Hi

I would like to comment on the topics your essay addresses. First, I hear you, one would think that something this good would spread like wildfire. If one person had success, the news would simply spread exponentially. That is a good point, however, we cannot assume that if someone had success that the news would spread that fast.

The first question that arises is "How would it spread?"

You said: "The cured would be the talk of the world: in newspapers, on television and on the radio, in the coffee shops and in the workplace".

We to break this argument down scientifically, let's talk about newspapers. I really am not sure that a Hulda Clark testimonial would make it into mainstream newspapers. I don't have any evidence for this, because I don't follow the newspapers, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing featured.

Imagine a newspaper such as the NY times posting one story about someone who claimed they were cured of cancer by this treatment. I can't see it. They would have to send a reporter to cover it, and make it a story. Now the question I ask is "Is a story like that going to make it, or is it going to face intense confrontation from the powers that be, in the forms of medical authorities, etc.?" It could quite possibly be a huge liability for them or simply not something their editors are allowed to do.

Next: Television. Ya right. Hulda Clark is going to get on mainstream television. Possibly on a small handful of channels. Maybe Oprah. Actually that would be something to check out. However, the medical industry is a HUGE industry. I personally wonder what kind of pressure a TV program would face if it got out.

An example of a program that just might not make it is the "Pet Psychic". I loved this show, although the viewer wouldn't know if it were truthful. However, I have not seen this show on the Pet channel in a long time, and my sense is that it really went against the mainstream beliefs. Imagine what kind of adverse reaction a show would recieve if it showed that most of the medical and pharmacuetical industry was unnecessary.
That would be quite a battle.

Radio: Again, I am not an expert in this, but from what I understand most of the radio stations are now conglomerates of a few major companies. I mean turn on the radio in most areas and the same exact crap plays across the country. This conglomeration does not encourage open and alternative media.

In fact, it appears that currently all funding is being cut for public broadcasting. (6-10-2005) by the house appropriations committee. While this is reversable, it shows that alterative radio is not a friend of the powers that be.

I am going to argue that these mainstream media channels are largely in control of the information that the public recieves. I would say that it really is next to mind control. I would also wonder who owns these major companies? Are they people who are an favor of or against mainstream medicine? I don't know. I have my guess, but that is it.

So where would this leave us? Word of mouth. Your example of the Gold Rush, although a nice argument, is comparing apples to avocados. The power of the Gold Rush was the power of human greed. I would argue that greed is an entirely different animal than the desire to spread word of healing. I mean what would you rather see fall out of a truck on the highway? Huge sums of money or a book that tells of an alternative therapy? I don't think that news of an alternative therapy would spread as fast as a pile of cash waiting for the taking.

Why? Well most people don't want to think about their health until they are sick. However, most people do want to hear about a way to make large sums of money. Who are there more of, people who want money or people dying of cancer?

Also, which is more popular, a cancer treatment or a big pile of money? Which do you think will be talked about at the water cooler, cocktail hour, on the golf course, at the gym, etc. I have my guess.

These are simply my opinions, which are largely unfounded.

I think that the true test would be to build a few of their instruments are test them out. If you do, good luck posting your results. I'm sure that will spread all over the airwaves like you argue. Why not try it out?

Thanks for the chance to give my opinon.

Hello Ray

Thanks for taking the time to express your opinion. About your concern on how the news would have spread if Hulda Clark truly had a cure for cancer... I would think the news would initially be passed around by word of mouth. If people were actually cured by Clark's protocol, they would tell others who also have the disease that they were cured following her methods. The vast majority of people with cancer do not live in a bubble. They are usually involved in support groups and various programs to help them through their ordeal. They become part of a network and meet others who have the disease as well. In fact, even outside the cancer network, I think one would be hard pressed to find anybody who has not been affected with cancer in some way or another. I personally know several people who have died of cancer or are presently living with it. If I had cancer and was cured by Hulda Clark's method, I would make sure that those people still alive with the disease knew how I was cured. Do you really believe they would not follow up on my claims and seek out the cure for themselves, especially if I was living proof of Hulda's cure? If Hulda Clark truly had a cure, they too would be cured and in turn would tell others with the disease... and so on and so on.

Now if people were actually being cured, is it not reasonable to believe that it would not take long for the media to pick up on the story? If anything is news, this is: 'A Cure For Cancer Found'. What reporter would pass up on the opportunity of breaking a story that would most certainly have world wide significance? The reason the media has not picked up on the story of a cure is that there is no story for it to pick up on. If there is no story to pick up on, it's pretty safe to conclude that people are not being cured by Hulda Clark's methods. (It's not that people don't know about Hulda Clark - her books have made best sellers lists and her doctrine is published all over the internet on countless natural health websites. It's just that there are no cured people around, other than a few questionable testimonials.)

Your water cooler comments miss the mark. You are correct in saying that most people don't think and talk about their health until they are sick. However you fail to see that when cancer does strike, thoughts of the disease become all consuming. There are currently millions of cancer patients in the world who have a hard time not thinking and talking about cancer. These are the people who would have spread word of Hulda Clark's cure if there actually was one, not healthy people who's primary concern is, for example, the victors of last night's basketball game. You see Ray, the real motivation behind the spread of the word of a cure for cancer is the survival instinct of those inflicted with the disease. These people care little about, as you say, "a pile of cash waiting for the taking". They just want to live. If Clark had a cure, they would know about it and they would get cured. They would also make sure everyone else with the disease knew about it too.

So Ray, to answer your question of "How would it (word of a cure) spread?"... People cured of cancer would tell other people who have cancer. There would be a snowball effect of cured people within the cancer community. The news media and others not immediately affected with the disease, would get in the picture after they became aware that people were actually being cured. However the news media has found no story to pick up on. 

I totally agree with you that people with cancer are intensely interested in talking about cancer. I have known many people who have had cancer, and yes, they are very much focused on their health and getting better if possible. What I was saying is that until someone has cancer, they really don't choose cancer treatments as there prefered topic of conversation. I have experimented talking with a few people about this Hulda Clark stuff, and so far my results are mixed. It seems that there is some kind of aversion to the idea that these things could work.

Actually the first couple of times I saw the book, I personally thought "How arrogant. Like someone figured it all out." There it was on the end of the book shelf at the natural foods store for all to see. Even though it has a title that you must agree is compelling, I didn't go read the book, and I had friends who were living with cancer. So I can say that from personal experience there is some factor present that limits the spread of this information, regardless of its efficacy. Perhaps it is an assumption that if it did work, it would be everywhere. If it did work, then my trustful doctor would know about it. If it did work, then it would be all over the tv. Sound familiar?

Of the two friends I then had who were ill with cancer, one eventually came into contact with the "Zapper" component of Hulda Clark's program. Guess what, he didn't go get one. What does that say for openness. He did take 101 supplements. He took these probably because he was getting them from a nutritional "expert". The expert, by the way, now has family with cancer. I'm not sure what that says about nutritional supplements, but I wouldn't bet my life on them.

The other friend, when his cancer was in remission, got quite involved with another alternative therapy. I guess he got involved with that because it was practiced by someone who was locally known as skilled and people were going there. Were they getting results? I don't know. But it was popular. I think the popularity had little to do with the effectiveness. I think it was about a social custom. Hulda Clark's work, regardless of its efficacy, will probably not become much of a social custom in this country, given the politics involved.

Let me ask you a few questions- have you tried this yourself? I mean you have done some serious research here, compiling websites, placing postulations. Have you actually experimented with it? You must care an awful lot to post these comments and have a blog site going. Have you experimented with one of the people you know who has cancer? Also, how receptive are they to these concepts? I would be interested in hearing more about that.

We both insert alot of assumptions into our arguments. I think that neither of our assumptions are worth a whole lot. There is too much that we don't know. We don't know the veracity of the testimonials, we don't know what kind of evidence would be necessary for a news reporter to touch much less cover one of these stories, we don't know the politics of the FDA, we don't know much. We can do some water cooler research, we can research these techniques on our own, but to place arguments based upon assumptions is probably not going to get us very far.

Thanks again.

Hello again Ray. 

I'll be brief. 

To answer your questions: There is no need for anyone to experiment with Hulda Clark's theories. Hulda Clark has been on the scene now for over ten years. If she had a cure for cancer, there would be countless documented cases of cured cancer patients by now - by documented cases, I don't mean testimonials, but rather, real laboratory confirmed cases of cancer free individuals. Since there are none to speak of, it can be reasonably concluded that she does not have a cure for cancer. It's just that simple.

I continue to assert that your arguments are not based on fact, but are based on assumptions. Beginning with your title "A common sense proof." you assert that your reasoning is equivalent to fact.

Sir, common sense, regardless of how much you think you might have of it, is not proof.

The gold rush analogy is not proof.

Water cooler beliefs are not proof.

Your belief that information suppression could not explain the lack of documented cases is not proof either.

This kind of thinking, while valuable for it's potential to bring up hypotheses, creates nothing more than a thought out guess. If you draw conclusions based upon these guesses, you are still just making judgements. If you leave it as a judgment, that may be ok for you, but they are limiting if you tell someone else that this is fact.

The only way to actually prove that the Hulda Clark techniques are ineffective is through authentic scientific research. Your assertion that lack of scientific data on Hulda Clark's therapies proves their ineffectiveness actually says alot about the larger picture of why these therapies would never get very far without government support. This sir, is exactly my point. This is what limits each and every one of us individually and then collectively to exploring alternatives in life. Thanks for illustrating it so clearly.

The conclusion I come to is that we simply do not know if the Hulda Clark therapies demonstrate any effectiveness, either in prevention or the cure of such diseases as cancer.

Hello Again Ray

You seem to forget that the burden of proof lies with the party making the claims. It is Hulda Clark who says she has a cure for cancer. She is the one who is supposed to provide the proof. What proof does she have for that claim? She has provided nothing. There is not one shred of evidence that can be backed up by another source. Since there is no real evidence from her, the next obvious thing to do is to look to see if there are any documented cured cancer patients resulting from her therapies. Again the answer is no.

This is a commonsense logical type of proof Ray. If the results of a claim turn out to be false, then it follows that the claim itself is false. Here is the argument: If the premise, Hulda Clark has a cure for cancer, is true, then the conclusion, there are cancer cured people, should also be true. But the conclusion, there are cancer cured people, is false (there are none). Therefore, the premise, Hulda Clark has a cure for cancer, is also false.

Not one shred of evidence? Wow. I guess a couple hundred testimonials are less important than your theory.
I agree with you that the claim requires significnant evidence, but I do not know what it takes to produce that kind of research, so I can't say much about that.

I can say that you also are making a claim, Tommy. You are claiming that the cure is false. You whole argument is based on reasoning, but not on data. While she makes a claim based upon a significant number of testimonials, your claim is based on lack of evidence. You say that because research has not been done, there is no cure. I can imagine this is what the masses might have said at many times in history when faced with a new possiblity. If lack of evidence meant that the claim were false, then assertions that the world might have been round would have been determined false until someone proved it. Actually that sounds about right, I think that is how society tends to operate. Thanks, you taught me something else.

Ray:

The testimonials you speak of are meaningless. Anybody can say anything. What is important is real concrete data that indicates the presence of cancer before and after a particular treatment. Only then can one make a judgment on whether the procedure is successful or not. CAT Scans, MRIs, blood tests, etc. are some of the tools used to detect the presence and stages of cancer. Hulda Clark's testimonials are for the most part devoid of any of the results of these tools to back them up. Doctors know when someone has cancer. They can see it. They can also see when the cancer is gone. Hulda Clark has failed to come up with any significant evidence that shows the before and after effect of her treatment for cancer. 

But those hundreds of testimonials you say... of the millions and millions of people who have cancer throughout the world, are a few hundred testimonials supposed to indicate Clark has a cure? A cure for cancer means: when someone is treated for cancer they become cancer free after the treatment. Where are these cured people Ray? Why is it that after over ten years of Hulda Clark's protocol we have but a few hundred people giving testimonials? Would you not expect the people of these testimonials to tell others they know with cancer about how they were cured? If the cure worked, would not these other people also be cured? Would they not in turn also tell others?... and so on, and so on. Like I said, people with cancer do not live in a bubble. They know other people with cancer.

This is where commonsense comes in Ray. I am not "claiming the cure is false" as you say, I am using logic and deduction. I am looking into the world. Since I can't find people who have been cured of cancer by following Clark's methods, I am deducing that she does not have a cure for cancer. How is it you can't see that?

From the very beginning I have not agreed with your assumptions. Your whole essay is built on assumptions, and now you continue to pour forth new ones in your comments. It seems that your whole argument is a big pile of them. The ironic thing is that you reprimand Dr. Clark and her patients for the same.

Your latest comments are based on the assumption that that none of Clark's patients have had any diagnostics performed as part of treatment, and "Hulda Clark has failed to come up with any acceptible scientific evidence that shows the before and after effect of her treatment for cancer." Again you assume incorrectly. Stop building your arguments on assumptions. Didn't your mother teach you that? I haven't done half the research that you have, but I easily found Dr. Clark patients who give diagnostic-backed testimonials on the web.

I'm not sure about anything. I can't say if these therapies work or not. I just think it is wonderful that people such as Dr. Clark continue to think outside the box and come up with new ideas and methods for helping people with their health. More needs to be done, and I the whole reason I got involved in this conversation is that I don't think new ideas, and I would say that a therapy that is only about 10 years old is new, should be shut down because they haven't cured the world. I think that would be a pretty big task for 10 years especially given the political climate.

Thanks for the chance to give my two cents. I hope that you enjoyed this as much I as did. Again, I appreciate your time and energy managing this site. 

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