About 10 years ago, a UC San Diego psychology professor named Ben Williams, who is in my area of psychology (animal learning), managed to successfully cure his own terminal cancer by self-experimentation. He wrote a book about it called Surviving Terminal Cancer. As this WSJ story shows, his approach — which can be summed up think for yourself — is spreading.
Just as my dermatologist was irritated by my acne self-experimentation (”Why did you do that?” he asked), Ben’s oncologist, a University of Washington med school prof named Marc Chamberlain, was against what Ben did. Chamberlain now tells the WSJ that Ben’s self-treatment “probably contributed” to saving Ben’s life. Which is like a math professor saying 2 + 2 “probably equals” 4.
A long essay by Williams about his experience.
