HEALTH MATTERS
Jerry Adler
No Way to Treat the Dying
Cancer, says Barrett, is 'a fertile field for exploitation because patients are so often frightened.'
What price do you put on hope? Is $3,000 a week too much? Said Nedlouf faced that question when his wife, Mary, was diagnosed with an inoperable recurrence of breast cancer in the summer of 2006. It did not at first seem like too much to spend on "bioresonance therapy," "quadrant analysis" and "autosanguis" treatments by Dr. Jarir Nakouzi, a homeopathic physician in Bridgeport, Conn. "Whatever that woman wanted, I would do it," says Nedlouf, a native of Morocco who met Mary at Disney World and lived with her in Orlando. Now, a year after his wife's death, Nedlouf thinks he made a bad deal. "He sold us hope that wasn't there," says Nedlouf, who has filed a complaint against the doctor with the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
But Nakouzi was the only one who was offering hope. By the time Mary saw him—after a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation—her cancer was incurable, according to her oncologist, Dr. Nikita Shah. At that point conventional medicine could offer only a remission that might last years, months—or weeks.
Nakouzi did talk about a cure, according to Said Nedlouf. "He talked about getting to the 'root' of the cancer, and that there could be as many as 20 roots," Nedlouf says. He recalls that Nakouzi took a history that went back to Mary's early childhood, focusing on emotional traumas and the deaths of people close to her, probed her with electrodes and prescribed a daily regimen of 30 to 40 pills and supplements. "He talked about eating healthy, using the right toothpaste," Nedlouf says, wonderingly. (Nakouzi declined to be interviewed, citing the ongoing investigation. DPH records show no past disciplinary actions against him.) Homeopathy, a longstanding alternative to standard medical practice that appears to be undergoing a revival, is described on Nakouzi's Web site as "based upon the idea of Similia Similibus Curantur (Like cures Like): A pharmacologically active substance … triggers a series of symptoms. These same symptoms in a sick person can be cured by giving micro doses of this substance." Dr. Jack Killen, acting deputy director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, says homeopathy "goes beyond current understanding of chemistry and physics." He adds: "There is, to my knowledge, no condition for which homeopathy has been proven to be an effective treatment."
But hope, not proof, is what Mary Nedlouf wanted. On a visit, her cousin Mary Maynard expressed concern about her condition. "I am fine," she retorted. "I am being cured." Cancer, says Dr. Stephen Barrett, who runs the Web site Quackwatch.org, is a "fertile field for exploitation, because patients are so often frightened or desperate." By December, Mary's cancer had broken through the chest wall, covering her skin with an oozing sore. The hotel maids refused to touch her sheets, so Said washed them himself. A cancer-weakened vertebra fractured, excruciatingly. Finally Said stepped in. He called a halt to the treatments, after, he says, running up bills of about $41,000 (most of which he is disputing). When he brought her home, "it was frightening to see her," says Maynard. The sore on her chest was ghastly. She died a few weeks later.
Said Nedlouf doesn't blame Nakouzi for not curing an incurable cancer. He sees now that Mary's will to live may have tipped over into self-delusion. But is she to blame for that? Nakouzi's useless treatments, he says, "robbed me of precious time to console her, to come to closure, to prepare for her departure." And that seems like a high price for hope.
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: DrShannon @ 02/18/2008 10:10:18 PM
Comment: It certainly sounds true that for conventional medicine, this women's case was incurable. But to say she was incurable by any and all treatment modalities is something else. Since conventional treatments are not helping enough, our society should be open to alternatives, rather than condemning them before they've been adequately tested. Unfortunately, this article appears to paint homeopathy in a negative light, even though there is no discussion of this women even getting actual homeopathic treatment. Instead it sounds like she got a combination of many different approaches with a very high price tag. It's sad that she died in pain, and sad that this situation is being used to criticize homeopathy for no understandable reason (since she was not treated with homeopathy).
In addition, using one dramatic case gone wrong to make a case against a whole healing paradigm is not honest. There are many more cases just like this with conventional medicine. One has only to look at the rate of iatrogenic mortality (death caused by conventional medicine - google it), to be shocked.
The bottom line here is no one is the bad guy, conventional med, homeopathy, acupuncture, etc. We're all doing the best we can to help our patients. Criticism that isconstructive is useful, this is not. Hopefully one day, we will all come together as health care practitioners and ask each other for help when we are having difficulty. Instead, in this country, we seem to be working hard to make it look like there is "scientific" based medicine, and everything else. But I think many of us know otherwise.
Peace,
Tim Shannon, ND
www.drtshannon.com
drt@drtshannon.com
Posted By: DrShannon @ 02/18/2008 10:09:58 PM
Comment: So from my perspective, the author was either himself strongly biased against homeopathy himself, and sought out a like minded fellow to add weight to the article. Or, he simply didn't do his homework on Stephen Barrett. The other doctor,Killen , also has not done his homework. Simply look at the research collected at this site to see for yourself: http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/articles/research.jsp. There should be much to help you make up your OWN mind.
As for treating cancer with real homeopathy, there are people who've had some success. Certainly many have been helped to die without painkillers when the cases were incurable. And in India, there is a doctor who's documented many cures with serious cancer cases. His book is "A homeopathic approach to cancer" is very even handed, not making any extensive claims, just talking about his own personal experience - often quite remarkable. His website is: http://www.drramakrishnan.com/index.php.
However, it's important to keep in mind that many if not most cancer patients referred to homeopaths are late stage. We are very rarely the first provider to treat the disease. There is very little opportunity to see, especially in the US, just what homeopathy can contribute to grave diseases like homeopathy. This is true simply because most of the cases are very far along - both from the devastating effects of the disease as well as from treatment. Even though conventional medicine is not making great strides in increasing survival rates of the most common cancers, it is still the clear monopoly. Articles like this one serve to keep it that way rather than actually find out what other medical systems can add. It is a shame that we don't have a paradigm that trusts serious health care providers, but instead tries to find so many ways to undermine, question or marginalize alternative methods.
Posted By: DrShannon @ 02/18/2008 10:09:32 PM
Comment: Just for the sake of clarity, homeopathy is about giving one very precisely selected homeopathic medicine and watching for concrete results. In this case the correct homeopathic remedy would have helped with the pain and also in stopping or slowing the advance of the disease. Some homeopaths also include giving some dietary and moderate supplement support. But the one single precise medicine is the thrust of the treatment in homeopathy. Homeopaths expect the single Rx to do the lion's share of the work.
If in fact, this woman didn't actually receive any homeopathic care, the rest of the article appears to be misguided. In addition, the fact that the author of the article is citing Stephen Barrett is curious. He has been strongly biased - to put it mildly - against ANYTHING that is not conventional medicine for many years. Even alternative treatments with more conclusive scientific evidence then conventional medicine is called "quackery" by this man. Look at his website "quackwatch.org." Nowhere on his site will you find current medical treatments that have dubious science - of which there are many. The only "Quacks" are those not in the fold - in this man's estimation.