Who benefits really from the official cancer research efforts? Most probably not the patients. Since I’ve gone through a cancer, I am studying the subject from various sources available for the public, and sometimes I find astonishing facts they don’t talk about.
“Fight cancer”, “Beat cancer” are very popular expressions these days, and it is good so. Although October, the Breast Cancer Awareness Month is over, one can see many people wearing pink ribbons on their jackets, which is a demonstration of their will to help those women who suffer from this disease. And this is very much appreciated and should be acknowledged. Fundraising and information events, websites, donations, merchandise, advertisements all over the media, groups on social networking sites, individuals spreading the word – attention is certainly given to the subject and considerable amount of money is collected to fund cancer researches. In Stockholm, they had a beautiful demonstration with candles for the cause.
However, looking a little bit closer, I personally have some questions, doubts and reservations about these research programs and might be a bad person, but I didn’t donate one single cent and not intend to do so. Tell you why.
Fight. A key word when talking about cancer.
How do you best fight so that you win? You know your enemy.
A problem – any problem - can be only handled if one knows the exact cause of it. This should be clear – how else do you solve a situation, if you don’t know what is it exactly?
In the case of (breast) cancer, it looks like this: each year $ millions are spent to find out the causes of cancer AND more importantly, develop new treatments. Let me suggest: treatments can be only effective when they target the root of the problem…
“The exact causes of breast cancer are not known.” In fact, according to the publicly available statements, causes of cancer are a mystery for the medical profession.
The theory of changed or damaged genes is wide spread, and this video gives a little hint on why does it occur:
“Damage or change in the genetic material of cells by environmental of internal factors sometimes results in cells that do not die and continue to multiply until a massive cancer cell or tumor develops.”
Excellent. The next step would be then to investigate these environmental or internal factors that damage or change the genetic material of cells, wouldn’t it?
The environmental factors are pretty much known for the scientists and for the public: bad nutrition, tobacco, certain chemicals that we use, etc.
Cancer research should go then in the direction of eliminating these factors: educating the population on correct eating habits, cutting back the use of harmful chemicals, and so on.
And cancer treatment would primarily consist of targeting the cause of cancer, the reason why those genes got changed or damaged: increasing certain vitamins and other nutrition supplements, cleansing and physical exercise that helps the body push out the accumulated toxins, boosting the body’s own self defense, the immune system and so on.
But this is not how it goes. Cancer researches deal mostly with developing the standard therapies by official medicine: new drugs, radiation, hormones and surgery.
And cancer treatments available in hospitals are mainly about giving chemotherapy and such to the patients. Can you see how adding extra chemicals into the already overwhelmed and weakened system would help the body to recover? I can’t.
So why then chemotherapy is a preferred and highly promoted method, when it has very many known harmful side effects?
The answer is easy: pharmaceutical companies have vast interests in introducing and marketing drugs.
As Clinical Study Results.Org openly admits: “Clinical studies designed for approval of a new drug are sponsored primarily by pharmaceutical and biotech companies.” Surprise, surprise!
One can predict the outcome of a clinical study on breast cancer treatment, if more than one-fifth of the Swedish Cancer Society researches are financed by Pfizer – can you guess from what pharma company will they recommend medicine to the patients? (see Pfizer Hid Evidence That HRT Causes Cancer via NaturalNews.com)
Another suggested treatment is hormonal therapy. About that, only one word: “Hormonal therapy can cause a variety of side effects including: … Increased risk for cancer of the uterus” – from the information video on the National Breast Cancer.Org site.
Pardon me??? Treating one cancer by increasing the risk for another one??? Someone must be kidding here and it’s a very ugly joke.
Same for radiation therapy.
So what’s the solution? To invest more money in research?
The above mentioned Swedish Cancer Society (Cancerfonden) held a nice event last Saturday in Stockholm where people bought ten thousand candles or so and contributed to the funding. This organization alone has a target to spend more then 400 million SEK each year on research.
That’s a nice sum of money ($57M approx. and it’s only in one country), one can imagine to do great things with it. I wonder though why does cancer research need so much money to find out for example that tobacco or alcohol is not good for your health and there are certain vitamins that are vital for the normal operation of cells, when this has been already known for a good while.
I am more inclined to listen to what the so-called alternative methods recommend, because I believe that by well-balanced nutrition with supplements if needed and a general good care of the body physically and mentally, one does not need to be afraid of even such a threatening disease as cancer.
Therefore I intentionally didn’t link to sites of alternative practices, natural remedies, viewpoints or products, only referred to the information provided by the standard medicine, which is adopted and promoted by governments of the developed countries.
Well, look at the facts and the controversies they are giving and make up your own mind about it.
In the next round, I will share a few personal experiences that might help others as well – I am a cancer survival myself, so I put quite some effort to find out what works and what doesn’t.
And I do like that Stockholm Central Station got some nice pink color:
Photo: Stockholm Central Station in pink, for the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, October 2009
– Text and photos: Andrea Gerak
Update:
hi Terence, and how does it go?
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A doctor from the Netherlands to try new treatments for breast cancer patients using ultrasound heating in order to kill tumor cells.
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Thank you mondo for your input! I am glad to see that more and more people can see what is going on.
And some more writings in this subject are on the way
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Great article.
My philosophy is to question big business or any business for that matter. The pharmaceutical companies are making trillions of dollars keeping us sick and the longer they keep us sick the more they make. I was reading an article the other day that said that children will be there next big market….can you believe that? but of course it makes sense, children live longer and therefore produce profits for big pharma over a longer period of time.
Cancer is such a big debate, fortunately nobody close to me has died of cancer but i have taken it upon myself to do some research over the last couple of years oh and I’m an interior designer and no way connected to the medical industry.
You’re spot on with your analysis of cancer. Good nutrition, exercise, cleansing and vitamins should be enough to keep away the cancer beast. Whats astounding about the cancer industry is that they have turned it into something massively complicated and it doesn’t need to be…in fact its quite simple if people are given the right facts about prevention and cure….and cancer can be cured with some simple changes in lifestyle. We all know that’s not gonna happen though why would the they want to cure cancer when it brings in billions of dollars in profit?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this subject and look forward to your next blog.
Mondo
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Thank you my friend, I am with you. Glad to hear that your friend didn’t give up with his work.
And what does an artist have to do with medicine science?
Some of us have a tendency to open our eyes, and our mouths as well when we feel it’s needed…
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Quite an informative article…with lots of knowledge as well…. I am not sure if such big amount of finacial resources is always necessary. One of my friend is working with cancer reserach..he discovered pancreatic cancer medicine when he was working with boston institute of medicine.. then that program was stopped by the then govenrment. He went back to Pakistan and has recently published his research for intestinal cancer. He has been awarded in Japan recently. Am sure he doesnt have huge funding. Medicines help people with stabilizing. I have seen two cases very closely where people are stable once they start taking right medicines though their diseases are uncurable being genetic. It is right that in most of the fields like especially science and technology most of the research is to protect the interests of huge business giants. Most of the gadgets comming these days affect our social and psychological lives negatively however companies market them to make money and researchers devise them to make the smart amount of money that they are making out of it on the cost of peace of people and society. It is pitiful but we cant help. Am happy you expressed your opinion over something that you have been through. Was an unexpectedly nice article from an artist on medicine science
Good luck
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