Shark cartilage in the water: Ignorance-based cancer treatment

doi:10.1136/bmj.39051.727350.3A

BMJ 2006;333:1222 (9 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39051.727350.3A

Letters

Shark cartilage in the water

Ignorance-based cancer treatment

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

I write with reference to Waxman's personalview.¹ A reflexologist believes that the organs of the bodyreappear symbolically on the soles of the feet and that diseaseof these organs can be treated by massaging that part of thefoot. Anyone who believes that is either woefully ignorant ofhuman biology and seriously misinformed, or barking mad.

I spent most of a year, from November 2002 toOctober 2003, in a cancer ward, being treated for the complicationsof two different types of lymphoma. During that time the nursesrepeatedly offered me the services of a reflexologist.

After two months in bed with septicaemia, mytoenails had grown too long for me to wear my slippers comfortably.I could not cut them myself and a nurse told me that she couldnot, as it was against some kind of rule.

I am all for hospitals offering non-medicaltreatments to . . . [Full text of this article]

Caroline Richmond, obituary writer

¹ London SW3 5AQ c@roline.demon.co.uk