The former actress has one of the nation’s top books, touting secret cancer cures. But these methods, reports Gerald Posner, may actually increase the disease risk. Specifically, Posner reveals how:
One outside expert, based on his examination of 30 years of photographs, believes she had plastic surgery, which would undercut her reputation for health through alternative medicine.
Bioidentical hormones are just as unsafe and have the same effect as pharmaceutical hormones, which cause cancer
“Bioidentical is a pseudo-scientific term used by Somers and others only as a marketing gimmick,” says Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, an Associate Professor in Complementary and Alternative Medicine at Georgetown’s School of Medicine. “Bioidentical hormones are not natural products; they are synthesized in a laboratory. Bioidentical preparations use exactly the same pharmaceutical hormones that are used in branded hormone preparations.”
That differentiation—or lack thereof—is critical. In 2002, one of the largest-ever medical studies, The Women’s Health Initiative, concluded that estrogen and progesterone, the hormones used by Somers and millions of menopausal aged women, increased the risks of cancer and death rates. In other words, Somers “cure” might in fact be a cause.
The former actress addresses this issue preemptively in Knockout. “The report was speaking of synthetic hormones,” writes Somers. She therefore concludes that bioidenticals are safe and natural, noting that they aren’t made by pharmaceutical companies but instead in non-FDA regulated compounding pharmacies as part of customized preparations.
“I’m no friend of the drug companies Somers criticizes,” says Fugh-Berman, who has been a paid expert witness against hormone giant Wyeth, testifying for plaintiffs who had breast cancer. But her own extensive research on bioidenticals found no evidence that they act any differently or are any safer than the conventional hormones tested in the Women’s Health Initiative. “This is critical to understand,” Fugh-Berman told me. “There’s actually every reason to believe that bioidentical hormones will have the same risks when it comes to heart disease, blood clots, and breast cancer.”
Somers cites “over 40 studies showing that bioidentical hormones are safe” but they are all observational studies, not a single one meets the standards for a clinical determination of a drug’s safety profile. Many of the hormones, she says, have been used with great results in Europe for years. She omits, says Fugh-Berman, “that European studies have shown increased cancer risks. Somers is simply far more dangerous in her pop and inaccurate descriptions of hormones than most any doctor.”
Somers claims bioidentical hormones can cure cancer, but they are likely to cause it, including her own cancer
What infuriates physicians even more than Somers’ unproven claims of safety and health benefits is that in Knockout she proclaims that bioidentical hormone replacement is protective against cancer. She writes that “[they] offer protection against breast cancer, but no one, has connected the dots,” and that using testosterone “can protect and prevent cancer, especially prostate cancer.”
“It’s exactly the opposite,” says Fugh-Berman. “Estrogen alone can cause uterine cancer. That risk can be reduced by adding a progestagen, but that increases the risk of breast cancer. Somers thinks they are safe despite the fact that she developed breast cancer while on them, and later developed endometrial hyperplasia (abnormal uterine cell growth), which led to a hysterectomy. Both are known side effects of hormone therapy.” Parikh adds that human growth hormone, which Somers injects daily, has also been linked to increased cancer risks.
“That she possibly aided and abetted her own cancer should have destroyed her credibility,” says Dr. Nanette Santoro, the Director of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “The real miracle is her ability to continue to pitch her theories.”
Somers blames her breast cancer on other medications, including birth control pills she took for many years. But she admits that her hysterectomy was likely due to an incorrect dosage of bioidenticals.
Some of Somer’s experts are dangerous quacks
A review of the doctors and experts in Knockout by The Daily Beast reveals that many do not fare better.
Two of the most important are Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez. Somers appeared with them last week on Larry King. In Knockout, Somers writes that the 66-year-old Burzynski is “an internationally recognized physician and scientist… [who] is to be celebrated for his accomplishments as a brave and courageous pioneer.” She claims he’s had “consistent successes with cancers of the brain, breast, head and neck, prostrate, colon, lungs, ovaries, as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
Burzynski has a medical degree from Lublin, Poland. Without any clinical cancer research experience, he announced in 1976 he had discovered a cure for cancer based on an assumption that he could use amino acids—that he called antineoplastons—to cause spontaneous regression of cancer. He set up a clinic in Houston and began dispensing his “cure” to cancer patients. The FDA tried stopping him, even seeking a federal injunction.
In 1995, Burzynski was charged with a multi-count indictment, mostly for mail fraud and shipping unapproved drugs across state lines. The jury deadlocked, and the judge dismissed most of the government’s counts before acquitting Burzynski of one remaining charge and ordering the FDA to allow Burzynski to conduct limited clinical trials. A review of the 60 trials connected to antineoplastons completed since then reveals no substantive results for their patients. “And those patients are desperate [so] it’s an ethical issue,” says Dr. Otis Brawley, a practicing oncologist who is the American Cancer Society’s Chief Medical Officer. “Most doctors don’t believe it’s proper to charge a patient for experimental treatments where there is no evidence of benefits.”
Burzynski ‘s clinic doesn’t charge for the medication—as its experimental – but does for everything else, averaging $9,000 weekly. Dr. Keith Black, chairman of Cedar Sinai’s Department of Neurosurgery, estimates that since the clinic opened 33 years ago, Burzynski has treated 8,000 patients for an average of $60,000 each—a whopping $480 million.
Somers also touts New York City’s Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, whose “results are impressive.” Gonzalez has refined a natural cancer treatment originally created in the 1960s by an offbeat Grapevine, Texas dentist. Gonzalez, who has no oncology training, insists that cancer can be eliminated if major organs are detoxified. His therapy involves everything from twice-a-day coffee enemas, yogurt, dried beans, and megavitamin supplements (up to 175 pills daily). He believes that pancreatic enzymes seek out and kill cancer cells. In August 2009, the Journal of Clinical Oncology published the results of an eight-year controlled study of 55 pancreatic cancer patients. Those who chose chemo lived more than three times as long and had better quality of life than those who used Gonzalez’s protocol.
Some of the other doctors or experts cited by Somers in Knockout also raise sometimes unsettling questions upon closer examination. One has been investigated by the Nevada medical board two dozen times and a medical board investigator dubbed him, “one of the five most serious offenders in the state;” he pleaded guilty once to excessive billing for tests and services, but was acquitted in 2006 of illegally importing human growth hormone from Israel. Another was fired from Sloan-Kettering after the hospital cited his failure “to properly discharge his most basic job responsibilities,” although he claims it was because he “had broken ranks with the party line” about traditional cancer therapies.” A third was accused of lying about being a doctor on a patent office application. He did get the patent but has not responded in two years to the charge about the doctor’s degree, a title he no longer uses. Another suggests that “an epidemic of hepatitis, AIDS, venereal diseases and highly resistant tuberculosis” was part of a “nefarious” Soviet program about which the U.S. government and media knew, and did nothing.
