Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds

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Dr. Kelly A. Turner, Ph.D. is a researcher, lecturer, and counselor in the field of Integrative Oncology whose specialized research focus is the radical remission of cancer. Dr. Turner holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in New York City. While I very much enjoyed this book, I would have liked to know that there were objective differences between those who did and did not experience remission. This is really a book about how people make meaning of their unlikely survival. I am sure many people who don't experience remissions do similar things in an effort to prolong their survival. Therefore, it's still hard to know what the difference is between those who do and don't go into remission. What it due to the behaviors and practices outlined in the book? There is no way to know this. The implication is that what these people did made a positive difference (though the author tries to explain that her methods don't support such assumptions), but I am ambivalent about the implied message.

But shouldn’t we consider making these kinds of changes anyway? Why wait until we get cancer? Why not be proactive now? Karla Mans Giroux – Co-Director of the Radical Remission Project and a holistic cancer health coach, educator, and speaker – is a radical remission survivor living with stable metastatic breast cancer (MBC).

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Supplements are another area in which there is some experimental support for certain findings relating to cancer. Turner admits there is no definitive proof organic food is better for health.* Some studies do show that ECGC (Epigallocatechin gallate) in green tea kills cancer cells.* Mushroom supplements like turkey tail may increase the amount of natural killer cells in the blood.* There is some support for high doses of C,* turmeric,* and daily probiotics.* Multivitamin intake may reduce cancer risk slightly.* So, many of them ignored that voice at first and for the people that I’ve studied, ignoring that voice was a mistake, in the sense that by ignoring it they did not get to full healing. The people that I’ve studied, again, I’ll just qualify this by saying, “the people that I’ve studied in-depth.” I can’t speak for anyone else, but for the people that I’ve studied, when they started listening to that voice, as opposed to ignoring it, that is when their healing started turning around and being more complete. What I really want is I want an exhaustive database that, ideally, has every, single radical remission case that ever happened in one place. That’s my goal, because once we have proof in numbers, then the scientific community won’t be able to ignore them anymore. Clear, courageous, direct: Kelly Turner navigates the stormy waters of cancer treatment and recovery with aplomb. I really like the way she combines storytelling with thorough data analysis. As a cancer survivor I deeply value her even handedness embracing both conventional medicine and complementary health practices. The last thing I need right now is some kind of shaming right/wrong finger-wagging about the dilemmas of responding to a cancer diagnosis.

However, the book has a very clear bias towards TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) and Eastern Mysticism/Energy healing. I will be the first to advocate for integrated and supplemental natural medicine but this went way beyond that. Kelly Turner defines radical remission as any cancer remission that is statistically unexpected (p. 6). While such cases are rare, they nevertheless deserve to be studied more. In particular Turner contends we should research the explanations given by patients who have experienced radical remission. Her PhD research, and her 2014 book, do just that. She studied more than a thousand written cases and performed over a hundred interviews. Turner takes pains to clarify she is not against conventional treatment for cancer. And she admits the reason for remission are not yet understood. They had not been previously tabulated or published. In this work she offers the nine most prominent explanations given by her respondents. She calls these nine factors hypotheses that offer clues. If your interests lie in learning more about medical intuitive's with clairvoyant abilities who can read your energy fields and guide your healing journey. Turner also makes it clear that she is not opposed to traditional cancer treatments, but she was fascinated by people who have been declared cancer-free by following non-traditional paths.

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That voice that might be saying, “Let me just try a really intensive diet change, combined with quitting the job I hate for two months, and let me see where that gets me. Let’s see if my numbers improve, or just even stay stable after two months of that, because my gut is saying that what I really need here is to leave the job that’s killing me, and to clean up my diet and start exercising and sleeping well again, because I haven’t done that in five years.” Maybe that’s why you were supposed to call Jenny, because she just told you the doctor who’s going to cure you. How does that work scientifically? Perhaps because the instinctual part of our brain knows the best path to safety well before our frontal cortex does. Another thing I wasn't fond of was the author's decision to soften the outlandishness of John of God's healing methods by using carefully chosen words. Though many online articles refer to him succinctly as a "psychic surgeon", the author described John of God as having "the ability to leave his body and go into a trance, thereby allowing the spirit of a higher being to enter his body and perform energetic healing work." (p. 237)