I question the value of this study. For one, it doesn't say what alternative cancer treatments had poor outcomes. Are all equally ineffective? Perhaps most significant is the idea expressed by one of the study's co-authors who said: "It's important to note that when it comes to alternative cancer therapies, there is just so little known—patients are making decisions in the dark. We need to understand more about which treatments are effective ... so that patients can make informed decisions."

She is completely right, but how can we 'understand more' when alternative treatments are frowned on by mainstream medicine, seldom researched given that they don't have the profit potential of conventional treatments, as well as unapproved and mostly illegal.

Perhaps if we put the wellbeing of patients above pharmaceutical company profits and began to sincerely research alternative treatments, we might begin to separate the wheat from the chaff and see considerably different outcomes.