‘Wonder’ drugs and alternative medicine
Recently in Brazil the health care professionals have been having some trouble with a drug called synthetic phosphoethanolamine, because there are people who believe that these pill shaped medicine could be an universal cure for cancer. As a healthcare professional I have an obligation with the population to inform them about the risks of an untested drug. Nevertheless, some people are argumentative about how this drug cured at least six people of cancer, so I would like to clarify some things:
1) These drugs have never been tested and/or approved by the local or federal authorities, therefore it is a crime to sell them;
2) These cured people were taking this drugs and also in chemotherapy or radiotherapy process, so it could be the pill or it could be the approved medicine working;
3) All drugs/exams/therapies offer a risk to the patient, so it would be unacceptable to offer a higher risk of it may working on these patients.
I know some things are hard to accept by the laymen community, but since in this country we have free healthcare there should be questions asked to the professionals, and these have to be capable of sharing with their local community what are the benefits and the risks. Healthcare professionals have been trained to explain what the patients are in doubt of, they have been trained to study, therefore they should enlighten the ones who didn’t have the same opportunity to take a college degree as they had.