The Dec. 10 issue of Healthy Living Digest in the Roslyn News started out with a bang - a wonderful piece on the relationship of insecticides and lawn chemicals to breast cancer, and an important statement about Nassau County's large scale use of such chemicals. Hopefully those who read those articles will think more seriously about switching to organic maintenance, and pressure their gardeners to do so.

On the next page, however, was a brief piece that I can only characterize as a serious error in logic, and a disservice to the public. The first sentence was simple enough, "Cancer researchers have found that shark cartilage, recently touted as a cure for cancer, neither cures cancer nor shrinks tumors." I am not going to imply that I know anything about the effectiveness of shark cartilage, but as a Ph.D. in mathematics education, I do know about abuse of research and presentation of results that do not logically follow. This one is so simple it is almost sadly funny. Follow along, if you will:

Forty-two patients who already have been unsuccessfully treated by conventional methods were found not to benefit by shark cartilage. Does something sound strange here? What have we proven by these findings? Let's reverse the argument - what if we had taken a group of patients who had already been unsuccessfully treated with shark cartilage, and then tried conventional methods which also were unsuccessful? It could easily have been the same group of people. Could we then broadcast a headline that says, "Cancer researchers have found that conventional treatment neither cures cancer nor shrinks tumors?" That is logical absurdity that would almost be humorous, if it were not so damaging.

The actual abstract of the research explains, "Eligibility criteria included...resistance to conventional therapy," that is, only patients who did not respond to conventional therapy were studied. Why? It causes me to question the purpose of the study altogether. Did the researchers really want to learn what shark cartilage could do? Why try a new therapy on the already hopelessly ill? Was shark cartilage ever intended for use for advanced stage cancer? I know enough about herbal and homeopathic medicine to know they work most effectively when used as soon as possible, and they often take months to achieve a steady effect when used in more "serious" illness. Did these researchers give the treatment any kind of fair chance at all?

The abstract says in its conclusion, "Under the specific conditions of this study, shark cartilage as a single agent was inactive in patients with advanced-stage cancer." That is an honest statement, and a very different statement than the blanket dismissal of the substance stated in the "Healthy Living Digest" article.

Unfortunately, people read this kind of article and accept it unquestioningly. Perhaps there is a cancer patient out there who might have been helped by adding shark cartilage to whatever therapy is being done, but after reading this, now decides that anyone who suggests using it has lost their "standards." Why? Because the article ends with a left-handed shot at doctors brave and open-minded enough to pursue complementary medicine. It says "...all physicians, including those practicing alternative medicine, should be held to the same standards of practice."

I agree, fully, and I would add that all physicians, including those close-minded enough to think knowledge ends with what they have been taught in school, should be held to the same standards of honesty. Doctors have a doubly strong responsibility to state only what they know as truth. A badly designed study is bad enough, misrepresenting its conclusions and misleading the public is even worse.

For some reason, the person who wrote the article was not identified, but I hope for the sake of patients, that it was not a medical doctor. I would certainly appreciate it, as a Roslyn News reader of 18 years, if your healthy living section could be more carefully edited, before more damage is done. And I hope any reader who was influenced by that article on Dec. 10 has now been alerted to be wary of statements or articles that purport to "prove" that a treatment "does not work."

Dr. Elizabeth F. Spicer