I have written this article as a person not trained in medicine, though I have had extensive interaction with people who are suffering from cancer and have provided a very small amount of statistical advice to cancer researchers. I am concerned that we create a problem when we offer the choice between conventional medicine and other treatments. This is because people who choose the latter tend to have worse outcomes than those who choose conventional medicine. Because this article is intended for a lay audience, I refer to secondary sources of information rather than primary, research-based, sources. So - I leave it to the reader to consider what I have said, conduct further investigation and either accept or reject my arguments.
Alternative Treatments for Injured New Zealanders?
We are informed that New Zealand's Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) now supports another form of non-conventional medical treatment - Indigenous medicine - for all injured New Zealanders (Hapai Public, 2025). If support for a person’s injury is covered by ACC, he or she can request rongoā Māori as part of rehabilitation. Where appropriate, ACC can consider rongoā Māori services along with conventional treatment or other rehabilitation. However, the patient pays, unless he or she falls under the category of social rehabilitation, which is separate from treatment (ACC, 2025a).
Here, rongoā Māori can provide mirimiri (bodywork), rākau rongoā (native flora herbal preparations) and karakia (prayer). I can see how rongoā Māori and other Indigenous treatments could provide benefit that to some extent is complementary to conventional medicine in supplementing care for sick or injured people – perhaps mainly emotional benefit for members of the relevant ethnic and cultural groups. I hear anecdotal feedback from medical doctors that some Māori people have better outcomes when accessing rongoā Māori in addition to conventional medicine. In this regard, the Health Research Council has funded a three-year project with the aim of “understanding the contribution Rongoā Māori makes to the health and wellbeing of the people of Aotearoa and to the environment more broadly” (Te Ao Rauropi, 2025). We have yet to see a technical report on this study which, hopefully, is forthcoming.
In New Zealand we have ACC-registered chiropractors and osteopaths, so that alternative “Western” options have been available for some years, not only for injuries but for various medical conditions. In addition, we have acupuncture services and many Asian providers who offer such services through ACC subsidies. It must be said that ACC does not fund particular interventions lightly and must have made considered decisions on funding non-conventional therapies, but on what basis have such treatments been validated? Have they been validated at all?
What are these Non-Conventional Medicines?
The Medical Council of New Zealand defines complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as therapies and treatments that are not commonly accepted in conventional medicine. Complementary therapies comprise health care and/or medical practices that are used alongside conventional medical treatments, while alternative therapies are used instead of standard medical treatments (Medical Council of New Zealand, 2025). CAM may include aromatherapy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, massage therapy, visualization and
yoga.
Alternative therapies specifically for cancer may include laetrile (a man-made form of amygdalin, a plant substance found in some nuts, plants and seeds of fruit). Though used to treat cancer it is not backed up by research (Cancer Research UK, 2025a). Other alternative cancer therapies include shark cartilage and Gerson therapy, which Australia’s Cancer Council says is not a valid or effective treatment for cancer and should never be taken in lieu of genuine treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy (Cancer Council, 2025).
Therapists and companies who promote alternative therapies can cause harm by convincing people that an alternative therapy will cure them when they cannot. Such misunderstandings can be especially harmful if a person feels encouraged to withdraw from conventional cancer treatment.
New Zealand’s Medical Council requires doctors who practice CAM to be held to the same standards as any other doctor, including practicing in a manner that is consistent with a doctor’s professional, legal and ethical obligations. The Medical Council notes that CAM therapies are often used by patients, irrespective of whether a doctor recommends them, that some CAM therapies can have an adverse impact on the patient’s health or compromise the quality of conventional medical care, and that some patients indeed make choices between conventional medicine and CAM.
Non-Conventional Treatments for Cancer?
Cancer Research UK warns us that some alternative therapies might be harmful, cause side effects and interfere with conventional cancer treatment (Cancer Research UK, 2025b). In the USA, the National Cancer Institute makes clear that some CAM therapies have undergone careful evaluation and found to be generally safe and effective - acupuncture, yoga and meditation. However, they state that others do not work, may be harmful or could interact negatively with your medicines (National Cancer Institute, 2025).
Schmerling (2025) warns that if you do decline recommended cancer treatment, make sure that you understand the pros and cons of doing so, including the possibility of shorter survival. He reports a study in which 34% of those choosing unproven remedies refused chemotherapy, but only 3% of the conventional treatment-only group refused. Those who refused chemotherapy did not live as long. The higher rate of death appeared to be due to delay or refusal of conventional treatment and the study found that relying on unproven remedies instead of conventional therapies might be harmful.
New Zealand’s Cancer Society states clearly that alternative therapies used in the place of conventional medical treatment can cause serious problems and allow the cancer to spread. People who use alternative therapies without conventional treatment are more likely to die (Cancer Society, 2025).
A Personal View
Like many retirees I volunteer my spare time to causes that I consider to be worthwhile and beneficial to society. Thus, in my capacity as a non-clinical volunteer, I speak to cancer patients on a regular basis, and I am especially interested in those who are undergoing stem cell transplants. Though familiar with a minor amount of cancer research literature, I am not a medical professional and so am not qualified to offer clinical advice - only words of comfort (hopefully!) and information about the wide range of support that is available in New Zealand to cancer patients. However, I do believe that family doctors and clinics should look proactively for melanoma because New Zealand’s melanoma incidence is the highest in the world and around 300 New Zealanders die of melanoma every year (Melanoma New Zealand, 2025). Waiting until the patient is already very sick is possibly too little, too late.
Some of the patients I speak to are indeed terminally ill and within days or weeks of passing. However, we can be very confident that they have been given the very best treatment possible through New Zealand’s public health system, despite shortfalls in funding. I want to emphasize in the strongest possible terms that New Zealand health professionals involved in the clinical care and support of cancer patients and their families are truly wonderful.
Most of the cancer patients who I meet are adults but I have talked to the parents and families of terminally ill children on an informal basis, but only when contacted independently by associates of the affected families. I offer only words of support but nothing else. Of course, all of those involved, especially the children and their families, go through hell in these situations.
Treating Very Sick People
Although the recent ACC offerings are about physical injury, for quite some time ACC has been involved in supporting non-conventional medical treatments across many kinds of medical condition. We must ask what sort of message ACC is sending to very sick people, potentially including cancer sufferers and the desperate parents of very unwell children.
I assume that any advice that ACC gives directly to sick people or their caregivers is based on the most up to date evidence that is derived from randomized controlled trials and other forms of experimental design and statistical evaluations. However, I worry that we have a problem with messaging.
ACC gives a short video presentation from Ms. Donna Kerridge (ACC, 2025b). Ms. Kerridge tells us that the "Western health and healing system is awesome”, that it is not better but also not worse than Rongoa Māori, but provides no supporting evidence. She offers Rongoa Māori to all people in “Aotearoa” and tells us that it works, but does not inform us of the basis on which she makes that evaluation. She mentions the word “injuries” once, and only after articulating her comparison with “Western” medicine. Thus her message is wide open to misinterpretation and the public could infer that Indigenous medicine offers equal outcomes for every injury or illness and can be taken as a substitute for conventional medicine.
In the end it is the patient’s choice as to which course of medical intervention he or she will undergo. This is perhaps how it should be, and it is the obligation of the medical profession to apprise the patient fully of the available options and their likely outcomes. Naturally, some people opt for non-conventional treatments that in reality offer much lower chances of success. In particular cases hospitals have gone to the District Court and even the High Court when parents have refused to let their children undergo interventions that involve blood transfusions or chemotherapy, for example.
Surely ACC must have solicited advice from medical professionals before supporting CAM and Indigenous therapies and, if so, what exactly was their feedback? I accept that most probably CAM and Indigenous approaches, including Rongoa Māori, can complement regular hospital treatment in promoting peace of mind, for example, or in acting as a placebo. However, the danger is that some people will infer that non-conventional medicines can replace conventional medicine for not only injuries, but for many other illnesses too.
Indigenous Medicine in Education
Currently, Indigenous medicine is being taught within the education system. In one interview we are told that children learn about Indigenous medicine and, through the discussion, demonstration and passing on of knowledge, they learn about these traditional practices (The Education Hub, 2025). We hear that such practices inspire childrens’ interests and their working theories, and further inspire them to become “kaitiaki”, or guardians of their land.
My reaction is that particular elements of the interview given in the Education Hub link are very positive – especially teaching children to love and respect both each other and the environment. I am much less sure of the advisability of teaching children that Indigenous or alternative medicine is the way to go. Perhaps no real harm is done, provided that such teaching is kept within limits. However, Indigenous medicine must not be presented as equal in efficacy to conventional medicine as practiced by highly-trained experts in every country of the modern world, unless it too has been validated by established medical evaluative methods.
Indigenous medicine may well embody a few treatments here and there that are complementary to conventional medicine, or at least harmless, and I assume that what we see here in the Education Hub interview is innocent in intent. Nevertheless, depending on precisely what is taught, schools that deliver such programmes may stray close to the pushing of misinformation. Leading children to believe that Indigenous medicine is a viable alternative poses perhaps only a minor risk because later in life those children may exercise more mature judgement, but ACC giving the impression, either deliberately or by default (the latter I believe to be the case), that non-conventional therapies are viable alternatives for sick or injured people is a real concern. Unfortunately, some people will believe it.
Go for Conventional Medicine
I have not counted them but I estimate that over the last decade I have spoken to or interacted with as many as three or four hundred cancer patients – perhaps more. Some of the patients I speak to are indeed close to end of life but I do not know the exact statistics of the mortality or survival of those who I have met. However, I know that many have experienced substantial remissions and some get cures in the sense of greatly extended life, though perhaps having to endure various ongoing symptoms.
We can be highly confident that they do better, one way or another, through chemotherapy and radiotherapy and in some cases stem cell transplants, than through alternative, Indigenous or folk therapies that some unwell people are opting for in other countries. And, though some people die during or just after stem cell transplants, many others make it and receive the gift of extended life. For all our valorization of CAM and Indigenous medicines, they offer no such gift.
I am not qualified to express an opinion on neutraceuticals that include various over-the-counter supplements. Simply I note that experts known to me have their doubts. The profits to be earned from sale and exports of neutraceuticals have attracted the interest of various governments. Indeed, here is a big industry, involving products that embody claims to efficacy in treating common illnesses, but which have not gone through the rigorous testing that is expected of pharmaceuticals. Many pharmacies sell them, and I am informed that trade officials are enthusiastic about the opportunities for New Zealand in growing the nutraceuticals market.
Unfortunately, conflation of science and Indigenous knowledge carries genuine risks. In New Zealand we have heard repeated calls for Indigenous medicine (Rongoā Māori) to exist outside health legislation such as the Therapeutic Products Bill (e.g. Tyson, 2023), when overseas evidence shows that “decolonization” of medicine and pharmacology has led to numerous therapeutic accidents involving herbal products that were not validated on the basis of “colonial” standards (Parvez and Rishi, 2019). How would ACC and our mainstream media explain themselves if we were to see a rise in “therapeutic accidents” in New Zealand because the public had been led, perhaps inadvertently, to believe in alternative approaches to “colonial” medicine?
The Cancer Society reiterates that alternative therapies can be harmful and may delay or stop effective treatment. They say that there is no evidence that any type of complementary or alternative therapy prevents or cures cancer. Further they warn that, as with other treatment types, Rongoā Māori and Pasifika traditional healing methods may relieve symptoms but can interfere with conventional cancer treatments (Cancer Society, 2025).
One lady I spoke to recently is close to the end. We had a heart-to-heart talk and she remains upbeat, at least on the surface. But quite possibly she would have passed away years ago had she chosen alternative or Indigenous approaches rather than modern global medicine.
In the Appendix below I give some detail at a layperson’s level on stem cell transplants as an illustration of the high level of technical and scientific sophistication of conventional medicine and because transplants save peoples’ lives.
Face the Facts!
Let us finally face the truth and do away with the media-supported ideology to which New Zealanders have been subjected for far too long! Conventional medicine is the best option for sick or injured people and leading the public to believe otherwise, whether intentional or not, is immoral. Alternative or Indigenous remedies may offer some complementary value here and there, especially in supporting emotional wellbeing, but in no way provide a viable substitute. Instead, where patients choose CAM or Indigenous medicine in place of conventional medicine, quite possibly they have already embarked on a pathway that will lead to utter disaster.
Ask yourself what course of action you would take if your own child were diagnosed with advanced leukemia or some other serious illness. New Zealand must choose very carefully its pathways in domains such as education, responses to climate change and the environment, funding of scientific research, the political orientations of our mainstream media and the mission statements of our regulatory bodies, but perhaps the most important of them lie within the areas of health and wellbeing - especially of our children. Their safety, and indeed their lives, are much too precious to be accorded medical treatment of low quality or subjected to someone else’s ideological agendas.
Appendix: Stem Cell Transplants
Stem cells make more cells like themselves and, in a process known as differentiation, they can also become other cells that have particular functions (Mayo Clinic, 2025). Stem cells are present in most tissues within the body and are necessary for maintenance of tissue and repair after injury.
Essentially, stem cell transplants provide a last chance for those whose immune systems can no longer fight the disease and who may pass away in short order. An autologous stem cell transplant involves taking the patient's own healthy blood stem cells, freezing them and reintroducing them following chemotherapy or radiation so as to redevelop the capacity of bone marrow to produce blood cells.
However, often for particular medical reasons the patient needs a donor. For an allogenic stem cell transplant a donor must be found who matches the recipient on certain critical markers of DNA, as otherwise the donor’s immune system will perceive the recipient’s tissues as invasive. The probability that a person at random matches you is extremely low, apart from members of family, and even close siblings may not be suitable donors. Of course, the donor must be visible on a database, his or her DNA having previously been typed and recorded. Because New Zealand does not yet have a strong culture of typing blood for transplants, many donors to New Zealand patients are from overseas, especially from Germany. See NZBlood (2025) for relevant details.
The donor must have had a clean bill of health in relation to certain medical conditions and must agree to donate. He or she goes to hospital for two or three days and bone marrow is extracted and cleaned. Marrow donation is performed under general or spinal anesthesia so that the donor experiences no pain during the procedure. Then, particular forms of chemotherapy are administered in the months leading up to the transplant in order to get the patient as ready as possible for the transplant process. Thus, a medical professional, possibly a nurse, flies to the relevant country and brings home the stem cells in a medical container.
Immediately prior to the transplant, the patient undergoes several days of relentless infusions of chemicals that destroy the immune system completely. Finally, the new stem cells (effectively the new immune system) are drip-fed through a vein, often in the back of the hand.
To some extent, it is now a question of luck in terms of the recipient’s reaction to the newly-introduced immune system, though there must be medical criteria that determine success or failure. If the patient survives (and, thankfully, the odds are getting better and better these days!), then the road to recovery may be long and challenging, but patience and optimism help greatly. The impacts on the human body of both the cancer and the transplant can be quite shocking, involving loss of all hair on every part of the body and severe muscle wastage. But, little-by-little, strength returns and two or three years later the patient may look normal again.
If the patient survives to five years following the transplant then the prognosis for further life is good, though the patient may not live to the age that he or she would have attained in the absence of the disease. But life is better than no life and some recipients do indeed live to an advanced age.
References
ACC (2025a). Using rongoā Māori services
https://www.acc.co.nz/im-injured/what-we-cover/using-rongoaa-maaori-services
ACC (2025b). Rongoā Māori - a traditional healing choice for all
https://www.acc.co.nz/about-us/rongoa-maori-services
Cancer Council (2025). Is Gerson therapy a good cancer treatment?
https://www.cancer.org.au/iheard/is-gerson-therapy-a-good-cancer-treatment
Cancer Research UK (2025a). Laetrile (amygdalin or vitamin B17)
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/treatment/complementary-alternative-
Cancer Research UK (2025b). The safety of complementary and alternative therapieshttps://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/treatment/complementary-alternative-therapies/about/safety
Cancer Society (2025). Complementary, traditional and alternative therapies
https://www.cancer.org.nz/cancer/cancer-treatment/complementary-traditional-and-alternative-therapies/
Hapai Public (2025). Public Sector Journal 48.1
https://hapaipublic.org.nz/public-sector-journal
Mayo Clinic (2025). Stem cells: What they are and what they do
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/bone-marrow-transplant/in-depth/stem-cells/art-20048117
Medical Council of New Zealand, 2025). Doctors and complementary and alternative
medicine (CAM)
https://www.mcnz.org.nz/assets/standards/Complementary-and-alternative-medicine.pdf
Melanoma New Zealand (2025). Factors and Risk Factors
https://melanoma.org.nz/all-about-melanoma/facts-and-risk-factors/
National Cancer Institute (2025). Complementary and Alternative Medicine
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam
NZBlood (2025). Donating Bone Marrow
https://www.nzblood.co.nz/become-a-donor/ways-to-donate/donating-bone-marrow/
Parvez. M. K. and Rishi, V. (2019). HerbDrug Interactions and Hepatotoxicity. Curr. Drug Metab. 20: 275–82.
https://www.eurekaselect.com/article/97525
Schmerling, Robert (2025). Alternative therapies for cancer
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/alternative-therapies-for-cancer-2019020115888
Te Ao Rauropi (2025). About the project
https://www.teaorauropi.co.nz/about#research-team
The Education Hub (2025). Valuing traditional Māori medicine: Rongoā
https://theeducationhub.org.nz/valuing-traditional-maori-medicine-rongoa/
Tyson, Jessica (2023). Therapeutic Products Bill: ‘Crown has no place in regulating rongoā’ says expert. New Zealand Herald. 9 May 2023.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/therapeutic-products-bill-crown-has-no-place-in-regulating-rongoa-says-expert/TLHZLLVL2ZBXHCCGOCTNW5MOFU/
Dr David Lillis trained in physics and mathematics at Victoria University and Curtin University in Perth, working as a teacher, researcher, statistician and lecturer for most of his career. He has published many articles and scientific papers, as well as a book on graphing and statistics.
9 comments:
When you own the journals, textbook publishers, industry and fund the research you determine what it says. There is no money in natural medicine and plenty of money and power to be lost if it becomes the dominant paradigm again as it was for most of world history.
No money in natural medicine? On the contrary, it's an El Dorado for manufacturers of snake oil.
ACC has lost its way. They have been conned by Māori bullshit. Time for a reset and a purge of the higher echelon who allowed this to happen.
I agree with Anon. 8:52. AM. Accusations , by a doctor and researcher that Big Pharma manufactured the 'pandemic' to make money with their vaccine rings true with me. They made $ billions with their vaccine which good research now is revealing was neither safe nor effective. The Takada paper, in the Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy , is just one such research paper revealing the vaccine caused myocaditis and pericarditis. Then there is Prof. Angus Dalgleish , world expert in melanomas who observed , as a clinician, a large increase in melonima in his patients who had specifically taken the vaccine . No monetary advantage to Dalgleish in saying this.
Hence there has been an increase in people becoming skeptical of mainstream medicine's motives and ethics.
I am of the opinion some sections and individuals of Big Pharma have psychopathic tendencies.
I would rather have Rongai placebos than the deadly vaccine.
Any study of natural herbal products is useful and research on NZ herbs for medicinal properties of value since I believe they were created by God our creator as providence for us to use.
Check out the hilarious "That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A & E"
And how about funding priests to pray for people - 100% of whom all said they felt better afterwards? ACC is funded by taxpayers both by way of levies and underwriting the government department for its losses.
ACC should not be funding and promoting rongoā Māori without the proof of its benefits. A report on its proven efficacy should have been a prerequisite.
That aside, what continues to irk me is that those drugs that have proven themselves to be effective in 'assisting' those with certain cancers which aren't funded by Pharmac, continue to attract GST. It's understandable that our health system has limits on its funding capabilities, but to charge those that are funding these medications themselves GST (which itself can amount to tens of thousands of dollars), is not only inappropriate, but unconscionable. I can understand the reluctance to meddle with GST, but these poor souls deserve better. And, if you dismiss this, one day it could be you, or a loved one.
Corruption and greed may or may not be present within the pharmaceutical industry. However, unwell New Zealanders are faced with choices regarding treatment. Go for conventional medicine every time. David Lillis
An worthy contribution, if a little overlong, but wasted on people like Gaynor who prefers to believe in talking snakes than the power of science. Still, I suppose somebody has to be at the left-hand end of the IQ Bell Curve.
I also appreciated David's article , which I thought had , an appreciation for the emotional aspects of rongoa medicine. I also agree with Peter these various systems should be tested and shown to be better than placebos. In the Middle Ages , at monasteries , free herbal treatments, some of which have now been shown by research to be efficacious, were administered by knowledgeable monks along with such things as confession of sins. If you don't believe we have a spiritual dimension then of course this is complete rubbish. That's your prerogative in a free society.
My problem with conventional medicine is the lack of emphasis on prevention . I enjoy programmes like those of the late Michael Moseley , who emphasised life style and dietary changes for medical conditions and to assist people in getting off prescription medicine and he mentioned prevention of heart disease and CANCER by cutting out sugar and junk food.
The laetrile alternative has been around for sometime and I wonder if this synthetic version is as effective as the natural unaltered version. Has that been tested ? If not why not? Modern medicine is notorious for failing to test naturally sourced herbals.
Having been categorized and implied as lacking integrity and of low IQ because I subscribe to a version of creation , I just happen to believe that is not as weird as the alternatives like seeding by extra-terrestrials or multiverses. Abiogenesis is claimed by renowned chemist Dr James Tour and others as highly unlikely as an explanation for the origin of life , any day soon The mathematical probabilities alone are against it. Maybe in the fairly distant future more will be discovered.
Post a Comment