Clark critique.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.herbs
Subject: The Cure for all Cancers. Nonsense, respectfully.
From: des.b31.nei.nih.gov (David Scheim)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 15:25:12 GMT
There have been many "flames" concerning Hulda Clark's book, the Cure for All Cancers. The title, claims made, and parasite theory proposed on the surface seem quite absurd. I happened to see her book in a health food store, picked it up, and I can see from my reading that this first impression of nonsense seems to check out. I will elaborate briefly below.
I believe, however, it is never advisable to categorically and disrespectfully dismiss a treatment approach without knowing something about it. There are many cases of drugs developed based upon one biological mechanism, found effective, but later found to operate through an entirely different mechanism. If Hulda Clark's case reports contained cures that could be reliably verified, her ideas about parasites that motivated her approach would not be relevant.
In any case, the problem with Clark's claims is that her 100 published cases, filling up much of her book, are really quite absurd. The first 20 -- I stopped after those--consist of
- people with real cancer who came to Clark, did not follow her treatment recommendation, and died;
- people with real cancer with follow-up reported much too soon after treatment to give any indication of efficacy; and
- people who did not have cancer by any definition other than what Clark interpreted on an electrical gizmo, whose "cancer" disappeared only according to the gizmo's reading.
I am somehow not persuaded by an endorsement that could be paraphrased as "never had cancer and still don't after taking Clark's 5-day treatment."
