Alternative Cancer Clinic Kills Patients Faster

- 1 May 1991

Advocates of Britain’s internationally known alternative cancer clinic, the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, have been surprised and shocked to find that their patients are dying faster than those under conventional care.

Alternative Centre Study

The Bristol Cancer Help Centre (BCHC) was set up in 1979 to offer a variety of alternative therapies in the United Kingdom. It used a stringent diet of raw and partly cooked vegetables with proteins from soya and pulses. The ideology of BCHC is that cancer patients can contribute to the healing process in an active way. BCHG offers counselling, “healing” and alternative therapies claimed to enhance quality of life and a positive attitude to cancer.

The BCHC staff and patients felt a need to validate scientifically the results they felt had been achieved. They invited in a team of doctors and scientists who came up with two studies; one to compare survival and the other quality of life.

The survival study followed 334 women with breast cancer attending the BCHC for the first time. Controls were 461 breast cancer patients attending conventional hospitals.

Eighty-five percent of the BCHC patients were under age 55 at diagnosis, more than half had experienced recurrence before entry. For patients metastasis-free at entry, survival was significantly (2.85 ratio) poorer in the BCHC group. Survival was also significantly poorer among relapsed patients in the BCHC group (1.81 ratio). Researchers note that the substitution of the BCHC program for standard therapy is not an issue since few patients had rejected conventional treatments. It is possible that some important difference exists between patients selecting BCHC and the controls. The BCHC patients seem to exhibit a stronger commitment to healthful living since far fewer smoked than normal, and 41% were already using alternative therapies (such as diet or “healing”) upon entry to BCHC. It is possible that the radical diet actually shortened patients’ lives.

Lancet pp. 606-610, Sept 8, 1990

The BCHC study provides some important lessons. First, the BCHC staff obviously felt that something worthwhile was happening to patients in their program. The lesson to be learned from this is that subjective observations are deceptive. People view selectively, tending to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Objective analysis can be heartbreaking when it fails to confirm what seems like a good thing.

Second, this experience underlines the fact that many people involved in cancer quackery are sincere. They have had experiences that reinforce their belief that something real and good is happening to patients using their remedies. The lesson here is that sincerity and good intentions are not enough; only objective, critical analysis can determine the real value of therapies.

National Council Against Health Fraud Newsletter, Vol 13, No 6