One evening last week, I was rather mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed. It was late enough at night that I didn’t want to start anything productive, but not quite late enough to head to bed. Thus, scroll, scroll, scroll, oooh—like, scroll, scroll, hahaha—wow, scroll, scroll…wait…what?

I had stumbled upon the comments section (dear heavens, save us all) from a crowd-sourcing page for a woman fighting cancer. The woman’s story was heart-wrenching, but the discussion attached the fundraising for treatment had shifted to the efficacy of naturopathic/homeopathic remedies for cancer. I have plenty of thoughts on that subject, but what was clear from my accidental stalking was that the primary arguers (on either side of the camp for/against scientific medicine over “natural remedies”) were a bit murky on what cancer actually is. They both were describing cancer as though it was a condition or infectious disease—perhaps not contagious, but something that can be fought off like a cold or a flu or something like a broken bone that just needs to be properly set to then heal itself. Continue reading →