“I Call BS”  is going to be the title of my Amazon review of Cancer: 50 Essential Things to Do (2013 edition), by Greg Anderson. Because this is the biggest bunch of horse hockey I have ever read…well, at least since that last stupid book I wrote about. The difference between the two is that Cancer: etc. is marketed specifically toward cancer patients.

I call BS because the main premise of the book is dangerous psychologically and physically for cancer people. In this earnest self-help text, author Greg Anderson pits science against common sense, intuition, “inner wisdom”, and the wisdom of the ages to help cancer patients heal. The implicit promise is that by following the precepts he sets down, you will survive cancer. More important, on the Battlefield of Cancer, you will Win.

Dangerous Claims

In no particular order, I bring you examples of unadulterated crap and how Anderson weaves it into gold cloth.

“Be skeptical of unsubstantiated claims” (p. 141), Anderson writes in the chapter on the Cancer Recovery Foundation’s Food Guidelines. But Anderson doesn’t follow it. He builds his case on statements like, “Thousands of cases of recovery…have been scientifically documented.” (p.11) (and his is one of them); “there exists significant evidence-based research“; “researchers have begun to study”; there is “strong consensus among researchers….” ; “scientists are discovering“; “We now have early research” (p. 24); “researchers concluded….” (p. 28); “a significant and growing body of research that supports [the premise his book is forwarding] p. 13;

Who documented the cases? What significant evidence-based research (as opposed to research that is not evidence-based? Hmmm, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.) Which researchers, scientists, bodies of research?  Beats me– there are no notes citing sources. There is no bibliography or list of references. In fact, Anderson’s resource lists for patients contains nothing more recent than 2007 (15 years!)

Ah, but anecdotes reveal The True Truth. Don’t they?

Throughout the book, Anderson describes talking to “hundreds of doctors”, “thousands of patients,” drawing on the wealth of lived experience. “What did you do to get well and stay well?” he reports asking healthy cancer patients.  Themes emerged from those conversations: A shift from processed foods toward “real” foods; the crucial nature of the mind’s role in healing, particularly the importance of positive thinking; a new or broadened perspective of spirituality (p. xvi). All of these, he tells us, have become the foundation of his guidance of other cancer patients.

Why should we believe that positive thinking can heal? “I have had hundreds of conversations with physicians who often observe how two patients of similar ages with the same diagnosis sharing a similar degree of illness and and virtually identical treatment programs experience different outcomes. On of the few apparent differences was that one patient was pessimistic and the other optimistic” (p. 20). Guess who got sicker in his story? (Please note: in the late 1970s, eminent psychiatrist and researcher David Spiegel published a study affirming this. He was never able to replicate those findings. Oops: disregard that 1970s study.)

How do we know the Western system of health care is deeply, dangerously flawed? Why, Anderson introduces a physician who had a traumatic experience with treatment for breast cancer. Of course, we have no idea what year she was treated, or what methods were used. Perhaps she appeared in the 1993 first edition and has been kept around for edition 4 (2013). Perhaps she has passed away. Perhaps she never existed. No matter– the point is, medical knowledge has changed a little in the past 20 years.

What obviously is most important for us to know is that this doctor, shocked at how procedure-centered the technicians and doctors were, how non-interested they were in her as a person, “realized the system in which I was trained, and in which I practiced, would eventually fail me (p. 8).” Luckily for her, Anderson’s  foundation helped her evaluate treatment options (ahem).

Repetition

Repeatedly, Anderson uses repetition again and again to give weight to his claims. In fact, if you leave the book not chanting about the healing cocktail of nutrition– NO SUGAR– exercise, positive thinking, or spiritual development, you will need to go to summer school.

Emerging?

Anderson touts “an emerging model of cancer care.” Emerging, twenty years after the 1993 first edition?Perhaps this is simply a phrase from the first edition that missed the 2013, fourth edition revision process?   Within this model,  “Scientists are discovering that when we feel empowered, our immune system is empowered….The principles of empowerment, self-engagement, and personal choice are at the heart of the emerging model of cancer care (p. 10).” Personally, I am interested to hear that empowerment has a the chemical impact on a cellular level.

“Your will to live plays a large role in your recovery,” he writes. I don’t even know what to do with that statement.

The role of the mind

Optimism and positive thinking play a crucial role in wellness (see above).

I was glad to learn that a positive attitude will help cancer patients Beat This Thing. Hope, Anderson exhorts, is “a force, a mental, emotional, and spiritual power, a strength you possess (p. 22).”  Hope is your super power! (I want to know if I get a cape.) In some cancer circles I’ve found, this is called toxic positivity.

We readers of this special book should feel very lucky because “[o]ver the past quarter-century, my voice has been the leading voice of the positive thinking school in the cancer field”  (p. 257.) Thank God– now we will Know Truth, from The Source! And yet, there are Doubters: “a small but vocal group of patients” (p. 257) who claim he is saying they caused their own cancer. “Not so, ” he writes. “The hopeful outlook bolsters health– emotionally and physically. It produces a sense of guilt only if that is how it is received” (p. 258.) Excellent job of undermining the speakers’ points by criticizing the speakers themselves! (This is an error in logic– a fallacy– known as the Ad Hominem Attack.)

Wait! “Am I to blame for my cancer?” No, Anderson asserts. But, if you neglect the “true sources of health and healing” (emphasis added) (and the name of the unnumbered second chapter of the book) why, you can bet you’ll  bear responsibility for your cancer’s recurrence, your decline, and possibly, your own death.

Anderson’s goal is simple. He wants “to guide you to merge science with your inner wisdom to make choices that are optimal for you” (p 17).

Ah, yes. Inner wisdom. 

This is where he brings in the Good Ole’ Boys, Plato, Hippocrates, and Cicero. Because, 2,000 years ago, these men knew the truths that our so-called experts (those money-grubbing doctors and short-sighted scientists…) are today just beginning to recognize.

For example, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, says, “Let food be thy medicine and they medicine thy food.”  One point for nutrition as a Healing Principle.

Anderson reminds us that Hippocrates also said, “Above all, do no harm;” and, “Honor the healing power of Nature (p. 17 ).” Clearly the way Western medicine treats cancer patients is the antithesis of what Hippocrates intended. Two points against traditional/conventional Western medicine and for Anderson’s ideals (which would be…natural healing? No  “harmful” treatment, like chemo? Well, Anderson does hate chemo.)

Then along comes Plato, who proves Anderson’s claim that traditional medicine focuses on eradicating the tumor, not healing the whole patient. Plato writes, “The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians because they are ignorant of the whole. For the part can never be well unless the whole is well.” Another point for the power of positive thinking and an extra one for focusing on healing the WP (whole person).

Cicero, though, brings down the house. “While there is hope, there is life” (p 21). So it’s final, then. No hope means no life. (And you probably have to give back your cape.)

<sigh>

Here are some “facts” Anderson shares.  

“…50 to 75 percent of cancers are totally and completely preventable” (p. 12). This is, he claims, especially true of breast and prostate cancers. Says who? Where?

“…bad inherited genes are not the cause of 90 to 95 percent of cancers….Genes gone badly are more often the outcome of many other factors” (p. 12). Such as…? (Probably a negative attitude.)

“Let’s be clear: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation can play an important role in cancer treatment. [My emphasis]…. “Conventional treatments do not address the underlying factors that predispose one to, or prevent, cancer development….[They] merely treat symptoms [i.e., the tumor].” Is a negative attitude one of those factors? I guess instead of chemo and radiation, I should have been locked in a room and left to sweat out the demons that were rioting in my cells.

“Orthodox medicine often has a place, an important short-term role, in the cancer recovery process” (p xvi).

If you need yet one more piece of factual information on which to ground your new way of thinking, Anderson cautions us to be wary of over-treatment– medicine is a for profit venture, after all. Of course, he can– and does–  tell us the story of One Patient Who Died because she did one treatment too many.

Look, cancer care has changed a lot since 1993. The role of nutrition, rest, practices like meditation, exercise, etc.  are commonly seen on websites like the World Cancer Research Fund International. But these aren’t accompanied by scare tactics or conviction that borders on evangelism.

The Bottom Line

Greg Anderson’s book seems foolish and dangerous to me. Is cancer a mystery? Yes. Is that the fault of medical science? Not in my opinion. Can you cure cancer with positive thinking, nutrition, vitamin D (one of his more dangerous ideas)? Hell no. (For what it’s worth, the WCRF says, explicitly, in VERY LARGE LETTERS: Do not use supplements for cancer prevention.) 

Perhaps Anderson imagines that if you have cancer, you’ve gone soft in the head. If Greg Anderson has changed your life with his book, good for you; I wish you peace and a lifetime of wellness. Me? I paid real money for the book and I’m sort of sorry I did. (I think I am now at greater risk for beating myself up over getting cancer and having it spread to my brain.) If you want my copy, let me know and I’ll send it out.

Thanks for reading. I hope you’re reading something summery, wonderful, and uplifting.

“A fallacy is a misconception resulting from flaw in reasoning, or a trick or illusion in thoughts that often succeeds in obfuscating facts/truth,” (www.logicalfallacies.org). A few fallacies at work in Cancer: 50 Essential Things include:

• the Ad Hominem Attack
• the anecdotal fallacy
• the argument from repetition
• the appeal to nature fallacy

_________________________________________________

The Cancer Recovery Foundation International : A Scam?

Short answer: Maybe.

Greg Anderson refers to the Cancer Recovery Foundation International in his writing. That’s an organization he founded and runs. I have poked around in it a bit and am here to tell you that he makes a boatload of money. I don’t know if he keeps his speaker fees, or if they go to the foundation.

According to the website, Cancer Recovery Foundation International is “the charitable arm of Cancer Recovery Group” and Cancer Recovery Association, “a membership organization that specializes in wellness empowerment for cancer patients and their families.”

• The Cancer Recovery Group is also the umbrella for:
  • The Breast Cancer Support Project
  • The Women’s Cancer Fund
  • Pediatric Cancer Environmental Impact Fund – The Pediatric Fund says they are a policy advising group. They are the only group that does not carry nonprofit status. I believe it replaces the Children’s Cancer Recovery Foundation, which was listed on Cancer Recovery Foundation Form 990 as an “organization operated, supervised, or controlled by” The Cancer Recovery Foundation of America.  Charity Navigator’s rating page for the  Children’s Cancer Recovery Foundation reads
  • “On May 15, 2020, the IRS automatically revoked the federal tax exemption status of Children’s Cancer Recovery Foundation for ‘failure to file a Form 990-series return or notice for three consecutive years.’ For this reason, we have issued a High Concern CN Advisory. For more information, please see the IRS register for tax-exempt organizations.”

    News websites, like CNN, identified this charity as a scam.

  • The Cancer Recovery Association. But, if you click on the link to it on the bottom of the Cancer Recovery Group’s page, it leads to a 404– Page Not Found. This is the home page of the Association. I couldn’t tell you how I found it.
  • Every single page of every one of these groups has a Donate button

From Cause IQ, a data and tools service for nonprofits: “The Cancer Recovery Foundation International may be no longer active or terminated. Either the organization hasn’t filed a Form 990 in many years and appears to no longer be active, or they marked in their most recent Form 990 that they have closed down.” The Foundation’s most recent filing is 2015. Greg Anderson’s compensation as CEO in 2015 was reported as $207, 507. The treasurer’s reported income: $127,341; the CFO’s reported income: $127,800; the secretary’s: $0 (later pages in the 990 reveal she is the CEO’s wife.) In Form 990, the Cancer Recovery Foundation International was reported as merging with the Cancer Recovery Foundation of America.

Cancer Recovery Foundation International has received a failing grade from Charity Navigator. Charity Navigator used data from the International Foundation’s 2020 Form 990 on which to base its reviews.

Finally, Greg Anderson’s website URL returns a “This site can’t be reached” message.

I won’t be sending any of these organizations a donation, that’s for sure.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t send you my copy of the book even if you begged me.