Bucking the Status Quo

Cancer is a deadly disease. Because it is aggressive and because of high mortality rates, cancer must be treated by aggressive means, even if the cost – in terms of dollars, side effects, and overall or long-term quality of life are fantastically high. Cancer is a scary enemy and must be dealt with as such, no friendly remedies can hope to defeat such an evil foe, we must pull out the big guns; this is simply the way it is.

Or is it?

Back in the nineties, when I had just been diagnosed with cancer, I learned of an oncologist just across the river in Washington state. This seventy-five year old Board certified radiation oncologist was recommended to me because he had forsaken the status quo in cancer treatment, stating, "We have a multi-billion dollar industry that is killing people, right and left, just for financial gain. Their idea of research is to see whether two doses of this poison is better than three doses of that poison." Dr. Warner felt that a healthy person would be better prepared to deal with this disease and in the end, would simply live longer and better. He focused on helping patients find relief from stress, peace with religion and meditation, proper nutrition, exercise, and a positive attitude. He used immune stimulating drugs, hormonal agents, and when needed, the more toxic treatments to simply arrest the disease, while his other treatments continued to support them.

During the time I was negotiating what treatment I would and would not undergo, Dr. Warner was fighting with the Washington state Medical Board for his license for violating standards of practice and prescribing unconventional care. The board resorted to last minute changes of date and venue for hearings because hundreds of Dr. Warner's patients flocked to the meetings to testify to the quality of his care. Soon a group of patients and their family members formed a hotline to distribute last minute information on the whereabouts of the hearings. In addition to sudden changes in venue, the board also brought in experts who stated that patients simply could not be considered qualified to know it they were receiving appropriate treatment. Many of Dr. Warner's patients at this time were people who had been told by other doctors to go home and get their affairs in order; there was nothing more that treatment could reasonably expect to accomplish. With Dr. Warner, they were outliving prognoses and enjoying some months of reasonable quality of life. In a paradigm that promulgated no survival without rigorous medical treatment, the medical establishment didn't actually want to hear from – or even see – these patients whose very life attested that something else might be possible.

By 1996, the Washington medical board finally succeeded in removing Dr. Warner's license. The move not only put doctors on notice about the need to stick with the status quo regardless of effectiveness, this action sent a message to cancer patients that deviation from the cancer treatment cookbook, no matter how poor the recipes, was not permissible. It placed the stamp of approval on a set of assumptions based partly in facts (cancer is an aggressive and often fatal disease, we haven't found a cure yet), partly in outright conflict of interest (medical treatment is fantastically lucrative), partly in bias and misinformation (alternative treatments are unscientific, unfounded, not potent enough), and largely in fear (cancer patients and families fear for their lives, doctors fear for their licenses and reputations).

Dr. Warner passed away nearly ten years ago. I was saddened by his passing, wondering who I would ever find with the courage to advise, counsel, and provide treatment to me, should I need it in the future. I won't want some fearful doctor without the guts to tell the truth as he or she sees it, the strength to act in accordance with what research shows rather than what convention dictates and just the damn balls to do the right thing instead of the popular, lucrative thing.

With Nicholai, I am deeply grateful to have a doctor with the balls to buck the status quo. I am ever so thankful he doesn't practice in fear of professional retribution for providing unconventional cancer care, or abandon Nicholai to aggressive treatments doomed to failure, as the Washington Medical Board did to Dr. Warner's patients, or the Mayo clinic did to their vitamin C study patients.

It's not an easy road, the road of critically evaluating the status quo, leaving it behind when reason would demand it, and truth telling. But in my opinion, it's the only road really worth traveling.