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by
Steven Ransom
Extracted from his book 'Great News
on Cancer in the 21st Century'
Nexus Magazine
August-September 2002
from
NexusMagazine Website
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About the Author
Steven Ransom is Research Director of UK-based
Credence Publications, which investigates business and
governmental health fraud and provides unbiased,
life-saving health information (see
http://www.credence.org).
He is the author of Plague, Pestilence and the Pursuit
of Power: The Politics of Global Disease (Credence,
2001) and co-author (with Phillip Day) of World Without
AIDS (Credence, 2000).
�
His new book, Great News
on Cancer in the 21st Century (from which his �Death by
Doctoring� article is extracted) is available at
http://www.credence.org/great-news/greatnews.htm.
His article, �Population & Food Control: The Corporate
Agenda� was published in NEXUS 9/03. Steven can be
emailed at
[email protected].
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Visit his own website at
http://www.whatareweswallowing.com
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Part 1 of 2
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Orthodox anticancer
therapies have harmful if not fatal side effects, but
medical professionals continue to inflict them on their
patients as a matter of course. |
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In summoning even the wisest of physicians to our aid, it is
probable that he is relying upon a scientific �truth�, the
error of which will become obvious in just a few years�
time. � Marcel Proust
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CANCER - THE GOOD, THE
BAD AND THE UGLY
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Twenty-first century medicine boasts a
number of treatments that are actually very dangerous to human
health, none more so than for cancer.
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May this short report reach
the many thousands of people currently undergoing conventional
cancer treatment. May it also reach the many thousands of doctors,
physicians, nurses and carers who every day are innocently
inflicting serious harm in the name of conventional cancer care.
�
Let
the countdown begin. Let there soon be an end to... Death by
Doctoring.
Every year in the United Kingdom, 200,000 people are diagnosed with
cancer and 152,500 people die.1
In the United States, the annual death rate for this disease is
approximately 547,000.2
These deaths are recorded as cancer deaths, but how many of these
deaths are really attributable to the disease itself? How many
deaths should in fact be recorded as �death by doctoring�?
�
When we consider that conventional
treatment consists almost entirely of radiation, chemotherapy and
the long-term application of toxic pharmaceuticals-treatments which
are all well known for their life-threatening side-effects � then the
question becomes all the more legitimate.
�
On chemotherapy, for instance, note the
following:
�Most cancer patients in this
country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does not eliminate
breast, colon, or lung cancers. This fact has been documented
for over a decade, yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these
tumors.�
(Allen Levin, MD, UCSF, The
Healing of Cancer, Marcus Books, 1990)
We examine the much-publicized story of
the UK media personality, the late John Diamond, who opted for
conventional treatment. What does his story tell us? John was known
for his critical attitude towards many of the more popular
alternative therapies.
�
We look at some aspects of the
alternative approach and ask if his criticisms were entirely
undeserved. We hear from those within the cancer establishment
itself who cite the conventional cut, burn and dissolve techniques
as ugly and inhumane, and from those who seriously question the
amounts of money being invested in conventional cancer today, given
the pitifully low recovery rate. In the UK alone, �2.8 billion a
year is spent in the conventional cancer emporium. That�s roughly
�6,800,000 a day. US spending on cancer is 10 times higher.
We also hear from those who defied conventional wisdom and opted for
non-toxic, non-conventional cancer treatments, with remarkable
results. And no, we are not talking dolphin or pyramid therapy. From
the known range of anticancer treatments available, this story
focuses on the naturally occurring
vitamin B17, vitamin C and the
supporting role of nutrition. Vitamin B17 in particular has been
attracting a great deal of attention recently, despite the concerted
efforts of the worldwide cancer establishment to suppress or distort
all the positive reporting on this vitamin.
But should we find this so surprising?
�
After all, it�s no secret that with
global spending on conventional cancer running into the hundreds of
billions of pounds and dollars annually, any news of a successful
anticancer treatment extracted from the simple apricot kernel could
do some serious damage to the wealth of the mighty Cancer, Inc.
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Passing of
King Charles II, 1685
But first, by way of introduction to the subject of �death by
doctoring�, we travel back a few hundred years to the bedside of
King Charles II, where 14 of the highest-qualified physicians in the
land are earnestly �reviving� the king from a stroke.
�The king was bled to the extent of
a pint from a vein in his right arm. Next, his shoulder was cut
into and the incised area was sucked of an additional 8 oz of
blood. An emetic and a purgative were administered, followed by
a second purgative, followed by an enema containing antimony,
sacred bitters, rock salt, mallow leaves, violets, beetroot,
chamomile flowers, fennel seeds, linseed, cinnamon, cardamom
seed, saffron, cochineal and aloes.
�
The king�s scalp was shaved and a
blister raised. A sneezing powder of hellebore was administered.
A plaster of burgundy pitch and pigeon dung was applied to the
feet. Medicaments included melon seeds, manna, slippery elm,
black cherry water, lime flowers, lily of the valley, peony,
lavender and dissolved pearls. As he grew worse, forty drops of
extract of human skull were administered, followed by a rallying
dose of Raleigh�s antidote. Finally, bezoar stone was given.
�Curiously, his Majesty�s strength seemed to wane after all
these interventions and, as the end of his life seemed imminent,
his doctors tried a last-ditch attempt by forcing more Raleigh�s
mixture, pearl julep and ammonia down the dying king�s throat.
�
Further treatment was rendered more
difficult by the king�s death.� 3
We can be sure that the physicians
gathered around the king�s bed were all leaders in their particular
field�royalty and presidents do not settle for anything less.
�
But, as Proust observed, with hindsight
we can now see the hideous error of their therapeutics. Today, the
skull drops, the ammonia and the pigeon dung have long gone, but
what will we say in a few years� time when we look back on the
�highly respected� cancer therapeutics of 2002? Will we dare to
venture that there is nothing new under the Sun?
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Have we really progressed much further?
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Death of John
Diamond, 2001
�He�s been poisoned, blasted,
had bits lopped off him, been in remission, felt lumps grow
again, been given shreds of hope, had hope removed.�
(Nicci Gerrard, Sunday
Observer, May 14, 2001)
Many thousands of people were touched by
John Diamond�s regular column in the London Times newspaper, giving
stark and brutal insight into living with throat cancer. In a witty
and very down-to-earth manner, John explored numerous
life-with-cancer issues, including the ups and considerably more
downs in body and mind during radiation treatment, the effects of
his illness upon the wider family and the rediscovery of everyday
wonders previously taken for granted.
�
He showed his distaste for numerous
cancer clich�s such as �brave John� and �staying positive�,
replying:
�I am not brave. I did not choose cancer. I am just me,
dealing with it� and �Whenever somebody told me how good a positive
attitude would be for me, what they really meant was how much easier
a positive attitude would make it for them.�
He was also well known for his castigation of almost all
non-orthodox treatments, and for his willingness to submit to all
that the medical orthodoxy had to offer�a service that even he, a
conventional advocate, had variously described as �pay-as-you-bleed�
and �surgical muggings�.
For me, the most memorable images of John were captured in the BBC�s
Inside Story�a television program that followed John during a year
of treatment, showing him clearly suffering. An operation on John�s
throat caused him to lose his voice, which as a popular broadcaster
was a serious blow. Later, through surgery and radiation treatment,
he would lose most of his tongue and, with it, all sense of taste
and the ability to eat properly�a double whammy, given that he was
married to TV supercook Nigella Lawson.
In his extraordinary book, �C�: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too
(which I could not put down), he wrote:
�He who didn�t realize what a boon
an unimpaired voice was, who ate his food without stopping to
think about its remarkable flavor, who was criminally
profligate with words, who took his wife and children and
friends for granted�in short, he who didn�t
know he was living�� 4
John died in March 2001, aged 47, after
having suffered dreadfully for four years. In his death, he joined
sports presenter Helen Rollason, Bill �Compo� Owen, Ian Dury, Roy
Castle, Cardinal Basil Hume, Linda McCartney and, most recently,
ex-Beatle George Harrison, plus 152,500 others in the UK who succumb
annually to the cancer ordeal.
Kate Law of the Cancer Research Campaign said that John�s story
helped to bring cancer out of the closet in Britain. John�s writings
certainly brought home the ugliness of conventional treatment.
But the more informed in the cancer debate who have read John�s
columns and book will have recognized that John�s writings,
brilliant though they were, did not bring out the full story of
cancer at all.
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Side Effects
of Chemotherapy
Consider the following statement from cancer specialist Professor
Charles Mathe, who declared:
�If I contracted cancer, I would
never go to a standard cancer treatment centre. Cancer victims
who live far from such centers
have a chance.� 5
Walter Last, writing in The Ecologist,
reported recently:
�After analyzing cancer survival
statistics for several decades, Dr Hardin Jones, a professor at
the University of California, concluded: �...patients are as
well, or better off, untreated. Jones�s disturbing assessment
has never been refuted.�� 6
Or what about this?
�Many medical oncologists recommend
chemotherapy for virtually any tumor, with a hopefulness
undiscouraged by almost invariable failure.�
(Albert Braverman, MD, �Medical
Oncology in the 90s�, Lancet 1991, vol. 337, p. 901)
Or this?
�Most cancer patients in this
country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does not eliminate
breast, colon, or lung cancers. This fact has been documented
for over a decade, yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these
tumors.�
(Allen Levin, MD, UCSF, The
Healing of Cancer)
Or even this?
�Despite widespread use of
chemotherapies, breast cancer mortality has not changed in the
last 70 years.�
(Thomas Dao, MD, New England
Journal of Medicine, March 1975, vol. 292, p. 707)
Chemotherapy is an invasive and toxic
treatment able supposedly to eliminate cancer cells.
Unfortunately, though, its ferocious chemistry is not able to
differentiate between the cancerous cell or the healthy cell and
surrounding healthy tissue.
Put simply, chemotherapy is an intravenously administered poison
that kills all living matter. Repeated chemotherapy and repeated
radiation treatments kill the whole body by degrees. The immune
system is hit particularly hard by chemotherapy and often does not
recuperate enough to protect adequately against common illnesses,
which can then lead to death.
Some 67 per cent of people who die during cancer treatment do so
through opportunistic infections arising as a direct result of the
immune system failing because of the aggressive and toxic nature of
the drugs.7
�
What is this, if
not death by doctoring?
And the side effects from both chemotherapy and radiation itself are
extensive. They can include dizziness, skin discoloration, sensory
loss, audio/visual impairment, nausea, diarrhea, loss of hair, loss
of appetite leading to malnutrition, loss of sex drive, loss of
white blood cells, permanent organ damage, organ failure, internal
bleeding, tissue loss and cardiovascular leakage (artery
deterioration), to name but a few.
Two years ago, Hazel was diagnosed with breast cancer. She described
her chemotherapy as the worst experience of her life:
�This highly toxic fluid was being
injected into my veins. The nurse administering it was wearing
protective gloves because it would burn her skin if just a tiny
drip came into contact with it. I couldn�t help asking myself,
�If such precautions were needed to be taken on the outside,
what is it doing to me on the inside?� From 7 pm that evening, I
vomited solidly for two and a half days. During my treatment, I
lost my hair by the handful, I lost my appetite, my skin color,
my zest for life. I was death on legs.�
We shall be hearing more from Hazel
later, although under very different circumstances.
It seems, though, that with chemotherapy we are once again looking
at the acceptable face of King Charles�s ammonia treatment and, once
again, being administered by the highest physicians in the land.
Similarly, on the toxicity of radiation �therapy�, John Diamond
noted that it was only when he began his treatment that he began to
feel really ill.
Senior cancer physician Dr Charles Moertal, of the Mayo Clinic in
the USA, stated:
�Our most effective regimens are
fraught with risks and side-effects and practical problems; and
after this price is paid by all the patients we have treated,
only a small fraction are rewarded with a transient period of
usually incomplete tumor regressions��
8
Dr Ralph Moss is the author of
The
Cancer Industry, a shocking expos� of the world of conventional
cancer politics and practice. Interviewed on the Laura Lee radio
show in 1994, Moss stated:
�In the end, there is no proof that
chemotherapy actually extends life in the vast majority of
cases, and this is the great lie about chemotherapy: that
somehow there is a correlation between shrinking a tumor and
extending the life of a patient.� 9
Scientists based at McGill Cancer Center
sent a questionnaire to 118 lung cancer doctors to determine what
degree of faith these practicing cancer physicians placed in the
therapies they administered.
�
They were asked to imagine that they had
cancer, and were asked which of six current trials they would
choose. Seventy-nine doctors responded, of which 64 would not
consent to be in any trial containing Cisplatin�one of the common
chemotherapy drugs they were trialing (currently achieving worldwide
sales of about US$110,000,000 a year)�and 58 of the 79 found that
all the trials in question were unacceptable due to the
ineffectiveness of chemotherapy and its unacceptably high degree of
toxicity.10
The following extract is taken from Tim O�Shea at
The Doctor Within:
�A German epidemiologist from the
Heidelberg/Mannheim Tumor Clinic, Dr Ulrich Abel, has done a
comprehensive review and analysis of every major study and
clinical trial of chemotherapy ever done. His conclusions should
be read by anyone who is about to embark on the Chemo Express.
�
To make sure he had reviewed
everything ever published on chemotherapy, Abel sent letters to
over 350 medical centers around the world, asking them to send
him anything they had published on the subject. Abel researched
thousands of articles: it is unlikely that anyone in the world
knows more about chemotherapy than he.
�
�The analysis took him several years, but the results are
astounding: Abel found that the overall worldwide success rate
of chemotherapy was �appalling� because there was simply no
scientific evidence available anywhere that chemotherapy can
�extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering
from the most common organic cancers�.
�
Abel emphasizes that chemotherapy
rarely can improve the quality of life. He describes
chemotherapy as �a scientific wasteland� and states that at
least 80 per cent of chemotherapy administered throughout the
world is worthless and is akin to the �emperor�s new
clothes��neither doctor nor patient is willing to give up on
chemotherapy, even though there is no scientific evidence that
it works! (Lancet, 10 August 1991) No mainstream media even
mentioned this comprehensive study: it was totally buried.�
10a
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The
Doctor-Patient Power Imbalance
Whilst in the main dismissing the �alternativist� treatments, as he
called them, and writing in a generally confident manner about his
trust in the conventional medical paradigm, John Diamond would
sometimes waver:
�What if those denying
alternativists were right? What if the truth was that no life
had ever been saved by radiotherapy and that there was every
chance that my cancer would be made worse by it being
irradiated? What if the truth as pronounced by a couple of books
was that the main effect of cancer surgery was to release stray
cancer cells into the body, allowing them to set up home
elsewhere?� I turned to the medical books for solace and got
none.� 11
Talk with cancer patients and one soon
discovers that many of them report that, although they have an
uncomfortable gut feeling that there must somehow be a better way
forward, they still find themselves returning to their oncologist
for more of the same uncomfortable treatment. Why is this, when
there are proven, non-conventional and non-harmful treatments
readily available?
Surely, one significant factor is our hereditary submissive attitude
to the medical orthodoxy and its archetypal symbolism: the white
coat, the stethoscope, the years of knowledge represented in those
framed degrees. Every artifact speaks of our being in the hands of
experts. And then there is the added pressure that can be exerted
upon the patient at the point of diagnosis by the cancer physician.
In his essay entitled �The $200 Billion Scam�,
Jeff Kamen reports on
how a cancer diagnosis was delivered to Kathy Keeton, the late wife
of Penthouse magazine magnate Bob Guccione:
��I�m sorry,� she remembers her
doctor saying. �It�s a very rare form of the disease. It�s the
nature of this kind of cancer that it takes off at a gallop and
metastasizes quickly, so we need to act quickly and get you
started on chemotherapy at once. We have some of the best people
in the world in this field. I urge you to let me get you into
their expert care. There is no time to waste. This form of
cancer is often fatal, and quickly so. Untreated, you have six
weeks to live. We really must move aggressively with the
chemo.�� 11a
Hazel recalls a similar experience:
�Basically, I was in shock from the
diagnosis. I was sitting there, with the doctor saying that this
treatment was the best available and that it was actually a
matter of life or death that I received it. My husband was
sitting next to me, telling me that I needed to go along with
it. I kind of went into a trance and, although something didn�t
feel quite right, I found myself nodding to chemotherapy.�
Most definitely, the power imbalance
that exists in all doctor-patient relationships (whence comes the
term �shrink� in psychiatry) is a key agent in determining the
direction of treatment.
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Confusing and
Conflicting Information
Aside from this very powerful influence, a mass exodus away from
conventional cancer treatment towards proven, non-conventional
treatments has also been severely hampered by the negative effects
of the vast sea of confusing, conflicting and often bizarre
information out there, posing as �helpful� alternative cancer
advice. A first-timer seeking alternative advice on the Internet,
for instance, can soon become thoroughly disheartened. Some 4,000
links come up under �alternative cancer treatment� alone!
An anxious patient, with no time to separate the wheat from the
chaff, is then faced with having to make a series of calculations,
based solely on his negative experiences on the Internet and a sort
of blind, desperate faith that, somehow, the well-qualified
oncologist has got to be right.
�And didn�t he warn us that there were a lot of Internet kooks out
there?� The patient is then right back to square one and, by
default, the chemotherapy suggested earlier seems overall to be the
�safest� bet.
In the view of health reporter Phillip Day, author of
Cancer: Why We�re Still Dying to Know The Truth:
�Many people just gulp, enter the
cancer tunnel and hope they come out the other end.�
But despite the fact that an Internet
search can very easily generate confusion, there is actually a
wealth of expertly documented, credible information available on
natural and genuinely efficacious treatments for a variety of
serious illnesses, including cancer�information that, in some
instances, has been in existence for many years.
But information on such treatments is not widely available in the
public domain�perhaps because genuine medicine has had to fight
tremendously hard to be heard clearly. And there are particular
reasons why this has been so. Often, it is not so much where to look
for genuine natural treatment and medical advice as how to look for
it.
Before discussing specific cancer treatments in more depth, it is
important that we briefly examine the reasons for the current levels
of confusion surrounding genuine natural medicine as a whole:
willful distortion, unwitting stupidity, you name it. Conventional
and alternative, it�s taking place on both sides of the fence.
�
We
must learn to read between the lines.
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Forked
Tongues, Fraud & Failure
Proponents of genuine natural treatments for serious illnesses have
always had to fight on several fronts in their long, hard battle for
proper recognition of these treatments. They have had to do battle
with those calculating opportunists�the forked-tongued drug
merchants�who use every trick in the book to undermine any genuine
treatments not under their own jurisdiction and employ all means
possible to disseminate their damaging disinformation as far and
wide as possible in order to protect their own lucrative markets.
�
No department, private or public, is
beyond the reach of the drug merchants� all-consuming influence.
Thriller writer John Le Carr� spent many years working in the
British Foreign Office and knows the politics of big business very
well. His most recent book,
The Constant Gardener, focuses on the
corrupt nature of the pharmaceutical industry.
�
In an interview on the subject, Le Carr�
stated recently:
�Big Pharma is engaged in the
deliberate seduction of the medical profession, country by
country, worldwide. It is spending a fortune on influencing,
hiring and purchasing academic judgment to a point where, in a
few years� time, if Big Pharma continues unchecked on its
present happy path, unbought medical opinion will be hard to
find.� 12
In opposition to the incessant drive by
Big Business to dominate our health choices, Dr
Matthias Rath
provides a concise summary of the primary ethics of the merchant�s
house:
�Throughout the 20th century, the
pharmaceutical industry has been constructed by investors, the
goal being to replace effective but non-patentable natural
remedies with mostly ineffective but patentable and highly
profitable pharmaceutical drugs. The very nature of the
pharmaceutical industry is to make money from ongoing diseases.
�
Like other industries, the pharmaceutical industry tries to
expand their market�that is, to maintain ongoing diseases and to
find new diseases for their drugs. Prevention and cure of
diseases damages the pharmaceutical business and the eradication
of common diseases threatens its very existence.
�Therefore, the pharmaceutical industry fights the eradication
of any disease at all costs. The pharmaceutical industry itself
is the main obstacle, why today�s most widespread diseases are
further expanding, including heart attacks, strokes, cancer,
high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis and many others.
Pharmaceutical drugs are not intended to cure diseases.
According to health insurers, over 24,000 pharmaceutical drugs
are currently marketed and prescribed without any proven
therapeutic value. (AOK Magazine, 4/98)
�According to medical doctors� associations, the known dangerous
side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs have become the fourth
leading cause of death after heart attacks, cancer and strokes.
(Journal of the American Medical Association, April 15, 1998)
�Millions of people and patients around the world are defrauded
twice. A major portion of their income is used up to finance the
exploding profits of the pharmaceutical industry. In return,
they are offered a medicine that does not even cure.�
Dr Rath is currently spearheading the
fight against the pharmaceutical industries as they seek to
legislate against our free use of vitamins and minerals. If this
legislation is passed, it will directly affect you in many ways.
�
Writing in the UK Guardian on February
7, 2002, senior health editor Sarah Bosely reported:
�Scientists are accepting large sums
of money from drug companies to put their names to articles,
endorsing new medicines, that they have not written� a growing
practice that some fear is putting scientific integrity in
jeopardy.� 12a
These supposed guardians of our health
are being paid what to say. Said one physician in the article:
�What day is it today? I�m just
working out what drug I�m supporting today.�
From top to bottom, 21st century
medicine is being bought and taught to think of all medical
treatment in terms of pharmaceutical intervention only.
While the politicking and big business string-pulling is taking
place behind the scenes, our minds are being washed with the
constant froth of emotive, unfounded, pro-establishment, populist
headlines such as:
�Another breakthrough at UCLA!��
(Yes, but with mice!)
�It�s in the genes!� (Another �5
million now will help us to isolate the gene in 2010� perhaps.)
�Excitement at latest oncology
findings!� (Buoyant opening paragraph, descending into the usual
mixture of hope extinguished by caution and the obligatory
appeal to the pocket.)
�Cancer vaccine close!� (Yes, and
close since 1975, actually. But please, continue to give
generously, because next time it could be you!)
And so it goes on. And all the while,
the mortality statistics worsen. Yet still, the money�our money�just
keeps on rolling in.
�
On that note, the Campaign Against Fraudulent
Medical
Research has warned:
�The next time you are asked to
donate to a cancer organization, bear in mind that your money
will be used to sustain an industry which has been deemed by
many eminent scientists as a qualified failure and by others as
a complete fraud.� 13
�
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Mammography and the
Spread of Breast Cancer
Thanks go to Dr Tim O�Shea for the following very important
information on the practice of mammography:
�This is one topic where the line
between advertising and scientific proof has become very
blurred. As far back as 1976, the American Cancer Society itself
and its government colleague, the National Cancer Institute,
terminated the routine use of mammography for women under the
age of 50 because of its �detrimental� (carcinogenic) effects.
More recently, a large study done in Canada found that women who
had routine mammograms before the age of 50 also had increased
death rates from breast cancer by 36%.
(Miller)
�Lorraine Day notes the same findings in her video presentation,
Cancer Doesn�t Scare Me Any More. The reader is directed to
these sources and should perhaps consider the opinion of other
sources than those selling the procedure, before making a
decision. �John McDougall, MD, has made a thorough review of
pertinent literature on mammograms. He points out that the
US$5�13 billion per year generated by mammograms controls the
information that women get. Fear and incomplete data are the
tools commonly used to persuade women to get routine mammograms.
What is clear is that mammography cannot prevent breast cancer
or even the spread of breast cancer. By the time a tumor is
large enough to be detected by mammography, it has been there as
long as 12 years! It is therefore ridiculous to advertise
mammography as �early detection�.
(McDougall, p. 114)
�The other unsupportable illusion is that mammograms prevent
breast cancer, which they don�t. On the contrary, the painful
compression of breast tissue during the procedure itself can
increase the possibility of metastasis by as much as 80%! Dr
McDougall notes that between 10% and 17% of the time, breast
cancer is a self-limiting, non-life-threatening type called
�ductal carcinoma in situ�. This harmless cancer can be made
active by the compressive force of routine mammography.
(McDougall, p. 105)
�Most extensive studies show no increased survival rate from
routine screening mammograms. After reviewing all available
literature in the world on the subject, noted researchers Drs
Wright and Mueller of the University of British Columbia
recommended the withdrawal of public funding for mammography
screening because the �benefit achieved is marginal, and the
harm caused is substantial�.
(Lancet, July 1, 1995)
�The harm they�re referring to includes the constant worrying
and emotional distress, as well as the tendency for unnecessary
procedures and testing to be done, based on results which have a
false positive rate as high as 50%.�
(New York Times, December 14,
1997) 13a
�
The Non-Conventional
Medical Marketplace
Whilst the remit of this article does not extend to a full
exploration of the influence that money has had over the corruption
of true medicine and medical practice, let the reader be assured
that conventional medicine has more than its fair share of attendant
commercial pressures, and especially so in the world of cancer, as
we shall soon discover.
Aside from the wiles of the merchant, genuine medicine also has
always had to do battle with the well-intentioned parahealer,14 who
unwittingly has the capacity to prove equally as threatening to the
cause, but for very different reasons.
The non-conventional medical marketplace seems to be dominated by
those who are able to deliver an admirably coherent deconstruction
of the conventional paradigm, but who choose not to apply the same
level of intelligent critique to their own, often wacky, nostrums.
As such, we are subjected to an equally misguided barrage of
pronouncements, for example:
�Submit not to the ravages of
chemo�let White Eagle purge you of those negative energies�;
�Visit a pyramid, a shaman (�My sickness is a shamanic gift and
calling�14a), a cancer
�guide� (�Okay, group. Eyes closed. Your cancer is receding. The
lump is disintegrating. Envisage the all-consuming fire!�)�
A coat of mud, of seaweed or both, some
psycho-surgery, some radionics, this therapy, that therapy and, of
course, a thousand-and-one folk remedies: grandma�s trusted �brain
tumor elixir� perhaps, a walnut kernel perfectly preserved in
rainwater (seven drops, three times a day)�
Celebrities with the more serious illnesses receive these
well-intentioned �tips and tricks� by the sackload.
�
John Diamond was
no exception:
�I�ve had anecdotal evidence from
those who believe in voodoo, the power of the fairy people�yes,
really�drinking my own p**s and any number of other remedies� I
should put my faith in the Bessarabian radish, the desiccated
root of which has been used for centuries by Tartar nomads to
cure athlete�s foot, tennis elbow and cancer, as detailed in
their book, Why Your Doctor Hates You And Wants You To Die,
review copy enclosed�� 15
Notwithstanding the genuine treatments
available in the natural cabinet (we shall discuss this in part
two), a huge number of remedies being sold as �medicine� today
contain no sensible methodology�yet, amazingly, they are selling
very well.
�
No
better is this phenomenon illustrated than in the lucrative minor
ailments market, where, on a daily basis across the world, untold
millions are being spent on pharmacologically inert mixtures and
�essences�, producing truly marvelous results with illnesses from
which we were going to get better anyway.16
�
�
�
The Dangers of
Uncritical Thinking
In truth, were the general public to be given clear information on
the nature of self-limiting illness and on the wondrous ability of a
properly nourished immune system to overcome almost all ills
unaided, the bottom would fall out of the minor ailments market
tomorrow, both conventional and alternative.
Unfortunately, though, any of the more awkward questions arising
from this discussion, such as �How can you continue to sell these
ointments as �medicines� in the light of this knowledge?�, are
usually defended not by answering the actual question itself, but by
the therapist appealing to the worthiness of his wider philanthropic
goals and to �the much greater threat to the global populace� posed
by the merchant�s house with all its toxic wares, etcetera,
etcetera.
Donald Gould, author of The Black and White Medicine Show, has
warned of the dangers we invite by adopting such laissez-faire
reasoning:
�Why not make the most of what the
non-conformists have to offer and to hell with uncharitable
logic? There is, I suggest, a powerful reason for rejecting this
superficially attractive option.
�
Truth is a fundamental value. If we
accept uncritical thinking in one area of our lives for the sake
of convenience or because of the popular appeal of a seductive
myth and the short-term comfort to be gained by believing in the
unbelievable, or because the false answer lets us pretend we are
competently coping with a painful problem we haven�t truly
tackled, then we are all the more likely to adopt the same
strategy in other situations, from dealing with the family to
managing the national economy, and from chairing the parish
council to handling arsenals of nuclear weapons.
The result is likely to be unhappy and stands a decent chance of
proving a disaster. Irrational beliefs are always dangerously
corrupting, even when they only relate to the cause and cure of
piles.� 17
�
�
�
�
�
�
�
�
�
Part 2 of 2
�
Vitamins C and B17 (also
called laetrile) have longstanding success in cancer
prevention and treatment, yet the orthodox medical
profession continues to deny
their benefits. |
REPUTATION IS
EVERYTHING
But what relevance does all this have to the debate on treatments
for cancer? Where is all of this headed?
�
This has been a necessary
diversion�firstly, that we might begin to understand some of the
frustrations that many reasoned thinkers have with the issues
raised; and secondly, that we might begin to consider the impact
that such weakened thinking has on genuine natural treatments for
disease.
�
For instance, what damage is secondarily
being wrought upon the reputation of the genuine treatments in the
cabinet, the ones that can actually heal?
Sadly, there is no clear division between the reputation of much of
the unregulated alternative health industry and that of the many
sensible and proven, non-conventional treatments available today. It
has all become a horrible blur and is a point of major concern even
to the non-orthodox regulatory bodies overseeing the
alternative/complementary health movement.
�
The whole arena is fraught with as many
vested interests and misunderstandings as conventional health, but
commentaries drawing such conclusions� even from those concerned
bodies sympathetic to the natural approach�are viewed as almost
heretical and somehow betraying the brotherhood of the alternative
hierarchy.
Personally speaking, critical debate should commence as soon as
possible with regard to those �helping� therapies that only
temporarily distract the seriously ill. In need only of sensible
advice and sensible treatment, these people can very quickly end up
worse off in body, mind and spirit�and, last but not least, in
pocket�leading very quickly to derision and a carte blanche
dismissal of all the good that genuine natural treatments have to
offer.
John Diamond stated that there was as much chance of his going down
the alternative treatment route as there was of the Pope getting
drunk on the communion wine and getting off with a couple of nuns.18
Whilst we can perhaps understand some of John Diamond�s
frustrations, his comparisons don�t exactly aid the cause. Because
the truth is that the alternativist�s cabinet is not all �mumbo
jumbo� by any means. Genuine medicine can be found in there.
Perhaps a name change is in order. Are we alternative? Are we
complementary? But complementary to what? To chemotherapy, perhaps?
But then, what medicine could possibly complement chemotherapy?
Shouldn�t there just be medicine and non-medicine, full stop? Be
that as it may, many people are wrongly assuming that the
non-orthodox medical cabinet is barren and not worthy of closer
inspection.
The hazy and often crazy information being disseminated on numerous
non-conventional treatments, coupled with our innate and na�ve trust
in the orthodoxy, is the reason why thousands of people like John
Diamond are staying with, and relying upon, conventional treatments
for serious illnesses including cancer.
�
As a result, thousands of people like
John Diamond are dying, and often in a horrible fashion.
�
�
�
Vitamin B17
In his UK Observer article entitled �Quacks on the Rack�, John
Diamond summarily dismissed what is arguably the most famous of the
natural and proven anti-cancer treatments known to man: the natural
extract of the apricot kernel, otherwise known as vitamin B17.
�Supporters of laetrile (vitamin
B17) and Essiac, in particular, made so much noise about their
miracle cures that both have been through the research mill on
numerous occasions and found to be useless.�
19
Now we can ask ourselves whether it was
perhaps the fault of some kindly but misguided soul who posted John
Diamond an essay on the benefits of vitamin B17 mixed with walnut
water which caused him to dismiss B17 so emphatically. Or was it
that John actually trusted the conventional research reports he had
accrued on this vitamin?
Interestingly, Dr Dean Burk, the former head of the Cytochemistry
Department of the National Cancer Institute and one of the
co-founders of this famous American medical institution, had
personally worked on vitamin B17.
�
He described this substance in
very different terms:
�When we add laetrile to a cancer
culture under the microscope,� said Dr Burk, �providing the
enzyme
glucosidase also is present, we can see the cancer cells
dying off like flies.� 20
(Glucosidase is the enzyme heavily
present in cancerous cells, which triggers the unique
cancer-destroying mechanism found in vitamin B17. An excellent
clinical analysis of this mechanism is found in
B17 Metabolic
Therapy � In the Prevention and Control of Cancer, a concise history
of the research into this vitamin, including many clinical
assessments.21)
Dr Burk also stated that evidence for laetrile�s efficacy had been
noted in at least five independent institutions in three widely
separated countries of the
world.22
So whom do we trust in this matter? Diamond or Burk?
�
By looking at where John Diamond might
have got his B17 research �information�, the ugly features of
conventional cancer research move more sharply into focus.
�
�
�
Because of the
Money
Cancer is big business, and knowledge claims on any treatments that
earn money and, conversely, on any treatments that do not earn money
for the drug companies are never neutral.
Dr Ralph Moss served as the Assistant Director of Public Affairs at
America�s most famous cancer research institution, Memorial
Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan. He knows the cancer industry inside
out.
�
Read what he had to say in an April 1994
interview with Laura Lee, and judge for yourself the quality of the
evidence against the effectiveness of vitamin B17:
Dr Moss: �Shortly after I went to
work [at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute], I visited the
elderly Japanese scientist Kanematsu Sugiura, who astonished me
when he told me he was working on laetrile (B17). At the time it
was the most controversial thing in cancer, reputed to be a cure
for cancer. We in Public Affairs were giving out statements that
laetrile was worthless, it was quackery, and that people should
not abandon proven therapies. I was astonished that our most
distinguished scientist would be bothering with something like
this, and I said, �Why are you doing this if it doesn�t work?�
He took down his lab books and showed me that, in fact, laetrile
was dramatically effective in stopping the spread of cancer.�
Laura Lee: �So this is verified, that laetrile can have this
positive effect?�
Moss: �We were finding this and yet we in Public Affairs were
told to issue statements to the exact opposite of what we were
finding scientifically.� 23
Unable to sit on this information, Dr
Moss later called a press conference of his own and, before a
battery of reporters and cameramen, charged that Sloan-Kettering
officials had engineered a massive cover-up. He provided all the
supporting documents and named all the names necessary to validate
his case. The following day he was fired for �failing to carry out
his most basic job responsibilities�.24
Similarly, in his book,
World Without Cancer, cancer industry
researcher G. Edward Griffin notes:
�Every laetrile study had been
tarnished with the same kind of scientific ineptitude, bias and
outright deception� Some of these studies openly admitted
evidence of anti-cancer effect, but hastened to attribute this
effect to other causes. Some were toxicity studies only, which
means that they weren�t trying to see if laetrile was effective,
but merely to determine how much of it was required to kill the
patient.� 25
The �evidence� supporting John Diamond�s
claim that vitamin B17 is useless and even dangerous is available in
abundance in all of the major cancer institutions today.
�
Well, of course it is! We�re in the
merchant�s house, don�t forget!
�
As Pat Rattigan, author of The
Cancer Business, reports:
�The threat to the cancer business
from effective therapies was taken very seriously from the
beginning. By the 1940s, the Syndicate had 300,000 names on its
�quack� files. Vitamin B17, being a unique threat due to its
simplicity, attracted more concentrated attacks than all the
other treatments put together: fraudulent test reports; hired,
banner-carrying pickets outside clinics; rigged juries;
newspaper character assassinations; dismissal of heretic
employees; etc.
�
The FDA, orchestrating the
onslaught, sent out 10,000 posters and hundreds of thousands of
leaflets warning about the dangers of the toxicity of the
non-toxic substance. Earlier, a Congressional Accounting Office
had found that 350 FDA employees had shares in, or had refused
to declare an interest in, the pharmaceutical industry.�
26
The American Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) issued one such story about the death of an
11-month-old girl, supposedly from cyanide poisoning due to her
apparently swallowing her father�s vitamin B17 tablets.
�
Cancer
specialist and B17 advocate Dr Harold Manner takes up the story:
�I was lecturing in Buffalo, New
York and�after I had made some strong statements, a man stood up
and said, �Dr Manner, how in the world can you make statements
like that when the FDA is making these other statements?� I
reiterated that the FDA statements were lies. He said, �Look at
this little girl in upstate New York; she took her father�s
laetrile tablets and died of cyanide poisoning.�
�
Just then, a little lady stood up:
�Dr Manner, let me answer that question. I think I am entitled
to because I am that little baby�s mother. That baby never
touched her father�s laetrile tablets. The doctor, knowing the
father was on laetrile, marked down �possible cyanide
poisoning�. At the hospital they used a cyanide antidote and it
was the antidote that killed the child. And yet that statement
will continue to appear, even though they know it is a lie.��
27
The scare stories always focus on the
minute amounts of naturally occurring cyanide found in vitamin B17.
�
But no mention is made in any of these
stories of the wondrous mechanism governing the release of this
cyanide. No harm is done to the person eating this vitamin (if that
were the case, we�ve consumed enough apricots, apples, peaches,
cherries, etc. containing B17 to have finished us off long ago). The
cyanide is released only when cancerous cells are recognized by
their high glucosidase content.
�
B17 cyanide attacks cancer cells
specifically. No large amounts of glucosidase detected means no
cyanide release. Rest assured, there is no evidence that vitamin B17
can kill�unless, of course, one is accidentally crushed under a
pallet of the stuff!
A further embarrassment for the cancer orthodoxy must surely be the
research being carried out at the Imperial College in London, where
researchers are looking at ways of using naturally occurring plant
cyanide specifically to attack human bowel tumors. The idea came
about after studying the pattern of specific cyanide release in the
almond and cassava fruit which protects them from insect attack.
Another one of those natural wonders, just crying out to be heard,
is at last being listened to by the orthodoxy, perhaps?
28
Very sadly, in assessing the deservedness of the �shady� reputation
bestowed upon vitamin B17 metabolic therapy, we realize it is
entirely unwarranted and that, instead, there has been a sustained
attack by the conventional cancer industry on this treatment�an
attack that has been carried on in one form or another for the last
40 years.
As mentioned earlier, with global spending on conventional cancer
running into the hundreds of billions annually, a naturally
occurring cancer cure of any description is an unwanted intruder.
Here is Dr Moss, again from the April 1994 Laura Lee interview, this
time on the money involved in conventional cancer:
Moss: �About 630,000 people die
every year of cancer in the US, and it really is an epidemic
disease. We have got a tremendous industry. Every one of those
people who is getting cancer and dying of it is going to be
treated, and these treatments are extremely expensive. Chemo is
[costed at] tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands
of dollars. A bone marrow transplant, which is basically another
way of giving chemotherapy, or radiation, can run to about
$150,000 per person, and is almost never effective. It kills
about 25 per cent of the patients.�
�
Lee: �Why carry on doing it?�
�
Moss: �Because of the money, which
is tremendous.� 29
When we understand the amounts of money
involved, we can begin to understand the in-house desire to sustain
a �fact-creating� process in support of conventional treatment.
Conventional cancer treatment and cancer research are a license to
print money. Most definitely, conventional interested parties and
institutions have colluded in a shameful anti�vitamin B17
�fact-creating� process, which in turn has surely led to the early
and unnecessary deaths of thousands upon thousands of people.
As for John Diamond�s dismissal of vitamin B17, he didn�t write his
comments on B17 as an intentional slur. He wasn�t the forked tongue
in this chain of events. He desperately wanted to live. His single
paragraph read by thousands was just another example of the damaging
knock-on effect of merchant-speak. Merchant-speak on vitamin B17
metabolic therapy has exacted a grave injustice upon this treatment,
and subsequently upon all who have been persuaded to think likewise.
Let�s now look at some testimonies from those who have not been
persuaded by the negative propaganda.
�
Phillip
Phillip is 64. In April 2001, he was diagnosed with inoperable lung
cancer. The oncologist showed him the X-rays that confirmed the
dreaded �shadows�. He was told to go home, enjoy his life as best he
could and put his affairs in order.
A week later, in a chance conversation at work, Phillip was told
about vitamin B17. Phillip immediately began taking a combination of
vitamin B17 and vitamin C. Four months later, Phillip returned to
hospital for a check-up, where a new set of X-rays was taken. The
shadows had completely disappeared.
�
Says Phillip:
�I know what I saw, and the doctor
couldn�t explain it. I�m continuing with my vitamin B17 regime
and eating about 10 kernels a day.�
30
Phillip now pays great attention to his
diet and believes that what we put into our bodies can have a
dramatic effect medicinally.
�
�
�
The Importance
of Nutrition
Here�s John Diamond again, this time on some �nutter� with a magical
diet:
�I was waiting my turn for zapping
[radiation] one day and mentioned the ludicrousness of one diet
I�d been reading about. The radiographer agreed and said that
when she had started at the hospital there used to be a nutter
who, having refused radiography, would come down and rail
against those sitting in the radiotherapy waiting room, telling
them they should abandon evil radiation and take up his magical
diet. �Criminal,� I said. �You kicked him out, of course?� �Well
yes,� she said, �we kicked him out regularly. The only thing
was, he did survive for years and the cancer did disappear.�
Which only goes to prove�well, nothing very much at all, really,
but I thought I�d pass it on in the name of fair dealing.�
31
Now if this cancer �nutter� was just an
isolated case of recovery through diet, his recovery would not of
course constitute proof. But with vitamin B17 metabolic therapy, we
are seeing tremendous results time after time.
�
Continuing on in the
name of fair dealing�
�
�
William
William was diagnosed with a tumor in the esophagus. He could not
swallow food without it being liquidized. He had read about vitamin
B17 12 months previously and had kept the article. William began
taking vitamin B17 soon after the diagnosis. After three weeks he
was swallowing food a lot easier, and after about seven weeks he was
told by his doctor that the only reason for this was because the
tumor was shrinking.
Says William:
�The operation to remove the tumor
was cancelled and I am still awaiting the results of the latest
scan. I feel fit as a fiddle. I pay attention to my diet and I
thank God quite literally for vitamin B17. It is time the NHS
[National Health Service] recognized this vitamin as an
alternative to the conventional treatments. I consider that any
money spent on B17 is money well spent.�
32
�
�
�
What Are We Eating?
It is interesting to note that there are cultures today who remain
almost entirely cancer free. The Abkhasians, the Azerbaijanis, the
Hunzas, the Eskimos and the Karakorum all live on foodstuffs rich in
nitriloside or vitamin B17. Their food consists variously of
buckwheat, peas, broad beans, lucerne, turnips, lettuce, sprouting
pulse or grain, apricots with their seeds, and berries of various
kinds. Their diet can provide them with as much as 250�3,000 mg of
nitriloside a day.
�
The founding father of vitamin B17
research, Ernst T. Krebs, Jr, studied the dietary habits of these
tribes.
�
Krebs stated:
�Upon investigating the diet of
these people, we found that the seed of the apricot was prized
as a delicacy and that every part of the apricot was utilized.�
33
The average Western diet, with its
refined, fibreless foods, offers less than 2 mg of nitriloside a
day. It has also been noted that natives from these tribes who move
into �civilized� areas and change their diets accordingly are prone
to cancers at the regular Western incidence.34
�
�
�
The Right
Materials
In his book, Preface to Cancer: Nature, Cause and Cure, Dr Alexander Berglas has this to say about cancer incidence:
�Civilization is, in terms of
cancer, a juggernaut that cannot be stopped� It is the nature
and essence of industrial civilization to be toxic in every
sense� We are faced with the grim prospect that the advance of
cancer and of civilization parallel each other.�
35
The human body has an amazing capacity
to recover, if we look after it properly and if we supply it with
the proper materials for repair. Working with non-toxic, physio-friendly
treatments can only work in our favor.
�
Just look at the side-effects of vitamin
B17 as described by G. Edward Griffin in World Without Cancer:
�B17 side effects include increased
appetite, weight gain, lowered blood pressure, increased
hemoglobin and red blood cell count, elimination or sharp
reduction of pain without narcotics; builds up the body�s
resistance to other diseases, is a natural substance found in
foods and is compatible with human biological experience,
destroys cancer cells while nourishing non-cancer cells��
36
Compare the above with the side effects
from chemotherapy and radiation: the dizziness, skin discoloration,
nausea, diarrhea, loss of hair, loss of appetite, organ failure,
internal bleeding, etcetera, etcetera.
How long will it be before we find ourselves looking back on these
treatments in the same way as we now look back on the blood-letting
and ammonia infusions exacted upon King Charles II? Notwithstanding
the often life-saving surgical removal of cancerous tissue, could
there possibly be a more inhumane treatment in the 21st century than
conventional cancer therapy?
�
Flora
Flora was diagnosed with stage-four bowel cancer in 1999.
�Before the operation they gave me
chemotherapy, which was devastating. By the end of the course, I
could hardly stand. They then removed the tumor from my bowel. I
was told the cancer had spread to the liver. I was offered
further chemotherapy, but declined. I attended Middlesex
Hospital and had five sessions of laser treatment to try and
contain the liver cancer, followed by more chemotherapy.
�
After the fifth time of trying to
contain the cancer, they said that it was beginning to grow yet
again. So I began an organic diet and attended the Dove Clinic
for intensive vitamin C treatment with other supplements. It was
there that I was told about vitamin B17. I added that to my
regime. Over a period of time, the cancer completely disappeared
from my liver. It is now February 2002 and I have been one year
clear of cancer.
I am maintaining my organic diet and eating about 50 apricot
kernels a day. I�m 64, I�ve returned to work and I feel fine.
Treatments such as these should at least be made known to
patients by the NHS.� 37
There are literally thousands of people
who can attest to the pharmacological, life-saving power of vitamin
B17 and its supporting nutritional regime. And the same can also be
said of vitamin C.
�
�
�
Vitamin C
The all-round benefits of vitamin C to the human physiology have
been known and utilized for centuries. In terms of its benefits in
cancer treatment and prevention, we read the following from Phillip
Day:
�Dr Linus Pauling, often known as
the �Father of Vitamin C� and twice awarded the Nobel Prize,
declared that daily intake of up to 10 grams a day of the
vitamin aids anticancer activity within the body.
�Pauling was largely derided for making these declarations but,
today, large doses of vitamin C are used by many practitioners
for cancer patients in nutritional therapy, who believe Pauling
was right and that the popular nutrient is indispensable to the
body in its fight to regain health from cancer.�
38
Vitamin C can protect against breast
cancer. After reviewing 90 studies on the relationship between
vitamin C and cancer, Gladys Block, PhD, at the University of
California at Berkeley, concluded:
�There is overwhelming evidence of
the protective effect of vitamin C and other antioxidants
against cancer of the breast.� 39
And Geoffrey R. Howe, of the National
Cancer Institute of Canada, reviewed 12 controlled case studies of
diet and breast cancer and noted that vitamin C had the most
consistent statistically significant relationship to the reduction
of breast cancer risk.40
On the subject of the importance of mineral and vitamin supplements,
a recent New York Times front-page article quoted Dr Geoffrey P.
Oakley, Jr, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta, as saying:
�We, the physicians, were mistaken
not to recommend vitamin supplements to our patients for so
long. We need just to admit that, on this one, we were wrong.�
41
Let the reader be assured that the
recent scare tactics surrounding vitamin C and its supposed links to
cancer are just another one of those smear campaigns orchestrated by
the merchants.
Quite simply, any good news on vitamin C represents yet another
threat to the pharmaceutical industry�s considerable income from
conventional cancer treatments.
�
The full story on the vested interests
supporting the author of the much-publicized vitamin C/cancer story
can be found at the website
(They
Say That Vitamin 'C' Can Increase The Risk Of Cancer - Oh Yes? And
Who�s �They�?).
�
Hazel
Hazel had been given a virtual death sentence by her cancer doctor,
who told her that although there was an 86 per cent recovery rate
from her type of breast cancer, she was unfortunately in the smaller
category.
As previously noted, Hazel�s chemotherapy was only making her feel
terrible, and she decided that if she were going to die then she
would do so without further conventional treatment. Hazel began a
regime of intravenously administered vitamin C and supplements,
including vitamin B17, and paid great attention to her diet. She
soon began to feel a great deal better. She regained her weight, her
hair and her appetite.
About nine months following the diagnosis, she was troubled with
lower back pain and visited her doctor. He suggested a further scan
based on Hazel�s lower back pain, which the doctor believed was
possibly the result of her cancer having spread to the base of her
spine. Hazel said there was no way she was going for more
chemotherapy or scans, which she believes in themselves can trigger
carcinogenic activity.
Instead, Hazel supplemented her vitamin C regime with a course of
vitamin B17 kernels, and she also maintained a sensible diet and
stayed away from her conventional cancer physician. The blood count
taken by her GP before Christmas read as normal. She feels very
healthy and is in the process of writing a book about her
experiences.
�
She feels passionately that people need
to know that there are alternative cancer treatments available, and
she speaks to groups on this subject. 42
�
�
�
Need for Data
and Education
Finally, we hear from Dr Nicola Hembry of the Dove Clinic, which
specializes in the non-conventional approach to cancer care and
treatment:
�Nutritional treatments such as
high-dose vitamin C and B17 [laetrile] have been known about for
years, and there are many success stories from patients lucky
enough to have received and benefited from them. Research shows
that levels of 400 mg/dL vitamin C in the blood can kill cancer
cells by a pro-oxidative mechanism, and there is a great deal of
data showing that B17 is preferentially toxic to cancer cells.
�The trouble is that there is little in the way of well-designed
random control trial data for the use of these substances, and
therefore mainstream medicine rejects them out of hand without
even considering the evidence available or even asking why these
trials haven�t been carried out. It has to be said that one of
the reasons is a lack of financial incentive because these
substances cannot be patented.
�Sadly, it is the cancer sufferers who lose out. To not even
have the choice of these safer, more natural treatments, even
when a cancer is deemed incurable and only palliative
chemotherapy or radiotherapy is offered, is in my view totally
unacceptable. I have seen many patients experience an improved
duration and quality of life with an integrated approach, and
some go on to achieve complete remission of their disease, even
when dismissed as incurable by their oncologists.�
43
Treating cancer is not just about
getting hold of vitamin B17 as quickly as possible. We need to be
educated in a whole range of issues. Phillip Day�s book, Cancer: Why
We�re Still Dying To Know The Truth, has been written in an easily
readable and understandable manner, specifically to inform the
general public on all of the key issues pertaining to natural
treatment for cancer.
�
It makes for necessary and fascinating
reading.
For those readers interested in finding out more on the issues
raised in this article, just click on the following titles available
from Credence Publications at the website
http://www.credence.org:
-
Cancer: Why We�re Still Dying To
Know The Truth � A concise account of the cancer industry
and of the good news on vitamin B17 metabolic therapy.
-
Vitamin B17 Metabolic Therapy: A
Clinical Guide � A clinical account of vitamin B17,
detailing the landmark research on this most vital of
vitamins in the fight against cancer.
-
Food For Thought � Delicious
recipes designed to promote health. A vital contribution to
cancer prevention and recovery.
�
�
�
Closing Comments
Throughout the writing of this article, I have been acutely aware of
three things.
-
Firstly, I�ve been aware of my slender mortality and that only by
the grace of God have I not had to face a cancer diagnosis of my
own. I know that for many, the information contained in �Death by
Doctoring� will bring sadness as well as anger. But in its telling,
I also believe this story brings great hope.
-
Secondly, vitamin B17 metabolic therapy and
vitamin C form only part
of a much wider regime of treatments that have proven successful in
the treatment of cancer. These and other sensible treatments are
explained in more detail in the above Credence titles.
-
Thirdly, I am conscious of the fact that there are elements of
conventional medical practice that are saving and enhancing lives
every day, not least in some methods of early cancer diagnosis and
in acute and emergency medicine. May the good continue, and may the
bad be open to complete reappraisal.
Finally, I do so wish I�d been given the opportunity to meet
John
Diamond, because I reckon we�d have got on like a house on fire.
�
And
who knows what might have happened as a result?
�
�
�
�
Endnotes
1. See website
http://www.crc.org.uk/cancer/csmortality1.html.
2. �Cancer - The Social Impact�, at
http://yakko.bme.virginia.edu/biom304/notes/cancer.htm.�
3. Buckman, Dr Rob, Magic or Medicine, Pan Books, 1994.
4. Diamond, John, �C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too, Vermilion
Press, 1999.
5. Mathe, Prof. George, �Scientific Medicine Stymied�, M�dicines
Nouvelles (Paris), 1989.
6. Last, Walter, The Ecologist, vol. 28, no. 2, March/April
1998.
7. The Home of Orthomolecular Oncology, at
http://www.canceraction.org.gg/index2.htm.
8. Griffin, Edward G., World Without Cancer, American Media
Publications, 1996.
9. Day, Phillip, Cancer: Why We�re Still Dying To Know The
Truth, Credence Publications, 2000.
10. Day, ibid.
10a. �Chemotherapy - an unproven procedure�, at
http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/index20.html
11. Diamond, ibid.
11a. See
http://www.kathykeeton-cancer.com
12. Le Carr�, John, interview in The Nation, New York, April 9,
2001.
12a. Full story, described as �professional prostitution�, at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,646078,00.html.�
13. Ryan, Robert, BSc, �Cancer Research - A Super-fraud?�, at
http://www.worldnewsstand.net/health/cancer2.htm.
13a. See Dr Tim O�Shea�s website,
http://www.thedoctorwithin.com.
14. �Parahealer�: the prefix �para-� means �close to�,
�alongside�, �near�, �beyond�, �irregular�.
14a. Kalweit, Holger, Dream Time and Inner Space, Shambala
Publications, 1998.
15. Diamond, John, �Quacks on the Rack�, Observer, December 3,
2000, and �C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too, Vermilion Press,
1999.
16. �95,000,000 is spent on cough mixtures alone in the UK. The
BMJ, however, has reported a recent trial involving 2,000
participants which found that in most cases the mixtures were no
more effective than a placebo.
More details at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid1807000/1807252.stm.
17. Gould, Donald, The Black and
White Medicine Show, Hamilton, 1985.
18. Diamond, John, �C�: Because
Cowards Get Cancer Too, Vermilion Press, 1999.
19. Diamond, John, �Quacks on the Rack�, Observer, December 3,
2000.
20. Griffin, G. Edward, World Without Cancer: The Story of
Vitamin B17, American Media Publications, 1974, 1996.
21. Day, Phillip (compiler), B17 Metabolic Therapy � In the
Prevention and Control of Cancer, Credence Publications, 2001.
22. Day, Phillip, Cancer: Why We�re Still Dying To Know The
Truth, Credence Publications, 2000.
23. ibid.
24. Moss, Ralph, The Cancer Syndrome, Grove Press, 1980.
25. Griffin, ibid.
26. ibid.
27. Rattigan, Pat, �The Cancer Business�,
http://www.vegan.swinternet.co.uk/articles/health/cancerbusiness.html.
28. BBC News, �Cyanide Targets Cancer�, Report at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/festival_of_science/newsid_913000/913463.stm.
29. Day, Cancer: Why We�re�, ibid.
30. Phillip�s testimony, on file at Credence Publications.
31. Diamond, �C�: Because Cowards�, ibid.
32. Krebs, Ernst T., Nutritional and Therapeutic Implications,
John Beard Memorial Foundation, 1964 (privately published).
33. William�s testimony, on file at Credence Publications.
34. Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, Cancer: Disease of Civilization? An
Anthropological and Historical Study, Hill & Wang, New York,
1960.
35. Berglas, Dr Alexander, Preface to Cancer: Nature, Cause and
Cure, Pasteur Institute, Paris, 1957.
36. Griffin, ibid.
37. Flora�s testimony, on file at Credence Publications.
38. Day, Cancer: Why We�re�, ibid.
39. See
http://www.access2wealth.com/health/reportSave a Woman�s
Life.htm
40. ibid.
41. ibid.
42. Hazel�s testimony, on file at Credence Publications.
43. From author�s interview/correspondence with Dr Nicola Hembry,
on file at Credence Publications.
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