OK, here is where I put on my fire breathing objectivist hat
It just so happens that there is a coroner's case in Australia at the moment for a woman who died of rectal cancer. Why? Because her husband is a noted "Professor" of "environmental toxicology" (in other words, he studies things around you that are poisoning you, e.g. your diet, your occupation, etc etc) who is a noted opponent of conventional medicine. The woman was diagnosed with rectal cancer at an early stage. Curative surgical resection was recommended. She spurned treatment and went on a course of homeopathic treatment. Of course, the inevitable happened and she died in excruciating pain. Link to article here:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/...mments/column_our_deadly_culture_of_unreason/
So, there are certainly consequences of ignoring medical advice.
HOWEVER, not all cancers are the same. The treatment of thyroid cancers is somewhat controversial, because many thyroid cancers are low grade and detected early. There are four types of thyroid cancer - papillary, medullary, follicular, and anaplastic. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is the most deadly, with a 5% chance of being alive in 5 years. The most common is papillary - in early stage disease, your chance of survival in 5 years is about 98-99%. Even in stage IV disease, you have a 50% chance of being alive in 5 years. Doctors are somewhat divided as to what to do for early stage disease - some would suggest observation, some would suggest surgical resection. There is also some difficulty using size of the tumour to estimate your cancer load.
Having said all that by way of background information, let us revisit Mark's wife. I would like to know what type and what stage of thyroid cancer she had. Then, I would like to know if Dr. Joanna Budwig has published any trials comparing survival of thyroid cancer on her diet compared to a normal diet, and what type of thyroid cancers her patients had. Like I said - the survival of Stage I Papillary Thyroid cancer is close to 100% even with no treatment. If indeed Dr. Budwig has come across some kind of diet based miracle cure, I would like to learn more about it, because I want to give it.
The first reaction of doctors who have discovered something is to rush to publish in a journal. I can tell you that if
I found something, the first thing I would want to do is tell my colleagues about it. Because I want my cancer curing discovery to spread, I would meticulously collect a series of cases, demonstrate that it works statistically, and publish - because that is the only thing that will convince my colleagues and benefit even more patients.
The last thing that I would do is write books and market myself directly to patients. Given that the journals seem to be disturbingly silent about her diet, chances are - she either has not published, or published in an obscure journal and her work is undiscovered, in which case even greater fame awaits.
I should also say this. People here get upset about audio tweaks. Well, I get ten times more upset by irresponsible alternative medical practitioners claiming their hocus-pocus can cure cancer. If you spurn treatment for most cancers, you will die. In horrible pain. Just ask Steve Jobs! Compared to this type of outcome, arguing about how many picoseconds of jitter is audible is laughably insignificant.