Dan Among Den

To put it in context, my father died of cancer eight months ago. I was very close to my father, and rarely does a day go by that I don’t find something that I would want to share with him. I would have to say I’m still grieving him.

So, towards the end of the session with this accountant, after I had gotten the information I needed, we fell into the chit-chat common of a service provider trying to find ways to sell more service to the customer. Bear this in mind. She was trying to drum up business, trying to be polite.

We got to talking about families and some of the money issues involved, including my mother’s health and the eventual estate issues that will result when she dies. My mother is not at death’s door or anything. It’s just every day I expect a phone call that she has died from a massive heart attack. She has all the classic warning signs but does not manage her health well.

At this point in our conversation, I said, "Dad, on the other hand, managed his health very aggressively. He had diabetes, so he really stayed on top of it. But then he got cancer and died last year."

She replied, "I had cancer four years ago, but I made it."

I nodded. "Unfortunately, they didn’t find Dad’s until it was in stage 4. They never even found the primary tumor. By the time they detected anything it had already metastasized throughout his body. Still, he lasted for two years, a lot longer than the six months they originally gave him."

She then said something about how unless our government did something, unless we "demanded" that our government do something, we were all going to die of cancer because of all the pollutants in the environment. My crackpot alarm was starting to ring, so I started trying to extricate myself, but I didn’t do it clearly enough because I didn’t want to be rude. That was my mistake. If I’d just cut her off with a "Well, perhaps, but I must be going," I would have saved myself from the resulting onslaught.

Instead, I replied with a greater level of optimism, something like, "Maybe, but I’d like to think that we’ll crack it in my lifetime."

She asked me, "What would you say if I told you there were already cures to cancer that had been shelved?"

At this point, my crackpot alarm went on full alert, and I was making for the door. "I’d want to see the data," I replied. Big mistake.

She replied with a full force lecture on the wonders of Dr. Royal Rife, of his amazing microscope, of how he could view a virus with this purely optical microscope, of how he could selectively kill viruses with his specially tuned "beam ray", and how this was so important because Rife had proven – not merely believed, but actually proven – that cancer is really just a virus. She told me how she had purchased one when she had cancer and that she was living proof of its efficacy. It would be in common use if only the government and other powers that be weren’t keeping it out of the public mindshare, if only people were not so foolishly close-minded. She told me to look it up on the internet, spelling out the name to help me get the search correct. She said more, but beyond that point it's fuzzy. I was already pretty upset.

I don’t remember what I said at that point. I know that I kept my cool and did not rip into her. Instead, I said some pleasantry and walked to the car.

For those of you curious about Dr. Rife, a Google search will turn up several pro-Rife sites such as this one, but the better information can be found at the Royal Rife Wikipedia entry which begins with:

Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 - August 11, 1971): a fraud and quack well-regarded in a small and unreliable subsection of the alternative medicine community with uncritical applause for his incredible claims for his 1933 "Universal Microscope", an optical microscope claiming an impossible resolution and cures of terminal cancer patients using his "Beam Ray" device in 1934.

Now, I’m not opposed to alternative medicine. In fact, I’m fairly open-minded to alternative approaches. Many of the remaining maladies we face are chronic and systemic, things that Western medicine’s reductionist approach often has problems with. My own experiences with massage therapy and meditation have provided me with personal anecdotal evidence that not all cures come via a pill from the doctor. However, I’m still a scientist at heart, and while I will point out shortcomings in parts of the Western approach to medicine I fully embrace its demand for results that are both reproducible and independently verifiable. Some alternative approaches have been submitted to such rigor, and those that have passed are being gradually assimilated into mainstream Western medicine.

I state my openness to make it clear that the offense I took was not at being presented with information on alternative medicine. The offense was the manner and timing of that presentation. If there are any alternative medicine advocates out there who don’t yet see the problem, let me make it crystal clear:

When someone says, "My father died of cancer last year," you are supposed to say, "I’m sorry for your loss." That’s it. End of story. You are not supposed to launch into a lecture on how some other therapy that They are repressing can cure cancer. You do not talk about how everyone who tries it is still alive today. You do not imply that those who fail to embrace these therapies are close-minded fools to be pitied. You do not, under any circumstances, imply that the lost loved one would still be here today if only they hadn’t been so stupid.

This is the second time since my father died that I’ve had to endure this type of assault from an advocate of alternative medicine. Both times I have restrained myself because I felt that social custom required me to be polite. Well, fuck that. The next one who does this gets both barrels.

A taste, just to get today’s anger out of my system:

Look, lady, I’m glad you survived your cancer. I’m glad you feel that your Rife Beam Ray helped you through it. I’m really happy for you, but your poor grasp on science is rivaled only by your lack of manners and sensitivity. The data you are citing is not data at all. It’s a random collection of anecdotal evidence with no numerical backing. There was no peer-reviewed clinical trial. The supporting proof you’re claiming is nothing but pure fantasy that you’re too ignorant to recognize. Further, you don’t know anything about my father’s case. You don’t know the type of cancer. You don’t know where it was in his body. You don’t know the therapies we tried. And you don’t know the pain I felt watching a vibrant man slowly slip away over two painful years.

YOU. DON’T. KNOW. SHIT.

Now, I know that these advocates who pressed on me so during a time of grief are the exceptions. I know several such advocates, and all the others have said the appropriate things, and I have taken comfort from their condolences. I do not wish to paint them with the same brush I use for this woman. Still, I offer it as a warning to them. Never give such advice after the fact. It will go beyond adding insult to injury. Rather, it will add injury to injustice.

Sufficed to say, this accountant won't be getting my future business.