As described in an Associated Press report, Dr. Christine Daniel was arrested this week on charges of mail and wire fraud after years of selling herbal cancer formulas grossing about $1.1 Million.  Daniel had been interviewed by investigators in 2004 and claimed that she was not practicing alternative medicine to treat cancer and had not made public claims of a 60% success rate on television.  Daniel, an ordained Pentecostal Christian minister, had touted her cancer treatment on Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian television network.

Authorities claim that Dr. Daniel took advantage of desperate, terminally ill cancer patients, with herbal medicines that cost recipients thousands of dollars.  Records showed that Daniel received 1.1 million dollars from 55 families for the herbal regimen between 2001 and 2004.  The report indicates that 6 patients died within 7 months after seeing Daniel.  It fails to mention what the prognosis was for these patients deemed terminally ill with cancer by medical authorities.  Perhaps this total of close to 90% of these patients surviving longer than 7 months was significantly better than would be expected considering their condition at the time they began the herbal treatments.  The patients had already been severely weakened by what the AP report refers to as "draining rounds of chemotherapy and radiation."  Thus, it is certainly possible that the patients benefited from the alternative herbal therapy regardless of whether the physician made inaccurate or misleading claims or charged excessively high fees for the treatment.  It is well-established in alternative medicine research that alternative cancer therapies are much less likely to produce a recovery in those already damaged by radiation and chemotherapy than in those who have chosen to be treated first by alternative means before considering chemotherapy or radiation.  Medical authorities often attempt to coerce and restrict people from working with alternatives until orthodox treatments have failed - thus limiting the success rate of those alternative treatments.

Mainstream cancer therapies had obviously failed these patients, probably producing more harm than benefit, at a rather high financial cost.  Yet mainstream medicine receives no consequence for providing ineffective therapies at a high cost or for passing along information that is often inaccurate and misleading.  It is non-conformists like Dr. Daniel who are pursued by prosecutors and decried by members of the medical establishment who seem to fear opposing viewpoints and competition.  This is by no means an endorsement of her treatments as being a highly effective or ideal option for those looking to recover from cancer.  It is however a criticism of the assumptions and judgments being made by those who have failed to explore the circumstances surrounding alternative cancer treatments and the prosecution of Dr. Daniel.

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