Reversing cancer?

[Squirrel]

About a year ago I remember seeing a cheesy American advert / talk show thing. There was a man ('Robert Barefoot'?) who claimed that his 'coral calcium' product would cure several dozen diseases, increase your lifespan, and reverse cancer. He didn't say 'cure', or that coral calcium would guarantee that you survive cancer, he just said 'reverse'. One of the most shocking reasons he gave for the 'big calcium cover-up' is that the USA government makes more money out of cancer every year than it makes out of taxes. It all seemed very fake, the scientific reasoning he gave was vague, and of course the two presenters agreed with everything he said, but'is there any truth to this at all? Was this guy lying to cancer sufferers and getting their hopes up all in the name of profit? You can see what I mean for yourself at www.buycoralcalcium.com.

[Nelli]

I remeber watching a programme on Discovery, or similar, about how scientists were looking at Coral as a treament/cure for cancer. So it could be worth doing a search there.

[mikewith]

I would treat any and all claims of such an extreme nature with extreme caution. He suggests that "the USA government makes more money out of cancer every year than it makes out of taxes"?? How, I wonder, would they do that?!? Reverse it, in fact and ask how much money is Mr Barefoot making out of people's fears of cancer?

If the claims were proven and a process to "reverse" cancer had been discovered, don't you think everyone would know about it?

[Squirrel]

You're probably right. One thing that sticks in my mind is him pointing out something like "Calcium is alkaline, so it will make your blood alkaline...use my home blood pH test kit to measure your blood pH and see if you need my treatment...if the test shows red, your blood is acidic." How gullible does he think people are?

And the reason he gave for the tax thing was that the doctors in America are selling patients time-buying drugs to treat their cancer, but are "Not educated about nutrition, so they don't realise the benefit of coral calcium." The whole thing seems illegal, or at least borderline.

[Miss Zippy]

As Mike said, if there were any truth in these claims, I'm sure we would knotw about it. Mr Barefoot is no doubt exploiting some kind of legal loophole in promoting this 'miracle' product, but it's downright immoral if nothing else. You wonder how some people sleep at night. It amazes me that the US is arguably the most tightly regulated and litigious countries in the civilised world, yet cranks like this can get away with preying on and exploiting peoples' misery.