Cancer : Chemo Therapy ?
What doctors say about Chemo
Therapy ?
Chemotherapy is effective in only 2 to
4% of cancers----Hodgkin's disease, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL, childhood leukemia),
Testicular cancer, and Choriocarcinoma? (Ralph Moss interview 1995)
There is no scientific evidence for
chemotherapy being able to extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering
from the most common organic cancers, which accounts for 80% of all cancers? (Dr Ulrich
Abel. 1990)
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World Without Cancer
by Edward G. Griffin
Excerpts
Let us take a look at the results and benefits of the
so-called cures obtained through surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
Chemo Statistics
The following appeared in the Los Angeles Times on August
18, 1973, under the heading: CANCER "CURE" LAETRILE
Helene Brown, FDA spokesperson, ... said:
... there are now 10 kinds of cancer which can be cured or
controlled by chemotherapy—the treatment of disease by drugs.
Less than a month later, while speaking at an ACS national
conference on cancer nursing, Mrs. Brown said flatly: "Present medical knowledge
makes it possible to cure seventy percent of. cancers, if they are detected early."
Spokesmen for the American Cancer Society never tire of
perpetuating the myth of "proven cures." But they seldom look quite so foolish
in the eyes of those who know anything about true survival statistics as they do when they
speak of cures by chemotherapy.
We briefly have viewed the miserable results obtained by
orthodox surgery and radiation. However, the record of so-called anti-cancer drugs is even
worse. The primary reason for this is that most of them currently in use are highly
poisonous, not just to cancer but to the rest of the body as well. Generally they are more
deadly to healthy tissue than they are to the malignant cell.
All substances can be toxic if taken in sufficient quantity.
This is true of aspirin, sugar, Laetrile, or even water. But, unlike those, the
anti-cancer drugs are poisonous, not as a result of an overdose or as a side-effect, but
as a primary effect. In other words, their poisonous nature is not tolerated merely as a
necessary price to pay in order to achieve some desired effect, it is the desired effect.
These chemicals are selected because they are capable of
differentiating between types of cells and, consequently, of poisoning some types more
than others. But don’t jump to the conclusion that they differentiate between cancer
and non-cancer cells, killing only the cancer cells, because they do not.
The cellular poisons used in orthodox cancer therapy today
cannot distinguish between cancer and non-cancer cells. They act instead to differentiate
between cells that are fast-growing and those that are slow-growing or not growing at all.
Cells that are actively dividing are the targets. Consequently, they kill, not only the
cancer cells that are dividing, but also a multitude of normal cells all over the body
that also are caught in the act of dividing.
Theoretically, those cancers that are dividing more rapidly
than normal cells will be killed before the patient is, but it is nip and tuck all the
way. In the case of a cancer that is dividing at the same rate or even slower than normal
cells, there isn’t even a theoretical chance of success.
In either event, poisoning the system is the objective of
these drugs, and the resulting pain and illness often is a torment worse than the disease
itself. The toxins catch the blood cells in the act of dividing and cause blood poisoning.
The gastrointestinal system is thrown into convulsion causing nausea, diarrhea, loss of
appetite, cramps, and progressive weakness. Hair cells are fast-growing, so the hair falls
out during treatment. Reproductive organs are affected causing sterility. The brain
becomes fatigued. Eyesight and hearing are impaired. Every conceivable function is
disrupted with such agony for the patient that many of them elect to die of the cancer
rather than to continue treatment.
It is ironic that the personnel who administer these drugs
to cancer patients take great precautions to be sure they themselves are not exposed to
them. The Handbook of Cancer Chemotherapy, a standard reference for medical personnel,
offers this warning:
The potential risks involved in handling cytotoxic agents
have become a concern for health care workers. The literature reports various symptoms
such as eye, membrane, and skin irritation, as well as dizziness, nausea, and headache
experienced by health care workers not using safe handling precautions. In addition,
increased concerns regarding the mutagenesis and teratogenesis [deformed babies] continue
to be investigated. Many chemotherapy agents, the alkylating agents in particular, are
known to be carcinogenic [cancer -causing] in therapeutic doses. (Roland T. Skeel, M.D.,
and Neil A. Lachant, M.D., Handbook of Cancer Chemotherapy; Fourth Edition (New York:
Little, Brown and Company, 1995), p.677.)
Because these drugs are so dangerous, the Chemotherapy
Handbook lists sixteen OSHA safety procedures for medical personnel who work around them.
They include wearing disposable masks and gowns, eye goggles, and double latex gloves. The
procedure for disposing needles and other equipment used with these drugs is regulated by
the Environmental Protection Agency under the category of "hazardous waste."
Yet, these same substances are injected directly into the bloodstream of hapless cancer
patients supposedly to cure their cancer!
Most of these drugs are described as radiomimetic, which
means they mimic or produce the same effect as radiation. Consequently, they also suppress
the immune system, and that is one of the reasons they help spread the cancer to other
areas. But whereas X-rays usually are directed at only one or two locations, these
chemicals do their deadly work on every cell in the body As Dr. John Richardson has
pointed out:
Both radiation therapy and attempts to "poison
out" result in a profound hostile in-imunosuppression that greatly increases the
susceptibility to metastasis. How irrational it would be to attempt to treat cancer
immunologically and/or physiologically, and at the same time administer immunosuppressants
in the form of radiation of any kind, methotrexate, 5-FU, Cytoxin, or similarly useless
and dangerous general cellular poisons. All of these modalities, as we know, have been
used to depress the rejection phenomena associated with organ transplantation. The entire
physiological objective in rational cancer therapy is to increase the rejection phenomena.
(Open letter to interested doctors, Nov., 1972; Griffin, Private Papers, op. cit.)
The view that toxic "anti-cancer" drugs usually
accomplish just the opposite of their intent is not restricted to the advocates of
Laetrile. It is a fact of life (or shall we say death?) that has become widely
acknowledged even by those who use these drugs. Dr. John Trelford, for instance, of the
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ohio State University Hospital has said:
At the present time, chemotherapy of gynecological tumors
does not appear to have increased life expectancy except in sporadic cases.... The problem
of blind chemotherapy means not only a loss of the effect of the drugs, but also a
lowering of the patient’s resistance to the cancer cells owing to the toxicity of
these agents. ("A Discussion of the Results of Chemotherapylogical Cancer and the
Host’s Immune Response," Sixth National Cancer Conference proceedings, op. cit.)
Dr. Trelford is not alone in his observation. A report from
the Southern Research Institute, dated April 13, 1972, based upon research conducted for
the National Cancer Institute, indicated that most of the accepted drugs in the American
Cancer Society’s "proven cure~~ category produced cancer in laboratory animals
that previously had been healthy! (NCI research contract PH-43-68-.998. Information
contained in letter from Dean Burk to Congressman Lou Frey, Jr., May 30,1972; Griffin,
Private Papers, op. cit., p. 5.)
In a courageous letter to Dr. Frank Rauscher, his boss at
the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Dean Burk condemned the Institute’s policy of
continuing to endorse these drugs when everyone knew that they caused cancer. He argued:
Ironically, virtually all of the chemotherapeutic
anti-cancer agents now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use or testing in
human cancer patients are (1) highly or variously toxic at applied dosages; (2) markedly
immunosuppressive, that is, destructive of the patient’s native resistance to a
variety of diseases, including cancer; and (3) usually highly carcinogenic [cancer
causing].... These now well established facts have been reported in numerous publications
from the National Cancer Institute itself, as well as from throughout the United States
and, indeed, the world. Furthermore, what has just been said of the FDA-approved
anti-cancer chemotherapeutic drugs is true, though perhaps less conspicuously, of
radiological and surgical treatments of human cancer....
In your answer to my discussion on March 19, you readily
acknowledged that the FDA-approved anti-cancer drugs were indeed toxic, immunosuppressive,
and carcinogenic, as indicated. But then, even in the face of the evidence, including your
own White House statement of May 5, 1972, all pointing to the pitifully small
effectiveness of such drugs, you went on to say quite paradoxically it seems to me,
"I think the Cancer Chemotherapy program is one of the best program components that
the NCI has ever had."... One may ask, parenthetically, surely this does not speak
well of the "other program areas?"...
Frankly, I fail to follow you here. I submit that a program
and series of the FDA-approved compounds that yield only 5—10%
"effectiveness" can scarcely be described as "excellent, " the more so
since it represents the total production of a thirty-year effort on the part of all of us
in the cancer therapy field. (Letter to Frank Rauscher, dated April 20, 1973; Griffin,
Private Papers, op. cit.)
There is little evidence for long-term survival with
chemotherapy. Here is just a sampling of the negative verdict handed down by physicians,
many of whom still continue to prescribe it:
Dr. B. Fisher, writing in the September 1968 issue of Annals
of Surgery, stated:
As a result of its severe toxicity and its lack of
therapeutic effect, further use of 5-FU as an adjuvant to breast surgery in the regimen
employed is unwarranted. ("Surgical Adjuvant Chemotherapy in Cancer of the Breast:
Results of A Decade of Cooperative Investigation," Annals of Surgery, 168, No.3,
Sept., 1968.)
Dr. Saul A. Rosenberg, Associate Professor of Medicine and
Radiology at Stanford University School of Medicine:
Worthwhile palliation is achieved in many patients. However,
there will be the inevitable relapse of the malignant lymphoma, and, either because of
drug resistance or drug intolerance, the disease will recur, requiring modifications of
the chemotherapy program and eventually failure to control the disease process. ("The
Indications for Chemotherapy in the Lymphomas," Sixth National Cancer Conference
proceedings, op. cit.)
Dr. Charles Moertal of the Mayo Clinic:
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....
Our accepted and traditional curative efforts, therefore,
yield a failure rate of 85%.... Some patients with gastrointestinal cancer can have very
long survival with no treatment whatsoever. (Speech made at the National Cancer Institute
Clinical Center Auditorium, May 18, 1972.)
Dr. Robert D. Sullivan, Department of Cancer Research at the
Lahey Clinic Foundation:
There has been an enormous undertaking of cancer research to
develop anti-cancer drugs for use in the management of neoplastic diseases in man.
However, progress has been slow, and no chemical agents capable of inducing a general
curative effect on disseminated forms of cancer have yet been developed. ("Ambulatory
Arterial Infusion in the Treatment of Primary and Secondary Skin Cancer," Sixth
National Cancer Conference proceedings, op. cit.)
If it is true that Orthodox chemotherapy is (1) toxic, (2)
immunosuppressant, (3) carcinogenic, and (4) futile, then why would doctors continue to
use it? The answer is that they don’t know what else to do. Patients usually are not
scheduled into chemotherapy unless their condition seems so hopeless that the loss of life
appears to be inevitable anyway. Some doctors refer to this stage, not as therapy, but
experimentation, which, frankly, is a more honest description.
Another reason for using drugs in the treatment of cancer is
that the doctor does not like to tell the patient there is no hope. In his own mind he
knows there is none, but he also knows that the patient does not want to hear that and
will seek another physician who will continue some kind of treatment, no matter how
useless. So he solves the problem by continuing the treatment himself.
In his book The Wayward Cell, Cancer, Dr. Victor Richards
made it clear that chemotherapy is used primarily just to keep the patient returning for
treatment and to build his morale while he dies. But there is more! He said:
Nevertheless, chemotherapy serves an extremely valuable role
in keeping patients oriented toward proper medical therapy, and prevents the feeling of
being abandoned by the physician in patients with late and hopeless cancers. Judicious
employment and screening of potentially useful drugs may also prevent the spread of cancer
quackery. (Victor Richards, The Wayward Cell, Cancer; Its Origins, Nature, and Treatment,
(Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1972), pp. 215—16.)
Heaven forbid that anyone should forsake the nauseating,
pain-racking, cancerspreading, admittedly ineffective "proven cures" for such
"quackery" as Laetrile!
Here, at last, is revealed the true goal of much of the
so-called "educational" programs of orthodox medicine—psychologically to
condition people not to try any other forms of therapy. That is why they perpetuate the
myth of "proven cures."
The American Cancer Society, in its Unproven Methods of
Cancer Management, stated:
When one realizes that 1,500,000 Americans are alive today
because they went to their doctors in time, and that the proven treatments of radiation
and surgery are responsible for these cures, he is less likely to take a chance with a
questionable practitioner or an unproven treatment. (Unproven Methods of Cancer
Management, op. cit., pp.17,18)
Summary
Before leaving the subject of cancer therapy and moving on
to the field of cancer research, let us clarify and summarize our findings so far. Here is
a brief outline of the four optional modes of cancer therapy:
SURGERY: Least harmful. Sometimes a life-saving, stop-gap
meas-ure. No evidence that patients who receive radical or extensive surgical options live
any longer than those who receive the most conservative options, or, for that matter,
those who receive none at all. Believed to increase the likelihood of disseminating cancer
to other locations.
When dealing with internal tumors affecting reproductive or
vital organs, the statistical rate of long-term survival is, on the average, 10—15%.
After metastasis, the statistical chances for long-term survival are close to zero.
RADIOLOGY: Very harmful in many ways. Spreads the cancer and
weakens the patient’s resistance to other diseases. Serious and painful side-effects,
including heart failure. No evidence that treated patients live any longer, on the
average, than those not treated. Statistical rate of long-term survival after metastasis
is close to zero.
CHEMOTHERAPY: Also spreads the cancer through weakening of
immunological defense mechanism plus general toxicity. Leaves patient susceptible to other
diseases and infections, often leading to death from these causes. Extremely serious
side-effects. No evidence that treated patients live any longer, on the average, than
untreated patients. Statistical rate of long-term survival after metastasis is close to
zero.
Did you know that 30 years ago Dr Hardin B. Jones, Professor
of Medical Physics & Physiology at Berkeley, found that the life expectancy of
untreated cancer cases appears to be FOUR TIMES LONGER than that of treated individuals?
1969 Science Writers Conference of the ACS
Chemotherapy is effective in only 2 to 4% of
cancers----Hodgkin's disease, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL, childhood leukemia),
Testicular cancer, and Choriocarcinoma?
Ralph Moss interview 1995 here
There is no scientific evidence for chemotherapy being able to extend in any appreciable
way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancers, which accounts
for 80% of all cancers?
Dr Ulrich Abel. 1990
Chemotherapy drugs are of benefit to at most 5% of cancer patients they are given to, but
are routinely given to 50% of patients?
John Cairns of Harvard in Scientific American
75 % of oncologists, in one survey, said if they had cancer they would not participate in
chemotherapy trials due to its "ineffectiveness and its unacceptable toxicity"?
Interview of Dr Manners
"(Tamoxifen) is a garbage drug that made it to the top of the scrap heap.
It is DES in the making."--Pierre Blais (Tamoxifen: A Major Medical Mistake?
by Sherrill Sellman). http://www.netspace.net.au/~newdome/hh_tamoxifen.html
The trouble with tamoxifen by Dr. Zoltan P. Rona MD MSc
http://www.selene.com/healthlink/tamoxifen.html
Grouped together, the average cancer patient has a 50/50 chance of living another 5 years;
which are the same odds he or she had in 1971?
With some cancers, notably liver, lung, pancreas, bone and advanced breast, our 5 year
survival from traditional therapy alone is virtually the same as it was 30 years ago?
After $50 Billion spent on cancer research, the list of cancers responsive to chemotherapy
is almost identical to what it was 25 years ago?
(Questioning Chemotherapy by Ralph Moss, p81)
the War on Cancer is a failure with a death rate not lower but 6% higher in 1997 than
1970?
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