Suzanne Somers is promoting an incredibly dangerous message according to many medical professionals and the American Cancer Society. In her latest book she argues that chemotherapy does not work for most cancers and that patients should turn to alternative medicine instead. This is something she’s believed for a long time – when she had breast cancer ten years ago, she chose to undergo radiation along with a lumpectomy. Since she’s doing okay, that’s evidence to Somers that chemotherapy is unnecessary for breast cancer. She also recently said that chemo killed Patrick Swayze, not pancreatic cancer.

Somers has some very extreme views on the lengths she’ll go to in order to remain looking and feeling young and healthy. She messes around with complex bioidentical hormones and pops over 60 pills a day. In January she was on Oprah espousing her ideals, and frankly she came off as a whack job. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt at the time, but in hindsight I should not have. She’s careful about phrasing things in terms of “this is just what I think I should do, you have to make your own choice,” but saying things like chemo kills, not cancer, shows that’s not what she really believes.

And health professionals are saying she’s downright dangerous. Here are some excerpts from the Huffington Post’s article about Somers’ medical advice.

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. “I’m ‘us’,” Somers adds. “I’m not them. I’ve been on the other side of the bed. And it’s powerful to have information.” 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.”

…Somers is now hoping for a return invitation to Winfrey’s hugely influential stage to discuss her cancer book. Her theories on chemotherapy did get one bit of attention she could have done without, though: The actress had to apologize recently when her offhand comment that chemo had likely killed actor Patrick Swayze, rather than his pancreatic cancer, made tabloid headlines. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Somers says now. “I apologized to his family. But she adds: “We all know that chemotherapy does nothing for pancreatic cancer.”

…One criticism sure to come up with Somers’ cancer book is its reliance on several doctors who have controversial histories, including Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski in Houston, who has devised his own alternative cancer treatments and has had protracted legal battles with the FDA. But Somers defends him passionately, as she does the other doctors interviewed in her book. As for herself, she says, she is at ease with her role as celebrity health guru… “Celebrities are easy to pick on,” Somers says. “But I don’t have an agenda. I’m just a passionate lay person. And I’m using my celebrity to do something good for people.”

[From the Huffington Post]

Suzanne Somers obviously has the right to choose her own medical care, and she’s got the right to say whatever she wants about her beliefs. But because they’re potentially dangerous, it’s just as important to remember that the American Cancer Society and doctors and journalists have just as much of a right and responsibility to point out that experts disagree. They’re not calling for her silence. They’re saying she’s wrong, and that she’s putting out confusing information. We all know Suzanne Somers is not a doctor. But holy hell, I even felt myself someone swayed when watching her Oprah interview.

I have an aunt who was diagnosed with untreatable breast cancer two and a half years ago. The doctors said there was no point in giving her any sort of treatment and she had a month or two left to live. Because she had no other options, she started seeing a well-respected naturopath. Not because she chose to forgo traditional treatment options, but because she was told by every professional she saw that those options would not work for her. And she’s still alive today. There are two sides to the debate, but stories like this are beautiful miracles – and rare. Suzanne should consider herself lucky, but not necessarily consider herself science.

Here’s Suzanne and Pam Anderson out and about in Malibu on August 16th. Images thanks to WENN.com .