Suzanne Somers Fights Breast Cancer
Actress Suzanne Somers has disclosed that she is battling breast cancer. Somers says she’s shunning traditional treatment in favor of an alternative therapy.
As Paul Moniz reports, now some doctors are worried her choice of an unconventional natural treatment could place her at grave risk.
A tearful Somers appeared on the Larry King television show to break the news of a nearly year-long battle with breast cancer. The 54-year-old star of Candid Camera and Three’s Company, who’s made millions selling the Thighmaster and diet books, says her diagnosis came as a shock because of her healthy lifestyle.
"I never thought I'd ever hear someone say to me, 'You have breast cancer,'" Somers told Larry King in an exclusive interview.
She revealed she’d had surgery to remove part of her breast and also radiation treatment, but she thus far has shunned traditional chemotherapy.
"I don't want to lose my hair. But that was the least of my worries. I
just don't like what that drug does to people," she said.
Somers has turned to a little-tested drug called iscador.
Against her doctor’s advice, she has been receiving daily abdominal injections of iscador that can cost close to $5,000 a month. She says she will continue the shots for 5 years.
Iscador is derived from European mistletoe and is one of the most widely used unconventional cancer treatments in Europe, more popular than vitamin therapy.
Supporters of the therapy say it has few side effects and lasting benefits, but medical oncologist Dr. Janice Dutcher of Our Lady of Mercy Cancer Center is not so sure.
"I'm not impressed with what little data has been presented at this point," says Dutcher.
She added that there are too few controlled studies to support mistletoe’s efficacy. She personally treated one patient on mistletoe for a severe injection-related infection. She acknowledges some of her patients are using alternative treatments like vitamins but says they’re doing so in addition to chemotherapy, not in place of it.
Dutcher worries that Somers’ star power will send the wrong message. "The real problem with some of these things is that they’re being done as a commercial operation and taking advantage of desperate people."
Somers declined to divulge the status of her cancer now except to say she believes the shots are working.
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