Use of alternative medicine mostly unproved, has risks
CANCER: New book by actress Suzanne Somers critical of chemotherapy

NEW YORK — Suzanne Somers is at it again.

Less than a year after the former sitcom actress frustrated mainstream doctors (and cheered some fans) by touting bioidentical hormones on "The Oprah Winfrey Show,” she’s back with a new book. This one’s on an even more emotional topic: cancer treatment. Specifically, she argues against what she sees as the vast and often pointless use of chemotherapy.

Somers, who has rejected chemo herself, seems to relish the fight.

"Cancer’s an epidemic,” said the 63-year-old actress in an interview in a Manhattan hotel a day before Tuesday’s release of "Knockout,” her 19th book. "And yet we keep going back to the same old pot, because it’s all we’ve got. Well, this is a book about options.”

The American Cancer Society is concerned.

"I am very afraid that people are going to listen to her message and follow what she says and be harmed by it,” says Dr. Otis Brawley, the organization’s chief medical officer. "We use current treatments because they’ve been proven to prolong life. They’ve gone through a logical, scientific method of evaluation. I don’t know if Suzanne Somers even knows there is a logical, scientific method.”

More broadly, Brawley is concerned that in the United States, celebrities or sports stars feel they can use their fame to dispense medical advice. "There’s a tendency to oversimplify medical messages,” he says. "Well, oversimplification can kill.”

Though she may be one of the most visible, Somers is hardly the only celebrity who’s advocated alternative treatments recently.

Radio host Don Imus says he’s eating habanero peppers and taking Japanese soy supplements to treat his prostate cancer. The late Farrah Fawcett underwent a mix of traditional and alternative treatments, and made a plea for supporting alternative methods in her film, "Farrah’s Story.” Actress Jenny McCarthy advocates a special dietary regime, supplements, metal detox and delayed vaccines to treat autism.

The issue goes beyond alternative medicine. Comedian Bill Maher has made no secret of his disdain for flu shots, questioning why you’d let someone "stick a disease into your arm.” He also said pregnant women shouldn’t get the new swine flu vaccine, contradicting U.S. health officials who say pregnant women especially need it because they are at high risk for flu complications.

There have been cases in which celebrities have been seen to influence the public, says Barron Lerner, a doctor who’s looked at celebrity illnesses through history.

He recalls how some desperately ill cancer patients took their cues from Steve McQueen, the rugged actor who turned to unorthodox cancer treatment in 1980. When conventional medicine failed to halt his mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining, McQueen traveled to Mexico, where he was treated with everything from coffee enemas to laetrile, the now debunked remedy involving apricot pits.

Though his alternative treatments didn’t work, the actor gave voice to an emerging feeling that mainstream medicine might not be enough, Lerner says.

Somers, who played the ditzy blonde in TV’s "Three’s Company,” has written a series of books making that point. In "Ageless,” she argued that doctors don’t understand women’s bodies, especially those going through menopause.

With so-called "bioidentical” hormones — compounds that are custom-mixed by special pharmacies — Somers argued that women can restore youthfulness and vitality, energy and vigor, not to mention their sex drive.

The problem, for many doctors: These custom-compounded products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Somers, whose hormone regimen involves creams, injections and about 60 supplements daily, got a huge boost earlier this year from Oprah Winfrey. "Many people write Suzanne off as a quackadoo,” Winfrey said when Somers appeared on her show. "But she just might be a pioneer.” Yet Winfrey’s tacit support of Somers gave her some of the worst press of her career. "Crazy Talk,” Newsweek headlined an article on the talk show host earlier this year.

Winfrey responded in a statement that her viewers know "the medical information presented on the show is just that — information — not an endorsement or prescription.” But many doctors feel Winfrey has more of a responsibility to her viewers.

Somers is hoping for a return invitation to Winfrey’s hugely influential stage to discuss her cancer book.

Somers does view chemotherapy as effective for some cancers but not for the most common, including lung and breast cancer. Diagnosed with breast cancer a decade ago, she had a lumpectomy and radiation, but declined chemotherapy, as she did more recently when briefly misdiagnosed with pervasive cancer.

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