Suzanne Somers’ controversial cancer advice
Why the actress' new book 'Knockout: Interviews With Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer' is causing a stir
Suzanne Somers isn't one to "shy away from controversy," said Gina Roberts-Grey in Wallet Pop. In her new book, Knockout: Interviews With Doctors Who Are Curing Cancer, the former Three's Company star and breast cancer survivor is urging "cancer patients to skip mainstream treatments like chemotherapy" and instead follow her lead by opting for alternative methods of fighting the disease. But now "the American Cancer Society is concerned that celebrities might be using their voices irresponsibly to dispense medical advice." (Watch Suzanne Somers discuss her book.)
They should be concerned, said ScienceBlogs. Somers' book is "a serious assault of pseudoscience and quackery." One of the doctors she interviews in Knockout is a "quack" whose pancreatic cancer treatment involves "150 supplement pills a day topped off by a couple of coffee enemas," and was recently shown to be "far worse than conventional treatment." And Somers herself had a highly treatable form of cancer, and "an 88.6 percent chance of living 10 years without any chemotherapy" anyway.
Knockout offers "potentially breakthrough info in the fight against cancer," said Chris Mann in Salon, and Somers simply wants to get "her potentially lifesaving message" out to the public. I "appreciate" her "passion to speak her truth, however controversial and, at times, completely at odds with seemingly everyone else's truth, it can be." And there's no denying that she's "cancer-free," which lends her credibility and makes her the perfect spokeswoman.
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