Sneaky Bastard

While driving around running errands today, I scanned my radio presets for something interesting. I tuned to KPFK for a moment, and heard a promotion for a DVD titled Healing Cancer From Inside Out and its companion publication, The RAVE Diet & Lifestyle. It was a series of medical claims and personal testimonials over a background track of new-agey music. One women claimed that the “prescribed” raw vegetable diet would cure Type 2 Diabetes in a few days, eliminating the need for insulin. I listened to several people explain that this diet cured diseases that their doctors couldn’t.

The KPFK radio hosts then came back on the air to announce that for a donation to the station of just $175, I could get a copy of this amazing DVD. They went on to explain that the reason conventional medicine cannot or will not cure cancers, arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease, is because there is a conspiracy among the government, and pharmaceutical and meat industries that prevent this information getting out. One of the hosts pointed out that the founder of the AMA isn’t even a doctor! (Actually, Nathan Smith Davis was indeed a well respected medical doctor.) The two hosts went on to explain the vast conspiracy, but I couldn’t bear it any longer.

As some people know, I had cancer (NHL DLC) about ten years ago. By the time I was diagnosed and treated, my odds weren’t good. However, conventional medicine did bring me to a state of remission, and I am very thankful to my doctors, medical staff, friends, and family. I remember the feelings of hopelessness, though not to the degree of someone for whom there are no known effective treatments. It is these people I think about when I hear quacks and self-help gurus market their secrets (in some cases, The Secret™). It makes me absolutely furious when I see false hope packaged, marketed, and sold — often with aid, complicity, or actual endorsements by otherwise respectable personalities and organizations.

Regarding this particular diet plan; I will concede that it’s a darn good idea to eat more vegetables. But to claim that eating only raw vegetables will cure serious disease is just deplorable.