An excerpt from Cancer Cure, by Gary Schine

"Not long ago I was listening to the car radio on a long drive home. A gentleman was being interviewed on a talk show about how he cured himself of colon cancer. This gentleman claimed he refused all medical treatment and instead went on a macrobiotic diet which completely eradicated his cancer. Further, he was sure that most cancer sufferers could cure their disease through following his diet.

"Was his cancer really cured through his macrobiotic diet? Maybe yes and maybe no. If his cancer really did disappear, there could have been any number of factors that independently or in combination with other factors were responsible for his reversal of fortune.

"While it is entirely possible that the claimed disappearance of his cancer occurred concurrently with his macrobiotic diet, this in and of itself does not prove that his diet was the cause. Likewise, one person being treated with a drug and having his cancer disappear concurrently with that treatment does not prove the drug was the cause.

"The key to proving or at least indicating a viable cause and effect relationship lies in the scientific method of inquiry. This first step of the scientific method involves isolating the substance or practice that is suspected of causing the outcome. That is isoloating the variable --in this case the macrobiotic diet or the drug-- from all other variables that might be alternative causes of the outcome. The scientific method also demands that results be duplicated several times before any reasonable cause and effect conclusions can be drawn.

"Some phenomena are easy to prove scientifically. A healthy person's broken bone, if set properly, will heal. Likewise an otherwise healthy person with any of several kinds of bacterial infections can be cured with antibiotics. The value of these treatments are easy to prove because they are nearly 100% effective. That is, if the appropriate antibiotic was administered to 1,000 otherwise healthy people with pneumococcal pneumonia foe example, nearly all of them would have their pneumonia quickly eradicated. If another 1,000 people with pneumococcal pneumonia received no antibiotic, many of them would not recover.

"What's more, the effect of an antibiotic on various types of bacteria can be easily tested. The drug will either kill or not kill the bacteria.

"With most cancer treatments though, the results are not nearly as clear. It is not at all unusual for a treatment to be partially effective for some patients, completely effective for others, and ineffective for others still. This makes the scientific proof much more complex than in a simple yes or no, all or nothing situation.

"For any treatment claims to be considered valid, the same or similar results have to be achieved over and over again. If 10 people with colon cancer switched to the same macrobiotic diet, received no other treatment, and 9 of the 10 saw their cancer disappear, that would be a reasonable indication the the diet was at least partly responsible. If 1,000 people with colon cancer switched to the same macrobiotic diet and 900 of them saw their cancer disappear, that would be an even better indication that the diet was responsible.

"All reputable science relies on the scientific method. Whether the research is measuring the effectiveness of a new cancer treatment, the prospects of a political candidate, or consumer reaction to a new breakfast cereal, the principles of scientific inquiry remain the same. While the methods differ, the underlying theory of research is quite straightforward."