Book review #1 You Can Conquer Cancer

Beyond traditional treatment book review #1

Over the summer I have been busy reading all of the books on health and cancer that have been given or lent to me over the past year and a half. I have been reluctant to tackle this avalanche of reading material as I didn’t want to hang all my hope on “miracle cures”, but I am refreshed to see that most of these books are either actually based on scientific research, are about positive and practical things you can to take some control over illness or about finding hope and peace with cancer.

This book falls into the latter category. In fact the reason that this is my first book review is not because it is the best reference book (I will review that one shortly), but because of an explosive story that broke about the author on the second last day of 2011.

Dr Ian Gawler, possibly Australia’s most famous cancer survivor and founder of the Gawler Foundation, has for 30 years claimed that he cured himself of cancer that cost him his leg and advocates his alternative therapies as a means for others to do the same. However, this new medical report has cast doubt on whether 61 year-old Dr Gawler ever suffered the secondary bone cancer from which he has claimed to have cured himself. The online report in the Royal Australian College of Physicians’ Internal Medicine Journal says Dr Gawler, instead had advanced tuberculosis. Dr Gawler refutes this.

On his website, Dr Gawler is described as “A pioneer in Mind-Body Medicine and the therapeutic application of meditation…He believes that there is a process by which the body can regain its natural state of health. He sees cancer as a symptom of immune deficiency and explains how the immune system can be reactivated.”

Whether or not Dr Ian Gawler ever had cancer or cured himself of cancer, I don’t know, but amongst his sometimes creative theorising, there is plenty of sound advice in his book. However, being the child of two scientists, I feel it should be noted that there is scant reference to scientific data aside from some vague references to other cases and studies. What is clear is that Dr Gawler has spent many years speaking to thousands of cancer sufferers and he has formed his beliefs based on this. I approach this book as not a prescriptive tool, but as a useful reference and a sympathetic text.

In this, the 16^th reprint of the book, Dr Gawler advocates meditation, positive thinking and a very strict diet.

His main points are:

• Actively decide to take control of your illness.
• Meditate daily. Probably what Dr Gawler is known most for, he goes into a lot of detail about the benefits of meditation. Whilst I feel his method is too intensive (fours times a day!), I believe in the benefits of meditation.
• Have a positive attitude and create a positive environment.
• Follow a rigid, low fat, diary-free vegetarian diet (based on Dr Gerson’s diet) including five juices and three coffee enemas daily. This sounds a little crazy to me! He does however differentiate between patients who might need more calories or protein than others.
• Certain personalities or stressful life events go hand in hand with cancer. I think this is a seductive theory, especially since Dr Gawler has spent so much time with sufferers, but I believe the scientific community has debunked this.
• He is a big believer in the importance of having a spiritual life, and in conjunction with medical treatment (which he sometimes also describes as toxic) he advocates naturopathy, Chinese medicines and psychic healing.
• Finally, his approach to dying is that we shouldn’t necessarily fear it. I think that it’s brave that he tackles this subject.

You Can Conquer Cancer by Dr Ian Gawler costs $27.95 through Brumby Books.

Read for more on the recent news about Dr Gawler

Link to Ian Gawler’s personal blog (and his response to the story)