Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Black Salve

Episode Date: November 16, 2018

Would you believe that the hot new (very old) alternative medicine paste that indiscriminately burns your cells off is bad for you? We know, we were shocked too. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers ...

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were sawed through the broken glass and had ourselves hot like a rum.
Starting point is 00:00:56 Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow. Hello everybody and welcome to Saw Bones, a Meryl Turf, misguided medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McElroy and I'm Sydney McElroy and I'm Justin McElroy still It you persist as Justin I persist you continue to be Justin Justin add infinitum good Justin at Astra you you seem to enjoy last week's episode so much in that, in a, in a perverse way. Yeah. I, in the way that I like dunking on people who are why I thought I would continue that theme somewhat this week. It's still, we still do a lot of history on this show. So I found something that I think serves both masters. It is both historical and current quackery. I love that.
Starting point is 00:01:49 That's both. And again, something that we have gotten a lot of emails about recently. A lot of people are excited to hear about this topic. You mentioned actually you got one like as we were about to start recording. As we're about to start recording, I looked and we had another email suggesting this. So thank you to everybody who has tweeted and Facebooked an email, including Theo and Arthur and Jasper and Dana and Megan and G and Lucy and Claire and Lux and Sarah and Jennifer and Charlie and Renee.
Starting point is 00:02:17 Wow. And more hot top. That's all there may For the suggestion of black sav. Black sav. Sav. We checked on this. Yeah. Just get there's there's some behind the scenes stuff for you. We checked on the pronunciation of this because I've always said black sav and Justin said black salve. I've always said salve. Cindy said she always wants to say salve. So I try to convince her this is okay come with me. Where I where I come from you you can say, so we looked into it.
Starting point is 00:02:46 And it sounds like, SAV is most, most accurate, but then in the US, in the US, maybe UK, there's more like, SAV, either way, I think they're both acceptable. So feel comfortable with, however you choose to pronounce black SAV, but do not feel comfortable with using black SAV as as we as we shall discuss. I knew nothing about this, which is surprising considering how many people recommended that we do an episode on it.
Starting point is 00:03:11 It's been it's been in the news this year, I think is why. Not necessarily this month, but within this the last few months. What's been the what's been the reason for that? Let's break let's break down what it is first. Okay. Do you know you have you probably have no idea what Blacksav is? Not a clue. Okay. The components of Blacksav, or you may have heard it called,
Starting point is 00:03:31 CanSema? CanSema? Nope. That's another name for it. There's also, I saw some people refer to it as Redsav, which seemed like it should be a different thing completely. But it is just, because it seems like a completely different. I saw it used interchangeably.
Starting point is 00:03:50 And it can contain a variety of herbal substances, which is why you most often see it marketed as a natural cure of sorts. But the primary herbal component that it most commonly will contain is blood root. Blood root. Because I've also seen it called just blood root SAV. Blood root is sanguinaria canadensis is the scientific name in case you're curious and it's the root of this plant blood root.
Starting point is 00:04:21 Sang being related to blood. Hey, good one. Because like, San Gria has made a blood and oranges and stuff. I don't think Sangria is made of blood, honey. Not blood, not made of blood. Yeah, it's actually, I'm not going to think that I know Sangria is not made of blood. That's not within like the realm of medicine, really. But it is some, you know, things that aren't necessarily medical. And I feel comfortable with the declaration that sangria does not contain blood. Okay.
Starting point is 00:04:51 Or at least it shouldn't. Here comes the tweet. You're doing sangria wrong. Here comes the tweet said. Okay. There can be other herbal things in black sav just in case you're curious. Things ranging from red clover to bird ox, to poke root, to turmeric, all kinds of different herbal components.
Starting point is 00:05:11 But it seems like if you really want it to do, well, what you think it's going to do, you need the blood root. And the reason is, and we'll get into this a little bit more, blood root is a known escharotic. It, I have never heard this word before. It creates an eschar, which is like a scab. Of okay. It destroys cells. Okay.
Starting point is 00:05:34 It irritates your skin and destroys cells. It's known to do that. If you apply enough of it to your skin, it will cause damage. So we're seeking this out because it causes damage. Which is probably why, you know, if you think about it, probably why it's called blood root, huh? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:50 Yeah. Because it was thought to be like a drawing thing, like it, like that old concept of something that could draw out. It's out the blood. Yeah, so you draw out infection or cancer or illness or whatever, whatever era it is, whatever we think is causing the bad thing, you can draw it with this. A blood root, probably named for that. And people observed that by naturally interacting with it and going, ow, would be my guess.
Starting point is 00:06:15 So you don't like process, it is naturally. Yeah, blood root just does that. It's a, yeah, the root, the, the rhizome of it, the root. The herbal part of this, the black sav kind of falls apart with the other ingredients though, because black sav almost always includes zinc sulfide. There are, I did find some formulations that didn't include that, but the vast majority of what you're going to buy if you buy this stuff, contains zinc sulfide. And the reason is that zinc sulfide is very much so an escharotic.
Starting point is 00:06:53 It will definitely destroy tissue. It's very good at that. It's very good at that. Two tissue destroying thing. Yes. So you've got this zinc compound in there, which if you want to get completely technical, can it be found in nature? Because if we're going to argue with people who say this is a natural cure, the question is,
Starting point is 00:07:09 is this something that's naturally occurring? Well, most of the time, no, you make this with a process of combining zinc and hydrochloric acid and the stuff that you're finding in black salve, that's what's happened. It is a synthetic chemical that's been put into it. So it is not naturally occurring. Now, technically, there's a very rare mineral called Simon Collite, which can contain this. So technically speaking, it could be naturally occurring, but the stuff that you're buying has been synthetically created. Okay. I don't really care about such things as I am a proponent of medicines that are synthetically created, but since the naturopaths do, it's not naturally occurring.
Starting point is 00:07:56 This synthetic chemical is usually used in things like textile manufacturing and metallurgic fixtures for soldering galvanized iron. That's typically what it's used for, not putting on your skin. And in a lot of black saves you'll buy, it's the main ingredient. You keep saying black saves, I keep you beginning to say black Sabbath. No. It's really hard to not to not assume that you're saying that every time. This has no affiliation with black Sabbath. We should have led with it. As far as I'm aware. They're very litigious.
Starting point is 00:08:26 The, the Sav may also contain something called DMSO, Dymethylsofoxide, which is a, again, it's a synthetic chemical. It is manufactured from this stuff lignin, which is a byproduct of paper production. Mm-hmm. And it basically, the idea is if you include DMSO in your black salve, it will penetrate the tissues more deeply.
Starting point is 00:08:51 It helps to penetrate through the layers of skin further. Not all black salves contain this, but again, if it does, this is another synthetic chemical. I say this just to underline the fact that this is not just like we bought some,'ve found some plants and we made a paste and put on your skin. Now, these are synthetic chemicals that are put in there that definitely can damage human tissue.
Starting point is 00:09:12 Okay. So far, this stuff doesn't seem great, said. This has been called before the specifically blood root nature scalpel. Okay. The reason is that it is very good at destroying human cells. An eschirotic human cell. Yes, an eschirotic. There has been a lot of argument as to whether or not Blacksab has some sort of ability to discriminate between human cells that are just regular old human cells and cancer cells.
Starting point is 00:09:44 This is where this comes into alternative medicine. The idea is- You say there's been a lot of debate about it between him. Scientists and not scientists. There we go. Not much of a debate, not exactly a debate as such. I mean, people have done studies to try to figure this out because the thing is the idea that we find some medicines By looking into plants is not that's not a wild idea. I think de jocsin
Starting point is 00:10:13 Which is a medication that we use For certain cardiac condition it came from a plant. I know it's you know, that's not wild It's just no, that's not what I'm I'm drawing attention to the fact that and I think it's something you know, that's not wild. It's just, no, that's not what I'm drawing attention to the fact that, and I think it's something you and I could be more careful about on the show, but I think everybody could be, should be careful about. I think there's a, I think there's a danger when we're doing stuff like this to frame things as a debate. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:10:38 Like, there's been some discussion. I think that terminology is like loaded because it's like, well, the science is to say this, but the non-size is to say this, well, there's not a debate. It doesn't work, but some people believe it does. Right. That's more, that is what we're trying to get to. And I think, but I think it's important to know that people actually looked into see if it did. You checked. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't think anything should just be dismissed off hand.
Starting point is 00:11:04 Well, no, that's not true. I do think some things should be dismissed offhand if they're ridiculous, but it is not ridiculous to find a plant, see that it does some damage to human tissue and say, I wonder if it selectively kills cancer cells. We should investigate that. Chemotheraic, right? Yes. I mean, same, same idea.
Starting point is 00:11:20 Same idea. That probably seems, you know, it seems wild. I mean, because that's the thing, I'm gonna talk a little bit more about this, but when it comes to cancer treatments, the idea that people are looking for new, better, safer ways to treat cancer with fewer side effects, that's not a wild idea.
Starting point is 00:11:41 Every, I mean, that's what doctors and scientists are doing, because it's never ideal to have a medication that while yes, it can help kill cancer cells will also destroy some non-cancerous cells and make you sick while you're getting it. Now, if that's the only alternative and it might, you know, kill the cancer and give you a lot more years on this planet, then sure, it's worth taking that risk. It's worth having their side effects. But if we can find less toxic ways, of course we want that. So I don't think that search is a bad thing.
Starting point is 00:12:12 It's what scientists are doing. It's just that if something's a dead end, it doesn't matter how much you want to sell it to people. It's a dead end. And you should look elsewhere. Got it. Escarotics, by the way, were very popular in the 1800s, and this is where you're going to see this black sav come from, this period of history. And there are proponents of black sav who
Starting point is 00:12:34 will tell you it is way older than that, that it dates back to their references in some, you know, ancient Egyptian medicine, where you can find them talking about medicines that scar the skin and how important they are, and all this kind of stuff, they've found like evidence that maybe they could make this synthetic zinc compound as well. And so they knew about the possibility of zinc to kill cancer and that kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:13:00 Basically that classic ancient medicine thing of any effect is a good effect. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it perhaps it does date back that long. For me, it doesn't matter how old something is, it either works or it doesn't. We definitely know that in the 1800s, this interest in applying different substances to the body to, especially to treat what we were starting to understand was cancer, you know,
Starting point is 00:13:25 or tumors, was very popular. The idea that like something that was very acidic or very alkaline or some sort of heavy metal that you could put on the skin and you would see like visible destruction was a good thing. You would get an escar, a big scab would form and fall off. And the thought was that you would destroy the bad cells and you were saving the person. And there were a huge range of substances that were used at the time, things like mercury and arsenic and zinc was used copper, all kinds of substances, not just, you know, this
Starting point is 00:13:59 black sap stuff. We're very popular for any kind of skin condition that was thought to be cancerous. And if you look at the alternatives, it's not surprising. What they did before that before they had chemical eschatics is they would put a hot iron on it. Yeah. To destroy it. Yeah. So this isn't like a wild idea that people would say, well, this seems like a better. Yeah, that's a much easier way to burn the flesh off. Or surgery. That was the other option with surgery.
Starting point is 00:14:32 Let's just cut off the, whatever this cancerous lesion is, which was probably a better idea, but we didn't have anesthesia. Sure. So a lot of people were a lot more willing to try esgorotics, whether or not they were more effective. The formulation for Blacksav in particular probably dates back to an American surgeon named Jesse
Starting point is 00:14:53 Fell, who practiced in the 1850s, and he observed people native to the regions of the US that he was practicing, and he observed them using that blood route that we talked about. And he thought, well, this seems to destroy things on the skin. Maybe I can use this for cancers and stuff as an eschirotic. And so he combined it with zinc chloride. And there you go, the rest is history, the black sav. The reason that people probably thought it had some legitimate use, we can trace to a Dr. Mose, Frederick Edward Mose,
Starting point is 00:15:28 who practiced in the 1930s, and all throughout the 1900s, and he was a dermatologist, and he specifically was looking at better ways of treating skin cancers, because the idea at the time was that you had to cut out the skin cancer and take a pretty wide margin to get Make sure you got all the cancer cells, right? And this could be very disfiguring depending on how large the skin cancer was
Starting point is 00:15:54 Well his idea was that you could use this solution and his was a zinc chloride solution which was very similar to black sap He called it most p paste, but it was very trademarked that. It was very similar. It had that blood route in it. But you would put this paste on a very teeny layer on the area that was cancerous. You would leave it there to destroy and fix that area. That's what he found. It was a fixative. It would destroy, it would kill the cells without disrupting their architecture, without disrupting the way they looked so that then he could the next day cut off that area of dead skin, look at it under a microscope and see it if he got clean margins, like see the cancer cells.
Starting point is 00:16:41 So that's why it was so revolutionary. It was a way of killing, but also saving the cells so you can examine them. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. So he developed this technique, most surgery, where he would put some of the most paste on,
Starting point is 00:16:55 leave it overnight, cut off that skin, look at under microscope, if you got clean margins, great, if he didn't, put more of it on, bring it back the next day, so on and so forth. Now, over time, this evolved to a point because we still do most surgery today by the way This this is still a procedure that is commonly done for Squamacillus skin cancers basal cell skin cancers by real people by real doctors some kinds of melanoma No, it's it's a very it's a it's an important surgery and it has great results
Starting point is 00:17:23 But we don't use that paste anymore. We have better ways to do just fresh tissue sections and look at it under a microscope while you're doing it and it can all be done in one day, usually, and it's a much more advanced procedure and we don't use that paste, but I think the fact that this very legitimate great surgery that preserves as much healthy tissue
Starting point is 00:17:43 as possible, but also treat skin cancers. I think the fact that in its origins, we were using something similar to black SAV, gave it a lot more legitimacy than it deserves today. You know what I'm saying? Yes, absolutely. But no, most surgery is legit and done by real doctors. And if somebody suggests that for your condition,
Starting point is 00:18:01 you might need it, then I would believe them and go to someone who does it. But yeah, no, it's a very advanced, important procedure. But as I said, because of this, a lot of people began to believe that maybe Blacksav still had this use because, hey, this great Dr. Mose who invented this surgery that is totally legit and works really well, did use this. And now doctors don't want you to know about it because they
Starting point is 00:18:30 want to do surgeries, cause surgeries pay so much more. And they don't want you to just use this secret, sav paste, whatever you want to call it, because we're, I don't know, evil and money grabbing and all the usual stuff that people say about us. It is worth noting that Moe's also used to put it on gangrene That probably work too, right? It would work because it destroys both healthy and Dead and cancerous because it just destroys tissue. So I think I think that's an interesting point to note when you start to argue Does it only kill cancer cells or not? Doesn't it kills all cells. Yeah cells So anyway, this should have been the end of most pasted of Blacksav.
Starting point is 00:19:06 It should have been the end, but it's not. Why not? Well, I'm going to tell you Justin, but first let's go to the building department. Come here, Kim. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that I skilled at my car before the mouth. Now, Sydney, why are we still talking about Blacksav, not here, but as a people? By the way, everybody, sorry, I sound like this.
Starting point is 00:19:30 You don't have to apologize. Yeah, I just didn't want people to think it's like a new thing. It could be a new thing you're doing. If you want, I mean, I can't do this at will. You could try, maybe a little harder. All right, fair. Okay, so the thing is Blacksav is still available for purchase today, despite the fact that we obviously
Starting point is 00:19:54 have better ways to treat skin cancer and even most surgery, which initially use something similar to Blacksav does not at this time use it at all. It destroys cells, so that's, I think part of why people are still attracted to it is that one, for whatever reason, patients with dermatologic conditions, and especially like dermatologic cancerous conditions, are more likely to seek out these alternative therapies than patients
Starting point is 00:20:26 in general. And I don't know if that's because the idea of putting something on your skin seems less harmful. You know what I mean? Like I have this skin cancer and the doctor told me like we need to cut it off at some point, but you know we don't have to, this isn't like an emergency. We don't have to do it this day, but we do need to cut it off at some point, but you know, we don't have to, this isn't like an emergency. We don't have to do it this day, but we do need to remove this.
Starting point is 00:20:47 And so like if some patients think, well, maybe it's something I can handle on my own in this natural product, I don't really understand, but it's natural, the natural fallacy. Everybody always thinks if something's natural, it's great. Yeah, it's better. And then also you're just putting it on your skin, you're not ingesting it.
Starting point is 00:21:03 So maybe that's why it's perceived as less toxic. I don't know. But for whatever reason, people with dermatologic conditions are more likely to seek out these sorts of therapies than just like general patient population. I thought that was a very interesting fact. Well, and also I think that there's a, I think there's a sense that you could tell if it's working or not. A lot easier than something. It's on your liver, right? I mean, that's very true. It's really easy with this substance.
Starting point is 00:21:30 If you apply it, you will see a result. There will be a change. Yes, because that's what it is meant to do is the chemicals in it will destroy cells. Now again, a lot of proponents will argue that it is mainly destroying the cancer cells and leaving behind all the healthy cells. Studies have shown that the various components in it, which all in and of themselves can destroy skin cells. So, like, the zinc can, the blood root can, like, the different components are all very good at, they're all cytotoxic, meaning they kill cells.
Starting point is 00:22:08 And different ones kill them to different degrees and different kinds in different ways, but they all will just kill skin cells, the deeper tissues, deeper subcutaneous tissues, as well as... The cytotoxic different from escharotic. Well, cytotoxic, I mean specifically, they kill cells. Escharotic is usually referencing like the formation of the eschar, which is like a big, like black scabby thing. That's what we're talking about.
Starting point is 00:22:36 Got it. So, I mean, yes, they're both, I guess in a way, they're both destroying the skin cells, but something that cytotoxic is unnecessarily created in eschar, I think about if you took something but something that cytotoxic isn't necessarily created in a scar. I think about if you took something internally that's cytotoxic. Got it.
Starting point is 00:22:49 Right. Okay. So once you put on the black sab, it's gonna ulcerate, create a big crater, big hole, and then you're gonna get a big giant scab, and it will fall off, and you're gonna have a big gaping wound, and the idea is that you should let this wound heal
Starting point is 00:23:05 by what we call second intention, secondary intention, which means you just, you don't fix it, you just let it heal. Which, so first intention is like, we show you backup, right? You have a surgery, you get it sutured back up. They don't just leave you with a big up and wound and say, don't worry, it'll close. Sometimes for things that are infectious, we let them heal by secondary intention, meaning
Starting point is 00:23:28 we don't completely close it up afterwards. I mean, we're not going to leave like a hole to your insides. But sometimes there's a purpose for that in medicine. In this case, it's just, you'll be better off if you just let the big gaping wound that the black sab has caused heal on its own. And that is not going to give you the best cosmetic result, by the way. That is one, that's one, that's one thing we find a lot with people who have used black sab is that aside from whether or not it actually did anything for the cancer, which it almost never does, you're also left with a really awful wound that you probably don't want.
Starting point is 00:24:06 I would assume. There have been multiple cases of people using black sav and then coming back in to actual doctors to traditional medicine to try to fix the damage that it's done, which is why, and I think this might be why it's getting so much play now, because some of these cases have been really recent. So there was one case where a woman presented with what was probably at the time an isolated melanoma.
Starting point is 00:24:33 So based on the initial reports from her presentation, and this played out over the course of seven years. So it's hard to say, she was, they found this lesion, they thought it was melanoma, they scheduled it for surgery, surgery she never showed instead she went and used black sav she came back in a couple times for re assessment but never really followed through with the treatment plans and by the time she finally showed up seven years later With a lot of other symptoms it had metastasized to her lungs and her liver, and she had a big lymph node in her groin that was causing. Blockage, and so anyway, her prognosis had she had it removed at the time of initial presentation, was like a 10-year survival of 87.9%, and by the time she
Starting point is 00:25:19 actually had it treated by traditional medicine, her 10-year prognosis was 2.5%. Survival. So, the Black Sabbath didn't work, of course, and it delayed her treatment to the extent that, I mean, they probably could have cured this, as she had it done initially. There was another patient who had a nodule on his chest that was found to be melanoma. He, again, didn't fall up with his real doctors, went instead to some sort of naturopath or somebody who prescribed him black sav. He used it for like eight months and then came back with a big ulcerated wound on his chest as well as a lung mass. Because if we're talking about melanoma, it will metastasize most likely somewhere else in the body at some point.
Starting point is 00:26:07 In 2002, because this has been on the radar of actual medical professionals for a while, I think there's been a lot of interest in it in just the last year, but this has been on the radar for quite a while. In 2002, the archives of dermatology published several different case reports from patients who had tried to use some sort of Blacksav eschirotic type agent to cure their own skin cancer. And here's the thing, if you have a very superficial squamous cell cancer, you might use this and it go away and you think that you've actually treated it, right? Yeah, like it might temporarily look like you fixed the problem, but
Starting point is 00:26:52 like one patient found it looked like the visible tumor was gone and it worked, but when they when they came back for a biopsy months later, they found that there was still cancer underneath the skin that it did not get because you have no idea what kind of cells you're killing with this, right? You don't know what, you got a big scab, it fell off, you got a scar there now. It looks okay. You assume the cancer's gone. You have no way of knowing it is. So that can happen.
Starting point is 00:27:20 There was another patient that it looked like they actually did manage to get all the cancer cells, but there was so much damage done to their skin that they ended up having a series of plastic surgeries afterwards to try to repair the giant gaping wound that resulted from the use of this. There were other patients who had, I mean, had nose reconstruction as a result. This was a common thing I found people who had like cancers on their face and decided to use this instead of surgery.
Starting point is 00:27:52 I don't know if it was the fear of the surgery that drove them to use the black salve, but the result was a lot of reconstructive surgery. I mean, this stuff can destroy cartilage too. So people had like their entire noses reconstructed after, I mean, basically it ate it away. More or less, the blacks have destroyed their entire nose. There are lots of testimonials you'll find on the internet from people who use blacks Ave and claim that it works. And I think that it's important to know that a testimonial does not equal a study.
Starting point is 00:28:30 It's not the same as a published result. And I think that this is common for a lot of these alternative medicine kind of fake cure things that you'll find a lot of testimonials from people claiming they work, but you won't find a lot of studies that claim they work. And that's because they don't. You can always find somebody who will say that something worked for them and maybe it did,
Starting point is 00:28:52 maybe it didn't. Maybe it wasn't a skin cancer. Maybe they had something else that they thought was a skin cancer. They put the black sav on it. It fell off because people will use this for minor lesions too. People will use this for things like warts or skin tags or there are a lot of things that can look like skin cancers but aren't. And you're not getting a lot of tissue diagnoses to know what people have. So they'll claim that this
Starting point is 00:29:14 cure their skin cancer when actually maybe it just made a wartfall off. And what damage did it do in the meantime. Yeah. So again, I could go on. I have a lot of different cases where there was a woman who went in to a naturopath for a sore shoulder. But while she was there, she said, I also have this bump on my nose. I don't like what do you think about it. And the herbola and the naturopath was like, here's this black sav, put this on your nose and it'll go away.
Starting point is 00:29:46 She started developing like painful red streaks down her face after she started using it and they told her that it was a good sign because cancer is a crab and this resembles a crab. So this must be working. Wow. She put more of the black sav on her nose sloughed off. Eventually her nose came off. And 17 plastic surgeries and three years later,
Starting point is 00:30:07 she had her face reconstructed from the damage that the naturopath did. And if you look up these things because them is still marketed online, you can still buy this stuff online. Can't see them, like I said, is one of the brand names. They will tell you that it is a miraculous product with a miraculous history of the roots
Starting point is 00:30:28 that go back to the late 19th century and only suppression agreed have prevented its enormous benefits from being made available to the mainstream. They're very clear that if you use it wrong, you might lose your nose or something, but it's your fault because you used it wrong. If not the product, it's your fault.
Starting point is 00:30:46 And they tell you that if you have a lot of pain, that's normal. If you have pus coming out of it, that's normal. Don't worry. Lots of pus might happen. You might have to change your bandage constantly because of all the pus coming out of it. Totally fine. Don't worry. And you, if you're really concerned, you could always consider putting hydrogen peroxide on it, which we've done an episode on before we know that doesn't worry. And you, if you're really concerned, you could always consider putting hydrogen peroxide
Starting point is 00:31:05 on it, which we've done an episode on before we know that doesn't work. When we decided to launch this show and I have cursing that seemed like such an easy decision at the time. And as we've gotten into some of these more modern ones, it's become increasingly challenging to be a way to put it. The most common use that you will see it recommended for is skin cancer. But there have been pills of black saves sold for cancer as well as hepatitis, HIV, SARS, avian flu.
Starting point is 00:31:39 They're even marketing it for pets now. We've talked about West and Price and his legacy on this show before. It's a Western Price. The Weston Price Foundation writes about its effectiveness and has DIY recipes for you so that you can make your own at home. Yeah, cut out the middle man. Yeah, if the Weston Price Foundation is involved, you know that you're dealing with some high quality honest evaluation. I feel like they, like the Western Price Foundation now is just looking for fake stuff that they can just get behind. Like it's not part of, like they don't have any, they're just like, yeah, I'll get behind
Starting point is 00:32:11 that fake thing too. Is that fake? Sure. I feel like if we found them, they would be led by like Jenny McCarthy. Jenny's, Jidney and Suston are evil doppelgangers from another dimension. They are the anti us. The FDA has written letters to companies to stop various advertising practices
Starting point is 00:32:30 because they'll say like, this is for cancer and you're not allowed to say that now. They have formally said this cannot be used for cancer, but you can still sell it. And a lot of these websites are very good at finding ways around it. Like throughout history, people have used this for cancer. Wink. But then they don't claim that people have used this for cancer. Wink.
Starting point is 00:32:45 But then they don't claim that you can use it for cancer. And then they always put those disclaimers, like this is not meant to be a medical treatment for anything or whatever, and that flies under the radar. The Australian government had to take action this year because one of these cases we talked about was well publicized in Australia, I think, in April of this year.
Starting point is 00:33:02 And so they have worn patients about it and put a lot of information about it online so that people will know this is fake. So the bottom line is it's fake, it doesn't work. It definitely does harm. There is no evidence that it discriminates between regular cells and cancer cells, so it'll just destroy cells.
Starting point is 00:33:21 And even if you want to theorize that it has at some point, destroy a skin cancer on somebody's arm, it has done it in a, I would say, a very inelegant way. It's destroyed all kinds of tissue that wasn't necessary. And we have safer, better ways of doing that now. So even if you want to argue that maybe it worked one time in one testimonial, well, we have better ways of treating skininkancers, especially when we're talking about things like squamous cell and basal cell, which can usually be treated with in office procedures and they're unlikely to metastasize or go anywhere else. These are usually things that you can handle pretty easily with a dermatologist. Even if you need something more advanced like most surgery,
Starting point is 00:34:04 it's a better way to do it. It preserves a lot more tissue and you're not dealing with 17 plastic surgeries to correct the damage that this unregulated, untested, unproven over the counter. You have no idea what kind of ingredients you're in, how much zinc, how much blood root you have, no clue, black sav that you bought, you have no idea what it's gonna do to you. You know if you go to a dermatologist or a doctor and have these things taken care of.
Starting point is 00:34:32 It doesn't work, people die, this is not an alternative. All it does is ensure that instead of... All it does is ensure that you're going to die and pain and disfigured. Well, that's a good product. Well, you can say a bad product. And again, I think that when it comes to cancer treatments, you find a lot of these because our cancer treatments
Starting point is 00:34:56 are not perfect yet. Cancer is hard. We don't have it all figured out. No. And yes, there are lots of side effects. And sometimes, despite all of the best treatments that we have available, it doesn figured out. No. And yes, there are lots of side effects. And sometimes, despite all of the best treatments that we have available, it doesn't work. But that doesn't mean that there's some secret that some guy on the internet can sell you that will fix it all. Nobody's hiding it from you. Nobody's
Starting point is 00:35:17 hiding it. You've just got a lot of smart, hardworking scientists who are still trying to figure it out, and turning to things like Black Sav. Again, it just makes sure that you're going to suffer more and you're going to pay money to a charlatan who does not care about you or your health or safety, only cares about making money off of your desperation. So, don't use Black Sav. Use Black Sav. Period.
Starting point is 00:35:44 Folks, thank you so much for listening to our program. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. Please buy a book. It's on Amazon. And now you can listen to our book. Yes, that's right. Autobotos. The snake has eaten its own tail. The the book based on a podcast is now an audio you can listen to. Embrace it folks. Don't run from an embrace it. City and I had recorded it. Now you can listen to it. We hope you, you enjoy that.
Starting point is 00:36:12 That's an audible previous sponsor of ours. And thanks to Max Fun Network for letting us be a part of their extended podcasting family. Thanks to the taxpayers views. There's some medicines as the intro and outro program. And thanks to the taxpayers views, their song Medicines is the Intro and Outro program, and thanks to you for listening. Until next time, my name is Justin McAroy. I'm Sydney McAroy.
Starting point is 00:36:31 And as always, don't draw a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone Listener Supported

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