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Livingston-Wheeler therapy was an alternative cancer regimen popular from the 1970s, built on a bacterium its founder claimed caused cancer, which independent researchers never confirmed. In a matched comparison, patients at the clinic lived no longer than those treated conventionally and had consistently worse quality of life, and its coffee enemas have caused deaths.
Virginia Livingston-Wheeler's regimen combined a strict vegetarian diet, BCG vaccine, an autogenous vaccine made from the patient's own samples, coffee enemas, vitamins, antibiotics and counselling, on the theory that a bacterium she named Progenitor cryptocides caused cancer when immunity weakened. Memorial Sloan Kettering's About Herbs summary notes that no independent researcher confirmed a link between that bacterium and cancer. A self-selected, matched-cohort prospective comparison of patients at the Livingston-Wheeler clinic and at a conventional cancer hospital found no difference in survival and consistently lower quality of life in the Livingston-Wheeler group. The American Cancer Society urged patients not to use the treatment in a 1990 position paper. MSK lists nutrient deficiencies, anaemia and malabsorption from the diet, malaise and fever from the vaccine, and a death from fluid and electrolyte imbalance after four coffee enemas a day for eight weeks.
Immune stimulation against a proposed cancer-causing microbe whose existence was not confirmed.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"Livingston-Wheeler therapy" OR ABSTRACT:"Livingston-Wheeler therapy") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Livingston-Wheeler therapy, not a curated reading list.
Shares Budwig diet (flaxseed oil and cottage cheese), Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Gerson therapy, coffee enemas and 'detox' regimens, Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
Shares Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment, Unproven diet claims (alkaline, juice, 'anti-cancer' diets), Misinformation and unproven therapies and the tags complementary, supportive-care.
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