Spontaneous recovery is common among patients, but rarely talked about by doctors

Tijn Touber | September 2006 issue
Mr. Wright was seriously ill. With tumours the size of oranges in his neck, under his arms, in his chest and pelvic area, he didn’t have long to live. Or so his doctor told him. And yet Wright was thrilled when he read in the paper about an experimental new medication called Krebiozen. The reports gave him hope: This medication could make him better, he thought. While it ran against standard policy to prescribe the drug to someone in such an advanced state of illness, Wright begged doctors to give him this “golden opportunity” and administer a course of Krebiozen. On a Friday afternoon the doctors decided to give him the medication. Why not? After all, he was on death’s door.
On Monday, they couldn’t believe their eyes. Wright was walking around the hospital telling anyone who would listen about this wonder drug. Ten days later he was sent home.
But the story doesn’t end there. Two months later, disturbing reports appeared in the paper: Krebiozen wasn’t a wonder drug after all. New tests had been conducted and the results were not encouraging. Wright got sick again. This time his doctor decided to consciously mislead him by telling him about a new medication, “a super-refined product, derived from the original injections” of Krebiozen. Wright again recovered. But when newspapers later reported that research had conclusively established that Krebiozen was ineffective in the treatment of cancer, Wright was back in the hospital, where he died a few days later.
Coincidence?
According to the British medical magazine What Doctors Don’t Tell You (Jan. 2006), spontaneous remissions occur much more often that we think. This has been documented for many years. Wright’s case was extensively described nearly 50 years ago in the Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment (1957; 21:331-340).
The American Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), which conducts research into consciousness, studied 1,860 cases of spontaneous remission. The conclusion: One in 20 cases of infectious and parasitic illness, hormonal disturbance and immune problems heal by themselves, as do 7 percent of all cancers of the digestive organs, bones and soft tissues. Twelve percent of all cases of skin and lymphatic cancers and 19 percent of reproductive and urinary cancers also heal spontaneously. In addition, IONS suspects the number of spontaneous remissions is heavily underestimated because they are rarely reported in the medical literature.
A strong belief in a particular treatment—known as the placebo effect—certainly plays a role in such spontaneous remissions. The reverse also appears to be true, according to research. People who resign themselves and give up helplessly in the face of a life-threatening condition die more often and sooner than “fighters”: This is the less-publicized “nocebo” effect. Meditation and a drastic change in lifestyle apparently also have an effect on the outcome.
This shouldn’t be such a surprise, that the body is capable of healing itself with medical intervention. After all, our bodies do this all the time with minor ailments and injuries. Given the time and a positive mental framework, the body is often able to heal itself under serious circumstances. It is, in fact, a miraculous thing…