Oz’ and a documentary filmmaker who has created two films championing his cause and treatments. But most doctors and cancer centers claim that Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski is profiting from preying on the sick and vulnerable.”
Stepping Back
No one can blame a patient for wanting to live. The desire to extend one’s life has got to be one of the most basic of all human instincts. Yet the patient is hardly neutral in the process. End of life issues require great compassion and realism.
The article tells us that not only don’t Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski’s treatments prove effective; it can cost a patient up to $20,000 just to start and $7,500 for each month thereafter.
The article is well worth reading for it discusses the fact that the doctor is not a trained Oncologist, that his treatments have never been published in a medical journal, that the treatments have never been scrutinized as to scientific methodology and indeed – the treatments themselves have shown to cause serious harm in and of themselves. In fact, the doctor’s unconventional therapies have failed to save lives or to stop the re-occurrence of cancers.
But he is a kind of media personality who is anti-Big Pharma. He does offer hope – and therein is the core of the problem. “Hope” in this case, may spring eternal, but he offers little for any patient to realistically dream of achieving.
To again quote from the article:
“It seems unlikely that any of Burzynski’s studies will ever be published, because according to a Food and Drug Administration report released last week, the baseline scans for all the patients in his clinical trials had been destroyed. Burzynski has had nearly four decades to prove his claims, but unfortunately his patients can’t wait that long for a miracle cure.”
There are serious ethical problems at work here that no one seems to want to address least of all the doctor.
Take Your Own Medicine?
Suppose the doctor, himself, was diagnosed with serious – possibly, terminal cancer. Would he take his own medicine? Suppose some of his supporters (especially the television physicians) were also faced with a similar diagnosis, would they contact him and beg for his unconventional treatments? While I don’t have a crystal ball, I have a more than good hunch that they would all check into clinics associated with major medical centers using approved therapies.
There is an “Arrogance of Wellness” in play that deeply concerns me. The “Arrogance” allows playing on someone’s vulnerability. It is taking a patient’s last recourse, the emotion of hope, and allowing it to be confused with faith.
In the ethical scheme of things, when a medical professional allows a patient to have faith that completely unproven, perhaps harmful therapies will give hope, it is an insidious manipulation.
It is medicine and human nature at its ethical worst.
Excellent. Thank you.
Offering “hope” where there is little or no hope is tantamount to fraud. It doesn’t matter whether it is offering the gift of life or the gift of wealth, it is fraud.
I shall never understand why, when it comes to finances, people are better protected against charlatanry than when it concerns their own health. We recognise dodgy insurance salesmen, and we don’t regard the consequences of their activities as “consumer choice”. But we like to pretend quacks and medical fraudsters are a matter of “personal/consumer choice”. Fraud is fraud, whatever the activity.