My Malignant Melanoma

I've had the following attempted comment over on my Tullio Simoncini post:

"Someone obviously needs to do more research and perhaps brush up on their high school chemistry and biology. The human body will only remain healthy if it has the proper PH balance, and that is all Sodium Bicarbonate does is raise the level of the PH, which does not allow for any bacteria, virus or fungi to thrive. "

Fantastic! The commentator is under the impression that they understand basic biology and chemistry better than I do. He is also under the impression that a bit of bicarb raises the pH of the human body so radically that it kills all bacteria, fungi and viruses without harming the person involved, and clearly implies that killing these organisms kills cancer.  On his planet, Rennies kill cancer, because cancer is a fungus, and fungi are killed by alkali.  

So let's have a look at this idea. The highest pH at which I can see a report of fungi growing, is 11.2. Now that's a bit of a problem there, straight away. If bicarb really could get your body's pH to 11.3 you'd be dead. Having blood pH over 7.45 is a medical condition called alkalosis, get much above that and you're toast. So if bicarb really could increase pH to the range which kills fungi, the patient would be long dead by the time you got there.

But can adding bicarbonate of soda really get you to that pH? Nope. It is only a weak alkali, solutions have a maximum pH only around 8. So bicarb will only elevate pH to around 1 unit from neutral, whereas some fungi can survive at pH 11+ (It is perhaps worth mentioning that pH is not a straight line scale, such that pH 11 is 1000 times as big as pH 8)

So, even if the human body's highly effective system for preventing alkalosis of the blood didn't exist, it simply is not chemically possible for bicarb to kill all fungi. And if it were? Cancer is not a fungus. Duh.

He's right about one thing though "Someone obviously needs to do more research and perhaps brush up on their high school chemistry and biology" I'm however not that someone, hope this helped anyone who did need a brush-up.

Labels: alkaline, quack, Tullio Simoncini

Professor Lieb is clearly a very important man, so it has taken him a while to comment on my post from back in May on his previous unsolicited correspondence. He doesn't seem very friendly:

It astonishes me that my humanitarian mission is greeted with verbal abuse, slander, character assassination, and ad hominem slurs. Your comments corrupt the innovation, and the BMA’s medical code. You are to retract your comments, including “pet theory,” apologize to me and the Yale medical school, and refer your followers to the article I sent you. Notify me of your compliance

I think he's hoping for the response "Yes, Master", but here's what I wrote back:

So now you have retired, you are nowhere near as important as you used to be in academia. Welcome to the real world.

I'm not a Doctor, so I couldn't care less about the BMA's code of ethics. Professor or not, you are a psychiatrist, not an oncologist, and I suggest you get your head out of your arse.

The paper you have attached is a speculative in vitro study.  I can show you an equally convincing study for acetaminophen, vitamin C or many other substances.  The other papers you directed me to were also less than definitive. If someone showed you evidence of the type and strength you are showing me for some medical issue other than this one, wouldn't you be sceptical?

I didn't ask you to write to me, and I have held back on the ridicule which your previous communications deserve. Neither have I slandered you, as far as I am aware. What error of fact is there in what i have written? I do understand that you mean well, but this looks like the hobby-horse of a bored old man to me, and indeed to several other people in the scientific community who you have spammed with your half-baked ideas in the past. No-one is taking you seriously. You are being indulged as the old fool you seem to be.

I am a cancer patient. Your recent communications seem to be more about attempting to bully me into accepting an illogical argument from authority than any humanitarian effort. 

I suggest you get another hobby. This one doesn't seem to be making you happy.

Kind Regards
Seán

Labels: antidepressant, Cancer, cure, Julian Lieb M.D