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68 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Guerilla Warfare Against Cancer, August 11, 2002
A terminal cancer diagnosis is a shove through the looking glass into a terrifying alternate reality of imminent death, where medical science has no answers and clinical trials and alternative medicine offer fleeting glimpses of real or perceived hope. This is the experience of millions of people every year, who find they suddenly must trust doctors they have never met to make the best choices for them according to principals of science and the Hippocratic Oath. Seven years ago, Ben Williams heard perhaps the worst of all such diagnoses, Glioblastoma Multiforme. This fast-moving brain cancer carries a devastating prognosis where survival is measured in weeks and where approved treatments add only a few weeks more. In his battle with this ferocious disease, he left the established path to fight on his own terms, mixing conventional, experimental, and alternative medicine. His eventual recovery, and the lessons he learned, are the basis for this book.'Surviving Terminal Cancer' is written in three sections. Section I is a narrative of the onset, diagnosis, treatment, and eventual remission of the author's own terminal disease. This section includes the bizarre initial symptoms of his brain tumor, and the emotional upheaval of the diagnosis and devastating prognosis. During the treatment course, Williams must struggle with a medical system that denies him obvious treatments; he confronts his doctors and travels to Mexico to obtain the drugs they refuse to prescribe. His treatment plan is a drug cocktail synthesized from his research into clinical trials and other published experimentation. A brain tumor proves intriguing subject matter, as fascinating as it is horrifying, and this creates a charged backdrop for the section's already interesting storyline. It is an MRI-to-MRI clinical suspense thriller, superimposed onto a very human drama of husband and wife coping with fear and mortality. Ultimately, Williams survives this Nietzschen transformation to complete the book. The resulting Section II delivers a scathing, if constructive, criticism of the American medical system and the FDA. Although well-meaning, this section may disturb many readers as it addresses the basic assumption of trust between doctor and patient. Williams pulls no punches, arguing against the statistical methods mandated by the FDA, the funding and motives behind drug trials, and even the present interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath. He turns the very notion of conservative, scientific medicine on its ear as fundamentally unscientific and irrational. With chapters like 'Bastille Day for Cancer Patients,' Williams handles this subject as brazenly as his self-medicated treatment plan in Section I. The theme of a deeply broken system culminates with a call for cancer patients to fix it themselves through direct political action. Section III is a useful summary of alternative medicine, supplements, and clinical trials, and how to effectively research all such options for any particular disease. Although there are a few specific options listed, this section is not a definitive dictionary of treatments. Rather, it is a discussion on how to effectively investigate potential treatments both within and outside of traditional medicine. Through a few carefully picked examples, he illustrates how to find and identify useful information and separate it from advertising and political rhetoric. Despite the complexity of much of the subject matter, the style is a well-explained, easy to follow prose. Williams uses AIDS as a useful point of epidemiological reference, comparing cancer to HIV on both microbiological and socio-political levels. Perhaps welcoming the inevitable criticism, he carefully includes supporting references at the end of every chapter. Locating these supporting articles in many cases leads to very interesting, and applicable, secondary reading. Williams is even-handed in his treatment of the facts, carefully addressing several perilous topics that could easily have degraded into sour grapes. He carefully draws a distinction between doctors as individuals, for whom he holds obvious respect, and a troubled medical system as a whole. Perhaps most importantly, Williams, a Harvard-educated scientist, does not fall into the trap of arguing 'alternative versus traditional' medicine. Instead, he takes traditional, alternative, and experimental medicine, as well as some of their related, rhetorical arguments, and examines them together under uniform scientific scrutiny. The concepts in section II are universal in their appeal, but the book as a whole best serves those presently facing cancer or similar deadly conditions. Williams' work is a departure from earlier (and excellent) inspirational works by Armstrong and others, in that it provides the reader specific detail on how to use the basic principals of science and statistics to wage war against their disease. Williams is far too sophisticated to simply preach a particular treatment regimen because it worked for him. He does not promise a cure or offer unreasonable hope. What he does deliver is the means for patients to understand their situation and fight for their own survival, exploring the statistical fringes of their condition to come up with the additional few percentage points that might determine life or death. It is controversial, alarming, and blunt. It is also an excellent book -- required reading for anyone facing a deadly disease.
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by Paul M. Zeltzer
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