A while back I stumbled across
this guy: www.revicimedical.com/

Doctor Emanuel Revici, a chap who allegedly found a way to slow down and stop certain cancers using a very simple method based around detecting chemical imbalances (the catalyst that aids the cancer spread) and fixing them. This technique doesn't cure the cancer, but it stops it spreading and doing further damage so it's as good as a cure in the quality-of-life respect. The clinic that promotes this technique documents the results they've had (some good, some bad, a lot more good than bad) and they also make some interesting points about the worthiness of traditional oncology versus doing nothing, i.e. is it worth having years of painful treatment when the chances of survival may not increase.

Naturally, I remain skeptical about such claims and if I was suffering from cancer myself, I would almost certainly side with the medical Pros. However, when they are presented in a reasonably neutral 'decide-for-yourself' way like this, I find it intriguing.

What do you reckon? Have you encountered Revici and his method before?

EDIT: The one thing most of these probable-quackeries have in common is a shit website. The Revici clinic one is pretty bad. That also fans the flames of suspicion.
( chart cat has an itch, Tue 1 Sep 2009, 14:07, 1 reply)

He's a crank and a dead one at that
Sorry. I did a search for any publications in peer reviewed journals of his methods and there are none. He seems to have been a conventional researcher who turned to the dark side. Beware any website that waves around "acid and alkaline" as potential cures and that only has testamonials and not proper trials.

I should add that it would be amazing if someone could cure these damn things, I just don't buy the "lone maverick doctor" fighting the system argument.

:)
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Tue 1 Sep 2009, 14:44, closed)

I'm mostly with you there
although I think it's reasonable that despite the huge advances in science to date, it is still possible for an individual to make a private discovery. It has happened so many times throughout history but the same old political barriers still exist, preventing far-out work from even being acknowledged, let alone approved.

The thing that grabbed my attention about this Revici guy was the lack of debunking articles about his method, although you are right that there are also few that show any support either (there are some though and cursory Googling of names indicates they are probably credible). Most crank websites have rebuttal sites explaining in detail why the crank belongs in the nut house. The Revici method seems to sit firmly in the neutral zone, which could simply be an indication that it hasn't gained enough widespread fame to be properly debunked. The clinic does at least attempt to openly explain the science behind the theory... the alkaline/acid thing was (I think) just the first step in developing his method, which actually relies on measuring hundreds of patient properties to establish which ones are 'out of balance'. It's also considerably more complicated than my description suggests, but you know what I mean.

I'm of the firm opinion that something as convoluted as cancer, with its myriad forms, will never be curable by conventional western medicines; these drugs tend to have the best results when targeting highly specific cause/effect pathologies and most cancers don't behave consistently in all patients. I think it will ultimately boil down to a more generalised approach like the Revici method to defeat it. That or nano-bots, anyway.

I certainly don't think there are any major conspiracies in the big pharma companies. They just suffer the same problems as other big-industry corporations, that is, inertia and The Establishment. Western medicine has grown up over such a long period of time and has refined such a strict system of peer-review that is inherently biased towards new methods that share the same mindset. Any therapy which doesn't fit within its rigid demarcation of acceptability will be thrown out by the peer review network long before it ever gets a chance to be funded and trialled. I'm sure this system does a great job of removing the duckchaff, but statistically there are bound to be at least *some* radical, revolutionary therapies which get incorrectly labelled as quackery.

If the case study statistics on that website *are* true, I argue it is worth investigating further, perhaps with private funding from a rich, benevolent donator. In fact, one of its main supporters (Dr Seymour Brenner, a highly-respected oncologist) is urging the AMA to consider clinical trials (see the bottom two paragraphs of the page). I'd be keen to see a proper study and trial of this particular method, if only to have it fully debunked so that cancer research can plough its funds into the right places. Above all, it must be deeply upsetting and frustrating for cancer patients to have so many different streams of conflicting information in the public domain, so discrediting the real quacks is definitely worth doing.
( chart cat has an itch, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 5:57, closed)