Gerson Does Work!!!

Cite the Japanese and European studies. Name the sources, Supply your friends medical case file, treatment and diagnosis before and after the Gerson fallacy.

The truth is that you WANT to believe this works so in your opinion it DOES work.

The main problem is that there's no theory WHY this therapy would work. ALL scientific theory should start with an explainable theory. Say that X is the solution for Z as proven by Y, don't just run around saying x is the solution.

IF a large, double blind, repeatable study under controlled conditions can show strong evidence that this diet is able to cure the large and varied list of maladies it claims to, AND that it's able to explain HOW it does so, then by all means let's get as many people possible onto this diet ASAP.

However if repeated scientifically controlled studies are unable to find a correlation between this diet and the literally dozens of diseases, disorders and even simple symptoms then, while still being an acceptable CHOICE of diet for people to follow, it shouldn't be prescribed as therapy.

There's no way anyone could have a conscionable argument to this course of action.

Keep in mind that the cases you so easily dismiss are real, documented cases, not apocryphal cases, "Lost when the Nazi's invaded"

That's the burden of science, if your evidence is lost, you have to do the studies again. THAT'S WHY SCIENTISTS WRITE THINGS DOWN, otherwise they'd have a lot less record keeping to do.

When you document experiments and results, you have something peers can use to recreate the study, or, often more importantly, use to advance OTHER experiments, thereby pushing forward scientific research in other areas.

When you make claims supported only by missing documents and refuse to subject the theory to further study, all of which is held under suspicion by the very people you did the studies with, and your reaction is to cry conspiracy, well it just makes you look like a nut-job.

I'm not a doctor (and doubt you are either), but there are several glaring reasons to doubt this diet has any appreciable effect on MOST of the maladies the Gerson family claims it to be the panacea for, which means it probably DOESN'T. Worse yet let's assume that the diet has no beneficial results, there is MUCH scientific evidence that it is actually HARMFUL to many people. Lacking in several essential nutritional elements.

Let's say that a small, but vocal group chooses to espouse this treatment for themselves and their own bodies; no worries. But when you get that group so passionately trying to convince OTHERS that they should follow the diet in pursuit of treatment of lethal illnesses, then when the sufferers die of the disease anyway, the touters of the theory are ethically responsible (and sometimes legally and criminally responsible) for the death and suffering of those people.

I'm glad your friend is better. Honestly, I would LOVE for this restrictive diet to be an actual tool for fighting a variety of diseases. But the whole thing reeks of the simple-minded, wrong-headed desire for "magic-bullet" cures, that simply don't exist. It's a lovely idea that out there in nature there is a natural cure for every malady that afflicts man, but that simply isn't true. Even if it WERE true, then it's unlikely that the foods prescribed here would be effective, seeing as how ALL OF THEM have been genetically modified BY HUMANS over the last several thousand years. NONE of the produce you see in the market today looks like it did before humans began tinkering with it's genetic make-up through cross-breeding and hybridizing, and MOST of them wouldn't be locally availably without many many levels of human intervention.

To truly get back to natural, native, diet, one must resort to living in the woods digging up roots and eating grubs. picking small, bitter fruit that's ripe only for a short time, harvesting tiny hard vegetables and unable to preserve either for any length of time, meaning that MOST of the time it isn't available at all.

Just remember that when people follow your passionate and, I'm sure, heart-felt advice and it ultimately harms them, then YOU are to blame.

Wikipedia is an unreliable and biased source, but third-hand anecdotal evidence isn't?

rhinovirus2001,

I'd like to comment on your assertion that you cannot do a double blind study on Gerson therapy. This is not true. The truth of the matter is that double blind studies are simply not generally used for this type of research because these types of studies would be too intrusive. To do a double blind study, you'd tell some people to eat diet "a", others to eat diet "b", and you'd also have a control group that continues their regular diet. People would eat the food at home and then come in and be health tested, but the doctors doing this examination, as well as the doctors who assigned diets, would not be told which diet the person was on. They could also incorporate enemas into the test, using a placebo and a control. This is a double blind test.

The problem, though, is that people would wonder about their diets and look up the information on the internet. Suddenly, the patient isn't blind, so the only way to run the test double blind would be to sequester the patients for months or years. I think we can all see why double blind studies are generally not used in cases like this. A good double blind study would be too intrusive.

Fortunately, double blind studies are not the only kind of experimental evidence accepted by Western medicine. Simpler studies can show if a therapy is effective. You are correct that they don't discount the placebo effect, but on the other hand, if Gerson therapy was shown to be effective in these studies, but it was really all placebo (and nobody would be able to know this), that still is compelling evidence that people should try the therapy, even if it only works because they think it works.

Doctors still prescribe placebos in certain cases, after all, because placebos can be effective medicine.

I think that people who say Gerson doesn't work are influenced by studies that have shown it has no significant effect. That doesn't mean that Gerson doesn't work. It means that we don't know of any study that has shown it to be effective. But even if those people are wrong to think that way, that does not mean that Gerson therapy is effective. I would be very interested to see the detailed records from Japan that you mentioned. A good researcher could analyze that data and publish a paper for a journal here, and that would be the proof that Gerson therapy works. Again, I think it is important to be calm, rational, and reasonable when your advice can mean life or death for somebody. We cannot fall into fallacious thinking for something that is this important.

It's interesting to see that all those who are against the Gerson Therapy obviously know nothing about what it really is. Here is a good start to learn something and then begin to start thinking about the issue instead of asking the usual stupid questions: what proof is there ....? The proof is out there, but if you can't even use Google properly or don't want to learn ... Sad.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7357629140536485998#

On the other side, there are similar theories which developed in the last 60 years with excellent results. To get into this material have a look at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4312930190281243507#docid=-7569039290646981687 and

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4312930190281243507#docid=-3957307988644640556

For people writing here, who, having no personal knowledge of the treatment and merely "think" that it doesn't work, then they bear the responsibility for everyone they kill off, when the day comes that the theory, or a variation thereof, becomes proved beyond doubt.

And just for interest's sake, my 20-year old daughter has developed bone cancer which within three months had got her to using crutches. We aren't using the Gerson Therapy, but a similar version as stated by the author Griffin in the second and third films which also includes the addition and use of "Amygdalin" or the so-called vitamin "B17".

Within three weeks the pain has gone down, she can walk without crutches, she can mover her leg much better than before, she looks much better and she's put on weight. And it's cost us around $ 60 for an extra nutriment supply for two months. That is at least unusual, so look at everything in Internet before you go out and decide that all this you've been reading is a lot of rubbish.