Need help debunking: Cancer has a bad odor?

ExMinister

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Does anyone know whether cancer has a bad odor?

I have a friend who is all convinced that psychic surgery is real because of a book she read. So now I have read the book, and the author claims that while she was involved assisting in psychic surgery, cancer always had a terrible odor, like rotting meat.

My thought: The so-called psychic surgeon was probably using raw meat as pretend tumors to be removed.

So, in reality, does anyone know if cancer has a bad odor?
 
Um, one thing I know about cancer is that there are a whole lot of different types and they all have different symptoms. There are some cancers that seem to have a detectable smell, but not anything that a human can detect reliably. I have seen articles about cancer sniffing dogs but they are quite highly trained and their trainers point out that only the best tracking breeds can be used for this technique.
 
ExMinister said:
... the author claims that while she was involved assisting in psychic surgery, cancer always had a terrible odor, like rotting meat.

My thought: The so-called psychic surgeon was probably using raw meat as pretend tumors to be removed.
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Agreed; the main thing that comes to mind which smells of rotting meat is what we scientists call "rotting meat" which is probably what the psychic surgeon was palming and then pretending was the tumour while ripping off his victims.

ExMinister said:
So, in reality, does anyone know if cancer has a bad odor?
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Vets occasionally remove tumours from animals which have been left far longer than would be the case if the patient was a human and had reasonable quality health care. In those cases parts of the tumour can go necrotic and yes, those bits are effectively rotting meat and smell disgusting. Otherwise tumours smell the same (to humans) as any other living tissue - the slightly metallicky smell of blood. Some say that dogs can 'smell' some types of cancer but humans have nothing like the sense of smell that dogs do, to us they all smell the same.

No matter what cancer smelled like though that would have no bearing on psychic surgery - it's fraud every time, pure and simple, no question.

Yuri
 
ExMinister said:
My thought: The so-called psychic surgeon was probably using raw meat as pretend tumors to be removed.

So, in reality, does anyone know if cancer has a bad odor?
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I think you are right. Perhaps the meat he used was starting to decompose?

I am a pathologist, and as such I handle cancers on a daily basis, right after they have been removed by real surgeons. So from my experience of examining thousands??? (Stopped counting years ago), I can assure you that they don't have a particular smell.
 
Extensive cancer often does have a fowl odor. Small tumors, not so much, but apparently some cancer odors can be detected by dogs.
 
Bad breath can be a side effect of Chemotherapy. A woman I worked with was unapproachable for a couple of weeks while undergoing treatment.
 
jli said:
I think you are right. Perhaps the meat he used was starting to decompose?

I am a pathologist, and as such I handle cancers on a daily basis, right after they have been removed by real surgeons. So from my experience of examining thousands??? (Stopped counting years ago), I can assure you that they don't have a particular smell.
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Extensive cancer often does have a fowl odor. Small tumors, not so much, but apparently some cancer odors can be detected by dogs.
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Why does extensive cancer have a bad smell, but not individual cancer specimens?

ETA: Is it a matter of the tissue in extensive cancer being necrotic?
 
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ExMinister said:
Why does extensive cancer have a bad smell, but not individual cancer specimens?

ETA: Is it a matter of the tissue in extensive cancer being necrotic?
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Yes. A tumor is just cells gone wild, they may or may not have a distinctive odor. But eventually malignant tumors both necrose in the center as they outstrip their blood supply and they rob surrounding tissue of its blood supply as well.
 
Thanks for all the info. Interesting and appreciated.

I guess I won't be able to debunk from this angle. Sounds like it is POSSIBLE that the tumors could have had a terrible odor, assuming it was advanced enough disease.
 
Why would anyone who was as goofy as to believe in psychic surgery care whether tumors really do or do not smell bad? By that I mean, if you could demonstrate that tumors really don't stink, 100% of the time, do you think it would change this person's mind?

If you haven't tried it yet, you might attempt to find a video debunking psychic surgery, showing exactly how it is done. There are a number of them.

Randi's Tonight Show appearance

Here's Criss Angel doing it all over-dramatically with bad music, but the bit with the wine glass helps show just how far a skilled person can go with sleight of hand.

Randi also had one of his Psychic Investigator shows that featured this, but I can't find a good clip of it that. As I recall it had someone really doing this (I can't recall whether it was a charlatan or someone doing it in an office setting just to demonstrate how real it could appear to be off of a stage.)
 
jasonpatterson said:
Why would anyone who was as goofy as to believe in psychic surgery care whether tumors really do or do not smell bad? By that I mean, if you could demonstrate that tumors really don't stink, 100% of the time, do you think it would change this person's mind?

If you haven't tried it yet, you might attempt to find a video debunking psychic surgery, showing exactly how it is done. There are a number of them.

Randi's Tonight Show appearance

Here's Criss Angel doing it all over-dramatically with bad music, but the bit with the wine glass helps show just how far a skilled person can go with sleight of hand.

Randi also had one of his Psychic Investigator shows that featured this, but I can't find a good clip of it that. As I recall it had someone really doing this (I can't recall whether it was a charlatan or someone doing it in an office setting just to demonstrate how real it could appear to be off of a stage.)
Click to expand...

I have read half a dozen books on sleight of hand so am familiar with a lot of this, and I have Randi's book on faith healing. I have also watched him demonstrate how it's done, probably the videos you are referring to, though I also can't remember where I saw them.

At any rate, we've already talked about much of the above. But I do think if I could have shown her that this person had told a baldfaced lie (about tumors having an odor), it would undermine this author's credibility with her just as it would with me, and that would be the end of it. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part!

In fact, it probably is wishful thinking on my part. But you never know.

Reading through it skeptically myself, there were really very few facts that I thought could at least be checked, and this was one of them.
 
ExMinister said:
Why does extensive cancer have a bad smell, but not individual cancer specimens?

ETA: Is it a matter of the tissue in extensive cancer being necrotic?
Click to expand...

Even large cancers don't always have a smell comparable to rotting meat. Not even if they do have extensive necrosis (in my experience). And the size that a "psychic surgeon" handles is small enough to be palmed by him (this is a close up setting) is not what would be considered a large cancer which would be prone to extensive necrosis. I think you could make a good case with your friend, that what the book describes is in all probability not cancer.
 
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