Drop The Brown Acid (Starring 'Steven' McQueen)

"12 Years A Slave" To Be Taught In American Schools

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is partnering with New Regency, Penguin Books, and the filmmakers to distribute copies of the acclaimed film, book, and study guide 12 Years a Slave to America’s public high schools.

The initiative, coordinated by Montel Williams, will start to distribute 12 Years a Slave nationwide in September 2014 in concert with the new school year,...

NewAge Should Come With A Warning Label

"Fawcett's case had a,...component that potentially sent the wrong message to other patients. In addition to the traditional cancer treatment she was receiving in the United States, the actress traveled to Germany six times to receive a combination of natural supplements and immune treatments not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These trips were chronicled in a moving documentary, Farrah's Story, that aired on NBC in mid-May. In seeking this type of therapy, Fawcett mirrored a choice made by actor Steve McQueen, who futilely traveled to Mexico in 1980 in search of a cure for his malignant mesothelioma. McQueen's Mexican doctors treated him with dozens of enzymes and vitamins, coffee enemas, and an anti-cancer drug called Laetrile, which was ultimately shown to be worthless.

Did the alternative treatments help Fawcett? It is unlikely. As Laurence R. Sands, a Florida surgeon who treats anal cancer patients, told WebMD, there is no scientific proof that such immune system stimulants work. Nevertheless, one of the German doctors involved in Fawcett's case claimed that the treatments had shrunk her tumors and substantially prolonged her life.

Once again, media coverage of Fawcett's case, while ostensibly providing useful information, ran the risk of sending the exact wrong message. Thousands of desperate end-stage cancer patients traveled to Mexico upon hearing Steve McQueen's story. The new destination may now become Germany."

-- Barron H. Lerner, M.D., Ph.D., and professor of medicine and public health at Columbia University, reaching the same conclusions I did about Farrah Fawcett's cancer treatment, on Slate.

So - this may sound like a stupid question - but shouldn't the media be warning people against quackery? Can anyone explain, logically, why that isn't happening?

Farrah Fawcett: Another Kind Of Pin-Up Now

"Dr. Jacob is into some serious woo,..."

-- Orac, commenting on one of Farrah Fawcett's NewAge German "doctors", who has been "treating" her anal cancer using "vitamin preparations that she says boost the immune system" (Yea: she says,...) since Farrah - using the wisdom she's always been known for - was apparently intent on blowing what's left of her time and money on taking the Steve McQueen route outta here, which is deserving of Respectful Insolence.

The Rebel

"Steve McQueen's death ended a bizarre drama in which he surreptitiously traveled to Mexico for an unorthodox cancer treatment.

The medical profession largely derided McQueen as a victim of fraud, but to some people with cancer, his pursuit of an alternative treatment seemed heroic.

What lessons does his unconventional journey provide today?"

-- Barron H. Lerner, writing about how Steve McQueen's cancer odyssey misled, and ultimately popularized quackery, in the New York Times

"The program was sort of shady. We’d sit in a van in the back of a building, in a parking lot in San Fernando Valley, and Steve would get his vitamin chelation, I think they called it. If Steve believed in something, he wasn’t going to let the fact that it was not approved by the government stop him.

I remember the veggie juice he was always drinking and the calf liver blood. Yuck. I’m sure you know about the coffee enemas. I don’t remember him ever taking laetrile, like some people reported. There was other stuff, too.

$375,000? I don’t know if it was that much. But it was all about money – Steve McQueen was a big paycheck, a celebrity. A bank account. Now it’s more easy to see it, but then we were along for the ride. [The quack] was better at promoting himself than curing anyone."

-- Barbara McQueen, 26 years after the death of her husband, in an interview with Roger G. Worthington, P.C..