My Law of the Survivor is: Only the living give testimonials,.
That hit me strongly when I researched options to treat my Malignant Melanoma five years ago. I was amazed at the literally thousands of “cures” for cancer on websites. Most were selling things to cure it and all had glowing testimonials from those who were cured.
I knew some people who decided to go with holistic treatments and all died. And it dawned on me that the dead cannot let you know that the treatment did not work. Only those for whom the treatment worked could speak (assuming they were telling the truth).
I am a beekeeper. I found an anecdotal correlation between stinging myself for arthritis (which does work) and the control of the Melanoma. With my background in science, I saw that there is a correlation between the immune system, bee stings and the fact that Melanoma is treated by boosting the immune system. Also, there was another beekeeper, who is a patient of my dermatologist, who had exactly the same results- bee stings and MM in check. I always said to people that my findings were anecdotal because it was not backed by any good studies. But I easily could have been a tout for bee stings as a cure for Malignant Melanoma.Instead I noted that there seemed to be some correlation and that was the immune system.
Recently, Aussie scientists found that about 25% of those who have Malignant Melanoma which spreads to the lymph nodes, as mine did, survive because of their genetic makeup. The rest die.So much for anecdotal evidence of bee stings and it being a way to control Melanoma.Science is more dispassionate and cruel. I had no magic bullet. The stings may have helped my own system along and made it work better (interferon helps in about 10% of MM cases by boosting the immune system but kills your thyroid gland. Which is why I opted for bee stings- save my thyroid and still boost my immune system). But the real reason I survived is I picked the right parents.
We should never overlook or rely too heavily on the old traditional tribal and folk remedies. Native Americans drank willow bark tea for headaches and ate spiderwebs for asthma. As it turns out that willow is a natural source of the active ingredient in aspirin and spiderwebs contain a form of antihistamine.
There’s folk medicine and there’s voodoo. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to hag a black cat in a tree on the west side of the church so I can sleep crosswise on a fresh grave to cure my hemorrhoids.
One of my offspring works in cancer research. There is a lab procedure that is not published yet that takes advantage of this and sensitizes the patient's hunter/killer cells to certain types of cancer cells and in effect turns them into terminators for those cells. Very interesting stuff.
“Melanoma is treated by boosting the immune system.”
Early in the 20th century one of the cures for skin cancer was exposure to sunlight. There were some clinics in Europe in the mountains where people would soak up the sun as therapy (there were reportedly cures, but I don’t know much about it).
Sunlight gets converted to Vitamin D in the body, which has been shown to prevent cancer.