Scientific Cancer Treatment?

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Katharina Scharpf was just three years old when she was diagnosed with leukaemia. Chemotherapy was started but caused so much suffering to the child that the parents withdrew her from treatment. So great is the power of the medical profession now that a German court in 1991 took Katharina away from her parents to force her to have further chemotherapy in order to 'save her life'.

These events caused much public controversy in Europe, especially when the father kidnapped his daughter and had her treated with natural therapies which quickly cured her condition. The cancer therapist involved was a Dr. Hamer who had already lost his licence to practise medicine and spent time in prison because he had been successful in curing other cancer patients with unorthodox methods.

You would expect that the medical profession can at least justify this arrogant power display with facts and figures regarding the effectiveness of its treatment methods. However, this is not so. Except for some rarer conditions, no clinical trials show that these methods are any more successful than leaving the patient untreated.

In cancer research, success (expressed as a five-year survival rate) is established by comparing other forms and combinations of treatment with the results from surgery only. However, the success rate of surgery has not been trialed against the survival rates of untreated patients, neither has the treatment of leukaemia by chemotherapy been trialed against untreated controls. Therefore, orthodox cancer treatment is basically unscientific. Its overall supposed cure rate is not higher than can be accounted for by spontaneous remissions and the placebo effect.

Breast Cancer - The Untold Story

Instead of a normal clinical trial, a study was made of USA breast cancer patients who had refused medical treatment between 1950 and 1973. They lived at least as long as those who had mutilating treatment. This confirmed an earlier investigation of 250 breast cancer patients in Great Britain who had refused surgery between 1805 and 1933. 97.5% of these were in a very advanced condition. After five years 20% were still alive, many more than could be expected after conventional treatment of such advanced cancers (Henderson).

The researcher also discovered, and that was later confirmed by others, that the mortality was decreasing with time. That means the longer a woman survived with a tumour, the less she was likely to die from it. Patients with very large tumours, more than six centimetres in diameter, had better survival rates than those with small tumours.

Small tumours grow rapidly and if disturbed, readily form deadly metastases in vital organs. Large tumours, on the other hand, grow very slowly and may even stop growing and become encapsulated or regress spontaneously.

Another interesting find is that it does not matter how much or how little of a breast is removed, the outcome is always the same (Skrabanek). That was already discovered sixty years ago and confirmed in recent years, but surgeons are still fond of cutting off women's breasts. Even in the year 2000 it is still not known if women survive equally long or longer if the breast is not interfered with at all.

On the contrary, some surgeons actually recommend removing completely healthy breasts as the ultimate in breast cancer prevention. This practice still flourishes (Skrabanek)!

In the 1960's there was one trial comparing treated and untreated elderly women with breast cancer in Germany. The result was that untreated women lived longer and the recommendation was not to treat them (Gregl). This 'unfavourable' outcome may be the reason why this trial is never mentioned in English language journals.

The closest that modern medicine has come to a comparative trial was a ten-year study of women with frequent mammograms and early intervention as compared to women with only infrequent manual breast examination and late intervention. Patients with a minimum of medical interference lived longer (The Australian). While there are some screening studies that suggest a reduced risk of up to 25%, these have been criticised in The Lancet as being biased and unreliable (Sydney Morning Herald). The latest results of a Canadian trial published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (USA) of 39,405 women showed that after 13 years there were 107 death in the mammogram group with early intervention and 105 in the control group that had only manual examination and late intervention.

However, there are also some studies that appear to show that early intervention is helpful. The reason is that often so-called pre-cancerous lesions are included in early removals that frequently would not become cancerous if left untouched (Skrabanek). Therefore, such results are not genuine.

The late H B Jones, Professor of Medical Physics, was a leading US cancer statistician. He said in a speech before the American Cancer Society that no study had proven that early intervention improves the chances of survival. On the contrary, his studies prove conclusively that untreated cancer victims live up to four times longer and with better quality of life than treated ones.

Questionable Value of Conventional Treatment

A recent epidemiological study by McKinlay confirmed the questionable value of conventional therapy by concluding that 'medical interventions for cancer have had a negligible or no effect on survival'. Compare this to an evaluation of 5-year survival rates of 153 melanoma patients treated with Gerson therapy (Leviton). 100% of Gerson therapy patients with Stages I and II survived, but only 79% with conventional therapy. With Stage III (regional metastases) the figures were 70% and 41%, and with Stage IVa (distant metastases) 39% with Gerson and 6% with conventional therapy!

Furthermore, during the persecutions of the Dutch Dr. Hamer the public prosecutor had to admit that after 4 to 5 years 6,000 out of 6,500 patients with mostly advanced cancer were still alive. That is over 90 %, almost a reversal of the results to be expected after conventional treatment of advanced conditions.

In one large US trial over 280,000 women took part without being told that no benefit from mammography had been shown in a controlled study for women under 50. The women were exposed to high doses of radiation that could be expected to cause more cancers than it might possibly prevent. In the end the 35% of women who did not take part in the program had a lower breast cancer mortality than participants. A director of the National Cancer Institute gave as reason for the program that it would assist in obtaining more research funds and be good for publicity (Skrabanek).

Another impressive scientific publication assures us that there is no evidence that early mastectomy affects survival and if patients knew this, they would most likely refuse surgery (Cunningham). Finally, Baum concludes that it is complacent to continue subjecting at least 70% of women with breast cancer to a futile mutilating procedure. At the Second European Breast Cancer Conference in 2000 Professor Michael Baum of the University College Hospital in London expressed his concerns that the promises of breast screening campaigns were misleading. He also regrets that still a large percentage of breasts are unnecessarily removed in pre-cancerous conditions that may not become malignant.

The editor of the leading English language medical journal 'The Lancet' (1993) pointed out that despite various modifications of breast cancer treatments death rates remain unchanged. He acknowledges that despite the almost weekly releases of miracle breakthroughs, the medical profession with its extraordinary capacity for self-delusion (his words, not mine) in all truth has lost its way.

At the same time he rejects those who now believe that salvation will come from increasing chemotherapy after surgery to just below the rate where it kills the patient. Instead, he continues, 'would it not be more scientific to ask why our approach has failed'? Not too soon to ask this question after a century of mutilating women, I would say. The title of this editorial, appropriately, is 'Breast Cancer: Have We Lost Our Way?'

Chemotherapy - Medical Russian Roulette

Recently Klein-Szanto found in a study of ovarian cancer that the risk of developing leukaemia after treatment with chemotherapy increased 21 fold or 2100%. Also other tumours commonly develop after treating malignancies with chemotherapy.

Another study showed a clear dose dependency whereby the incidence of triggered leukaemia doubled between low dose and moderate dose groups and then quadrupled between the moderate dose and the high dose groups.

But in the schizophrenic world of medical statistics chemotherapy is effective because it reduces the rate of patients dying from the cancer for which they are treated, never mind that they die from leukaemia or another cancer instead.

Basically all types and combinations of conventional breast cancer treatment result in the same low long-term survival rates. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that conventional treatment does not improve long-term survival rates. Even worse, Michael Baum, a leading British breast cancer surgeon, found that breast cancer surgery tends to increase the risk of relapse or death within three years. He also linked surgery to the accelerated spread of cancer, forming metastases in other parts of the body (The Lancet, January 27, 1996). Remember, it is metastases that kill while primary tumours in general and those in the breast in particular are relatively harmless.

This follows earlier reports that radical surgery for prostate cancer also tends to spread the disease. Actually, prostate cancer has been investigated in the first ever randomised clinical trials for any type of cancer. After 23 years there was no difference in the survival rates of those who had surgery and controls (Iversen), but those with surgery suffer more morbidity such as impotence or incontinence.

Chemotherapy for children with leukaemia and Hodgkin's disease is the proud showpiece and only apparent success of orthodox cancer therapy. Now a long-term follow-up study has been published which shows that such children develop 18 times more secondary malignant tumours later in life. Even worse, girls face a 75 times (7,500%!) higher risk of breast cancer by the time they are 40 (New Eng J Med, March 21, 1996).

With such clear evidence that conventional cancer therapy is futile and leads only to increased suffering from the severe side effects of most treatments, it beats me why anyone would still consider conventional therapy. The explanation is, of course, plain ignorance by the general public and even most medical practitioners in regard to the total failure of orthodox cancer therapy.

A common way to make medical statistics look more favourable is as follows. Patients who die during prolonged treatment with chemotherapy or radiotherapy are not counted in the statistics because they did not receive the full treatment. In the control group everyone who dies is counted. Furthermore, results may be expressed in a percentage of shrinking tumours, regardless of survival times. If survival is measured, then in terms of dying from the treated disease. It is not normally mentioned when patients die due to the treatment itself.

The current trend with breast cancer is to pick up pre-cancerous conditions very early and treat them in the statistics as cancer. While this statistically increases the number of women with cancer, it also artificially prolongs survival times and lowers death rates, thereby making medical treatments appear to be more successful. However, there may also be a genuine component of improved survival as increasing numbers of cancer patients opt for additional natural therapies.

In 1993 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (USA) published an investigation of the records of 1.2 million cancer patients. According to this the death rate attributed to non-cancer death shortly after treatment was 200 per cent higher than would normally be expected. Two years after diagnosis and treatment this excess death rate had fallen to 50%. The most common cause for the excess death was listed as heart and respiratory failure. This means instead of dying several years later of cancer, these patients die from the effects of the treatment and, with this, greatly improve the cancer statistics because less die of cancer.

In 1998 The Lancet published a large meta-analysis of radiotherapy with lung cancer (Lancet 1998; 352: 257-263). After 2 years there were 21 per cent more death in the group that had radiotherapy in addition to surgery as compared to surgery alone. The editorial states that the rationale is to kill any cancer cells remaining after surgery but it is a shame that the facts do not agree with this.

The Full Treatment

Virginia Livingston, a remarkable cancer researcher and therapist in her new book, Cancer - A New Breakthrough, gives an account of one of the many patients she saw who had come to her only after receiving the full medical treatment for breast cancer.

'After discovering a small breast lump she had radical mastectomy. None of the lymph nodes removed from the armpit were involved, all of the cancer had been successfully removed. To make extra sure that there was no regrowth in the scars, she received cobalt treatment and also her ovaries were taken out.'

'To her dismay, a year later several small nodules appeared in the old breast scar. Again she received radiation. More lumps appeared on the neck that called for still more radiation. In addition she received male hormone therapy, resulting in acne and coarse facial hair. Still the nodules came back. Now she received chemotherapy with the usual side effects.'

'Before her hair could regrow, pain in her bones was diagnosed as bone cancer. More chemotherapy and hormone therapy was expected to help. However, several months later the bone lesions became worse and removal of her adrenal glands was recommended and performed. Hopefully, that would prolong her suffering for another year. After that the removal of her pituitary gland might give her a further three to six months to live.'

'By now her faith in her medical advisers was sufficiently shaken that she came to Dr. Livingston for help. She asked to be examined without her husband being present as she wanted to spare him the agony of seeing her naked body, distorted, mutilated and shrunken with an immensely swollen abdomen and thin legs. Finally she whispered: "Doctor, shall I kill myself?"

A Conspiracy of Silence

More insights are provided by the eminent medical commentator Dr. Donald Gould in an article in New Scientist, aptly called 'Cancer - A Conspiracy of Silence'. The subtitle summarises his position: 'The commonest cancers are as resistant to treatment today as they were 40 or 50 years ago. Nothing is to be gained by pretending that the battle against cancer is slowly but surely being won.'

These commonest cancers kill more and more people every year. The rate of overall cancer death is rising steeply. The truth of this disastrous result of conventional cancer therapy has been deliberately concealed from the general public.

The reason for this conspiracy of silence is basically money. That is what it is all about. (Ed. Typically US$ 250,000 is spent for the doctors, hospitals, and drug companies for EACH CASE ! )

The public must continue to see the Cancer Establishment as a winner to continue providing money. One of the questioned scientists said that with tens of thousands of radiologists and millions of dollars in equipment one just gives radiation treatment even if study after study shows that it does more harm than good.

Gould also is of the opinion that patients who could be comfortable without medical treatment until their inevitable death, with medical treatment are made miserable in a pointless attempt to postpone death for a few unhappy weeks. But of course, that is when most of the money is being made. Gould feels that they poison their patients with drugs and rays and mutilate them with unnecessary surgery in a desperate attempt to treat the untreatable.

There is nothing I need to add to the concerns of all these brave medical scientists who dared to write the truth. However, our problem is that such concerns are openly expressed only in scientific journals. The public is prevented from knowing about it by a tight control of the mass media. Only in small alternative publications can one write openly about it - usually preaching to the already converted.

Suppression and Persecution

However, things are even worse than just suppression of the truth. There is also widespread suppression of natural cancer therapies and persecution of successful therapists. The undisputed leader in this field is the USA and other governments and medical authorities happily follow the US example.

The rationale for this suppression is the claim that natural cancer therapies have not been scientifically proven to be effective and such treatment, even if harmless, would delay the more effective conventional cancer treatment. This argument would be laughable if it were not so tragic for millions of sufferers.

Nevertheless, one part of this argument is true. Natural therapies are not scientifically proven to give better results than conventional treatment. Medical authorities, of course, control all research funds and facilities and nothing is given to natural therapists to prove their case. In the rare instances that natural remedies have been investigated by conventional medical institutions, it was done in such a way that a negative outcome was guaranteed.

This happened, for instance with laetrile. Thousands of patients and various scientific studies have shown it to be effective (Passwater). The official trials by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA), which had banned laetrile even before the trials had begun, were declared negative. The initial tests actually were positive until a known therapy resistant strain of tumours was used. Even insiders charged that these tests had been rigged to make sure that they failed (Passwater).

It was similar with the official vitamin C trial. Natural therapists know that high dosages must be continued more or less indefinitely and that it is extremely dangerous to stop treatment abruptly. In this decisive official trial 10g daily was given to 'terminal' patients for two months and then stopped abruptly. No patient died during treatment but the high rate of death after the treatment was stopped was seen as proof that the treatment had failed (Moertel).

From supervising medical students in their postgraduate work myself, I know that medical graduates generally are not well versed in biochemical and scientific investigations. However, I also know that they are not stupid. Therefore, I assume that the incompetence displayed in these trials was deliberate.

Gerson, Rife & Naessens - Genius Suppressed

The medical profession had an excellent chance to properly investigate nutritional cancer therapy when a US Senate Committee moved strongly to provide extensive funds for research of the treatment used by Dr. Gerson because Senators were so impressed with his results.

However, the American Medical Association lobbied so strongly against research into nutritional cancer therapies that the move was defeated in the Senate, although by only four votes.

Albert Schweitzer wrote of the man the AMA regarded as a quack: 'I see in him (Dr. Gerson) one of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine' and, 'A medical genius who walked among us.'

I am sure history will show eventually who the real quacks were in this century. Because of such influential support Gerson was not dragged before the courts like other successful cancer therapists, but the Gerson clinic had to be moved to Mexico to avoid prosecution.

Royal Ray Rife fared even worse. He invented a powerful microscope that enabled him to see the virus form of a cancer microbe that he then succeeded in destroying with a specific electro magnetic frequency. Initially he had the support of the AMA, University departments and the prestigious Franklin Institute and Smithsonian Institution and many individual doctors reported good results.

Cancer apparently could be reliably cured. But this caused a sudden change of mind of the AMA. The Rife instruments everywhere were destroyed, Rife had to flee while an associate who had carried on after the ban spent three years in jail (Lynes).

The Rife saga unfolded during the 1930's and 40's but is currently restaged with the persecution of Gaston Naessens. He, too, invented a powerful microscope to observe the effect of treatments on the cancer microbe. From this he developed a remedy, called 714X, that is injected into a lymph node. His fame for curing leukaemia spread so rapidly in the 1960's that even the more tolerant French authorities felt obliged to put him on trial for practising medicine without a licence.

Naessens fled to Canada where he again became famous for his cancer cure. Despite strong support from influential circles Naessens had to face new court trials in Canada in the 80s for practising medicine without a licence (Problems for Naessens have since ceased with recognition of the central chemical preparation in his therapy - Trimethyl-bicyclo-nitraminoheptane Chloride or 714X - by Health Canada under its Canadian Drug Emergency Program). He reportedly has helped to cure more than a thousand patients with advanced cancer and AIDS (Brown, Bird).

I may add that 'practising medicine without a licence' does not mean that these people pretended to be medical doctors, but rather that curing cancer in these countries is legal only for licensed medical practitioners. Bad luck for the patients of these licensed doctors that they do not know how to do it.

The Persecution Continues

However, there are some outstanding doctors who know what to do but then are not allowed to do it. Only methods approved by the conventional medical associations may be used, otherwise a doctor may lose the licence to practise.

This happened to the Danish doctor Kristine Nolfi. She had cured her own cancer with a hundred percent vegetarian and organic raw food diet. Then she helped her patients in the same way. Her fame spread throughout Scandinavia. Twice she was dragged before the courts and was lucky only to lose her licence.

Dr. Issels was the most successful cancer therapist in Germany. He was the first to have cancer patients replace their amalgam fillings and remove dead and infected teeth. Basically he used the Gerson diet. The medical association took him to court for using unauthorised therapies and he received a suspended jail sentence (Issels).

Wilhem Reich was not so lucky. Earlier he had been a leading psychiatrist and was regarded as the heir to Sigmund Freud's position. However, he fell into disgrace when he published his sexual theories, especially when he linked suppressed sexual energies with cancer.

In trying to escape persecution he emigrated to the USA. He experimented with bio-energy collectors or orgone accumulators and also used a powerful microscope to demonstrate that cancer cells and cancer mcrobes were killed by this orgone energy.

Reich, like Rife and Naessens, made his observations using live tissue, while conventional microbiologists only use dead and stained specimens. Therefore, they could not see what Reich and the others saw and they denied that it existed.

Reich published successful results of 15 cases of 'terminal' cancer, which alerted the FDA.

Reich declined to defend himself, saying that a court was not the place to evaluate scientific research. This error of judgement landed him in Federal jail where he eventually died. All his equipment was destroyed and his books and writing officially burned - six tons of his published works, in fact. That was in 1957 (Cantwell).

Dinshah Ghadiali was the pioneer of colour therapy in the USA. Despite much support from doctors and countless patients for the effectiveness of his treatment with cancer and other diseases, he received many large fines and jail sentences. His stock of spectrochrome projectors was destroyed and his books and other writings officially burned (Dinshah). Radionics practitioners in the US had a similar fate with equipment destroyed and Ruth Drown jailed.

In the beginning of this century a leading American doctor wrote that most cases of cancer he saw had been operated on or radiated and the cancer had returned worse than before. However, in those without previous medical treatment he claimed a cure rate of 95% by using homoeopathic remedies. Homoeopathy was speedily outlawed in the USA (Jones).

William F Koch was probably the most famous medical cancer therapist in the US and widely respected in influential circles. His homoeopathic oxidation catalyst was used worldwide but banned in the US. Six hundred doctors came to his court trial to testify on his behalf and to report the many thousands of patients that they had cured with his method. He had to be acquitted but tired of constant persecution he emigrated to Brazil immediately after the trial in 1953 (Koch).

Jason Winters cured himself of cancer with various herbs that he started selling. He had to move to the Bahamas to escape the FDA but was hassled even there (Winters).

Harry Hoxsey was the most famous herbal cancer therapist in the US. He had clinics in various states and thousands of satisfied patients attested to the effectiveness of his herbs. Despite being arrested more often than any other therapist for practising medicine without a licence, the courts confirmed the therapeutic value of his herb mixture and even the AMA reluctantly admitted that some of his remedies had merit.

A federal report to Congress agreed with Hoxsey's allegations that the AMA, the FDA and the National Cancer Institute had conspired to suppress a fair investigation of his methods. In 1963 he had to move his clinics to Mexico to escape the mounting pressure (Ausubel).

Dr. Johanna Budwig was a fat researcher with the German Government. She was prevented from publishing her discovery of fatty residues from margarine in soft tumours and lost her job.

Lawrence Burton, a biochemist, developed a method to effectively stimulate the immune system of cancer patients. In 1977 he was forced to move his clinic to the Bahamas. But even there the clinic was closed because his vaccines were reportedly contaminated with the AIDS virus.

In 1985, a group of his cancer patients complained to the US Congress about the clinic closure. A subsequent congressional hearing found that these damaging reports, which originated from the National Cancer Institute and were spread by the AMA, were false (Ausubel).

The persecution of natural cancer therapists and clinics continues unabated into the 1990s. Commonly FDA agents raid clinics with drawn guns and confiscate remedies and equipment used in natural therapies as well as patient files and other documents. Even if therapists are not dragged before courts, many will be bankrupted by these actions or simply give up.

The Burzynski cancer clinic operated with the approval of the FDA and was rather successful using a cancer remedy derived from urine. Nevertheless the clinic was raided several times and Dr. Burzynski brought before four federal grand juries. Each time he was acquitted. A committee of the US Congress is investigating the FDA on charges of abusing the grand jury process in order to harass and persecute Dr. Burzynski (Cancer).

Now that all successful cancer therapists have been eliminated from the USA a grave-like silence covers the cancer battlefield.

This decisive victory of the US Cancer Establishment has served to secure the position of conventional cancer therapy also in other western countries. Holistic cancer therapists everywhere must be careful to operate on a small scale and not appear to be successful to avoid being dragged before the courts if a 'terminal' patient in their care should not make it.

How scientific do you now think our official cancer treatments are? Would it not be more scientific to allow proper trials of holistic therapies rather than trying to put successful cancer therapists in jail?

However, in the dark night of this dismal cancer saga a glimmer of light has just appeared.

Dr. Samuel Epstein, as the spokesman of a group of 65 US cancer researchers, has just gone public to declare that the 'Cancer Establishment' has hoodwinked the public into believing that progress has been made. He said cancer rates are rising and little effort has been made to prevent this cancer epidemic that is highly preventable. Furthermore, following a directive of the US Senate, the cancer establishment has now softened its strong opposition to natural cancer therapies, although even in 1999 it still managed to get the "Father of Oxygen Therapies' Ed McCabe into jail and Dr. Hulda Clark ('The Cure of All Cancers') arrested for practising medicine without a license.

However, ultimately this situation is not really the fault of the vested interests because it is in their nature to be selfish. The real responsibility lies with governments which should act in the interests of their citizens and not for the benefit of selfish interest groups.

References

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Last modified: May 11, 2001, Friday.