Why do some people choose alternative medicine for their cancer treatment?

This statement below is from another American doctor who works closely with cancer and explains the dilemma some doctors themselves face if they opt to recommend an alternative health protocol.

Integrative Approaches for Cancer, an interview with Pierre Kory MD, 1^st September 2024

While there are certain therapeutic principles that are relatively universal with cancer, in most cases, what each patient will respond to greatly differs. Because of this, if you use a safe but unapproved therapy that has a 50% success rate, you can easily find yourself in the position where the patient who received it still dies-at which point whoever provided the therapy can be found liable by a medical board (which does happen). Conversely, if you use an approved therapy that has a 10% success rate and a high rate of harm, there is no liability for the oncologist who prescribed it.

Chemotherapy and radiation are incredibly toxic and are carcinogenic in action themselves. Your exposure to either of these treatments increases your chance of contracting a whole plethora of other cancers also. That's the point where I personally could not proceed with this option. These treatments also offer no certain cure …just continued fear that the effect of these treatments will cause further cancer. These treatments cause so much collateral damage to the body also, much of it irreparable.

So again, the point I am trying to make is that the accusation of rigorous holistic practices being dangerous in either their inherent properties, or dangerous as a choice for treating cancer, must be countered by the fact that many conventional medical practices are proven dangerous, not backed by valid clinical research and don't offer a cure. Hence, it's understandable why people try the holistic approach. That's why I did and I am not alone. Sometimes it's incredibly successful and sometimes it's not. Much more research needs to be done to establish which of these holistic strategies are effective. The glaring problem being that no research money is offered where there is no pharmaceutical profit point. The organic farmers would do alright!!

The majority of doctors in Australia are also unaware of the countries where integrative oncology is practised. There they have multi-disciplinary teams, and doctors are included in these teams. The major focus is on relief of symptoms, quality of sleep, nutrition, nutraceutical/herbs, repurposed drugs and lifestyle changes. What is wrong with that?

So, to those laying into Elle for her choice and me also…I wish you the very best if you are ever placed in the position of choosing which way to go. If you have been through this health crisis already and had great lasting success with the conventional oncology route, good on you. If you have chosen my way and also had success, it certainly demonstrates that holistic health is not 'quackery'.

It's personal choice whatever a person decides to do health-wise with their health predicament. Medical treatments should also never be mandated, in full consideration of the lack of clinical trial validity discussed by the editors of the BMJ and the NEJM. Very few prescribed medications are indeed fully "safe and effective" for everyone. So, let us leave off this discussion with statements of fact and not fiction. Always the safest way to go!