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Notice that in this testimonial this woman underwent standard surgery
and chemotherapy for her breast cancer (which I assume was rather large
if it required a modified radical mastectomy to achieve local control).
That is almost certainly what "cured" her cancer, not any healer. (From
her description, I'd estimate her expected 10-year disease-free survival
with standard care to be in the 40-55% range.) Naturally, however, as
with most good alt-med testimonials, she appears to attribute her
beating cancer more to this healer that she met after her therapy was
either finished or nearly finished, rather than to good old fashioned
standard conventional cancer care. As for her low blood counts after
chemotherapy, she didn't say which chemotherapy regimen she underwent
(some of the dose-dense regimens can be rather harsh and seven years ago
some centers were still doing bone marrow transplants for nasty
node-positive tumors like the one she had) or whether she had any more
cycles of chemotherapy after her "healing." In any case, it's very
likely her counts would have recovered regardless of her ever meeting
this Dr. Pearl. It's highly unlikely that he was responsible, but
perhaps better evidence could be presented.Another thing that sounds fishy about this testimonial. Breast cancer is
uncommon below the age of 30, but not so uncommon that most primary care
doctors haven't seen it in their career. I've seen it occasionally even
in 25 year olds and have heard of occasional rare cases in women in
their early 20's or teens. I would tend to doubt that a competent doctor
would say something like "thirty year olds never get breast cancer." The
way most doctors would probably put it is that breast cancer is pretty
rare under the age of 25 and still pretty uncommon at the age of 30, not
that "thirty year olds never get breast cancer
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-Yes. She sets up the scenario with her comments after the surgery etc: "I
was sure nothing good would come of this. I was convinced I would soon be
dead." This enables her to later say triumphantly :"A survivor is more than a
person who merely lives through a disease; it is a person who has the
courage to go on with life." So it is really her own cleverness and resolve
that pulled her through, not Dr Pearl. Not even the the angels? I detect such elements of self-promotion in a lot of testimonial. "See how
clever I was". "See how much I know about getting well". (but I'm only
trying to help you) -it, you have a point. In addition, one observation I've made
testimonials also tend to be presented in a near-religious manner. The
person giving the testimonial always portrays him/herself as lost,
suffering, misguided by evil people (conventional doctors), until (of
course) he/she "finds" the "healer" or the "alternative medicine" or
"alternative treatment" that shows him/her the light and leads him/her
out of darkness and into health. Filled with quasi-religious (or truly
religious) fervor, they want to convert the heathens to their way of
thinking.
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