How Scientific are Orthodox Cancer Treatments?

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How Scientific are Orthodox Cancer Treatments?

by Walter Last

 

The medical profession takes much pride in the

rigorous scientific research that underpins its

approach to cancer treatment. Someone newly diagnosed

with cancer faces enormous pressure from our

healthcare system to start immediately on a scientific

medical treatment program that involves surgery,

chemotherapy and radiation in various combinations.

Being fearful and in shock, most individuals in this

situation are no match for the overwhelming power of

medical authority.

 

How would you react in this situation? You may be

leaning towards natural therapies for simple health

problems, but for something as serious as cancer you

may feel safer with the tested and proven methods of

orthodox medical care. Nevertheless, if you have the

chance, read the following before you make your final

decision. You may then have a better appreciation of

natural cancer treatment.

 

In this article I have assembled some little known

facts about the science behind orthodox cancer

treatment. In cancer research, success - expressed as

a five-year survival rate - is established by

comparing other forms and combinations of treatment

with the results from surgery alone. However, the

success rate of surgery has rarely been compared with

survival rates of untreated patients and never with

patients who have adopted natural therapies.

Therefore, orthodox cancer treatment is basically

unscientific. The overall supposed cure rate is not

higher than can be accounted for by spontaneous

remissions and the placebo effect.

 

In support of my position, I offer the following key

statements and conclusions from medical and scientific

publications. " Studies appear to show that early

intervention is helpful, because pre-cancerous lesions

are included in early removals that frequently would

not become cancerous if left untouched [author's

emphasis]. " In other words early intervention appears

to be helpful because lesions are removed that are not

cancerous but are counted as being cancer, and that

improves the survival statistics. " Also, it does not

matter how much or how little of a breast is removed;

the outcome is always the same. " This statement

indicates that surgery does not improve survival

chances, otherwise there would be a difference between

radical surgery and lumpectomy.

 

Researchers have said it is complacent to continue

subjecting at least 70% of women with breast cancer to

a futile, mutilating procedure. Furthermore there is

no evidence that early mastectomy affects survival; if

patients knew this they would most likely refuse

surgery.

 

In 1993, the editor of the Lancet pointed out that,

despite various modifications of breast cancer

treatment, death rates remained unchanged. He

acknowledged that despite the almost weekly releases

of miracle breakthroughs, the medical profession with

its extraordinary capacity for self-delusion (his

words not mine) in all truth has lost its way. At the

same time he rejected the view of those who believe

that salvation will come from increasing chemotherapy

after surgery to just below the rate where it kills

the patient. He asked, " Would it not be more

scientific to ask why our approach has failed? " Not

too soon to ask this question after a century of

mutilating women, I would say. The title of this

editorial, appropriately, is " Breast cancer: Have we

Lost our Way? "

 

Basically all types and combinations of breast cancer

treatment appear to result in the low long-term

survival rates. The only conclusion that can be drawn

from this is that conventional treatment does not

improve long-term survival rates. Even worse, Michael

Baum MD, a leading breast cancer surgeon, found that

breast cancer surgery tends to increase the risk of

relapse or death within three years. He also linked

surgery to accelerating the cancer by stimulating the

formation of metastases in other parts of the body.

 

An earlier German comparison found that untreated

postmenopausal women with breast cancer live longer

than treated women, and the recommendation was not to

treat postmenopausal women for breast cancer. This

conclusion confirms a finding by Ernst Krokowski, a

German professor of radiology. He demonstrated

conclusively that metastasis is commonly triggered by

medical intervention, including sometimes even a

biopsy or surgery unrelated to the cancer .

Disturbance of a tumour causes a greatly increased

number of cancer cells to enter the bloodstream, while

most medical intervention (especially chemotherapy)

suppresses the immune system. This combination is a

recipe for disaster. It is the metastases that kill,

while primary tumours in general, and those in the

breast in particular can be relatively harmless. These

findings have been confirmed by recent research which

shows that surgery, even if unrelated to the cancer,

can trigger an explosive spread of metastases and lead

to an untimely end.

 

This follows earlier reports that radical surgery for

prostate cancer also tends to spread the disease.

Actually, prostate cancer was investigated in the

first randomized clinical trials for any type of

cancer. After 23 years, there was no difference in the

survival rates of those who had surgery and the

controls who did not have surgery, but those with

surgery suffered more morbidity such as impotence or

incontinence.

 

The late H B Jones, Professor of Medical Physics, was

a leading US cancer statistician. He said in a speech

before the American Cancer Society in 1969 that no

study had proved that early intervention improves the

chances of survival. On the contrary, his studies

proved conclusively that untreated cancer victims live

up to four times longer and with better quality of

life than treated ones. Needless to say, he was not

invited again.

 

Massaging Statistics

An epidemiological study confirmed the questionable

value of conventional therapy by concluding that

" medical interventions for cancer have had a

negligible effect on survival " . Even the conservative

New England Journal of Medicine had an article with

the headline, " Cancer Undefeated " .

 

Common ways to make medical statistics look more

favourable are as follows. Patients who die during

prolonged treatment with chemotherapy or radiotherapy

are not counted in the statistics because they did not

receive the full treatment. In the control group,

everyone who dies is counted.

 

Furthermore, success commonly is judged by the

percentage of shrinking tumours, regardless of patient

survival: but if the rate or length of survival is

measured, then it is only in terms of dying from the

treated disease. It is not normally shown how many of

the patients die due to the treatment itself.

 

The current trend is to pick up pre-cancerous

conditions very early and treat them as cancer. While

this statistically increases the number of people with

cancer, it also artificially prolongs survival times

and lowers death rates, thereby making medical

treatments appear to be more successful. However,

there may also be a genuine component of improved

survival, as increasing numbers of cancer patients opt

for additional natural therapies.

 

An investigation of the records of 1.2 million cancer

patients revealed that the death rate attributed to

non-cancer death shortly after treatment was 200%

higher than would normally be expected. Two years

after diagnosis and treatment, this excess death rate

had fallen to 50%. The most common cause for the

excess death rate was listed as heart and respiratory

failure. This means that, instead of dying several

years later from cancer, these patients died from the

effects of the treatment and helped greatly to improve

the cancer statistics because they did not strictly

die of cancer. This misleading report of cancer deaths

has led to demands for more honest statistics.

 

After analyses of several large mammogram-screening

studies found that mammography leads to more

aggressive treatment with no survival benefits, even

the editor of The Lancet had to admit there is no

reliable evidence from large randomized trials to

support mammography-screening programs. The

significance of this statement goes far beyond the use

of mammograms.

 

It is openly acknowledged by the proponents of

conventional medicine that they have no effective way

of helping patients with advanced cancer. Until now,

the catch-cry has always been " Detect it early, then

it can be cured " . These mammogram evaluation studies

demonstrate that it does not matter when cancer is

detected; the conventional methods are useless, as is

the whole multibillion-dollar cancer industry (my

conclusion).

 

A 13-year Canadian study involving 40,000 women

compared physical breast examinations with

examinations plus mammograms. The

mammogram-plus-examination group had many more

lumpectomies and surgeries with a death rate of 107

compared with 105 deaths in the physical examination

group.

 

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a common,

non-invasive form of breast tumour. Most cases of DCIS

are detected through the use of mammography. In

younger women, 92% of all cancers detected by

mammography are of this type. Nevertheless, on

average, 44% - and in some areas 60% - of these are

treated by mastectomy. As most of these tumours are

harmless, this needless treatment makes survival

statistics appear to be better than they actually are.

 

While conventional diagnosis is invasive and may help

to spread the cancer, a kind of electrodermal

screening - called the Biofield test - developed by a

team from eight European hospitals and universities,

was reported in The Lancet as being 99.1% accurate in

diagnosing malignancy in breast tumours.

 

A large meta-analysis of radiotherapy results for lung

cancer showed that after two years there were 21% more

deaths in the group that had radiotherapy in addition

to surgery as compared to those who had surgery alone.

The Lancet article stated that the rationale is to

kill any cancer cells remaining after surgery, but it

is a shame that the facts do not agree with this

theory.

 

Chemotherapy: Medical Russian Roulette

Chemotherapy for children with leukaemia and Hodgkin's

disease is the proud showpiece of the arguably only

apparent success of orthodox cancer therapy. Now a

long-term follow-up study shows that such children

develop 18 times more secondary malignant tumours

later in life. Even worse, girls face a 75 times

(7,500%) higher risk of breast cancer by the time they

are forty. A main problem appears to be the

development of deep or systemic Candida albicans

infections shortly after commencement of chemotherapy.

If these infections are not appropriately treated,

then relapses or future health problems are likely to

occur.

 

A study of ovarian cancer found that the risk of

developing leukaemia after treatment with chemotherapy

increased 21-fold or 2,100%. Chemotherapy showed a

clear dose-dependency whereby the incidence of

triggered leukaemia doubled between low-dose and

moderate-dose then quadrupled between moderate-dose

and high-dose groups. Also, other tumours commonly

develop after treating malignancies with chemotherapy.

In a trial for multiple myeloma, no advantage was

found by using chemotherapy as compared to no

treatment.

 

The respected German biostatistician Ulrich Abel

presented a comprehensive analysis of over 3,000

clinical trials on the value of chemotherapy for

advanced carcinoma (for instance, breast cancer).

(Oncologists tend to use chemotherapy because this may

induce a temporary shrinking of the tumour, called a

response; however it also tends to produce unpleasant

side-effects.) Abel concluded that there is no direct

evidence that chemotherapy prolongs survival in these

cases. Abel stated: " Many oncologists take it for

granted that response to therapy prolongs survival, an

opinion based on a fallacy and which is not supported

by clinical studies. "

 

Ralph W. Moss, PhD, in Questioning Chemotherapy,

provides a detailed analysis of this subject. The

overall conclusion of the book is that there is no

evidence in terms of the majority of cancers that

chemotherapy extends life.

 

However, even if chemotherapy were to extend life for

a few months, what about the quality of this life? Tom

Nesi, a former Director of Public Affairs at a

pharmaceutical giant, Bristol-Myers Squibb, wrote in

the New York Times about the successful treatment of

his wife, which statistically extended her life for

three months. Two weeks after the treatment, she

scribbled on a note-pad: Depressed - no more, please.

I am not surprised about reports that most oncologists

would not have their own family members use these

treatments.

 

The Full Treatment

Virginia Livingston (later Virginia

Livingston-Wheeler), a remarkable cancer researcher

and therapist, in her book, Cancer: A New

Breakthrough, gives an account of one of the many

patients she saw who came to her after receiving the

full medical treatment for breast cancer.

 

" After discovering a small breast lump, she had

radical mastectomy. None of the lymph nodes removed

from the armpit [was] involved; all of the cancer had

been successfully removed. To make extra sure there

was no re-growth in the scars, she received radiation

treatment, and also her ovaries were taken out.

 

" To her dismay, a year later several small nodules

appeared in the old breast scar. Again she received

radiation. More lumps appeared on the neck that called

for still more radiation. In addition, she received

male hormone therapy, resulting in acne and coarse

facial hair. Still the nodules came back. Now she

received chemotherapy with the usual side-effects.

 

" Before her hair could regrow, pain in her bones was

diagnosed as bone cancer. More chemotherapy and

hormone therapy was expected to help. However, several

months later the bone lesions became worse and removal

of her adrenal glands was recommended and performed.

Hopefully, that would prolong her suffering for

another year. After that, the removal of her pituitary

gland might give her a further three to six months to

live.

 

" By now her faith in her medical advisors was

sufficiently shaken that she came to Dr Livingston for

help. She asked to be examined without her husband

being present, as she wanted to spare him the agony of

seeing her naked body, distorted, mutilated and

shrunken with an immensely swollen abdomen and thin

legs. Finally she whispered: " Doctor, shall I kill

myself? "

 

Conspiracy of Silence

Why are they doing this? (By " they " , I am referring to

what is commonly called " The Cancer Establishment " ). I

believe the answer was given by the eminent medical

commentator and former editor of New Scientist, Dr

Donald Gould, in a timeless article called " Cancer: A

Conspiracy of Silence " The subtitle summarises his

position: " The commonest cancers are as resistant to

treatment today as they were 40 or 50 years ago.

Nothing is to be gained by pretending that the battle

against cancer is slowly but surely being won. "

 

This truth has been deliberately concealed from the

general public. According to Gould, the reason for

this conspiracy of silence is money. The public must

continue to see the Cancer Establishment as a winner

to continue providing money. One of the quoted

scientists said that with tens of thousands of

radiologists and millions of dollars in equipment, one

just gives radiation treatment even if study after

study shows that it does more harm than good.

 

Gould also is of the opinion that patients who could

be comfortable without medical treatment until their

inevitable death, with medical treatment are made

miserable in a pointless attempt to postpone death for

a few unhappy weeks. But, of course, that is when most

of the money is being made. Gould feels that they

poison their patients with drugs and rays and mutilate

them with unnecessary surgery in a desperate attempt

to treat the untreatable.

 

Not much has changed since Gould wrote this article in

1976. In a recent edition of The Moss Reports, we can

read that long-term survival from common cancers such

as prostate, breast, colorectal and lung " has barely

budged since the 1970s " In summary, this means that

there has been no significant improvement in cancer

survival rates in the last 70 to 80 years.

 

The Scientific Basis for Drug Approvals

It is also interesting to know the scientific basis

for the approval of cancer drugs. Most of these drugs

come initially from the USA. In the past, a company

had to submit two favourable, large randomized trials

to obtain US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

approval. " Favourable " means that there must be a

certain rate of tumour shrinkage lasting for at least

one month. It was not necessary to show that the

treatment prolonged survival, and it was not necessary

to submit the results of any unfavourable results from

the same drug.

 

These " strict, scientific " guidelines were relaxed in

the Clinton era, and drug companies can now get FDA

approval on the basis of small preliminary trials,

even if a large randomised trial may be unfavourable.

In a remarkable statement about drug approvals, an FDA

spokesperson pointed out that any delay in approval

did not mean unnecessary deaths because " all these

treatments for advanced cancer don't cure people " .

 

Perhaps the situation is worse than a case of just

ineffective treatments. A group of respected

researchers reviewed all the published statistical

evidence on the outcome of medical treatments, and

showed that the medical system is now the leading

cause of death and injury in the USA. Deaths

attributable to heart disease in 2001 were 666,697,

for cancer the figure was 553,251, while for medical

interventions it was 783,936 per year! Appropriately

the title of this study is " Death by Medicine " .

 

You may wonder why health authorities turn a blind eye

to these massive fatalities, mostly caused by drugs,

while concentrating their energies instead on

suppressing food supplements and natural remedies.

 

A symptom of this official attitude is the recent saga

of Pan Pharmaceuticals, when in 2003 the Australian

government forced the largest local manufacturer of

natural remedies into bankruptcy, allegedly because

there was a possibility that these products might

cause someone to get sick or even die.

 

In my view, a main reason for this distorted official

attitude is the fact that health departments and

regulatory authorities are dominated by medical

doctors who have been trained (partly with money from

drug companies) to believe that drugs are beneficial

and natural remedies are potentially harmful. Despite

a majority of Western populations preferring natural

remedies, almost all political parties promote

dependency on pharmaceutical drugs.

 

Therefore, as a first step to changing this oppressive

political climate, we urgently need a political party

that promotes natural healthcare rather than drug

dependency.

 

We can find a clue for the cause of these appalling

" Death by Medicine " statistics in an editorial by

Richard Smith in the British Medical Journal: " Yet

only 15% of the articles in medical journals are

scientifically sound, and partly because many

treatments have never been assessed at all " .

 

A good demonstration of the unscientific nature of

medical research is the recent fiasco with hormone

replacement therapy (HRT). Several decades ago, it was

shown in " rigorous scientific " research to be safe and

effective, otherwise it would not have been approved.

It was strongly promoted as protecting against heart

disease and cancer. Now every new trial shows HRT to

be dangerous and to increase the risk of developing

heart disease and cancer.

 

What went wrong? Why was this not picked up earlier?

Quite simply, the original research was conducted with

the aim of generating profits while recent researchers

are not sharing in any of these profits. Therefore, I

mistrust any research that is conducted with profit in

mind. Unfortunately, this presently applies to most

medical research.

 

The Way Forward

It is now 32 years since President Nixon declared war

on cancer. Since then, US $2 trillion has been spent

on conventional cancer treatment and research, with

the result that more individuals are dying from cancer

than ever before. While there have been many studies

to evaluate the effects of various nutrients on

different cancers, none of the two trillion dollars

has been available for natural therapists to conduct

trials of holistic cancer therapies. Natural

therapists have had to face a century of persecution,

many of them being dragged before courts and ending up

in jail.

 

Would it not be more scientific to evaluate the

methods of natural cancer therapists rather than put

the therapists in jail? Most alternative cancer

clinics in the USA have had to relocate to Mexico.

(For a list of such clinics worldwide, see the website

http://www.cancure.org)

 

An holistic cancer approach includes superior

nutrition, herbs, electromedicine and vibration or

energy medicine, emotional healing and mind therapy.

The only reported study that compares an holistic

approach involves the Gerson therapy in an evaluation

of five-year survival rates of 153 melanoma patients.

Here, 100% of Gerson therapy patients with Stage 1 and

2 cancers survived, but only 79% survived who had

conventional therapy. With Stage 3 cancers (regional

metastases), the figures respectively were 70% and

41%; with Stage 4 (distant metastases), 39% with

Gerson and 6% with conventional therapy survived.

 

Many natural cancer therapists claim a success rate of

more than 90% in arresting and reversing cancer,

provided that patients have not been subjected to

orthodox treatment beforehand. The most damaging

treatments appear to be chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

 

Therefore, if you are confronted with cancer, I

suggest you resist acting out of fear and under

pressure. The situation is hardly ever so urgent that

you have to act immediately. Instead, do your own

research from books, journals and the Internet, and

then trust your common sense and intuition.

Nexus, Volume 11, Number 4, June-July 2004

 

About the Author

Walter Last worked as a biochemist and research

chemist in the medical departments of several German

universities and at Bio-Science Laboratories in Los

Angeles, USA. Later he worked as a nutritionist and

natural therapist in New Zealand, where he is now

based.

 

Further Resources

Need good, solid information on cancer and what to do

about it?

 

Cancer: Why We're Still Dying to Know the Truth by

Phillip Day

Great News on Cancer in the 21st Century by Steven

Ransom

B17 Metabolic Therapy compiled by Phillip Day

 

 

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