Why Are We Losing the War?
Cancer is well named-"the Crab"- for once it grabs hold it refuses to let go. its claws will fasten on one out of three Americans, two out of three families, and in one in four cases its grip will be unyielding. A 1991 headline reads "BY 2000, CANCER PREDICTED TO BE THE NO. 1 KILLER." According to the American Cancer Society. 1989 was the first year when the number of new cancer cases topped one million, with 500,000 deaths that year. What happened to the war on cancer?
Cancer's winning. A patient's chances of complete recovery are, in most cases, not significantly better today than they were 40 years ago.
Since 1950, overall incidence rates have increased by 40%. Cancers of the breast, prostate and colon have escalated 60%; in children 30%. Less common cancers have increased more than 100%.What is the reason for the failure of the conventional medical approach to cancer? According to many, it is because medicine directs its attention at the tumor that is in the body rather than at the body that developed the tumor.
[The] "cancer establishment" pushes highly toxic and expensive drugs, patented by major pharmaceutical firms which also have close links to cancer centers. Is is any wonder they refuse to investigate approaches developed outside their own institutions?
Medical Detection
There is no chemical test by which cancer can be detected. Even the highly touted Pap smear has been subject to criticism.
The mortality rate from cervical cancer was already dropping in this country before screening became popular...critics suggest that Pap smears have made little or no contribution to the continuing decline.
Mammography radiation appears to cause as many breast cancers as it reportedly cures through early diagnosis: one mammographic exam exposes a woman to a dose of radiation that is between 20 to 25 times greater than the dose of an average chest X-ray. In spite of more and earlier tests, the five-year survival rate for non-localized breast cancer has remained at 25% since 1969(while the incidence has increased 178%).
Medical Treatment
As mentioned above, medical treatment for cancer is tumor-oriented: poison the tumor with chemotherapy, cut it out with surgery, burn it with radiation. These therapies diminish the ability of the immune system to function properly. Chemotherapy has been found to decrease the white blood cell count and cause a general inability to fight off infection; surgery, general anesthesia, blood transfusions, and radiation therapy have been shown to depress immune function.
Criticism of the "War"
In 1975, Washington reporter Daniel Greenberg broke the story on the then-sacred American Cancer Society:
The survival rates for most types of cancers [including childhood leukemia] had largely remained static from the 1950's on. What improvement was noted from 1930 to 1950 was probably the result of better support systems and nursing...rather than true improvements in cancer therapy...the survival rates for some kinds of cancer had actually declined because of the more vigorous application of proven methods like toxic patients on whom it is used.
A 1991 article in the New England Journal of Medicine found no difference between the survival rate of individuals who had medical treatment for cancer and that of those treated by alternative therapies. The study, however, was flawed-the alternative care subjects first had immune system damaging surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation before beginning alternative care. At the very least, this study showed that after all the money and resources spent on research, the medical industry is no better than less expensive alternatives.
Ulrich Abel, Ph.D., one of Germany's preeminent biostatisticians, after exhaustive review of thousands of cancer research studies, stated that "Faith in chemotherapy is a fixed dogma that cannot be supported by the scientific evidence. Chemotherapy is incapable of extending..the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancers [breast, intestine, bladder, lung, pancreas].
The Alternative Approach
After three decades of false promises that a cure for cancer is "just around the corner," many cancer patients are turning to alternative, holistic therapies that view cancer as a breakdown of the body's chemistry, integrity, resistence, and organization. The goal of these therapies, instead of measuring success only in terms of tumor reduction, is to restore the body to strength, organization, and balance. The holistic approach concentrates on host resistance and biological repair, the same mechanisms that heal cuts, infections, and broken bones.
Nutrition and Cancer
For years, researchers have debated why vegetarians have a much lower risk of cancer than nonvegetarians.
A team of researchers in Germany has...concluded that the immune power of vegetarians comes from having double the number of natural killer cells or from each cell having double the capacity to kill(killer cells contain granules that can destroy cancer cells)...
A recent headline in USA Today- "MORE EVIDENCE THAT DIET CAN CUT CANCER RISK"-points out that "eating more vegetables- and less red meat-can help reduce cancer risk, two studies confirm."
Spontaneous Remission
One problem with cancer statistics is that most self-induced cures don't get into the medical literature. A person who gets well when he isn't supposed to doesn't go back to his doctor. If he does, many doctors automatically assume his case was an error in diagnosis. In addition, most physicians consider such cases too "mystical" to submit to a journal, or think they don't apply to the rest of their patients, the "hopeless" ones.
Cancer patients who have achieved "spontaneous remission" have often been thought of as flukes of nature or mysteries to medical science.
Cancer and Chiropractic
Although Chiropractic is not a cancer therapy, at least one medical authority has noted a correlation between chiropractic care and cancer:
Like all other medical students I was taught the standard answers to patients who reported they had been cured at the hands of chiropractors. These responses included "You're lucky"-or the ever popular "spontaneous remission." Indeed, to this day I am frustrated at the ability of chiropractors to achieve "spontaneous remission" in patients with heart disease, arthritis, cancer and other serious chronic ailments. It seems that we MDs do not get out fair share. Why must I advise patients: If you want a spontaneous remission, see a chiropractor.
If you have cancer, it is essential that you have a healthy spinal column whether you are under medical alternative care, or both. Studies have shown that chiropractic has a "boosting" effect on the immune system. With less spinal stress your body is better able to maintain its internal environment. Will chiropractic be the key to curing cancer? For some it may be. For others still other keys or some combination of keys may be what's needed.
The continuing failure of orthodox medicine to deal satisfactorily with major forms of cancer guarantees the growth of nonconventional approaches....among them all may well be some methods of great benefit to cancer patients. It is the job of the true scientist...to look at all methods and claims...A million new cases a year demand no less.