Cancer quack Robert O. Young is arrested and arraigned, but will he be convicted?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/01/27/cancer-quack-robert-o-young-is-arrested-and-arraigned-but-will-he-be-convicted/
I so so love seeing Robert O. Young in a prison jumpsuit. My only disappointment is that it wasn’t orange. Young deserves to be paraded around in prison orange. I also can’t help but note that I always wondered what the “O.” stood for. Now I know: Oldham. Be that as it may, I’m saving that picture at the top of this post for future talks. This is the way that Robert O. Young should always be pictured.
I’ve mentioned Robert O. Young from time to time on this blog, but it’s been at least a couple of years since I’ve discussed him other than in passing. Consequently, now strikes me as an excellent time to revisit, review, and discuss what sorts of pseudoscience and quackery Young advocates to treat cancer and—as is the case with so many dubious practitioners—multiple other serious diseases, such as lupus, type I diabetes (you read that right, not type II diabetes), metastatic prostate cancer, and cancer in general. (Not surprisingly, Young is also quite antivaccine, publishing anecdotes from parents who believe their child is “vaccine damaged” and appeals to support antivaccine groups like the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).) Let’s take a look at what happened last week and why, given the law in California, I’m not sure that this case will be the slam dunk we’d all like it to be. The law in California could easily make it a difficult task for the prosecutor to secure a conviction, much less a 15 year sentence. First, however, for those who are not familiar with Dr. Young, it’s important to provide a little primer on who he is, what he does, and why I am so outraged that he’s been allowed to continue to practice for more than 20 years.
Read much more of the long, sad story at link above. Orac nails it once again.
Sid
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I'm glad they're getting somewhere. I can't imagine the stress as a parent watching your child go through all of that pain.
The reason I asked is because we often believe that cancer treatment has improved, but in my research when I was dealing with it with my mother, there has been in fact very little improvement in many types of cancer. There have been more expensive drugs approved, but we are still working with the slash/burn/poison paradigm we've had for nearly a century. Some "treatments" have no better than a 25% life expectancies over five years (the measure for "cure" or "remission"
. Some as low as 5%. Some no better than no treatment at all. Yet we still use that as the gold standard for dealing with cancer and all else is considered quackery. I don't consider those outcomes to be anything worth cheering about.
Because the industry is worth billions, and oncologists often make up to 75% of their total practice dispensing chemo, I doubt things will change any time soon. I hope someday, future generations will look upon our barbaric cancer treatments the way we now do surgery without anesthesia. And that cancer is no longer a death sentence.
