Cancer Cure Now

Surgery is invasive, risky, and causes mutilation. Often it is impossible to excise a tumor without severe damage to surrounding tissues and organs.

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy target the characteristic of cancer cells to grow faster than normal. The problem with this approach is that all the cells of the body are constantly renewing themselves at some rate, so there is always some level of systemic toxicity.

The fastest growing cells are those of the hair follicles, gastrointestinal tract, and the immune system. However, even slow growing cells such as those within the brain are affected. The usual aftermath of chemotherapy is hair loss, nausea and gastrointestinal problems, anemia, low white cell count (immunosuppression), general malaise, and mental impairment ("chemo brain").

In the case of radiotherapy, even cells which are not replicating at all can be burned, and local damage of the tissues surrounding the tumor usually occurs, resulting in immediate pain and irritation followed by fibrosis in the long term. Additionally, radiation itself causes genetic mutation which can lead to even more tumors years later.

Dr. Alfred I. Neugut, associate professor of clinical medicine and of public health, used data from the Connecticut Tumor Registry to follow up breast cancer patients who received radiation therapy before 1980, when doses of therapeutic radiation were higher than they are today.

Two studies found that radiation therapy for women with breast cancer raised their risk of both esophageal and lung cancer compared with breast cancer patients who did not receive radiation therapy. 1 Children, because their bodies contain more rapidly growing cells, are even more negatively affected by standard cancer therapies than adults. Approximately one in every 350 individuals living in the United States develops a cancer before the age of 20.

Until the 1960s, few children survived cancer. In the last 40 years, however, researchers have raised the survival rate for childhood cancer to over 70%. This is certainly a remarkable and highly commendable achievement.

However, it is evident that these youthful survivors often have severe, irreversible long term handicaps directly attributable to the cancer therapy itself. A 1998 study by M.C. Stevens found that "58% of the survivors had at least one 'chronic medical problem' and 32%, two or more.

Infertility (14%), nephrectomy (11%), thyroid hormone deficiency (9%), visual handicap (9%), sex hormone (7%) and growth hormone (7%) replacement therapy were the most common problems."

2 This finding was confirmed by a report from the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences which advises the American government on health matters. They found that approximately two thirds of childhood cancer survivors had health problems ranging from growth problems, learning disorders, heart disease, to secondary cancers. These effects were due to both the lingering effects of the disease or the treatment.

Pain and psychosocial problems are caused by both the treatment milieu and the actual medical practices. Even if the cancer will cause no symptoms until late in its course, conventional treatments are guaranteed to cause debilitation and illness right away.

Cancer patients are often overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and lack of control, as doctors take charge of treatments and patients are consigned to long stays in impersonal hospital facilities away from their families.

Many lose their jobs as it impossible to work while suffering from the effects of chemotherapy. Many are permanently disfigured. Fighting cancer with conventional methods will produce, at best, a very costly victory in terms of quality of life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (1) Habibul Ahsan, MD, MMedSc, and Alfred I. Neugut, MD, PhD, Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer and Increased Risk for Esophageal Carcinoma   15 January 1998 | Volume 128 Issue 2 Annals of Internal Medicine  Dr. Alfred I. Neugut, Smoking, Radiation Therapy: Dangerous Mix for Breast Cancer, P&S Journal: Spring 1994, Vol.14, No.2 Research Reports

(2) M M Hawkins and M C G Stevens, The Long Term Survivors, British Medical Bulletin 52:898-923 (1996)