Susan Gurney

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has a mandate from the US Congress to investigate methods that are generally not accepted by the scientific medical community. In so doing, it has broad options as to which of hundreds of methods to study, and under which conditions. The NCCAM has chosen as one of its studies the protocol of Nicholas Gonzalez, a physician in New York City who claims that his method of special diet, supplements, and coffee enemas has resulted in pancreatic cancer patients living longer than normally expected. The NCCAM and the implementing institution, Columbia University, in sponsoring the study, lend an air of legitimacy to the protocol, which is recognized as ineffective by most oncologists. The physician investigators, in not …