--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1" <steve.sundur@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > OK, since Sal decided she'd step on my point and ignore my > > request for comments only from those who knew nothing more > > about the case than what Skolnick posted, I'll ask Steve > > whether he notices any discrepancies between Skolnick's > > account and the account Sal posted from Quackwatch. > > Well yes. Quite a different take. I think the whole purpose > of chemo is to make the cancer go into remission. It is > probably a reasonable assumption to conclude that Ayurdedic > treatments would strengthen the immune system.
Good. You noticed, then, that Skolnick failed to mention that the woman had had the full range of approved medical treatment (she also had a mastectomy) for her cancer, giving the impression that she had died because she had used Maharishi Ayur-Veda *instead of* medical treatment (as you had first assumed)? And you also noticed that all she had said was that she was *in remission*, not, as Skolnick claimed, that she had been "cured"? That's a highly significant distinction where cancer is concerned, and the woman was clearly very much aware of it. Finally, did you notice that she did not receive MA-V treatment for her cancer--as Skolnick implied--but rather as an adjunct to mitigate the effects of the chemotherapy? Given these discrepancies, would you care to give your opinion of Skolnick's honesty in his description of her case? BTW, I can post a transcript of her appearance on Donahue; I happen to own a copy of the tape. Confronted with the transcript and the discrepancies between what he had claimed and what had actually taken place, Skolnick stonewalled, absolutely refusing to acknowledge that he had misrepresented her case. You would not *believe* the contortions he went through in attempting to wiggle out of his attempted deception. I have reason to believe that he obtained her death certificate because he planned to use it as a visual aid in one of his invited talks to medical professionals on the "dangers" of alternative therapies. I can only hope that the fuss that was raised on alt.m.t about his misrepresentations made him think twice about using the woman's story at all, just in case someone in his audience had also seen the Donahue show and would recognize that he wasn't describing it accurately. After all, if he had told her story honestly at such a talk, the audience would have wondered why he'd even mentioned it. There's nothing the least bit unusual, sadly, about a woman receiving standard medical treatment for breast cancer, going into full remission, and then dying of a metastatic recurrence two years later. It only works as a scare story if the facts are deliberately distorted. I don't think I would want to go beyond that simple > statement. And it would be difficult for me to believe that Chopra or > any physician with any credibility would make a statement beyond this > claim. > > > The program also featured a testimonial by Marian Thompson, a > patient whose metastatic breast cancer had gone into > remission with chemotherapy plus ayurvedic treatment. > Chopra asserted that his methods had played a major role in > the woman's apparent recovery by strengthening her immune system. Ms. > Thompson subsequently died of her disease." >
