Townsend's New York observer: talk with Suzanne Somers about Knockout, her first book on alternative cancer treatment.

I've never seen Suzanne Somers on TV, in film, or on stage. Her earliest best-selling books on eliminating sugar from our diets, and her recent bestsellers about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), stand apart from issues and topics often covered in my columns.

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Ms. Somer's latest book, Knockout, published by Crown in October, leads readers outside the orthodox trinity of cancer therapy--surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy--to treatments that control cancer without compromising the patient's immune system or quality of life. Knockout also introduces readers to many experts on preventing cancer, chiefly through nutrition. I know this subject quite well.

In the preface, Somers advises her readers that she's "not a doctor or a scientist, but merely a passionate layperson, a filter, a messenger." Because her celebrity hasn't dazzled me, I see similarities between her and certain patients I met during my first years in the "cancer underground." (That was a common name in those days for nonstandard cancer care.)

Independent minded, these patients opted for and stuck with alternative therapy. In some cases, conventional treatment wasn't helping; in others, they dreaded the loss in quality of life resulting from chemotherapy. They were passionate in defense of their doctors when attempts were made to oust their caregivers from practice. They, too, sought to get out the message that alternatives to mainstream treatment exist. And they succeeded at first, persuading Congress to authorize a survey of unconventional cancer treatment in the US by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) in 1987.

The OTA published a report in 1990. The report led Congress to set up the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1992 and to expand it into the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in 1997. In the 1990s, proposals were floated for prestigious mainstream cancer centers to evaluate the therapies of Drs Stanislaw Burzynski and Nicholas Gonzalez. These proposed trials continue to languish in institutional limbo.

Richard Jaffe, in his interview with Ms. Somers in this issue of Townsend Letter, predicts that she's "about to do for alternative cancer treatment what she did for hormone replacement therapy: blast it into a wild ride full of media slugfests, controversy and instand awareness. Her new book, Knockout, will change the way America looks at cancer treatment and prevention, much as her other books changed the way women look at menopause."

After publication of the OTA report almost two decades ago, neither the OAM nor NCCAM has been able to budge the medical establishment into conducting a clinical trial of a major alternative cancer therapy. So why not have a celebrity who can command mass media exposure take a whack at breaking through?

I should mention before interviewing Suzanne Somers that the developed breast cancer in 2001 and had a lumpectomy and follow-up radiation. Viscerally averse to chemotherapy as an adjuvant treatment to wipe out or ward off metastases, she settled on Iscador (a modified extract of mistletoe) and bioidentical hormones instead. She has since stayed cancer free.

Interview with Suzanne Somers

MC: You developed breast cancer and had it successfully treated in 2001. Did the idea for Knockout enter your mind at that time, but because you were occupied with writing about BHRT, you reserved it as a future project? Or was the horrendous misdiagnosis of cancer you dramatically describe in Chapter 1 the decisive event that plunged you into writing about alternatives to standard cancer care?

SS: Frankly, I never planned on writing about breast cancer, didn't want to be defined by it. I am not my cancer. I figured, I had it, made my decisions, and got on with my life. It's been nine years.

But the horrible, unbelievable body blow of being misdiagnosed with full-body cancer this last November was powerful. Had I been another kind of patient, I probably would have accepted the "full-body chemo/chemical poisoning" they recommended, and would have destroyed my perfectly healthy body--had I been able to survive it at all.

It made me realize that as patients we must do the work to be informed, to understand that even when told to "get your things in order," that you can't give up hope, and that it is crucial to look for other answers.

That thinking is what I held onto while in that "valley of fear" ... knowing I had been keeping a file on doctors who were curing cancer without drugs. This knowledge gave me hope even while being told my condition was hopeless.

MC: Drs. Burzynski and Gonzalez are probably the most prominent physicians in the US today who use alternative cancer therapy as primary treatments. That's reason enough to include both in Part II of Knockout, which spotlights doctors who are curing cancer. It makes good sense to include Dr. Julie Taguchi, your "personal oncologist" (as you call her). A mainstream physician, she's been conducting a study of breast cancer patients who've opted to try bioidentical hormones to prevent a recurrence. You've made that choice, and are part of Dr. Taguchi's study. Also, a prime consideration, "she believes in the importance of honoring the wishes of the patient" (as you put it). I'm supposing that you included Dr. James Forsythe, who's board certified in oncology and board certified in homeopathy, as an outstanding example of a physician integrating mainstream and alternative cancer treatments in particularly creative ways. Am I close to the mark about your chief reasons for inclusion of Drs. Taguchi and Forsythe?

SS: Each doctor I chose to interview has importance and relevance. Dr. Burzynski's discovery of peptides produced by the liver that control cell multiplication and then replacing these same peptides which have been synthesized to control this multiplication is profound.

Dr. Gonzalez is the most controversial of the group because of his nutritional nondrug approach. The logic here is to strengthen and detoxify the body while giving the pancreas a rest (so to speak), by replacing the enzymes in supplementation form as needed to do the job. He has had great success.

I included mainstream oncologists such as Drs. Taguchi and Forsythe, who have gone outside of the standard-of-care box and integrated their protocols, to appeal to a specific segment of society which doesn't feel comfortable with all their eggs in the alternative basket.

Knockout provides options for all types of patients, even those who can only trust mainstream. For these patients, the chapter in Part III about Bill Faloon and his backupscientific advisory board will be of great interest and service. The protocols Faloon suggests in this chapter allow chemotherapy to be more effective and less damaging.

MC: OK, so your target audience ranges from patients who shun or abandon standard cancer therapy to patients who won't try alternative approaches. And the basic rationale for appealing to the spectrum of types?

SS: Here's the deal. It's clear that on all protocols, some patients live and some die. That cannot be argued. It's also clear that many patients are living with cancer thanks to alternative protocols while maintaining superb quality of life. These alternatives are the options Knockout provides.

Standard of care in cancer only provides a protocol that degrades the immune system. Form my perspective (and I must say The New York Times is now presenting the same view), in most cases, standard cancer care is a dismal failure.

MC: I sense two additional reasons for including Drs. Taguchi and Forsythe: (1) to encourage other mainstream oncologists to honor the treatment preferences of patients; (2) to interest other mainstreamers in truly integrating alternative with standard cancer care. Did you have these reasons in mind as well?

SS: Yes. You have to understand from my perspective that the two times I have been diagnosed with cancer, the silence in the room has been deafening. The only course of treatment I was offered both times was harsh chemical poisoning and radiation ... no one ever said ... "or we could try X."

Drs. Taguchi and Forsythe have recognized the defects and limitations of their specialties. Both doctors express compassion for their patients' desires to try another way, and to maintain quality of life while undergoing treatment--although by law they must first offer standard-of-care protocols.

Yes, I think other mainstream oncologists have a lot to learn from these people. It is my hope that the oncology world will loosen up, look outside. From my humble perspective, I hope they do. I don't think mainstream oncologists can feel proud or satisfied with what they presently are allowed to offer ("allowed" being the operative word).

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MC: Part III of Knockout has an abundance of reliable, up-to-date information on what I consider fundamental in true prevention of cancer--consuming foods and compounds in foods that naturally protect against initiation of cancer rather than foods and food compounds proven to induce carcinogenesis. Too many Americans think of screens for cancer as prevention. Part III of your book basically points out that early detection of cancer is perilously late. In your media appearances, will you be contrasting the incontestable benefits of anticancer diets with the increasing number of questions about the cost-effectiveness of various cancer screens?

SS: The paradigm at present is crazy. We wait until we are in a diseased state and then do our best to take action. The prevention section of Knockout (Part III) puts the responsibility on us. What are we thinking? If we eat chemicals (poison) and live with and clean with chemicals (poison), what do we expect will happen? It's time for all of us to connect the dots.

Eat right, exercise, eliminate chemicals, get proper sleep, manage stress, and balance and replace diminishing hormones with natural bioidentical hormones. These simple steps and actions allow me to sleep at night knowing I am doing all in my power to obtain a definite edge in preventing cancer. It's not a mystery.

And I must say, I really don't buy the genetic argument either. Instead of accepting genetics, look at the lifestyle and dietary patterns of your family. What did they eat, what did they smoke, what did they breathe? Most likely you will find your answers there, and then you can change your code.

Writing Knockout has taken away my fear of cancer and put me in control. I can't get cocky, but were I ever to be diagnosed again, (which I highly doubt), depending on the particular cancer, I would definitely choose an alternative doctor and do what they tell me as if my life depended on it. Patients who choose alternative protocols must comply. It must be taken seriously. If the doctor says only eat organic, then you cannot waver, no matter how inconvenient.

MC: Richard Jaffe's interview with you brings up the abuse heaped on you by an alcoholic father. There's nary a word about your mother. I raise this point because I hear a maternal undertone in Knockout, as though you are speaking to your readers not as devotees of your acting and literary careers, but as offspring you want to protect should they fearfully find themselves in the cancer labyrinth. Am I reaching fancifully here? Or is this protective undertone entwined in your motivations for writing Knockout?

SS: Interesting that you should pick up on that. As I've said in many of my previous books, because of the extraordinary results I've had with bioidentical hormone replacement, my quality of life is superb. As a result, I revel in my maturity ... and as the matriarch in my personal life I can offer nurturing, comfort, and assistance to my family. It only stands to reason that that would also extend to my reading audience. I care about them and feel strongly that I never lead them astray. I use my louder voice to gather information and then share it. If that is the "mother" in me, then it's something I like about myself.

My Next Column: Issues and Questions Raised in Knockout

I had planned on sketching in the contents of Knockout and mentioning the "big" questions about cancer care, conventional and alternative, that Suzanne Somers opens up, mostly in numerous interviews with physicians and others long involved in providing care or information about care to cancer patients.

But my introduction to Ms. Somers' book and our interview exceed the number of words allowable in this column. Those "big" questions and related issues each require extended discussion, so I'm reserving these discussions for my next column.

Marcus A. Cohen's "baptism" in the whirlpools of medical politics dates to 1984, when he served as government and media liaison for patients under alternative cancer therapy. Subsequently, he has advocated broadening plausible treatment options for patients unresponsive to conventional care. A Townsend Letter columnist since 2004, he has reported and commented on a wide range of health-care topics; he is also the author of a paperback, Lyme Disease Update, published by the Lyme Disease Association in 2004.

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