Anything But Chemo – As Easy As: A, B, C.
Not a line you’ll see anytime soon, but perhaps by 2050 we will hear: “Anything But Chemo” as more effective and less painful ways to treat cancer, become mainstream. Speaking as a non medic, we can dare to dream. That dream would be that one day we’ll look back on 2018, just as we do to the days of blood letting, open sewers and surgeons not washing their hands before surgery. Once upon a time they were all medical norms, the Gold ‘standard of care’ to keep us ‘healthy’. Meanwhile, bubonic plague, banged at our door begging to be let in – it came and went, mysteriously without our interference. One day, chemo’ will be like that. In time, we will ask just how did chemo become fêted as the best cancer ‘medical solution’ – yet, something based on mustard gas? C’mon guys.
This blog was triggered by a ‘cancer’ email I received last Sunday trumpeting a piece in The Independent, no less. A newspaper that, being ‘independent’, should probe and prod, with awkward questions – being non attached to the mantras of others. To stand aside from, as in, to be: independent. The article headlined with: ‘most women with breast cancer can avoid toxic chemo, major trial finds’. So there we have it: chemo and toxic in the same sentence, in a National broadsheet. Not so much for The Times, but for The Independent – the times, they are a changin’. Fitting at last, some might say. I’ve omitted the word ‘therapy’ which appeared after chemo in the article. Toxic, somehow, seems to negate that (with apologies to the author, Health Correspondent, Alex Matthews-King) for butchering his piece.
Hoe Does Your Garden Grow
Chemotherapy (originally mustard gas) is used to shrink a cancer tumour before radiation or surgery. As a treatment it wafted out of WWI trenches and hasn’t had that many bragging rights since. It’s more old style reductionist, than cutting edge expansionist science. If say, you were a gardener would you just spray weed killer everywhere when you wanted to grow fragrant roses on the best, most fertile, land. No, you’d likely till the soil, adding life promoting nutrients, and hydrate regularly with clean, fresh, water. If you continue to blame the roses, the geraniums and the lupins, while ignoring the soil, you miss the simply obvious. That being, for long term, healthy, cultivation. Maybe just maybe, the grass is greener on the other side – but as we know in most cases, it isn’t. It takes insightful work – if your plants became diseased you shouldn’t criticise the ‘terrain’ without thinking hard about improving the upstream causes. So, what if tumour shrinkage is the wrong measure? That would be a bit like saying “look how small my weeds are” while not noticing that the roses just aren’t growing anymore – then the weeds come back, again, and again, and again. Terrains are like that.
What Happens If Chemo Creates Stemness?
What is stemness? Well, it’s defined as encouraging cancer stem cells to return with virulence, having lurked around until conditions are just ‘right’ to come back, but, some say, much stronger – that’s stemness. Perhaps their return is more likely to occur, if three ‘ideal’ conditions are in play: 1) a chemo-compromised immune system; 2) an oxygenating and nutritional lack, and; 3) a body conditioned to sugar expectancy (refer: Otto Warburg, the cancer fermentation visionary and 1931 Nobel Prize Winner).
Would Oncologists Use Chemo On Their families?
A friend administers chemo to her patients and attributes her serious allergies, to the aerosol chemo that she has administered to them. Meanwhile, chemo spillage is treated as a hazardous material and has special clean up procedures and protocols. A former Nurse, and Parliamentarian said she would ‘never have chemo’. The annual cost of cancer care in the US is $160 billion, with the average cancer treatment now costing over $100,000 – clearly, a ‘gold’ (standard) treatment. While 70% of oncologists’ income, Stateside, comes from selling chemo drugs… With ample reports that oncologists wouldn’t use chemo on their own families, a more open dialogue about risks and benefits is long overdue. One BMJ cancer study highlighted the need for such an honest inventory way back in 2008.
Put The Gene Genie Back In The Bottle
The Independent article had a genetic slant to it, mentioning the HER2 receptor on which the trial was focussed. Just why are tens of billions of cancer research dollars so heavily skewed towards genetics when, by examining identical twins over decades, we can see that genetics drive ‘at best’ 15% of the causes of deaths. Genetics is, in reality, not destiny – not in 85% of cancer cases anyway. The main drivers are poor lifestyle habits, toxins and diets hurting our bodily proteins which are far, far, more abundant than our genes. What often remains unmentioned too are screening inaccuracies. In breast cancer if we look at DCIS ‘cancers’ (Duct Carcinomas In Situ) we see something that is considered by the many oncologists to be a ‘non’ cancer. But, by now, DCIS has been fully ramped up the fear slope – a case of dis-ease inflation, if ever there was one. Throw in the words that I heard at the European Congress of radiology five years ago by one presenter: “breast screening is around 53% accurate”. A coin toss does nearly as well – that’s right, tossers can win sometimes, sadly.
Switzerland – Keeping Abreast of New Evidence
But with Switzerland dropping new breast screening in 2014, (due to the nett harms of breast screening seen in Denmark and Canada) the disease mongering industry (and chemo) might just, be on the decline. Now that’s a ‘therapy’ we can believe in, with less, being more. By 2050, hopefully ‘Anything But Chemo’ will be as easy as A, B, C, – but for now we’ll just give the chemo ‘industry’ a D minus.