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Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, April 03, 1955, Image 130

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Persistent link: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1955-04-03/ed-1/seq-130/

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New-style cancer quacks are heartlessly peddling fake “cures”
often to people who are perfectly healthy! An authority
exposes their tricks, and tells how you can guard against them
APPROVED
BY AMERICAN
MEDICAL ASSN.
'Thin is No. 20 in THIS Week's
“Good Health” series. Kach of
these articles has been ap
proved for truth and accuracy
by the A.M.A. Nest week:
Hr. Samuel Standard, of New
York's Bellevue Hospital, will
tell when a stomach-ache is
a danger sign, and give rules
to follow so you'll be safe.
In the United States today there are many
hundreds of cancer quacks who each year
attract and treat thousands of people who are
suffering, or fear they are suffering, from
cancer.
There is no scientific basis for claiming
that anyone has the remotest chance of
being cured of an actual cancer by any of
the so-called treatments that these mis
erable quacks have '‘discovered.” They
take desperate men and women who are fright
ened half out of their minds, mulct them of
their last pennies, then turn them loose to die.
It's a profitable enterprise. The yearly take
of those cancer quacks we actually know about
is around $10,000,000. Many of them live like
kings. Their ranks are growing. Reliable
medical investigators believe they are respon
sible for many needless deaths each year.
If aroused, informed public opinion can
take the action that is needed to stop them.
Yet we doctors know that when faced even by
the possibility of cancer, many ordinarily sen
sible people lose their ability to think clearly.
They tum their backs on the family physi
cian, the reputable specialist, the reliable hos
pital and throw themselves upon the mercies
of a quack whom they would never dream of
summoning to treat a sore throat or remove
an appendix. These people are the natural
prey of cancer quacks. If they are robbed of
nothing more important than their life sav
ings, they are fortunate.
Claim Ta It M.D.'s
I am often asked, "Who are the quacks?
Where do they get their patients?"
Many of them are, by background, shady
businessmen, phony "evangelists,” pseudo
scientists and street-corner con men. Most of
them claim to be doctors. Some have mis
leading degrees one is a “Dr.” by virtue of
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DR. CAMEROM: “Don’t hink you I
couldn't be fooled. These cancer
quacks are master showmen ... they
put up an impressive front and are
respectable-looking men and women”
a Ph.D. in medieval French history! Others
are graduates of “diploma mills.” I am
ashamed to say that some actually possess
M.D.’s from respectable universities.
A small number of those often referred to
as cancer quacks are “honest” do-gooders
they really believe that cancer can be cured
by a regime of fresh air and sunshine, changes
in the diet or exercises. One such person keeps
his victims on a constant diet of raw red cab
bage and milk enough, I should think, to
make one temporarily forget the fear of cancer
altogether. Still another, a woman, attaches
an electric machine to the patient’s ankle and
sends out "vibrations”—actually mild shocks.
These quacks, of course, if they’re honestly
deluded, are themselves mentally ill. But
when you consider how many patients who
might have been cured linger in their hands
until too late, you can’t feel sorry for them!
By far the most dangerous group of cancer
quacks, however, are neither fools nor small
time charlatans. They are big-time operators
rich, influential, persuasive. Beyond a
doubt they know precisely what they are do
ing. They are not primarily concerned with
milking the illiterate or the superstitious poor.
They are out after millions like you
the sophisticated, alert, newspaper-reading.
Continu'd on pane 40
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