Making America Healthy Again: Developing Evidence Based Care Processes Consistent with Best Practices

Sarah Sidner’s Friend Ananda Lewis

Moving consistently to “evidence-based care processes consistent with best practices” is the most difficult and the most important part of Making America Healthy Again. It is the step where the chasm between knowledge and practice is the widest. It is the difference between belief and knowledge. It is the difference between the truth and disinformation. It does not matter how fervently you believe something or how much you want it to be true. In these life-or-death settings. It does not matter how convincingly you present your case or the extent to which you present it with the utmost conviction. This is what matters! Is there scientific evidence that proves that the treatment you are using works? That is why evidence-based care processes consistent with best practices are so critically important. I can best help you understand the critical nature of this point with a story.

Sarah Sidner is a CNN anchor who has breast cancer that has spread to the point that it is incurable given the current state of our knowledge. A very dear friend of hers just died due to the same condition. It was heartbreaking to watch Sarah choke back emotion as she told her friend’s story. Ananda Lewis, a former MTV star, was the friend. Lewis was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2020 and later revealed the progression to Stage 4 during a CNN appearance in October 2024.

In her CNN appearance, Lewis discussed her decision to avoid a double mastectomy, opting instead for a more holistic approach to managing her illness. She shared that she wanted to "get out excessive toxins in her body" and felt her body was "intelligent" and "brilliantly made," leading her to believe she could work with her tumor in a different way.

Sarah interviewed an oncologist, Dr. Elizabeth Comen from NYU Langone Medical Center as part of the story. She said there are newer targeted therapies that allow women with metastatic breast cancer to live 5 to 10 years longer than they would otherwise. Patients with early-stage breast cancer who do not receive best practice medical treatments are five times as likely to pass away. Diet and exercise added to those treatments are also helpful. Best practice medical treatments don’t just include medicine. In cancer, they include diet and exercise. They may also include surgery and radiation. It is not either or. It is both and. Because of rampant disinformation, we may miss windows to apply optimal therapy to cure earlier stage cancer and prolong healthier life in cancer we can’t cure. “What terrifies me is the rampant misinformation... far too often I see patients falling prey to misinformation” Ananda Lewis was a victim of that disinformation. When it comes to deadly chronic diseases, all treatments are not equal.

I don’t just write about this. I have lived it. In 1990, I developed fever to 103 or 4 and heavy sweats that occurred at night. I weighed 300 pounds and I started to lose weight without trying. I felt well during the day. When the sun went down, my symptoms would start. When the sun came up. They would disappear. I had large cell lymphoma with eight plum sized lymph nodes clustered around my aorta in the upper abdomen.

When my medical colleagues in the small town of Beaufort, South Carolina told me I had cancer, I went to see a cancer surgeon in Savannah Georgia and a medical oncologist I really admired named Dr. Ron Goldberg in the same city. I had major abdominal surgery that identified the tumor type and they removed my spleen. Once we had an accurate diagnosis, I asked Dr. Goldberg a very direct question. “I am in practice by myself and I have children that are about to start college. I cannot afford to play around. I want you to tell me what my prospects are as clearly as you can.” Dr. Goldberg did as I asked. “With chemotherapy alone, you have an 80% chance of being cured. If you add radiation, that goes up to 85%. You will be cured or dead in six months.”

Dr. Goldberg thought the national experts in lymphoma at the time were at Vanderbilt. He sent them the microscopic slides used to identify the tumor and they advised him on the best practices. We did everything that we could to identify “evidence-based care processes consistent with best practices.” I followed them to the letter. Since that time, I have lost 70 pounds. I practice intermittent fasting. I eat a whole, real food Mediterranean diet and I walk thirty minutes five days a week. I don’t just talk the talk. I walk the walk. I have been told my disease may kill me in six months. I followed the treatment program laid out for me to the letter.

I can tell you with perfect certainty that I would have died thirty-five years ago if I had approached my cancer the way Ananda Lewis did. She is a victim of medical disinformation. Cancer is very complicated. Each type of cancer involves different patterns of gene mutation and gene regulation. Individuals with the same kind of cancer have differences in gene regulation.

The difference between usual care, the care that most people receive and “evidence-based care processes consistent with best practices” is impressive in cancer, but it is not nearly as powerful as it is in the super priority cardiovascular conditions we have identified. We will go into that more deeply in the next post.

I am so interested in helping you how to understand these best practicee because in a lifetime of medical practice I have seen the difference they can make. I have experienced that difference myself. Because I was cured, I have seen my children grow up, get married, and develop careers that were important to their community. I have met my seven grandsons. I have played with them when they were little. I have watched them play high school sports and succeed academically. They are all fine young men. What a gift! That is what I hope you achieve when you select your treatment for whatever chronic disease you face.