Manifesto For a Cancer Patient – Dr. Colleen Huber
Video Transcript:
[Music]
Suzanne: As you navigate the difficult road of seeking the right cancer treatment for you, the book Manifesto for a Cancer Patient is helping people find answers. Author Dr. Colleen Huber is here to tell us all about it. Good morning, doctor, great to see you.
Dr. Colleen Huber: Thank you, Suzanne. It's great to see you.
Suzanne: Tell me, why you decided to write this book.
Dr. Colleen Huber: A newly diagnosed cancer patient is told there is no other treatment for your cancer other than chemotherapy and radiation for your particular cancer. So you are going to start chemo now, and then after several drugs are tried over the course of months to years, the patient is then told there is nothing else to be done. It is time to go to hospice now. And then the death is blamed on cancer rather than deception and inappropriate treatments. It just doesn't have to be this way. Completely different treatments for cancer exist — treatments that are compatible with life and well-being — and those are available. I wanted to write this book in order to address the question: Why do what choices do cancer patients have, and why do those choices seem so few?
Suzanne: In your experience and in your research for this book, did you find that a lot of cancer patients were giving up and kind of giving their doctors the choices for them instead of taking control themselves?
Dr. Colleen Huber: Yes. I think doctors take too many decision-making liberties that they really should not usurp from the individual. Dr. Benjamin Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a colonial physician. He warned his contemporaries: If we don't write medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when you will not have any choices in medical treatment and you will submit to a medical dictatorship. And that's really been a problem because unfortunately Dr. Rush's contemporaries did not heed his warnings.
I think cancer patients need a manifesto in order to restore their rightful position to the head of the table. I mean, I think that what I like to call personal sovereignty — that is, the decision-making authority of an individual over his or her own health — I really needed a spokesperson, somebody to talk about that. The Nuremberg trials, the International Declaration of Human Rights — these have taught us that medical procedures must not be forced on individuals. We really have to restore the individual to their rightful place at the head of the table.
Suzanne: So what are some of the best treatments that you have found for cancer patients?
Dr. Colleen Huber: I have had a busy naturopathic private cancer clinic in Tempe, Arizona for 11 years, and I was keynote speaker at the uro cancer summit in 2015 as well as other academic conferences. So I've had some exposure to this field. I feel that the natural treatments are best done in combination. They really are not so effective as a chemotherapy drug might be when used as a single agent. They really have to be used in combination, but when they are and when they're done well, they're neither too difficult nor very expensive. They can be replicated by other clinics, and we have a very good effect against many, most early-stage cancers, and even some late-stage cancers.
Suzanne: Do you have research on this?
Dr. Colleen Huber: Yes, actually the website, NatOnco.org is the one where we organized research from the standard medical literature, and over 500 studies are cited. They are broken down by type of cancer, and they show that through clinical studies and/or laboratory studies that natural treatments of various kinds are both safe and effective.
Suzanne: Now, "manifesto" is a strong word. Tell me why you wanted it in your title.
Dr. Colleen Huber: I really wanted to strengthen the voices of cancer patients. I feel that because they are often told that they have no choice and they have to do what they're told, that they really need to stand up and demand better of their doctors. The doctors must stop being worshipped as a semi- as a demigod or a deity, because that's not what actually is their appropriate role. It's health advisor, really. And so when we start demanding better of our doctors, when we demand better choices and treatments, then we'll start being able to obtain better treatments.
Suzanne: A lot of interesting information, doctor. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing it with us. And if you'd like to read Manifesto for a Cancer Patient, you can find it at Amazon.
[Music]