Six years ago, my mother in law was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her loopy, woke, left-wing, granola crunching, pot smoking moron of a sister tried to talk her out of following the advice of doctors and try natural remedies instead of chemotherapy sent her a book written by Suzanne Somers. In that book, Somers claims that she beat breast cancer without modern medicine, and you can too.
Why anyone would take medical advice from a bubble headed blonde whose only claim to fame was starring in a 70’s sitcom that mostly involved John Ritter ogling her tits is beyond me. Still, it’s an issue in the US that I have never understood. Americans seem to be fascinated with the opinions of celebrities on everything from reverse mortgages to medicine to gun control. Why is it that someone being famous for some vapid television show or because they play sportsball seems to make them an authority on virtually any topic under the sun?
It took us several weeks to convince my MIL that treatment was the way to go. Her particular form of breast cancer was easily treatable with chemo and targeted therapy, and that is what she went with. She was miserable when her hair fell out, but with family support and a few wigs, she made it. A year later, there was no trace of the cancer that could have killed her.
Suzanne Somers died yesterday of the breast cancer she claimed she had beaten with natural remedies. I wonder how many people took that idiots advice and wound up dead as a result? Good riddance.
24 Comments
Joe Blow · October 17, 2023 at 6:23 am
I think perhaps because you’re involved very intimately with the medical industry you have a positive opinion of it. Most people who work in law enforcement have a positive opinion of the field and their ranks as well. How it works…
Post KungFlu, you’re lucky you don’t get shot at more often. Not being a jerk, look at our world… some Muzzie in Belgium decided he’d had enough. You think you’re going to be immune when the world+dog figures out what Pfizer, BioNTech and the lot KNOWINGLY did to them and their families?
See it’s we luddites that don’t know or understand medical mumbo-jumbo were trusting and relying on our fellow human being to protect and serve us (heard THAT before!) And as the masses awaken and realize that simply is not the case, there is liable to be backlash. Ask the thin blue line what that feels like. You’re in the same boat, mate. You had the benefit of the doubt, and that was wasted.
Said another way, your statements and comments intimate a sense of superior moral standing that simply doesn’t exist to your field anymore. Not saying you individually are responsible for this breakdown anymore than the resource-officer doing their damndest at the local school feels responsible for the bad orcs on the other side of the country shooting golden retrievers when serving warrants. But here we are.
You are the foot soldier paying the price for general phizer’s decision. Now go storm that hill, meatsack. That’s all you are to the people at the top.
Divemedic · October 17, 2023 at 10:26 am
That’s easy to claim. Let me ask you this: When was the last time you heard of someone dying of small pox? Cholera? Women dying in childbirth is a rare occurrence.
So some people screwed with the system because they were greedy and we got a government lockdown. That wasn’t a failure of health care. That was the government sticking their fingers in the pot and forcing health care workers to do things that made no sense. Don’t forget that COVID had genetic markers of being an artificial virus, and there were reports that the US government sponsored the lab where it originated.
Last night, I spent two hours saving the life of a woman who was bleeding to death from a miscarriage. We gave her 6 units of blood in less than an hour as we were trying to save her life, then sent her off to emergency surgery at 2 am. If this had been even a couple of decades ago, she likely wouldn’t have made it.
So don’t toss out the baby with the government issued bathwater.
Anonymous · October 17, 2023 at 7:11 am
People took advice from folks who used politics rather than science, Think Covid.
So Medicine is suspect as a whole. You can’t have things like covid and the way they handles it and then complain about Ms Summers choices.
Having said that, Ms Summers did well for 20 years with cancer using her treatments, so there’s that
I’d not have made the decisions she did, and had she listened to the medical establishment she might be alive today.
But Medicine is a bunch of “That’s the way we’ve always done it” and “Because it’s Procedure” and now “That’s what the CDC told us” and not as much science and critical thinking as you’d like to believe.
Once Medicine was the definitive ansewer. Not the Medical establisment has shown that it may not be.
Just sayin’
Divemedic · October 17, 2023 at 10:19 am
COVID was people selling out for their own personal reasons. There have always been people who would sell out for personal gain. That won’t change.
swarg · October 18, 2023 at 8:18 am
Thing is, folks like you followed the “Procedure” that the CDC and your superiors mandated even though you knew it was bullshit.
How can we trust you now, for other things? You tossed your credibility on the altar of Covid and now everything you way is suspect.
Ms Somers lasted longer than the average Cancer victim using her methods rather than yours, so that’s something to look at.
Divemedic · October 18, 2023 at 9:25 am
That’s fucking bullshit. What procedure are you claiming was followed that destroyed trust? Giving patients oxygen?
What fucking procedure that was followed is “bullshit” in your expert medical opinion?
Don’t give me the CDC bullshit. Your IP shows that you are in fucking Canada.
SiG · October 17, 2023 at 7:17 am
Yeah, but… They said she first got that cancer 23 years ago, and surviving any cancer for 23 years is doing pretty good, considering the standard for being a cancer survivor is five years. Far too many people don’t. I’m not praising Somers or her “protocol,” I’ve just seen too much.
When my wife had breast cancer 26 years ago, she was in a group that had a similar stage of cancer, and were all given a 75% chance of surviving five years. Only two out of the 12 made it to five years. They were told 75% of surviving but actually got a 17% chance.
Both my wife and this friend had stem cell transplants; it was the latest science – Except that the paper was faked and later retracted. The friend died from a cancer her oncologist said was caused by the stem cell transplant, but she made it 14 years.
Like I say, I’m not praising Somers. I really don’t give a rat’s patootie about her. I just think making 23 years after diagnosis is a pretty good outcome, and I met far too many women who followed the best medicine available and didn’t make it 5 years. I’m also saying it may have nothing to do with her protocol and be entirely things that don’t get measured. It’s a tough choice to be faced with.
Divemedic · October 17, 2023 at 10:14 am
That’s due to distribution variance. If there is a 50/50 chance of a coin coming up heads and you flip it only twelve times, you can’t expect the coin to be heads exactly 6 times. There will be times that 12 flips result in 8, 10, or even 12 heads. I did a post on statistics using games of chance as an example.
So this means that Somers was likely a statistical outlier. It is her bubble headed idiocy that made her believe that it was her brilliance at taking essential oils, vitamins, or whatever it was that “cured” her cancer. It wasn’t, she was just lucky.
Betting your life that you will be just as lucky is a fool’s errand.
TechieDude · October 17, 2023 at 7:52 am
I had something similar happen when I was diagnosed with throat cancer.
I had a space cadet niece tell me that I could ‘will it’ away.
I told her the problem there was if willing it away didn’t work, by the time I figured that out it would be past the point where it could be treated.
D · October 17, 2023 at 8:06 am
> everything from reverse mortgages to medicine to gun control.
You forgot Diabeeeetus testing. And Quaker Oats.
D · October 17, 2023 at 8:13 am
I should have RTWT before commenting.
> Why is it that someone being famous for some vapid television show or because they play sportsball seems to make them an authority on virtually any topic under the sun
To be vague, I do IT. I do it in a place with lots of doctors.
A surprising number of doctors think their MD also gives them special insight into technical systems. One of the worst ones I found was a bunch of random devices connected to a network that contained protected health information. After doing some checking, I found they were all connected to one particular port on the network. I remotely disabled that port. 10 minutes later I see them connected to another port. More digging. Finally I shut down an entire switch and the calls start rolling in. I go on-site to find the doctor plugging his home wireless access point (which has no password) into various switch ports trying to get it to work. I had to have a discussion with him about network security. A few months later we implemented 802.1x network-wide….meaning….if your device doesn’t have a valid digital certificate issued by IT, it can’t connect to the network.
WDS · October 17, 2023 at 8:50 am
I remember a panel thrown together for a “Coronavirus: Facts & Fears” town hall type show that was hyped on CNN and hosted by Anderson Cooper. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Neurosurgeon, Kathleen Sebelius, not a Dr., Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC for an entire 4 months and a pediatric Dr. and the snotty little holier than thou eco-scold from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, certainly not a Dr. Nary a virologist in the bunch and certainly not experts but you know anyone that watched believed every word they uttered no matter how far fetched.
Don W Curton · October 17, 2023 at 8:57 am
To be fair, she did make it to 76 years old, so there’s that.
Although I agree that our fascination with celebrities is beyond ridiculous. The few times a celebrity says something mildly conservative (Tom Selleck, Mel Gibson, etc.) I want to cheer, then remind myself that it’s just as stupid from our side as it is from their side. So basically I place all celebrities somewhere between prostitutes and used car salesmen on the scale of trust and respect. With prostitutes being slightly higher up the ladder.
It's just Boris · October 18, 2023 at 5:44 am
Being an actor doesn’t necessarily mean someone is dumb or uneducated. For instance, Dolf Lundgren has a master’s in chemical engineering. So if he had something to say relevant to that, I’d probably listen.
But, generally, yeah.
Don W Curton · October 18, 2023 at 8:21 am
Yeah, I remember hearing that about Dolf, what with myself also being a chemical engineer. Sad to say, he probably made many many multiples of my salary back in the heyday of the 80’s. Engineering ain’t the glam job they promised at the high school job fair.
Dr Bob · October 17, 2023 at 9:27 am
Having cared for some 2500 brain tumor patients over the course of my career, I will attest to the fact that nothing else causes the level of panic that a cancer diagnosis provokes in an average person. It’s not surprising that snake oil sells very well to people who don’t understand medicine. But turning around and selling the snake oil that you (Ms Sommers) claimed as a cure is flat wrong. My parents (born in 1921 and 1923) came of age in what was called ‘The miracles of modern medicine’. At an early age, my father’s life was saved by a new miracle drug, penicillin. When my father was diagnosed with cancer in the 1980s, he never could understand why there wasn’t some miracle drug. He could get his head around the idea that each cancer was unique and the product of a DNA error. That generation is gone now, but their attitudes linger. That desire to have the ‘miracle drug’ lives on. Even the medical research community falls to this desire. You likely remember the absolute fanfare that was the anti-angiogenic drugs. Promising to freeze any cancer in its tracks by preventing the growth of the needed new vasculature. It was about $45,000/dose and every patient we had wanted it.
I can understand the allure of the non-medical miracle approach that was pushed, but pushing it was wrong.
Sarcasticus · October 17, 2023 at 3:30 pm
Did they try a Tik-Tok video with dancing?
All kidding aside a sibling was diagnosed seven years ago with stage three lung after decades of pack a day smoking, they are still around and using THC tincture oil, usually the Phoenix Tears or RSO created by Rick Simpson who was diagnosed in 1990.
Chemo was used early on and we drove out to CO to get some of the oil almost directly from the therapy since it will never be legal in Big Pharma owned Red State.
You can make the tincture with stems and fine leaf shake by using olive oil, gauze, flavor extract and one ounce will make one liquid ounce.
JimmyPx · October 17, 2023 at 5:51 pm
The thing with cancer (especially with today’s technology and treatments) is that if that they can spot it early and treat it BEFORE IT SPREADS, you have an excellent chance to beat it.
If however you screw around and do “alternative treatments” and finally realize they don’t work and go back to the oncologist for help, often the cancer has grown and spread and now your chances are slim.
I’ll be honest that the only thing that upsets me is when someone is diagnosed stage 4 and let’s be honest they are terminal and they still want to do chemo. The chemo helps them not except it helps the hospital’s bank account. I know that often the patients are in denial but thank god there are more and more palliative care specialists who try to break the truth to the patients and their families.
Mike Hendrix · October 17, 2023 at 6:53 pm
In Suzanne Somers’ defense, they WERE some pretty bodacious tits.
Jester · October 17, 2023 at 10:10 pm
What do you call the bottom 50% of any profession say a Doctor or a Nurse? A Doctor or Nurse.
Or Professor or anything else. So there is that. I work in a hospital and I’ll just say the level of common sense or intelligence on how to formulate things is just.. just damn. Just how they make their way though life is amazing. It’s just that just because some people can get C’s and Ds and make their way though long periods of education (And their careers saved by good people for a while or at least they won’t perhaps kill someone) is why most of those folks exist. This is for all professions honestly but it’s very acute in the medical industry.
So far as why celebs of all sorts get the attention they do? I think people like cults, they like someone in charge. Could point to the nuts following Trump, Biden, Obama, etc that think they just do not have a wrong bone in their body or -make mistakes- or because (Mostly the half wits in the media) have been promoted for whatever reasons they must know more than anyone else. On any topic.
Sometimes the Celebs are so far insulated from the ravages of their own mistakes or information they protend to be the truth they never actually see the damage they do. And many are too stupid to comprehend what they are talking about even years later.
Anon · October 18, 2023 at 8:45 pm
I get that Sommers was a bubble head, but she did reach cancer free each time before this last bout. So maybe her protocols were working somewhat well for her.
What was different this time? She only was diagnosed a couple months ago. Could it have been one of these new turbo cancers?
What causes turbo cancer? What’s occurred in the last few years that causes or has been linked with turbo cancer?
Hmmmm. I wonder……
Divemedic · October 19, 2023 at 4:36 am
Upcoming post
Will · October 20, 2023 at 6:05 am
The last medical study release I saw earlier this year was the conclusion that the vaxx caused the immune system to be compromised in function. And that the more boosters administered to the patient, the less active the immune system became. One tentative conclusion was that the recent increase in aggressive reactivated cancers was due to this downturn in immune activity. Cancer that had been eliminated years earlier had returned and quickly killed the patient in a speed that was unprecedented.
It’s not widely known to the general public that the story about the vaxx being a very quick creation due to heroic efforts by the drug companies and the government, was a complete fabrication. The only thing that was done was to figure out how to produce it in large quantities. The vaxx itself was created near two decades earlier, and a patent was applied for in ’06. A patent was not awarded, as it did not meet any of the recognized parameters of a vaccine. The first, of over 160 patents on this virus, was awarded in ’98, IIRC. Dr Fauci holds the patents.
There are a lot of bad so called “side effects” of the vaxx, that were actually documented in the decade prior to the release of the virus. Yes, it shows evidence of being a lab modified virus, and you should expect some blowback on the medical profession when the public eventually becomes aware of just how badly they have been screwed over by the medical establishment working with the government to mandate the universal vaxx.
I have family working in the medical profession, and this is quite concerning. One is a physician, and another is a high level nurse. The doc was forced to retire as a result of a side effect of a mandated vaxx shot to retain his hospital privileges. He and his wife owned a couple clinics with ~45 employees and ~dozen doctors. The medical business was sold. He’s about 60 yo. I don’t know how involved they were with the vaxx situation.
I don’t think the nurse had much connection to the vaxx, either, as she didn’t work in a hospital or clinic, IIRC. Still, they may end up tarred with the covid brush if things eventually get bad enough. The vaxx damage won’t be fully evident to the public for a few years, or more. Lots of variables involved, so it may take some time, but it is going to be hard to hide the problems from the public forever. Drug company employees will have real problems. Drug companies and the medical profession in general are going to pay a heavy price for the vaxx idiocy. The facts are that what the vaxx is doing, and will do later, was known during early testing. The damage has to be considered deliberate at some level of management. I doubt that this can be kept quiet. I expect heads to roll. Literally.
What is Cancer? – Area Ocho · October 22, 2023 at 5:01 am
[…] many of you don’t seem to understand my problem with Somers and her cancer plan, perhaps a bit of a lesson in what cancer is will help. This is simplified for ease of […]
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