Speaking of people disconnected from reality

[giza]

I must be in a mood this week or something. Well, can't let that go to waste! That brings me to this article on CNN:

Mexican clinics sell hope, questionable cures

Here are some interesting quoutes from the article:

Among the treatments offered: blood transfusions from guinea pigs, colon cleansings, and the zapping of cancer cells with electrical current.

Uhhhh...

"Were patients to return from Mexico cured and doctors saw the unbelievable, positive results, we would pursue it, but we just don't see it," said Dr. Jack Lewin, chief executive of the California Medical Association. "We don't have patients coming back with miraculous cures."

Bingo! If these "alternative medicine" clinics really cured people, it'd be all over the news and people would be demanding it from their doctors.

On Thursday, the Santa Monica Health Institute -- the clinic where Coretta Scott King died last week -- was shut down by Mexican authorities. Mexican state officials said the clinic had been carrying out unproven treatments and unauthorized surgeries, employed people who were not properly trained, did not follow proper procedures for treating terminally ill patients and failed to meet sanitary requirements.

Remember, wash your hands AFTER you wipe. After!

The clinic's director has a criminal past and a reputation for offering dubious treatments. But the clinic's assistant administrator, Cesar Castillejos, defended its record and said he believed the government closed the clinic because of King's death. King "wasn't stupid," Castillejos said. "She was very smart. She wanted an alternative."

Or maybe she was very desperate. Being told that you have terminal cancer can do that to a person.

The first of the clinics opened in the 1950s to administer laetrile, a substance made from apricot pits that is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The clinics received widespread attention in 1980, when cancer-stricken actor Steve McQueen went to one for laetrile treatment. He died there.

Ooh, laetrile. That is metabolized by the body into... cyanide! Fun for the whole family!

Peggy Pousson went across the border out of desperation in 1978, when her son, Shawn, was battling leukemia. She credits a Tijuana clinic's vitamin-heavy regimen for extending her son's life a year. Pousson said Shawn died at age 10 because doctors at a San Diego hospital bungled a drug prescription.

Oh he did, did he? May I see the autopsy report? (I tried Googling for this, with no success)

For the past decade, Pousson, 65, has ferried patients across the border to clinics in and around Tijuana. She favors those that emphasize nutrition and limit chemotherapy doses.

"There are a lot of bad clinics that I don't go to," she said. "A lot of the patients I took there died, so I stopped going."

That sure is a relief! There I was thinking that she was taking people to clinics with treatments that didn't work!

The clinics typically charge about $7,000 a week for treatment, meals and lodging, Pousson said.

o.O

Tibor Fodor checked in on Tuesday, one day after Las Vegas, Nevada, doctors delivered a grim prognosis for his 57-year-old wife, Marcela, who has lung cancer.

"They told my wife she had three months to live, but I know that's a lie," said Fodor, whose wife registered at a Tijuana clinic for radiation and hoxsey, a combination of plant extracts.

Ah yes, hoxsey. Supposedly created in 1840, and used to "treat" cancer from 1924 to the 1950s, Hoxsey ended up getting in trouble with the FDA. Total number of scientific studies done on his treatment: 0.

Hoxsey also contracted prostate cancer himself in 1967 and tried treating himself with his tonic. When that didn't work, he had surgery done on himself. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence, you know.

Kurt W. Donsbach, a former San Diego chiropractor, opened the clinic in 1987. In 1988, the U.S. Postal Service ordered him to stop claiming that a solution of hydrogen peroxide could prevent cancer and ease arthritis pain. In 1997, he was sentenced in San Diego federal court to a year in prison for smuggling more than $250,000 worth of unapproved drugs into the United States from Mexico, according to court records.

Oops.

Required reading: www.quackwatch.org