CANCER MYTHS THAT MAY NOT BE QUITE SO MYTHOLOGICAL AFTER ALL
Throughout the early months of 2012 when my daughter was desperately ill with metastatic lung cancer I spent most of my free time touring the internet.
HERE IS SOME OF WHAT I LEARNED:
1: Cancer is a man-made, modern disease
2: Superfoods prevent cancer
3: ‘Acidic’ diets cause cancer
4: Cancer has a sweet tooth
5: Cancer is a fungus – and sodium bicarbonate is the cure
6: There’s a miracle cancer cure…
7: …And Big Pharma are suppressing it
8: Cancer treatment kills more than it cures
9: We’ve made no progress in fighting cancer
10. Sharks don’t get cancer
We’ll come back to these facts in a minute...
Meanwhile I want to look at a little recent history:
MAURICE SAATCHI
Following the death of his wife Josephine Hart from ovarian cancer in 2011, Maurice Saatchi campaigned for a change to the UK law which he believed held doctors back from recommending innovative treatments out of fear of litigation. Saatchi said that he believed that health provision in the UK was "innovation averse" and that the current standard treatment offered to people with cancer was "degrading, medieval and ineffective" leading "only to death".
Saatchi's Medical Innovation Bill proposed that doctors be permitted to use non-standard treatments for any medical condition. The bill was formally introduced in 2013 and was co-adopted by the government in its passage through parliament.
An editorial in The Lancet Oncology said that Saatchi was promoting "precisely the type of emotional response that evidence-based practice seeks to avoid", that the current UK law already provided for medical innovation, and that the bill's provisions threatened to undermine the Hippocratic oath.
What does the Hippocratic Oath say? I believe it’s something to the effect of ‘Thou shalt do no harm’. How in the name of God can any oncologist make such an oath – when this almost all they do on a daily, hourly, basis?
It is particularly interesting that Cancer Research opposed the bill and declared there was ‘no pressing need’ for such legislation.
Because what many people do not realise is that Cancer Research is a major part of the institutionalised scam that is the Cancer Industry.
Saatchi himself was at pains to point out the Bill would be ‘no comfort to quacks or cowboys’. He was at pains to point out that it was not designed to undermine the authority of individual physicians, it was only designed to extend their remit.
Nevertheless the Bill was thrown out and a headline in a leading UK newspaper announced triumphantly ‘Lord ‘Saatchi’s Medical Innovation Bill Dumped!’
In response I wrote the following blog on 15th March 2015:
Are we surprised? Not in the slightest!
Supporters of the Bill are naturally outraged – and rightly so. Of course the bill should have been granted the courtesy of a Commons debate.
But when you read that it was opposed by organisations such as The Patients Association, Action against Medical Accidents, The Wellcome Trust, The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Physicians and described by the chairman of the House of Commons Health select committee as a ‘charlatan’s charter’ – what hope was there ever for it....?
With virtually the entire medical establishment arraigned against it, it was never going to prevail.
Is it a catastrophe? No I don’t think so. Because the sad fact is that nothing that comes from the pharmaceutical industry which feeds the medical profession is ever likely to resolve the problem of cancer.
Cancer is a problem of lifestyle – the lives we are leading in the 21st century - and there will never be any progress in treating the disease until this elementary fact is acknowledged.
But this is not really the concern of the medical profession. This is the concern of every citizen in the western world facing the challenges of living in our highly mechanized and ever expanding – and accelerating – society.
The medical profession like any other profession is big business. As such it is ruled and controlled by massive vested interests. And like any other business it has to protect its own interests – and this is principally why Saatchi’s bill has been ditched. Because it is very clearly not in the industry’s best interests to extend the parameters in which doctors are permitted to work and prescribe – the wider the parameters the more danger of litigation, the more danger of human error, the more danger of negative publicity...
The simple fact of the matter is that the sort of alternative treatments and drugs that the Bill was designed to facilitate are almost certainly not the alternative treatments necessary for those who have hit a brick wall in terms of the treatments available from their doctors and oncologists.
Let’s be frank about it – the sort of treatments and therapies I am thinking of, which might make the difference between whether someone dies of their cancer or not - would almost certainly be dismissed by your oncologist as quackery...
If you doubt what I’m saying take a look at the website for Cancer Research where you will find a page entitled Don’t Believe the Hype – 10 persistent Cancer Myths Debunked .
These myths are as follows:
Myth 1: Cancer is a man-made, modern disease
Myth 2: Superfoods prevent cancer
Myth 3: ‘Acidic’ diets cause cancer
Myth 4: Cancer has a sweet tooth
Myth 5: Cancer is a fungus – and sodium bicarbonate is the cure
Myth 6: There’s a miracle cancer cure…
Myth 7: …And Big Pharma are suppressing it
Myth 8: Cancer treatment kills more than it cures
Myth 9: We’ve made no progress in fighting cancer
Myth 10: Sharks don’t get cancer
And yes I have already itemised these ten points at the head of this page as some of the things I learned from my researches on the internet...
Let’s examine these 10 myths further because the fact is not one of them is a myth.
EVERY ONE OF THEM IS AN INCONVENIENT FACT THAT THE MULTI BILLION DOLLAR CANCER INDUSTRY WANTS TO CONVINCE YOU IS A MYTH
Indeed I would say that 7 out of the ten points are incontrovertible.
Nos 6, 9 & 10 are possibly debatable, but let’s look at these….
No 6 ‘There’s a miracle cancer cure…’ Well we all know that’s not true or Cancer Research would be out of a job and I wouldn’t be writing this blog. But there are unquestionably common denominators amongst all cancer sufferers and from these common denominators it is possible to deduce factors that can be addressed by every cancer patient – and have been addressed successfully by many.
See post ref David Servan Schreiber below
No 9 ‘We’ve made no progress fighting cancer’. Hardly a myth! Let’s say debatable.
No 10 Sharks don’t get cancer – well only very rarely…
If you google the question ‘Do sharks get cancer?’ you can quickly access advocates for both sides of the coin.
In an article in Scientific American Sharks Do Get Cancer David Shiffman, a shark researcher and doctoral student at the University of Miami is quoted: "Sharks get cancer," said Shiffman, who wasn't involved in the study. "Even if they didn't get cancer, eating shark products won't cure cancer any more than me eating Michael Jordan would make me better at basketball."….
See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sharks-do-get-cancer-tumor-found-great-white
This illustrates the typical debunking strategy – namely ridicule. Make your opponent out to be a complete idiot or charlatan and then you’ve no case to answer. Discredit the witness – ask any good barrister and he’ll tell you it’s the stock-in-trade in any courtroom.
Another link on the same Google page will lead you through to the website for the Reefquest Centre for Shark Research, a professional organization dedicated to shark and ray conservation headed up by a team of marine biologists.
In answer to a question Q: ‘Is it true that sharks don't get cancer? I've heard that their immune system is more advanced than was previously thought.’
The Centre replies: While it is not true that sharks do not develop cancer, they do have a remarkable cancer shield. Of the thousands of fish tumors in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, only about 15 are from elasmobranchs (The Smithsonian is an amazing place - where else can one go to see thousands of fish tumors?), and only two of these are thought to have been malignant.’
The answer continues:
‘A tumor can be thought of as an uncontrolled cellular growth. To support their very high metabolism, tumors secrete a hormone called 'angiogenin' which causes nearby blood vessels to grow new branches that surround the tumor, bringing in nutrients and carrying away waste products (this last is likely to be the mechanism of metastasis - where part of a tumor breaks away and establishes another cancerous colony elsewhere in the body). Research by Dr. Robert Langer of M.I.T. and other workers has revealed a promising anti-tumor agent obtainable in quantity from shark cartilage. Shark cartilage, it turns out, contains a compound antagonistic to the effects of angiogenin, called (cleverly enough) 'angiogenin inhibitor' - which does just what it sounds like: inhibits the formation of new blood vessels so that the proto-tumor starves or 'chokes' in its own waste products.’
See http://www.elasmo-research.org
In other words it may be a myth that sharks don’t get cancer – but there is extremely good reason to look long and hard at the fact that they have a remarkable cancer shield.
Now why I wonder can Cancer Research not give a balanced response exhibiting both sides of the argument. Instead of which they respond to their own heading
Myth 10: Sharks don’t get cancer with two words - They do.
Let’s look at the other ‘myths’ 1 by 1
Myth 1 Cancer is a man-made modern disease.
Now as far as I am aware nobody has ever asserted that the disease only appeared in modern times. The article draws attention to the fact that the Egyptians knew all about it and the fact that a 3000 year old skeleton has been found with all the ‘tell-tale signs of cancer’. The author then goes on to acknowledge that
‘It is certainly true that global lifestyle diseases like cancer are on the rise…. ‘
Well yes – precisely
Nobody pretends that cancer is a new disease. But the sheer scale of it now – the fact that 1 in every 2 of us is likely to get it – this IS new – this is something that has crept up upon us. There are many statistical studies, and like all statistics you can chop and change them whichever way you fancy – to suit your own particular argument – but what cannot be argued about is the fact that far, far, far more people are being diagnosed with cancer today than they were 100 years ago….
And to this extent cancer is indeed a modern disease – a disease that has become increasingly prevalent in modern times. And logic dictates that this must have something to do with the environment in which we are now living – what other explanation could there be??? - and the principle change that has occurred is that the environment we’re living in today is a great deal more toxic than it was 100 years ago, before the invention of the motorcar, the aeroplane, fast food, and our mass industry of telecommunications and computers. Indeed the world in which we live today would be unrecognizable to anybody alive 100 years ago (ask any centenarian…). added to which the pace of life, and the accompanying stress is light years away from what it was at the beginning of the 20th century.
To try to maintain that there is no connection between the explosion of cancer and the massive changes in our lifestyle over the last 100 years and more is surely ingenuous…
Myth 2 Superfoods cure cancer
Well I have to admit to never having seen this particular claim. Indeed as far as I’m aware it is illegal to claim that you’ve discovered a cure for cancer....
I HAVE seen it claimed that superfoods help stimulate the immune system – and that is something entirely different.
I have seen it claimed that in our world of fast food , all pre packaged and stuffed with additives and preservatives, we are not getting out of the foods we eat anything like the nutrients, enzymes and vitamins that used to be the case. And I have seen it claimed that super-foods are a useful way of supplementing our modern day diet in order to replenish those same nutrients, enzymes and vitamins, because the human body NEEDS these nutrients, enzymes, and vitamins – and without them the immune system will not function properly and without a properly functioning immune system you will be prone to all sorts of diseases – including cancer...
Isn’t it interesting that suddenly the medical establishment is claiming that they are researching treatments that aim to stimulate the body’s immune system to do the work of clearing away cancer cells – and this from an industry that has hitherto built its treatment protocols entirely around chemotherapy and radiotherapy – both of which decimate the immune system...? (Just Google Cancer & Immunotherapy for all the latest updates including from Cancer Research )
The irony of the situation is that the alternative complementary therapies that Cancer Research is so ready to debunk almost without exception have one aim and one aim only – namely to stimulate the immune system to do the work it has so conspicuously failed to do in the first place. Most of the ‘myths’ listed above are about just that....
Now that Immunotherapy is the new buzz word is it possible that super-foods will one day be included as part of your treatment protocol....?
Highly unlikely. Because where would be the profit potential in that?? Who is going to fund a double blind randomized study for products that cannot be patented? Clearly nobody in their right mind.
So what the pharmaceutical companies are going to have to do is find ways of adapting products which are already freely available to the general public into a synthetic compound that IS potentially patentable – so that they can redeem their costs....
And before you scream: But that’s Outrageous..! let me assure you that this procedure is the foundation of modern medicine. Most of every tablet that we purchase over the counter in our pharmacies and drug stores has originated once upon a time from some natural substance freely available to anybody with the will to access it....
Think of an illegal drug like marijuana. We all know that anybody can grow marijuana in their greenhouse or attic should they be so inclined and willing to take the risk...
But those who are in the business of making big money out of it cut it up with other substances that may be more readily – and cheaply – available to produce something that may have a similar effect to the original plant but is much cheaper to produce with a far greater profit potential for the manufacturer.
It’s called business. And business is about one thing and one thing only – and that’s making money.
Precisely the same happens with medical drugs. The only difference of course is that there is a degree of regulation controlling the pharmaceutical industry that is not present to your local drug pusher peddling his wares on street corners and in nightclubs and pubs...
But the principle remains the same. A natural product has been transformed into an unnatural compound that may or may not be an improvement on the original natural substance and is being sold to you at a significant mark-up thus ensuring that somebody somewhere is making a considerable profit out of your need or desire to acquire the compound on offer...
So even if super-foods were to become an essential part of any cancer protocol don’t expect to see a name you recognise on the information sheet – which doesn’t mean it might not be there somewhere..
(If you doubt what I’m saying re big business Google Forbes magazine for May 2014 and search for an article by their staff reporter entitled ‘Is this how we’ll cure cancer?’ to get some idea of what’s involved in the researching and funding of new cancer treatments...
Myth 3 Acidic Diets cause Cancer
The thing which irritates me most about these ‘myths’ is the way in which they are presented. Of course we all know people who live on a diet of popcorn, ready meals, junk food, alcohol and sugar pops that have never yet received a cancer diagnosis and may never do so in the future. But does that mean we should all be doing the same? Does that mean that this is a healthy way to live and conducive to a balanced healthy lifestyle and optimum health? Of course not
Obesity is reckoned to be second only to cigarette smoking in terms of increasing the likelihood of a cancer diagnosis. Obesity is caused by acidic diets- diets stuffed with artificial properties that the human body cannot assimilate or put to good use – hence the surplus - manifest as rolls of fat...
Let’s rephrase this particular ‘Myth’ and see if it can still be termed a myth at all. How about:
‘Acidic Diets Compromise the Body’s Immune System Leaving the Individual Prey to all manner of Chronic Diseases – including Cancer...’
Would the World Health Organisation quarrel with that statement? Would they term that a Myth? I somehow doubt it...
Why would cancer researchers be concentrating their efforts on Immunotherapy – on finding ways to stimulate the body’s immune system - if the immune system had no part to play in assisting in a recovery from cancer? And if this is the case could it not possibly be the case that doing everything possible, including avoiding an acidic diet, to optimise the strength of the body’s immune system could just possibly be the best way to avoid a cancer diagnosis in the first place...?
Placed in this perspective is it not downright irresponsible to declare the statement ‘Acidic diets cause cancer’ to be a Myth....?
Myth 4 Cancer Has a Sweet Tooth
Of all the so called ‘myth’s on this page I find this the most outrageous. Because this has been proven and known to be the case for well nigh 85 years now. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize in 1931 for conclusively proving the fact that cancer cells survive not through a process of respiration as is the case with normal cells but through a process of fermentation – that is they require glucose – and only glucose – in order to survive. (You can find links to Warburg’s research elsewhere on this website)
Now the argument that is always presented against the notion ‘Cancer Has A Sweet Tooth’ is that how much sugar you consume does not necessarily influence the amount of glucose present at a cellular level. I personally have never understood this argument. Surely it’s common sense to assume that somebody who stuffs themselves with cakes and sweets is going to have a great deal more glucose available in their body than somebody who doesn’t?
The article points out that all cells feed off glucose – not just cancer cells. So where is the justification in telling cancer sufferers to avoid sugar?
But surely there is a distinction to be made between an absolute requirement for glucose - which is the case for cancer cells - and the average requirement for normal cells that exist principally through a process of respiration?
Surely it is nothing but common sense to tell cancer sufferers to avoid or at least reduce in their diets carbohydrates and other foods that are likely to promote glucose and are therefore going to feed the cancer by providing a sympathetic environment in which the cancer cells may proliferate?
‘Cancer has a sweet tooth’ is emphatically NOT a myth. It is a complex subject as the article points out, but once again to dismiss it as a myth is highly irresponsible.
Myth 5: Cancer is a fungus – and sodium bicarbonate is the cure
This is a concept that has recently been promoted by a renegade Italian oncologist Tullio Simoncini who has claimed remarkable results for treating malignant tumours with bicarbonate of soda – and has been struck off the medical register for his pains. Unrepentant Simoncini continues to practice – albeit underground…
But Simoncini did not invent the notion that bicarbonate of soda could be a means of tackling cancer.
It is a commonplace of alternative medicine that most – if not all - disease occurs as a result of too much acidity in the body which compromises the immune system and that one way, if not the ONLY way of rebooting the immune system is to alkalize the body – raise the ph of the bloodstream. Why? Because only when the ph of the blood is at its optimal level of 7.4 can the cells respirate properly. And while they are respirating properly there is a great deal less likelihood of cancer – or any other disease for that matter - developing…
A body inundated with oxygen cannot develop cancer. This is what Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize for identifying – that Cancer and Oxygen are mutually exclusive of each other – they cannot co-exist. And to my knowledge nobody since has been awarded the Nobel Prize for proving that Warburg was wrong.
So where does sodium bicarbonate come into it? Sodium bicarbonate is one of the strongest alkalis known in Nature. If ingested it automatically and immediately creates a drastic shift in the body’s ph level. The higher the ph of the blood the more oxygen can circulate. The more oxygen can circulate the more efficient the immune response, the more efficient the immune response the less likelihood there is of the organism succumbing to chronic disease like cancer….
That’s the theory in a nutshell. And it make sense to me. It may never be proven. But by God if I ever find myself sent home to die by an oncologist I’ll be reaching for the sodium bicarbonate!
Now of course the problem with sodium bicarbonate is that it is a commonal garden product that can be purchased very cheaply by anybody at anytime – it cannot be patented and therefore there will NEVER be subjected to a double blind randomized trial to determine whether or not there is some justification for Simoncini’s claims .
So is the statement ‘Sodium bicarbonate kills cancer’ a myth? No! It is just not proven by randomized double blind studies – and it never will be! But does this mean it doesn’t work? Not necessarily.
Anecdotally there is substantial evidence to prove that it does work. I have personally met people who are convinced that it works. How do they know? Because they have been sent home to die by their oncologists and in the spirit of ’Well I’ve nothing to lose’ – for indeed what have you to lose if you’ve been told you’ve only 30 days to live – they’ve given it a go, they have treated themselves with Sodium Bicarbonate and have found that they are still alive not just 30 days later but 5 years later…
One such instance is Vito Johnson whose story you can find at www.phkillscancer.com Take a look. It’s an inspiring story. Vito does not hold shares in Arm & Hammer (manufacturers of Sodium Bicarboante) as far as I know. He has no vested interest in promoting his story – until very recently he was not selling a book or anything else on his website (admittedly this has changed but I personally don’t begrudge him attempting to make a few quid from telling what is a remarkable story….
See also https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1106973/pg1
https://educate-yourself.org/cn/vernonjohnstonupdate16oct13.shtml
Myth 7: …And Big Pharma are suppressing it….
I refer the reader to video available on you tube:
CANCER: THE FORBIDDEN CURES
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWLrfNJICeM
The title of the video says it all. How can you have ‘forbidden cures’ – of course you can’t. A cure is a cure is a cure and it doesn’t matter how it works or who did it – if it works. if it cures you then it’s got to be good – surely? Well not of course to Big pharma and all who sail with it. This film provides a history of Big Pharma’s successful eradication of the notion that there is any cure for cancer other than chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery – none of which of course will ever cure you of anything.
I have no interest in conspiracy theories. I do not believe it is a healthy way to live. However an awareness of the facts is helpful to gain an understanding of why things are the way they are – an awareness of what happened yesterday may help to understand what’s happening today….
The reason the treatments featured in this video are forbidden is because they cannot be patented and therefore they cannot be proven – or disproven.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t work!!!
Knowledge is power. And the critical thing is to understand why the medical profession is constituted as it is, why it is so adamant that only it can medicate - and why anything and everything that is not included in its protocols is to be dismissed as quackery.
When it is your life at stake it is critically important that you understand that it may well be that you have to resort to ‘quackery’ in order to survive. It may well be that you have to accept that Doctor does not ALWAYS know best….
This is an uncomfortable fact to have to acknowledge. And in my experience is often a fact that won’t be even countenanced…so ingrained is the notion in our society that Science has the answer to all our problems and afflictions – and if it doesn’t there is no solution to be found…
Myth 8: Cancer treatment kills more than it cures
This is one of those unquantifiable statements that it is hardly worth discussing. Statistics can be produced out of a hat to support both sides of the equation.
What can be said without controversy is that the vast majority of allopathic treatments for cancer – whether chemotherapy or radiotherapy carry with them very significant risks that could very well accelerate rather than avert a fatal outcome...
How can I say this? Because the vast majority of chemotherapy drugs come with a warning on the box - words to the effect that a possible side effect of the treatment could well be secondary cancer – in other words the drugs are in themselves carcinogenic – they promote cancer....
In many cases before the drugs are administered the patient must sign a disclaimer acknowledging that the treatment they are about to receive may give rise to secondary cancers. What the small print does not say is that in many cases if this is the case and the treatment gives rise to secondary cancer – there will be little more that the medical profession can do other than offer palliative care – in other words you will have arrived at the end of the line – and will almost certainly die.
So it would seem as though in many cases all the treatment is doing is buying a little time. What cannot be proven one way or the other is whether the patient would have been better off not accepting any of the treatment in the first place...
But one thing can be said with certainty is that once a patient has engaged on a course of chemotherapy their chances of survival hang in the balance – there is absolutely NO guarantee that the treatment will improve the condition, and there is every possibility that it will only advance the day the patient actually succumbs to the disease – or complications thereof.
Why? Because chemotherapy decimates the immune system - an immune system that is already compromised by the disease.
It may be a myth to say Cancer treatment kills more than it cures, but it would not be an exaggeration to say your chances have hardly been improved.....
Myth 9: We’ve made no progress in fighting cancer
Well we’re back to the old problem of statistics. The statistics issued by Cancer Research would seem to indicate that we’re making amazing progress. But is that the experience of the man in the street?
How many of us are surrounded by instances of cancer diagnosis that lead to one outcome and one outcome only.....?
It certainly doesn’t feel like we’re making much progress does it?
The fact that has to be remembered is that cancer diagnosis has become far more efficient than it ever was previously.
But is this really an advance?
The fact of the matter is we all have cancer cells present in our bodies at any given moment in our lives.
Our bodies, our immune systems, are fighting cancer – successfully - every day of our lives. We just don’t know it ....or rather we didn’t - because previously we didn’t have the technology to investigate what was happening in our bodies at the cellular level.
Now we have extensive screening programmes that are daily eliciting thousands of new cancer diagnoses...
The question that has to be asked is this – how many of these new diagnoses would ever have developed into full blown cancer leading ultimately to the demise of the patient?
How many people today are being told they have cancer – who never need to have known? How many people are being prescribed a cocktail of toxic drugs for no very good reason at all? It’s a disturbing thought.
It’s particularly disturbing in light of the fact that the medical profession is doing its best to persuade the man in the street that taking supplements and vitamins is either a waste of time or actively harmful, while they prescribe whatever latest drug has been approved for the treatment of possibly fictitious disease – with impunity.
If it is the case – as I believe it will eventually be proven to be – that the only efficient way of removing cancer will be through the actions of the immune system – is it not possible that a significant proportion of those new diagnoses that medical science have now succeeded in making would NEVER have developed into life-threatening disease....?
If this were to be the case of course the increase in success stories for allopathic treatments would take on a different complexion.
SUMMARY
In summation my main objection to Cancer Research’s attempts to debunk the so-called Myths – which hopefully I’ve done something to convince may not all be the myths they’re made out to be – is that it seems to me to be criminal to try to prevent cancer sufferers looking any further than the allopathic treatments on offer in the hospitals...
This might be warrantable if it were the case that those allopathic treatments were spectacularly successful. But we all know that is not the case.
Therefore to actively discourage people from investigating alternative treatments – treatments which may possibly succeed where the orthodox treatments have failed - displays in my view an astounding arrogance – the sort of arrogance I associate with religious fanatics.
Let me give you an analogy from my own life. Recently I suffered from raging toothache. I went to the dentist and was told that this was as a result of an exposed nerve – that the problem would either get worse and I would be forced to have either an extraction or root canal treatment or if I was lucky the problem would resolve itself by the nerve eventually giving up the ghost.
Naturally I hoped I might be lucky. In the meantime the dentist prescribed me a very expensive toothpaste that might help alleviate the symptoms. I dutifully took myself off to the pharmacy and was told that my prescription would be ready the following day. In the meantime I was still in agony and only able to function with the assistance of vast amounts of ibuprofen, paracetamol and brandy….
Well of course there’s only so much ibuprofen, paracetamol & brandy any one human organism can stomach before you can expect serious repercussions, and my problem was that however much I consumed it didn’t seem to be making a blind bit of difference…
So I went on line and googled ‘natural remedies for tooth pain’. One of the first things I came across was chewing raw garlic. This was excruciating but unquestionably made a difference - the pain abated to something I could live with. I then found a page devoted to home remedies, no 1 of which was salt and pepper mixed to a paste with a little water and applied to affected area.
And this made a phenomenal difference. Within minutes I hardly knew I had a problem at all.
Now why couldn’t the dentist have mentioned this simple remedy and saved me days of excruciating pain..?
BECAUSE IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN HIS INTERESTS TO DO SO!
And for all I know he’s under a similar obligation to the obligation any doctor or oncologist works under – not to entertain or give credence to any alternative or complementary therapy that has not been subjected to double blind randomized trials…branded of course as quackery.
And I don’t blame him. Anymore than I blame my daughter’s oncologist who refused to even acknowledge any knowledge of alternative treatments – let alone discuss them - at the point in Erin’s treatment where it looked like we were coming to the end of the road and they’d very shortly be sending her home to die.
He’s got a job to do and he has to abide by the rules – or risk losing his job and his livelihood…
But I’m glad I took the initiative and discovered for myself that a little salt and pepper could save me hours of agony. BECAUSE IT WORKED!!!! It put me out of my misery. It solved the problem. And frankly that is ALL that I require from any treatment.
And I’m glad I also took the initiative after Erin was diagnosed with 4th stage metastatic lung cancer and given only a 20% chance of survival that I investigated every conceivable alternative natural therapy for cancer and incorporated as many elements as I could into her lifestyle…
And I’m glad I ignored ANY page like Cancer Research have posted debunking ‘myths’ - because the more I have researched and the longer my daughter remains cancer free the more convinced I am that the answer to the problem is not to be found in the corridors of our cancer wards but in those very same Myths that Cancer Research is so determined to Debunk…
However I would like to emphasise that I do not view the treatment of Cancer as an Either/Or conundrum – Allopathic v Complementary/Alternative…
This thinking seems to me curiously pointless – and frankly unintelligent – and leads to the sort of stand-off that Cancer Research seems to be determined to promote.
I have said many times and will repeat here that the surgeon who operated on my daughter saved her life – several times over. I have no doubt about this. And it is quite clear to me that allopathic medicine excels in crisis management – in averting fatality.
I myself would not be here writing this had the medical profession not intervened when my spleen ruptured 20 years ago on Boxing Day 2001 and left me with only a 50/50 chance of survival when I went into surgery. If I hadn’t had the surgery I would certainly have died.
What modern medicine can achieve is nothing short of miraculous….
But cancer is not SOLELY about crisis management. The World Health Organisation tacitly acknowledges this fact when it declares obesity second only to cigarette smoking as a risk factor. Obesity as much as cigarette smoking is a lifestyle choice that each of us can make for ourselves….
It is a basic human right to have a point of view and a cancer diagnosis does not remove that basic human right.
I am in the process of writing a book about our experience of what it is to have a child with cancer. The book will be called Erin’s Story and will attempt to itemize precisely what our experience was – and hopefully will do something to alert other parents of children with cancer to what they may expect when they first enter a paediatric oncology ward.
Parents need to know that once their child is assigned an oncologist to a large extent they are handing over their child’s destiny into that oncologist’s care.
But they still have the right to a point of view.
They still have the right to question every step of the way the treatments and protocols that are being introduced.
And they still need to make sure they are confident that those treatments and protocols are in their child’s best interests.
And they need to know that, even if they are not confident those treatments and protocols are in their child’s best interests, they may need to allow the treatments to proceed anyway - because if they don’t they could risk having their child being made a ward of court. (There have been several high profile cases recently where this has been the case.) And this is NEVER in the child’s best interests. Children need to be with their parents (unless of course those parents are actively unfit or malicious…)
But parents need to assert their right to a point of view, and need to be aware that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, they have the capacity to make a difference to whether their child survives their ordeal – or not.
And this means being prepared to make lifestyle changes that just might possibly make the difference.
Don’t allow yourself to be made to feel helpless and don’t be hoodwinked into believing there is nothing you can do to help your child. This will be the basic message of my book. Because our experience was it is well nigh impossible not to feel helpless.
And the situation is only compounded by being told that anything that you might consider doing to help your child is little better than quackery….
It may very well be that nothing we introduced into Erin’s lifestyle made a jot of difference in terms of the progress of the disease and that she would be precisely where she is today had we not radically altered her diet, introduced weekly sessions of hyperbaric oxygen and introduced a plethora of supplements to stimulate the immune system…
But considering where we are now and where we were three years ago when told that Erin’s chances of survival were 20% would we take the risk of NOT taking a proactive stance and doing all those things??? Absolutely not.
Because nothing that we’ve done has done her any harm – quite the reverse in fact. All we can see is the benefits of the lifestyle changes we’ve made – not just to Erin but to the whole family..
And most of all it seems to us to be nothing more than common sense to do ANYTHING that MIGHT make it more difficult for the cancer to return…
And we are convinced, solely from our own experience, that there is a great deal you can do to put the odds in your favour. And the message we want to get across is –
DON’T LET ANYBODY TELL YOU ANY DIFFERENT!!!!
Anti Cancer by David Servan-Schreiber
By jonathan, Mar 23 2015 05:33PM
After I posted the previous blog I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t overstated the case for safeguarding alternative treatments and therapies for cancer.
But then I came across the best book I have come across about cancer in 3 years of intensive research: Anti Cancer – A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber ....
See https://www.anticancerbook.com
I read the book cover to cover and by the end of it I was convinced that far from overstating the position if anything I have understated it.
It also convinced me that Cancer Research’s Myth debunking exercise is nothing short of outrageous...
Don’t take my word for it. Read David Servan-Schreiber’s book – it’s available in Kindle edition on Amazon for less than £10.
Why do I recommend it so highly?
Because aside from being extremely readable and a moving account of one man’s battle with cancer, it’s stuffed full of references to academic, scientific studies that prove beyond reasonable doubt the importance of incorporating an awareness of all the lifestyle issues that Cancer Research would dismiss as unproven or irrelevant....
David Servan-Schreiber was a French physician and neuroscientist with impeccable credentials . He was a clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He was a lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine of Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1. He was co-founder and then director of the Centre for Integrative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He was also one of the founders of the US branch of Médecins Sans Frontières, the international organization that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
He spent his entire working life as a professional scientist and physician and he had access to all the latest research into cancer treatments whether allopathic or alternative.
After he was first diagnosed he asked his oncologist if he should adjust his lifestyle at all and was told ‘Just carry on as normal – nothing you do will make any difference’
Which is what he did. He carried on as normal. His average lunch was a plate of chilli con carne, a bagel and a pepsi cola….
Inevitably the cancer returned. And it was at this juncture that somebody asked him ‘What are you doing about the terrain?’ That is - what was he doing to ensure his body was as unfriendly to cancer as possible?
And that was the point at which he started researching anything and everything that might make a difference.
His book Anti Cancer is the fruit of all those researches
Sceptics will point to the fact that David Servan-Schreiber died of cancer at the age of 50 in July 2011. But it should be noted that this was 20 years after his cancer was first diagnosed, a cancer (glioblastoma) which untreated has a median survival time of 3 months and which with maximal treatment fewer than 1 in 4 survive 2 years and fewer than 10% survive five years or more.
David Servan-Schreiber survived 20 years and for most of those 20 years was fit enough to pursue a full-time career and family life, and put in to book-form the discoveries that made such a phenomenal difference to his own quality of life.
Servan-Schreiber was not a crank or a quack. He always advocated accepting all the conventional treatments available.
But he was adamant it would be insanity to ignore all the evidence that Lifestyle choices could make a phenomenal difference to the long term prognosis subsequent to a cancer diagnosis.
And incidentally make a phenomenal difference to your quality of life…..