Scott Adams vs. a cancer quack -- Respectful Insolence - Orac

[erronis]

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2025/05/29/scott-adams-vs-a-cancer-quack/

“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams recently revealed that he has stage 4 prostate cancer. He tried to treat it with cancer quack William Makis’ protocol and realized that quackery doesn’t work, leading Makis to attack the victim.

I wouldn't wish this diagnosis on anybody, even Scott Adams - a real trumper.

I realize that it’s been four weeks since I posted here, posting about the soft eugenics of MAHA. I’ve been meaning to get back into it, but, for whatever reason, whenever I’ve tried to do so something got in the way; that is, until now. Perhaps it’s because there are few things that I enjoy writing about more than a good crank fight, and few cranks are as cranky as disgraced Dr. William Makis, Makis, as you might recall, is the disgraced nuclear medicine radiologist who lost his medical license in Alberta and, while probably not the originator of the antivax concept that COVID-19 vaccines cause not just cancer, but turbo cancer, has arguably been the most vocal antivax quack promoting the idea. In Makis’ telling, COVID-19 vaccines are so full of mutating evil humors that they cause cancers that are not just run-of-the-mill cancers that anyone can get as they get older, but rather cancers so fast-growing and malignant that the are called “turbo cancers,” cancers. Never mind that he can’t define what the heck a “turbo cancer” is compared to regular cancers or provide any good evidence that cancer, much less “turbo cancers,” are associated with COVID-19 vaccination. None of that stopped him from becoming a total cancer quack, promoting all manner of quackery. On the opposing side of this crank fight is Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who actually comes off closer to the side of reason, not to mention being the more sympathetic character due to his having been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer that he tried to treat with Makis’ “protocol,” which involves:

As you will see, Makis is a big fan of ivermectin, that anthelminthic drug that is very effective against diseases caused by parasitic roundworms and was seized upon as a miracle cure for COVID-19 not long after hydroxychloroquine was being promoted as a miracle cure. He’s also a fan of other anthelminthic drugs mebendazole and fenbendazole, drugs that had shown mild antitumor effects in preclinical models (but not in humans), drugs that he recommends, as is the case with many cancer quacks, in a “protocol” or cocktail with ivermectin, vitamins, and supplements rather like the one touted above. I’ve discussed how mebendazole and fenbendazole show mild promise in the lab but have never been validated in clinical trials in humans, making them at best unproven and at worst quackery now (barring new evidence); indeed, I referred to the claims about fenbendazole as reminding me of those of cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski about his antineoplastons therapy. I’m not going to go into that more here, as you can read my previous posted linked to in this paragraph. Rather, I’m interested in what happened after Adams posted this on X, the hellsite formerly known as Twitter:

I haven’t written much about Scott Adams before, other than to note that over time he has increasingly embraced COVID-19 minimization, antivax narratives (even saying that “antivaxxers were right“), and conspiracy theories, although there were signs as long ago as 2007 that he was slowly heading down the rabbit hole of unreason. (These days, he’s become fairly Trumpy, and President Trump apparently even called him after his announcement to check on how he was doing.) Adam’s history aside, a little more than a week ago he announced that he had been diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 prostate cancer; within a day or two of that came the post/Tweet cited above.

It’s unclear when Adams was initially diagnosed with prostate cancer, but he was fairly calculating about when he chose to announce his diagnosis. In fact, he quite frankly says that he decided to do so after former President Joe Biden had announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer:

It was not clear when Mr. Adams was diagnosed, but he said that he decided to share the news after learning that Mr. Biden had the same disease, in part because he hoped that Mr. Biden’s announcement would draw attention away from his own. He had kept quiet about it to prolong a sense of normalcy, he said: “Once you go public, you’re just the dying cancer guy.”

Mr. Adams said he was also wary of sharing his diagnosis because he wanted to avoid the kind of negative online attention that Mr. Biden has received since his office announced the news on Sunday.

“One of the things I’ve been watching is how terrible the public is,” he said, adding that people had been “cruel.”

“There’s no sympathy for Joe Biden for a lot of people,” Mr. Adams said. “It’s hard to watch.”

. . .

Followed by a lot of deflections and justifications by the quack...