The prince and the professor: Which emperor is naked?

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7470.858

BMJ 2004;329:858 (9 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7470.858

Letter

The prince and the professor

Which emperor is naked?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The crux of Baum's argument seems to be that thePrince of Wales should not be advising people to embrace "unproved"therapies.¹ Baum seems to take particular exception to the Princeof Wales's recent show of support for the so called Gerson therapy,a cancer treatment based on vegetable juices and coffee enemas.

The Gerson therapy is unproved in that it has not been subjectedto systematic study. Whether it is of broad benefit to cancerpatients is simply not known. Was it so wrong for the Princeof Wales to call for more study in this area? But, even beforethe evidence is in, Baum seems to dismiss nutritional therapyout of hand and describes the experience of patients with cancerwho are apparently cured by it as an "urban myth." So far asthe potential benefits of a treatment are concerned, absenceof evidence does not . . . [Full text of this article]

John P Briffa, doctor and writer

London drjbriffa@aol.com