Month: May 2011

Dissecting Chemotherapy Part 6: Avastin Does NOT Cure Cancer

The Story of Avastin That You Need to Know

On February 26, 2004, the FDA approved Avastin (or  bevacizumab) as a first-line treatment for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, i.e., cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. Avastin  was shown to extend patients’ lives by about five months when given  as a combination treatment along with standard chemotherapy drugs for colon cancer (the “Saltz regimen” also known as IFL). IFL treatment includes ironotecan, 5-fluorouracil (5FU) and leucovorin.

Source: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/druginfo/fda-bevacizumab#Anchor-Approva-23287

Take note of this fact carefully and serious ly – nowhere in the medical literature does it say Avastin cures cancer. It does not. When given with IFL, Avastin made patients lived longer by about five months. That was all. And the average time before tumors started regrowing or new tumors appeared was four months longer than patients receiving IFL alone.

Avastin Approved As Second-Line Treatment of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

On June 20, 2006, the FDA granted approval for Avastin for use as second-line treatment of metastatic carcinoma of the colon or rectum. This recommendation is based on the demonstration of improvement in  overall survival  (OS) of patients receiving Avastin plus FOLFOX4 (5-flourouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin) when compared to those receiving FOLFOX4 alone.

Mean overall survival of patients receiving Avastin + FOLFOX4 was 13.0 months while those receiving FOLFOX4 alone was 10.8 months.

Source: Source:  http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/druginfo/fda-bevacizumab#Anchor-Approva-51277

Take note again. Patients receiving Avastin + FOLFOX4 lived longer by only 2.2 months. Avastin did not cure. It only extended life by 2.2 months. Is that what patients want? Do oncologists clearly tell this fact to patients before they give them Avastin?

 Each Avastin injection cost a lot of money. It is NOT cheap for most people. Money is one point, Avastin comes with a bunch of devastating side effects. The most serious, and sometimes fatal side effects of Avastin are:

  • gastrointestinal perforation,
  • wound healing complications,
  • hemorrhage,
  • thromboembolic events,
  • hypertensive crisis,
  • nephrotic syndrome and
  • congestive heart failure.

The most common adverse events in patients receiving Avastin are:  asthenia (fatigue or weakness), pain, abdominal pain, headache, hypertension, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, stomatitis, constipation, upper respiratory infection, epistaxis (nose bleed), dyspnea (shortness of breath –SOB), exfoliative dermatitis and proteinuria (excess proteins in the urine).  Source: http://www.avastin.com/avastin/patient/crc/index.html#/crc/treatment/

Avastin for Colon Cancer – Any good?

A posting on 19 September 2010 has this heading:  Second Avastin Trial Shows No Benefit in Early Stage Colon Cancer. Adding Avastin to chemotherapy for early stage colon cancer didn’t reduce the risk that cancer would return. Source: http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/research_news/2010/09/second_avastin_trial_shows

A statement released by the drug company, Roche of Switzerland (http://www.roche.com/investors/ir_update/inv-update-2010-09-18b.htm) stated that:

  • A study known as AVANT evaluated the use of Avastin plus chemotherapy in the adjuvant treatment (immediately after surgery) of early-stage colon cancer. The results did not show that it improved disease-free survival in stage III colon cancer.
  • Evaluation of Avastin in the early-stage setting, the AVANT study shows that standard chemotherapy plus one year of Avastin is NOT effective in reducing the risk of relapses in early-stage colon cancer.

In another posting on 25 Janruary2011,entitled: AVANT Says No Avastin Benefit in Stage III Colon Cancer

Source:  http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/research_news/2011/01/avant_says_no_avastin_benefit_in_stage_iii_colon_cancer

A second randomized clinical trial has confirmed what the first one found — adding Avastin to standard chemotherapy does not reduce recurrences after surgery for stage III colon cancer. In presenting the trial results at the 2011 GI Symposium, Aimery De Gramont, MD, PhD, concluded:

  • The addition of Avastin to FOLFOX4 or XELOX did not improve disease-free survival  (DFS) in the adjuvant treatment of Stage III colon cancer.
  • Immature overall survival data suggest a potential detriment.
  1. In the first year, there was a transient favorable effect.
  2. The treatment effect became unfavorable after one year.

What the Mass Media Said

Avastin Falls Short in Test as Colon Cancer Medicine. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/health/23avastin.html

Andrew Pollack of the New York Times, wrote on 22 April 2009: In results from a widely watched clinical trial, the drug Avastin failed to show a significant effect on preventing the recurrence of colon cancer.  Avastin had sales of $2.7 billion in the United States alone last year.

Melly Alazrakip of Daily Finance wrote: Roche’s Avastin Fails in Early-Stage Colon Cancer Study

Source:  http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/09/20/avastin-cancer-drug-roche-fails-colon-study/

The top-selling cancer-fighting drug Avastin, which was once believed to have the potential to help treat many cancers, has hit another roadblock in testing. In a recent Phase III study, Avastin failed to improve disease-free survival in early-stage colon cancer patients when administered immediately after surgery.

Roche, the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs, said data from the study showed that adding Avastin to standard chemotherapy for one year after surgery wasn’t effective in reducing the risk of relapses. Indeed, the data showed better outcomes for standard chemotherapy alone.

As the world’s best-selling cancer drug, Avastin recorded nearly $6 billion in sales last year.
Avastin has experienced other setbacks this year, including Great Britain again refusing to approve Avastin for colorectal cancer on the basis of its poor cost-effectiveness, and another late-stage study showing Avastin failed to extend survival in men with advanced prostate cancer, compared to current treatments.

Take note here: Avastin is not allowed in Great Britain on the basis of poor cost-effectiveness.

In the poor developing countries, Avastin can be used? Is that logical?

Avastin for Other Cancers

In spite of its poor performance, Avastin had and is being used rather commonly for the following cancers:

  1. Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma (mRCC)
    Avastin is indicated for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma in combination with interferon alfa.
  2. Non–Squamous Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC)
    Avastin is indicated for the first-line treatment of unresectable, locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic non–squamous non–small cell lung cancer in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel.
  3. Brain cancer.
  4. Just not too long ago, Avastin was also approved for the treatment of breast cancer.

Castle Built On Sand – Avastin for Breast Cancer

Andrew Pollack of the New York Times (23 February 2008,http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23drug.html)

reported that the FDA approved Avastin as a treatment for breast cancer – a decision that appeared rather baffling to the common mind.  But as always, we know that a FDA  approval  means an additional hundreds of millions of dollars of annual sales to Avastin.

As a breast cancer treatment, Avastin costs about UD$7,700 a month, or US$92,000 a year.

Let us look at the results of the clinical trial on which the approval was based.

  • Women who received Avastin in combination with the chemo-drug Taxol (or paclitaxel) had a median of 11.3 months before their cancer worsened or they died, in contrast women who received Taxol alone had a median of  5.8 months. This means Avastin only delayed cancer worsening by 5.5 months.
  • Women who received Avastin lived a median of 26.5 months, compared with 24.8 months for those getting Taxol alone — life extension that was not statistically significant. This means Avastin prolonged life by 1.7 months which is meaningless and this difference could just be due to chance and not real.
  • Moreover, the women receiving Avastin suffered more side effects. And 5 or 6 of them out of 363 died from the drug itself.

In spite of such miserable performance, Avastin was approved for breast cancer treatment. And many patients in this part of the world, including Malaysia, were given Avastin by their oncologists.

A castle built on sand would not last! 

Matthew Perone of the Associated Press, on 15 December 2010 wrote:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40702735/ns/health-cancer/t/avastin-shouldnt-be-used-breast-cancer-fda-says/

Federal health authorities recommended Thursday that the blockbuster drug Avastin no longer be used to treat breast cancer, saying recent studies failed to show the drug’s original promise to help slow the disease and extend patients’ lives.

The ruling is a significant setback for the world’s best-selling cancer drug and will likely cost Swiss drugmaker Roche hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

The FDA approved Avastin for breast cancer in 2008 based on one study suggesting it halted the spread of breast cancer for more than five months when combined with chemotherapy. But follow-up studies showed that the delay lasted no more than three months, and patients suffered dangerous side effects.

Roche sells the drug at a wholesale price of $7,700 a month. When infusion charges are included, a year’s treatment with Avastin can run to more than $100,000.

Comment 

Avastin – it is all about big money but the results of Avastin are just miserable. It falls far short of the patients’ expectation. They expect the chemo drug to cure their cancers or at least prolong their lives for many more years! The truth is, Avastin does not and cannot do that!

Dissecting Chemotherapy Part 5: Contribution of Chemotherapy to Survival of Colon Cancer Patients

L M Carethers wrote the following in the International Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology,  Gut 2006;55:759-761 doi:10.1136/gut.2005.085274:

  • The current gold standard for treating patients with advanced colon cancer is chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) based regimens. This standard is based on compelling clinical trials utilising 5-FU and levamisole, and demonstrating a survival benefit for patients with stage III (Dukes C) colon cancer.
  • Although there is no set standard for treating stage II patients, some stage II patients do receive 5-FU chemotherapy.
  • Stage I patients with colorectal cancer do not receive 5-FU as their prognosis is excellent with removal of the tumour.
  • Stage IV patients may receive 5-FU for palliation (note: this is not cure).

Dissecting the Gold Standard of Colon Cancer Treatment

In 1975, Dr. Charles Moetel, a renowned oncologist of the famed Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA, found that the lives of Duke’s C colon cancer patients could be prolonged when treated with a combination of 5-FU and levamisole (a drug used in sheep, swine and cattle to control stomach and intestinal worms and nematode parasite infections). 

In this study, 971 patients with Duke’s C colon cancer who had undergone surgery were divided into three groups and given one of the three treatments. The actual median follow-up time is 6.5 years.

Treatment

Number of patients

Number with recurrence

Number died
Surgery only

315

177   (56.19%)

168  (53.33%)
Levamisole

310

  172   (55.48%)

158   (50.96%)
Levamisole +  5-FU

304

   119   (39.14%)

121   (39.80%)
Benefit of Levamisole + 5-FU over  surgery only (no chemotherapy)

Less recurrence by 17.05%

Less death by 13.53%

Source:  Moertel, C. G. et al. Fluorouracil plus levamisole as effective adjuvant therapy after resection of stage III colon carcinoma. Annals of Internal Medicine. March 1995. Vol: 122: 321-326. http://www.annals.org/content/122/5/321.full.pdf

The authors concluded that Fluorouracil plus levamisole is tolerable adjuvant therapy to surgery; it has been confirmed to substantially increase cure rates for patients with high risk (stage III) colon cancer. It should be considered standard treatment for all such patients.

The therapy with 5-FU + levamisole: caused nausea, infrequent vomiting, stomatitis, diarrhea, dermatitis, fatigue and mild alopecia. Approximately half of the patients had leucopenia (lowering of the white blood cells).

The unanticipated toxic reaction to 5-FU + levamisole: 40% of the patients had abnormal liver function test results during the course of the therapy. Their toxicity were reflected in elevated alkaline phosphatase levels (which peaked approximately 7 months after onset of therapy), elevated aminotransferase (AST) levels, and elevated serum bilirubin besides causing fatty liver.

Questions:

  1. Does the result show that if you don’t undergo chemotherapy after surgery, you will die?
  2. Does it not show that without chemotherapy 53.3% of patients were dead but even if you have undergone chemotherapy almost 40% died anyway?
  3. Does it not show too that even with chemotherapy 39% of the patients still suffered recurrence?
  4. Would it not be prudent to weigh this advantage against quality of life issues, taking into account the acknowledged side effects of chemotherapy?

From the above data it is clear that chemotherapy reduced recurrence by 17 % and reduced death by 13.5 % but not without side effects which are often brushed off as insignificant.

Chemotherapy is proven to be beneficial by only a slim margin (13% to 17%). Indeed, from the academic point of view, the result is statistically significant. This would please the statisticians and the scientists, but I am not sure if it pleases cancer patients at all. I believe this is not what patients (especially those in the poor developing country) are looking for. They are seeking for a REAL cure (not a MEDISAL CURE either!). If this is not possible, at least they expect a much greater chance of achieving it. I wonder if anything less than 20% benefit is good enough?

Chemotherapy causes severe side effects in most patients. It is not like an “ant-bite” as one oncologist would tell some patients. With less than 20% benefit, is it worth the gamble?

One question comes to mind: Can this slim margin of benefit of chemotherapy not be achieved by some other non-invasive or non-toxic means? For example, does it ever occur to people that by just a change of diet or taking of herbs, perhaps we can also increase our chances of healing colorectal cancer and the result could be better than chemotherapy? At CA Care we have presented many case studies showing that indeed this hypothesis is valid and has merit — herbs and change of diet and lifestyle can prolong meaningful survival better than chemotherapy!

Gold Standard Plus Targeted Therapy

Today, oncologists have a good number of chemo-drug mixes for patients with advanced stage colon cancer. A new generation of “smart bomb” or targeted-therapy drugs can also be added to the mix to help control (ah, not cure?) the cancer. Examples of these regimens are:

  • FOLFOX (leucovorin [folinic acid], 5-FU, and oxaliplatin)
  • FOLFIRI (leucovorin, 5-FU, and irinotecan)
  • CapeOX (capecitabine and oxaliplatin)
  • Any of the above combinations plus either (not both) Avastin (bevacizumab) or Erbitux (cetuximab)
  • 5-FU and leucovorin, with or without Avastin
  • Capecitabine, with or without Avastin
  • FOLFOXIRI (leucovorin, 5-FU, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan)
  • Irinotecan, with or without Avastin
  • Erbitux alone
  • Vectibix (panitumumab) alone

Avastin and Ertibux are now being commonly offered to cancer patients in Malaysia. Vetibix is still unknown here … but soon it will hit our shore. But what do they say about Avastin and Ertibux? Two things are clear: They are expensive. And they don’t cure colon cancer !

Dissecting Chemotherapy Part 4: How Much Is Life Worth? Erbitux for Lung Cancer

Only dead fish flow with the stream

In this world we see many fish. Most of what we see or know of are dead fish. Dead fish don’t flow against the current. They just float down with the stream.  Drs. Graeme Morgan, Robyn Ward and Michael Barton of Australia (see Part 2 & 3 of this article) are no dead fish – they flow against the stream. I salute them for having the guts to speak up.

Drs Tito Fojo and Christine Grady in the USA appear to swim against the current too. They wrote an interesting paper: How much is life worth: Cetuximab, non-small cell lung cancer and the $440 billion question. The first author is from the Medical Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA, while Dr. Grady is from the Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA.

Click here for the full version of their paper:  http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/101/15/1044.full

Background

Today the world is still at war with cancer. Thus cancer is a big industry.  And “making magic bullets” for cancer is big business with extraordinary good profit. It was said that the year 2008 was one good year where “few major breakthroughs” in cancer were announced.  This was also the year when Erbitux (or cetuximab) was added to cisplatin and vinoreline as he “magic” drug to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

When Erbitux was first announced, researchers wrote : Erbitux or “cetuximab add to platinum-based chemotherapy sets a new standard for the first-line treatment of patients with NSCLC.”  Doctors were told: “these findings are likely to have a significant impact on the care of patients with these types of cancer.”  Those who read (blindly) would swallow this hook, line and sinker! Indeed we were then entering the age where we were about to defeat cancer!

Let us highlight some examples of the so-call scientific breakthroughs

  •  Erbitux – increases survival in those with advanced lung cancer by 1.2 months when combined with chemotherapy.  This study involved over a thousand patients in 30 countries with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Though 1.2 months may appear modest, this study offers hope for this group of lung cancer patients that have a 1-year survival rate of less than 50%.
  •  A study in Spain by Rosell et al (Ann Onclo. 2008. 19(2): 362-369) involved 86 patients. Group A had 43 patients who received cisplatin/vinorelbine. Group B had 43 patients who received Erbitux plus cisplatin/vinorelbine.  The results:
  1. Median progression-free survival is 4.6 months in A and 5.0 months in B. This means with addition of Erbitux the disease did not progress by 0.4 month (2 weeks?)
  2. Median survival was 7.3 months in A and 8.3 months in B. This means with addition of Erbitux patients survived 1 month longer!

Drs Tito Fojo and Christine Grady wrote: “Unfortunately, the announcement of a 1.2-month prolongation of survival in NSCLC was not the first time Erbitux garnered attention for marginal benefits.”

The FDA approved Erbitux for advanced colorectal cancer after it was shown that when combined with irinotecan, Erbitux prolonged overall survival (OS) by 1.7 months compared with single-agent Erbitux but not with single-agent irinotecan.  (For those who understand a bit of science, this approval appears real “weird” – something is not right somewhere but we are not going to get distracted by this.)

This prolongation of 1.7 months survival came with skin toxicity in 85% of patients.

Drs Tito Fojo and Christine Grady asked: “Is an additional overall survival of 1.7 months a benefit regardless of costs and side-effects?”

To be fair, the authors are not just “gunning” at Erbitux alone. The FDA had also approved another drug called Avastin  –a rather well known and commonly used in this part of the world.  Avastin was to be combined with carboplatin and paclitaxel for first-line treatment patients with metastatic nonsquamous NSCLC based on an overall survival increase of 2.0 months.  As a result of this, addition of Avastin to chemotherapy then became the standard of therapy for nonsquamous NSCLC, despite disagreements among lung cancer specialists regarding the actual benefit.

Avastin is also added to chemotherapy for treatment of breast cancer. The benefit of Avastin for this breast cancer is probably nonexistent. Now, the US-FDA had withdrawn this approval.

In pancreatic cancer, the addition of Traceva (erlotinib) to gemcitabine improved overall survival by a mere 10 days (OS = 6.24 months vs 5.91 months).

Drs Tito Fojo and Christine Grady again asked: “Did the results of this trial constitute a breakthrough?”  They said: “But the only reasonable conclusion is that a magic anticancer bullet aimed at an important target missed by a wide margin.”

They asked:

  • What counts as a benefit in cancer treatment?
  • How much should COST factor into deliberation?
  • Who should decide?

How much is life worth?

The above is an abridged version of Table 1 in Dr. Fojo & Grady’s paper and these are what they said about cost:

  1. In the United States, Treatment with Erbitux treatment for lung cancer costs an average of US$80,000 (to prolong life by 1.2 months), which translates into an expenditure of US$800,00 to prolong life of one patient by one year.
  2. The median US household income is US$50,233.
  3. The cost of Avastin treatment is US$90,816 and that is said to prolong life by 1.5 months.
  4. The cost of Tarceva treatment is US$15,752 and it is said to prolong life by 10 days.
  5. The cost of Nexavar treatment is US$34,373 and it is said to prolong life by 2.7 months.
  6. Greater than 90% of the anticancer agents approved by the FDA in the last 4 years cost more than US$20,000 for a 12-week treatment.
  7. These examples challenge the oncology community to address some serious questions:
  8. What should count as a benefit in cancer?
  9. What is the minimum amount of benefit needed to adopt a therapy as the new standard?
  10. Is 1.2 months of additional life a “good” in itself?
  11. How much should the quality of that 1.2 months matter? Or the cost?

(Take note: none of these drugs cure cancer. They just prolong life by just a few days or months)

Comments 

It Costs US$350,000 to Die of Cancer in America Today 

By the time you add up the costs of surgery, radiation, chemo, hospitalization, hospice care, etc., it costs about US$350,000 to die of cancer in America.

Of course, the conventional modern medical treatments might work. As Julian Whitaker, M.D., told me, radiation and chemotherapy are dangerous placebos. And placebos sometimes work ~ Frank Cousineau, President, Cancer Victors, Cancer Breakthrough USA.

For more click this link: http://cacare.com/index.php?option=com_easyfaq&task=cat&catid=109&Itemid=39

In concluding their paper, Dr. Fojo & Grady wrote:

  • The all too common practice of administrating a new, marginally beneficial drug to a patient with advanced cancer should be strongly discouraged.
  • In cases where there are no further treatment options, emphasis should be first on quality of life and then cost.
  • For therapies with marginal benefits, toxic effects should receive greater scrutiny.
  • We must deal with escalating price of cancer therapy now.
  • The current condition cannot continue … the time to start is now.

Earlier, Dr. Fojo & Grady also cautioned that: “As oncologists, we cannot go without answering these questions. The moral character of our specialty depends on the answers.”

Indeed, I am really glad that moral value or character is now being suggested here! Let us talk less about money, more of moral values.

——————————————————————————————-

The Economist of 26 May 2011 had an article entitled: The costly war on cancer – New cancer drugs are technically impressive. But must they cost so much? http://www.economist.com/node/18743951?story_id=18743951

The article says:

  • CANCER is not one disease. It is many. Yet oncologists have long used the same blunt weapons to fight different types of cancer: cut the tumour out, zap it with radiation or blast it with chemotherapy that kills good cells as well as bad ones.
  • The snag, from society’s point of view, is that all these drugs are horribly expensive.
  • Not all these new drugs work.
  • In December the FDA said that Avastin’s side effects outweighed its meagre impact on breast cancer.
  •  More generally, some people reckon that new cancer drugs offer small benefits at an exorbitant price.
  • Provenge (for advanced prostate cancer) costs $93,000 for a course of treatment and extends life by an average of four months.
  • Yervoy (for melanoma, a kind of skin cancer) costs $120,000 for three-and-a-half months. Some patients live much longer, which fuels demand for the drugs. But others spend a lot and get little.
  • Who will reform this unsustainable system?
  • Last year Gleevec grossed $4.3 billion. Roche’s Herceptin (the HER2 drug) and Avastin did even better: $6 billion and $7.4 billion respectively.

My comment: At the end of it all – it is about making huge profit at the expense of helpless cancer victims.

My Healing from Breast Cancer by Dr. Barbara Joseph

Dr. Barbara is a woman, mother, medical doctor and breast cancer survivor. Let us quote what she wrote in the Introduction of her book.

  • After the initial shockwaves of my cancer diagnosis subsided, I began to truly live for the first time in my life. Deep inside I knew it was the beginning of a journey into the unexplored parts of my soul. 
  • My journey began … as I opened to my long-buried emotions … years of unexpressed anger fueled its growth. 
  • I recovered from Stage 3 breast cancer using a combination of conventional medical care and complementary modalities. The conventional care included six months of  chemotherapy (cytoxan, 5-FU and novantrone) before my lumpectomy … followed by radiotherapy and an additional three months of chemotherapy followed by surgery, until my body finally rebelled and said NO MORE.
  • The complementary modalities I used included counseling, support group therapy, nutritional education (sorely lacking from my medical training), an organic whole foods plant-based nondairy diet, supplements, visualization, affirmation, meditation and prayer, selected readings, workshops, exercise and unconditional self-love.
  • Healing is a process which I actively take part in on a daily basis. I attribute my ability to go through the conventional treatments … to be a result of the complementary approaches that I made use of then and continue to utilize today.
  • How many of you feel grateful? (For getting cancer? You must be joking??)
  • It is through our pain and our struggles that our lives ever deepen. Breast cancer was the opportunity to turn my life around … it brought up the issues of my lifetime, the reality of my mortality, the unexpressed grief of my childhood and the emptiness of our techno-crazed world … breast cancer brought into focus … the gap between the pharmaceutical bandaids that I utilized as a practising obstestrician-gynecologist and what my patients and I were really seeking. 
  • I realised now how profoundly confused women are about the crisis of breast cancer. We need to exercise our right to make informed choices with the help but not the DOMINANCE OF HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS. We need to acknowledge the limitations of conventional medicine without giving up the best it has to offer. 
  • The lack of clear cut answers in my own treatment decisions and the dismal cure rate gave me the incentive to make our own choices. 
  • I have searched for the truth … I’ve discovered that much of the helpful data I’ve found is not really new but readily accessible information that has been either DOWNPLAYED or IGNORED by the medical profession. 
  • I know that for learning to take place there has to be readiness. For me the pain of a breast cancer diagnosis opened my eyes and set the stage for my own readiness. 
  • I have come to become aware that there is no greater way to impact the health of the planet than through our daily food choices. We have all been profoundly affected by our early education (ha, eat more meat, drink milk, take eggs, etc, etc.) It is hard to put aside these out-dated beliefs and to find new ones to put in their place. It is difficult to associate the foods that we grew up with … with the growing epidemic of breast cancer. Today’s convenience foods may ultimately not be very convenient. We cannot continue to eat devitalized, contaminated foods and expect to maintain our health and vitality. 
  • The animals that provide the standard American diet live in abnormally close quarters and are pumped up with antibiotics to both treat and prevent infections. We ingest these antibiotics as we ingest these animals. And if that isn’t bad enough, hormones are now injected into cattle (also poultry, pigs, etc) either to increase milk production or to increase the weight of the soon-to-be-slaughtered animals for no other reason than TO ADD TO PROFITS. Research shows that Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) may very well increase the risk of breast cancer. 
  • Pesticides are found in the breast milk of women with breast cancer in higher levels than in women without cancer. Toxic pesticides outlawed in this country (USA) are being sold to third-world nations (so, Malaysia may well be the dumping ground!) … this is not new information. But we do need to hear it. 
  • Medicine has been run too long … by the model that says: WE can find a cure for breast cancer: let’s just look a little deeper into the cells. This MECHANISTIC MODEL IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED. In this model, breast cancer needs only to be eradicated; however for true healing to take place the patient must be transformed … breast cancer is a different disease in every woman. Medicine forgets that breast cancer mirrors our emotional lives… TRUE HEALING MUST ADDRESS THESE ISSUES. 
  • Mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of breast cancer are no less important than the physical. The physical is only one dimension of our complex reality…We each need to find balance in the mind, heart and spirit as well as in our body and to learn what areas need to be looked into … 
  • Breast cancer can be the vehicle that transforms pain into compassion. Allowing me to feel the compassion flow was the healing. As I continue to develop this compassionate self-acceptance, the pain of my childhood and my present life is easier to bear and the anger that hides the pain continues to dissolve. 
  • We all have the power to lead healthier lives – it is simply a matter of choice. We must all do our personal work. 
  • The emotions that prevent us from making the healthier choices must be processed and healed over time. 
  • If we approach the pain in our lives with an open heart, the work of caring ourselves deeply will lead us to … our healing abilities.
  • Before my diagnosis I was disconnected from my inner wisdom. (Now Dr. Barbara knows that) it was okay to trust my intuitions regarding all phases of … my entire breast cancer experience. I sensed that we often can’t see the full picture, that we see what we need to see and must trust the rest. What a relief, I don’t have to know everything! 
  • Intellectually, we can’t always know the reasons. Scientific PROOF IS A MISNOMER. We are all BRAINWASHED to some extent in this culture about the power of scientific studies, all the while knowing that statistics CAN BE MANIPULATED TO PROVE JUST ABOUT ANYTHING. 
  • Throughout the 1980s the Cancer and Steriod Hormones Study (CASH) based in Atlanta published analyses that found no excess risk of breast cancer regardless of the age of exposure to birth control pills. A few years later reanalyses turned around the reassuring CASH studies, supporting a link between oral contraceptives and breast cancer in younger women. (Now, the same story is repeated. This time it is with HRT … and tamoxifen (the proven cancer-causing drug!!! You buy that??). 
  • I believe that intuition is far more powerful than intellect. 

Hold the world tightly yet lightly, Embrace life with all our hearts and might

Excerpts from the book: Why Me? by Pesach Kraus

This lovely, small book was given to us by someone (we don’t know who, signed as D.R.) with a handwritten note: Mr. and Mrs. Teo: I would like to share with you of what I have benefited from this book. My niece and a friend were your patients. This book is out of print for more than ten years. It was brought by a friend from Canada. Thanks D.R. My wife and I got to read this book. Let’s share it with others too.

The Author: Pesach Krauss is a Jewish rabbi and is a chaplain at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York – one the most prestigious cancer hospitals in the world. He devoted his time caring for the sick and the dying. Indeed, Rabbi Krauss had great strength and compassion in spite of the fact that life had been very cruel to him since his childhood days. His father migrated from Russia to the US. They lived in poverty. At the age three a streetcar rolled over his leg and as a result he had to have an artificial limb. His first wife died of cancer.

In Chapter 7: Life: A Precious Gift to Hold with Open Hands, Rabbi Krauss wrote:

When Muriel, my first wife, became ill with cancer and took a turn for the worse, we all knew that her days were numbered. Suddenly time became very precious … What do you tell someone who is fatally ill … Do you hide the facts? Some people do … but not with Muriel. We faced it together, bore the heavy burden together, as one family. Every step of the terrible journey was revealed. She wanted it that way.

At the outset Muriel made it very clear – she would not trade pain for time. Every moment was precious because so little time was left. Since drug would rob her of time and of her senses, she wouldn’t take drugs – until the pain became unbearable. Petty and useless talk disappeared. Each conversation became precious. Time, each moment, each hour, each day, became precious and was savored. Each sunrise was a glorious surprise.

I learned so much from those last days we spent together. How priceless are those simple things – sunlight, a moment, a touch, family, friends, love. And how careless we are of our most valued treasures. We take them for granted.

After my wife’s funeral I was approached by a member of my congregation, who said: Rabbi, my son was very upset at the injustice of your wife’s death. He wants to know, “How can you believe in God?”

Some people ask why this tragedy happened to me. Why does God allow people who are so much worse, even evil, to go around hurting others and yet enjoying life while my wife, who was filled with the love of her people, so gracious and so wise, was taken away?

I never asked such questions. Actually, these are not good questions because they don’t make the right assumptions about life.

What then are the right assumptions?

Life isn’t a matter of comparisons – my life in terms of someone else’s life, the number of my years versus the number of somebody else’s years, my joy against another’s, one way of death against another way of death. The judgment of God’s justice and mercy is not in the mathematics of the years, nor in the sum of birthdays and anniversaries.

If we died, the next moment of our life would be complete in itself. So was Muriel’s life. So is each person’s life – unique, complete in itself. So Muriel’s life was not short because the life of another person may have had more years. Nor was her life less blessed because her passing was through the gates of pain.

Where then is God? Where was He in Muriel’s life? Where is He in anyone’s life? These are the questions to ask: Was her life rich? How many lives did she touch? Was she a blessing to her family, friends and people with whom she had contact? Did she take her joys humbly and gratefully? Did she meet sorrows courageously? Was God present?

She was grateful for joys and never took them for granted. Each day, to her very last, she said the blessings: Thank you God for keeping me in life. Thank you God for another day. She saw life as a gift from God. A gift of which we are not deserving and which we could never repay and which someday is returned.

From my own experience, I learned the great truth of human existence: One must not hold life too precious; one must always be prepared to let it go. Muriel understood this and taught me. She held on to life, hands tight, because she treasured the moments as a gift – yet hands open to release because she know that life, though precious, was a gift to be relinquished and returned.

Could I have held on to my beloved even one moment longer – and put time in a deep freezer? Could I have enjoyed sunlight even one day longer with her, no matter how hard I tried? Could I have prevented night from falling? That moment had to pass. No power on earth could have retained it. Had I tried to hold back the irresistible force, it would have been a losing battle. At the end, I would still be left empty-handed and BITTER about my loss.

Sooner or later we must bid farewell to the persons and things we love. Sometimes the separation is slow and peaceful and sometimes it is swift and violent. But the inevitable LETTING-GO is something we must learn to accept and comes to terms with. As I see it, nothing can be more undignified than a futile attempt to retain what must be released … Many men and women cling so hard to a youthful image that they can’t grow older gracefully… parents can’t let go of their children, interfering with their lives, inflicting scars …….

This is a hard lesson to learn. I think of those who have suffered loss of a dear one or a loss of health who are NEVER RECONCILED and who corrode their years and the lives of those around them with deep mourning, depression and bitter complaints. Withdrawing from the sunlight into the dark shadows of despair, they forget that they are depriving loved ones who need them and that they have so much to add to life.

How do we let go of someone dear to us who has died?

 …Our focus must shift from a direct relationship to the departed to an identification with values formerly shared. In that way, we free ourselves from the cold grip of the past to embrace warm and tender memories and action for the present.

A year following my wife’s death, I delivered a sermon: … I want to say to the husbands and wives who love one another, never accept your good fortune casually. In your breakneck pace through life, stop for a few moments and say a prayer in gratitude. Thank God for each day; don’t take it for granted, while yet His sunlight shines on you.

To parents, I want to remind you how precious is the gift of your children. Thank God each day for children; be aware of their little aggravations, but see the good and joy as well.

I want to urge myself and all others, to hold the world tightly yet lightly – to embrace life with all our hearts and all our souls and all our might. For it is a precious gift.

In Chapter 14 Rabbi Krauss wrote:

When my wife died, I felt I had been robbed of a precious treasure. However, the prayer that I recited each day gradually began to change my bleak mood: God, you created the soul … that you breathed into me. You return it to me each day after my night of sleep. Someday you will take it back from me. As long as I have breath, I shall thank and praise you.

My mind and heart are locked into that prayer. I meditated long and hard and recalled many memories, good and happy. The insight, simple but yet profound, came to me that life is indeed a gift to which I am not entitled and for which I should be profoundly grateful, and I should respond by making every moment an opportunity for achievement, for paying back as a partner with God and creation.

Dissecting Chemotherapy Part 3: Contribution of Chemotherapy to Five-year Survival of American Patients

While surfing the net, I came across this article below.

 Improving Health of Cancer Patients

Source: http://royalrife.com/cancer.html

 Richard Loyd, Ph.D.

It is my opinion that in general, cancer is not a medical emergency that requires immediate invasive and toxic interventions. It is a degenerative condition that requires improving of health. There are medical emergencies that require the best medical help you can find. Car accidents with catastrophic injuries or life-threatening burns are examples. In those cases, you need the best emergency room you can find. Cancer can become a medical emergency. If the digestive tract is completely blocked by a tumor so that passage of material is impossible, emergency surgery may be needed. If breathing is becoming impossible due to a tumor blocking the respiratory tract, emergency intervention is appropriate. If a tumor in the brain has grown to the point where there is pressure that is causing damage, surgery may be advisable. It also possible that medical treatment for cancer will cause enough damage that more medical treatment will be required. But in general, cancer is not a condition that requires treatments that actually worsen health.

Many people are trying to recover from cancer with non-toxic therapies. This is an attainable goal and it is often achieved. Patients often spend a lot more money than necessary and take huge numbers of pills, many of which do not have a direct bearing on their problem and may even block progress. More may not be better!

People sometimes tell me that they were perfectly healthy until the cancer suddenly appeared. I point out that they were not really healthy. They had viral infections, toxic metals, parasites, infections in tooth sockets, radiation stress, bowel toxicity, chemical toxicity and probably mold toxicity. There may have been a metabolic imbalance. In other words, the things that cause cancer. The things that have to go away so they can get well.

Anyone with a condition that normally requires the services of a physician is urged to consult one. Ask your physician if this program can be used alongside whatever medical treatment you decide on. This is not a “cure” for cancer. It is a method of becoming healthy. If you are considering chemotherapy or radiation, ask your oncologist if the suggested therapy ever cures your kind of cancer. If the answer is “no”, then THINK ABOUT THIS! Of those who depend on chemotherapy for survival (in other words, the surgeon “did not get it all”), the five year survival rate is only 2.1%. For some cancers the rate is better, but for some types of cancer, it is 0%.

Does this make you feel like chemotherapy is a cruel fraud in most cases? If you do not get that impression yet, please study the chart (Table below) some more!

Our Comments

The above table is taken from the paper published in Clinical Oncology (2004) 16: 549 -560, written by Graeme Morgan (*), Robyn Wardy (**), Michael Bartonz (***), (*) Department of Radiation Oncology, Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, NSW; (**)Department of Medical Oncology, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, NSW; (***) Collaboration for Cancer Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Liverpool Health Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Let me highlight what the table tells us.

1. A total of 154,971 Americans underwent chemotherapy for their cancers. After five-years, only 3306 were alive, the others died.  That works out to 2.1% of Americans benefited from chemotherapy. 

2. Different cancers respond differently to chemotherapy – there is no such thing as one size-fit-all for patients. The benefit you get from chemotherapy depends on what type of cancer you have. So beware of this! 

3. Chemotherapy provides benefit in excess of 10% in only four types of cancer. Of these four, two are rare. The most common in this group is Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and the five-year benefit of chemotherapy  is only 10.5%, for cervical cancer it is only 12%.

Cancer

Total number who received chemo

Number patients who survived after 5 years due to chemo

Percentage 5-year survivors due to chemo

Hodgkin’s disease

846

341

40.3 %

Testis

989

373

37.7

Cervix

1825

219

12.0

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma

6217

653

10.5 %

4. Chemotherapy provides only  8.9%, 4.9 %, 3.7%  and 3.4% five-year benefit in four types of cancer.

Cancer

Total number who received chemo

Number patients who survived after 5 years due to chemo

Percentage 5-year survivors due to chemo
Ovary

3032

269

8.9 %
Oesophagus

1521

82

4.9
Brain

1824

68

3.7
Rectum

5533

189

3.4 %

5. Chemotherapy provides less than 2 % five-year benefit in the cancers that most Americans suffer from – breast, lung, Colon, etc.

Cancer

Total number who received chemo

Number patients who survived after 5 years due to chemo

Percentage 5-year survivors due to chemo
Lung

20741

410

2.0 %
Head and Neck

5139

97

1.9
Breast

31133

446

1.4
Colon

13936

146

1.0
Stomach

3001

20

0.7 %

6. Chemotherapy provides zero five-year benefit to the cancers in the table below.

Cancer

Total number who received chemo

Number patients who survived after 5 years due to chemo

Percentage 5-year survivors due to chemo
Pancreas

3567

0

0
Soft tissue sarcoma

858

0

0
Melanoma

8646

0

0
Uterus

4611

0

0
Bladder

6667

0

0
Kidney

3722

0

0
Unknown primary site

6200

0

0
Multiple myeloma

1721

0

0
Prostate

23242

0

0

­­­

Dissecting Chemotherapy Part 2: Contribution of Chemotherapy to Five-year Survival of Australian Patients

The title of this research paper is: The contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies. This study is exactly what patients have been looking for. We are waiting for such an answer. What is the contribution of chemotherapy to overall survival in cancers?

The three authors of the paper are: i) Graeme Morgan, associate Professor and radiotherapist at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. ii) Robyn Ward, a senior specialist in Medical Oncology and Associate Professor of Medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. She is also a member of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. iii) Michael Barton, Research Director Associate Collaboration for Cancer Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Liverpool Health Service, Sydney.

Without doubt, these researchers are professionals of great repute. They know what they are saying. Their opinions are just worthy, if not more valuable, than any doctors that you have consulted for your cancer.

They publish their work in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This is a peer-review well-respected medical journal. Their paper was submitted for publication on 18 August 2003. It was revised and finally accepted for publication on 3 June 2004. What this means is that, the paper has been scrutinized by fellow doctors and has undergone the normal peer-review process. It is not a back-door, arm twisting way to get into the pages of the medical journal.

Given the above, you and I (and even fellow doctors!) should not have any doubt as to the credibility and validity of what they say in their research paper.

Why do they publish such a paper? I cannot give you that answer, but I can only guess. In a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Dr. Morgan was asked this question: Is this, I wondered, an in house battle, the revenge of the radiotherapist? Dr. Morgan replied: Well, one can cynically say that but the reason I did was that we were sick and tired of hearing about these new drugs and it wasn’t really cementing into anything. And the reason for my doing that paper was to really show that there hasn’t been any improvement in survival, or the improvement has been very, very modest despite all these new drugs and new combinations and bone marrow transplants.

Albert Einstein said: The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, But because of those who look on and do nothing. This world is fortunate to have people like Professor Morgan and colleagues to speak their mind. We salute them.

Is there anything wrong with the paper?  There is nothing wrong with the paper and the data presented. Their study was based on data of randomised-controlled trials (RCTs – the gold standard of medical evidence) published from 1 January 1990 to 1 January 2004. Data were also obtained from the cancer registry in Australia and USA. The contribution of chemotherapy to survival of those over twenty years old and who suffered from twenty-two major cancers were studied.

If there is anything wrong at all with this paper, it is because it tells the whole truth about chemotherapy. And the truth hurts. The authors did not “sing the same tune” as the majority of the flock. That is the difference (or the wrong!).

What did they say?  The absolute real-life data that this article carries is most shocking: The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA. In short, they said that the contribution of chemotherapy is not more than 3%.

Can this be true? Well, they are the experts. And they said so, loud and clear. Indeed some doctors in Australia were angry. People said the paper was misleading and unhelpful.

The editorial of the Australian Prescriber (The emperor’s new clothes – can thermotherapy survive? 29:2-3. 2006) quoted Professor Michael Boyer, head of medical oncology at the Sydney Cancer Centre, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney as saying: The fact is that from a patient’s perspective they are not really interested in how much chemotherapy contributes to the cure of all patients … I don’t think this paper helps from a patient’s perspective.

Medical experts like to claim that they understand patients better than the patients themselves. So they give authoritative pronouncement on patients’ behalf. I beg to differ. I think patients know themselves better. Do you agree that you are not interested to know how much contribution chemotherapy provides to your cancer cure? To me, this is the very answer each and every patient wants to know before he/she is subjected chemotherapy. But unfortunately, no such answer is ever provided. And if patients ask too many questions, they will be scolded or chased out of their doctors’ office.

In the same radio interview with ABC, Professor Michael Boyer was again quoted as saying: the fact is that if you start … saying how much does chemotherapy … the numbers start creeping up …If you pull it altogether that number probably comes up to 5 % or 6%. I guess what’s important is that it doesn’t go up to 50% or 60%. This is indeed mind-boggling. The percentage of 2.3% was disputed. According to Professor Boyer it could be 5% to 6%.

Wah, to split hairs – it is not 2.3%, it should be 6% . Dear Professor, is that a big enough or meaningful difference for us to dispute on?  If you ask any cancer patient what is the difference between a 3 % chance of cure and a 6% chance of cure, most of them may just say it is “nothing, peanuts”. If you tell cancer patients your chemo-treatment is only contributing 3% or 6% to their cure – I would guess MOST patients would just disappear and not see their oncologists ever again!

But to some “tunnel visioned” statisticians and researchers, 2.3% and 6% is a big difference and the difference is significant (to use the scientific jargon).

As an academic myself, I know how we experts “massage” data. For example, if you do chemo-X, you get 2%; if you do chemo-Y you get 4%; and chemo-Z, you get 6%. You can twist the picture and say chemo-Y is 100% better than chemo-X. And chemo-Z, which gives 6%, is three times better than chemo-X. That is how “educated people” massage their data to make it appear and sound good.

What is the “truth” about the contribution of chemotherapy to survival of cancer patients?

Dr. Morgan et al. provided the table below detailing the effect of chemotherapy on  22 types of cancers.

The table above laid out in clear terms the number of people who had various types of cancers and how many of them survived after five-years after receiving chemotherapy.

The data presented are not “massaged” or “manipulated” in any way. This is the kind of data patients have been looking for and which, before this paper, have been elusive and not forthcoming.

The authors said that their numbers were conservative estimates.

Let us critically “dissect” and examine the table and let me highlight what these numbers tell us:

  1. A total of 72,903 adult patients received chemotherapy, and after five-years only 1690 of them were alive. The contribution of chemotherapy to five-year survivors due to chemotherapy is only 2.3%.
  1. The figures obtained for Australians suggested that a benefit of less than 2.5% is likely to be applicable in other developed countries. Well, I leave it to your imagination of what the success rate is like in Malaysia (Malaysia always boleh!).

Let us examine every cancer studied and see what chemotherapy did to them.

1. Chemotherapy provides benefit in excess of 10% in only four types of cancer. Of these four, two are rare. The most common is Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and the benefit of chemotherapy is only 10.5%, for cervical cancer it is only 12%.

Cancer

Total number who received chemo

Number patients who survived after 5 years due to chemo

Percentage 5-year survivors due to chemo
Hodgkin’s disease

341

122

35.8 %
Testis

529

221

41.8
Cervix

867

104

12.0
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma

3145

331

10.5%

2. Chemotherapy provides less than 9 % benefit in eight types of cancer. These are the common cancers we often encounter.

Cancer

Total number who received chemo

Number patients who survived after 5 years due to chemo

Percentage 5-year survivors due to chemo
Ovary

1207

105

8.7 %
Rectum

4036

218

5.4
Brain

1116

55

4.9
Oesophagus

1003

54

4.8
Head and Neck

2486

63

2.5
Colon

7243

128

1.8
Lung

7792

118

1.5
Breast

10661

164

1.5
Stomach

1904

13

0.7

3. Chemotherapy provides zero % benefits to the cancers in the table below.

Cancer

Total number who received chemo

Number patients who survived after 5 years due to chemo

Percentage 5-year survivors due to chemo
Soft tissue sarcoma

665

0

0
Melanoma of skin

7811

0

0
Uterus

1399

0

0
Prostate

9869

0

0
Bladder

2802

0

0
Kidney

2176

0

0
Unknown primary site

3161

0

0
Multiple myeloma

1023

0

0
Pancreas

1728

0

0

The authors want us to know the following:

  1. The most common cancers like colorectal, breast, prostate, lung cancers, accounted for 56.6% of the total cancers in Australia in 1998. The 5-year survival rate due solely to chemotherapy was only 1.6%.
  1. For stomach cancer, surgery is the only established curative procedure. In Australia there were 1904 cases of stomach and only 13 people or 0.7% of them benefited from chemotherapy, i.e. survived for five years.
  1. For colon cancer, surgery is the only established curative treatment with chemotherapy as adjuvant treatment. There were 7,243 cases of colon cancer in Australia and only 128 people or 1.8% benefited directly from chemotherapy.
  1. For rectal cancer, the main treatment is surgery. Of the 4,036 cases only 218 people or 5.4%, benefited from chemotherapy.
  1. For lung cancer, only 410 out of a total of 20,741 people benefited from chemotherapy. This works out to be 2.0%.
  1. In Australia in 1998, 4,638 women with breast cancer were eligible for chemotherapy. Only 164 women (that is, 3.5%) actually had a survival benefit due to chemotherapy.  In other words, on average, out of 29 women treated only one woman survived more than five years.
  1. Chemotherapy has been OVER SOLD and the responses of the treatment had been EXAGGERATED.
  1. For breast cancer, innovations like bone-marrow transplantation have shown NO benefit.
  1. Addition of anthracyclines and taxanes (the newer drugs like taxol, etc) to the treatment of breast cancer improved survival by about 1% but this is achieved at the risk of cardiac toxicity and neurotoxicity.
  1. It is worthy to note that any response rates below 15% may be due solely to a placebo effect.
  1. Despite the early claims of chemotherapy as the panacea for curing all cancers, the impact of chemotherapy is limited. Even so, any new chemotherapy drug is still promoted as a major breakthrough in the fight against cancer, only to be later rejected without fanfare that accompanied its arrival.

What do we do with such truth? Give it a quick burial! 

There seems to be a bit of hoo-ha in Australia, because the study was done in Australia. But for the rest of the world – in the US, UK, Europe, etc. nobody bothered to know or comment. This NEW truth appears to be of no importance or consequence. The truth, as often done, if it clashes with the Establishment, may just be given a quick burial. Nothing is said even by the so called “independent mass media”.

Certain “enlightened” experts may wish to dispute the above research results. One possible argument would be: “These results were based on “old” drugs. Now we have newer and more effective drugs. We could do better.” If you buy this argument, let me ask you to hang on to your seat tightly! I shall be addressing this issue in the next few articles in this series.

Dissecting Chemotherapy Part 1: Knowledge Empowers

Patients face one well known hazard (but some call that treatment) after being diagnosed with cancer. More often than not they are asked to undergo chemotherapy. The drugs used are cytotoxic. Everyone knows that and that fact cannot be denied – chemo-drugs are toxic to both the good and bad cells.

In fact, chemotherapy has earned a bad reputation among patients. Those who know what chemo is would think a “million times” before they go for chemo (see: Why patients refused to undergo chemotherapy).

Over the years working with cancer patients, I came across many ways how chemo is being “sold” to patients. They are told either one of the following:

a)     You do chemo to kill all the cancer cells. What is not being told is that chemo also kills good healthy cells in the body. Chemo may even damage the vital organs of the body. Even worse, some chemo drugs themselves are carcinogenic, that is to say it causes cancer. Similarly, radiation causes cancer. In short, if patients get to live long enough, they may get a new cancer and this time it could be due to the treatment.

b)   You do chemo to stop the cancer cells from spreading. This is good sales pitch and very attractive indeed. Many patients “buy” this naïve idea. However, after chemo, the body’s immune system is almost wiped out. Your body is so weak that it cannot even ward off germs attacking you. Generally cancer has already spread after it being in your body for a while – before you even know it or it being diagnosed by the doctors. True some cancer cells can be killed but some will remain in the blood stream unharmed – they are the “dormant” or “stem”cells. These survivors will one day wake up and cause problems.

Indeed, it is encouraging to see the lump shrinks after chemotherapy – but this does not mean the cancer is cured! Often shrinkage is only temporary. The tumour often grows back again and this time more aggressively. One lady wrote that she did not get any cure from chemotherapy, she just moved from treatment to treatment! So where is the control of spreading?

c)     You do chemo as an “assurance.” Since cancer cells may be floating around in the blood stream – it is good to get them early! Kill them before they multiply.  Well, don’t we know that some chemo drugs and radiation can cause cancer? Don’t we know that these treatments can weaken the immune system and make the body much more vulnerable to enemy invasion? Is “assurance” not achieved by making the body system stronger and not weaker? Is it not better to boost up the immune system through healthy diet and lifestyle? Oh, NO – that is not proven or scientific, so they say!

Knowledge Is Empowering!

Julian Whitaker, a medical doctor, wrote: I am convinced that the best protection against the evil that lurks among us – and make no mistake that it lurks among us – is information.

There is no doubt at all that having access to knowledge is most empowering indeed. I always like to tell patients over and over again – please read and read, if you can, that is if you are not buta huruf  (in Malay for blind to printed words). Know that this is the only way to protect yourself from danger!

The problem is most people still don’t want to do anything with the knowledge that’s available to them. Either they are too busy and have no time for themselves or they would rather accept “canned” answers from the experts – yes, they trust the experts.

Unfortunately they never realize that some of the answers given by experts could be just “empty platitude” and some may even be self-serving. Dr. Chesnut called that “lying with authority” (the title of his book).

I cannot blame the uneducated patients – forgive them for their ignorance – because they can’t read. But if you are able to read this message, then there is no excuse for you to be ignorant. I would say – serve you right if you still fall in the hazardous trap. From the tone of this sentence, you perhaps know that I am very upset with lazy people who just want information to be served on a silver platter.

Let’s Get Serious

According to the World Health Organization, 7.1 million people died of cancer each year. That works out to 591,666 deaths each month or 19,722 deaths a day due to cancer. Every minute of the day, about 14 people die of cancer in this world. I always tell patients this: We all have to die – irrespective of whether we have cancer or not. I too, even without cancer, can die any time. The important thing is: how we die. Let us pray that while we are alive, we live a happy, pain-free life. When the time for us to go, let’s pray that we go peacefully.

Think hard – in cancer, do we die because there are not enough oncologists around, not enough hospital to go to, and not enough chemo-drugs to treat us? To fight cancer and win, do you think we need to build more hospitals, to have more oncologists, to make chemo-drugs more easily and readily available to patients? Is this the way to help cancer patients find their “cure”?

I have written these words before (and more than once), and I am writing this again.  In the name of fairness, I feel that anyone who is to undergo any invasive treatment procedures MUST be provided with sufficient and honest information so that he would be able to decide for himself what is best for him. Unfortunately, many people who came to see us were ignorant or very much unaware of what they were going in for – the cards were not laid out for them. Sometimes they were even misinformed.

Without any disrespect to any person or profession, I have to point out that one much needed step that has to be taken is to seek the truth about the current treatments of cancer. Let us study all the records available and let us ask these questions and find honest, unbiased answers. For all the surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy (and other drugs) that have been administered to patients:

1   How many patients have been cured?

2   How many have benefited from the treatments?

3   What are the benefits and at what cost?

4   How many died?

5   How many survived after one, two, three, five or ten years after the treatments?

6   How many had metastases of the liver, bone, lungs, etc.?

7    Is there any correlation between the treatments they received and the metastases that occurred?

Unfortunately, such answers remain elusive and not forthcoming. Know that the strategy to remain in this lucrative business is to be as non-committal with the real facts. Be as vague and ambiguous as possible in addition to putting up a false front of “I-know-all” image. You patients, don’t ask too many questions. I am the one who know best and you just follow my orders.

Ask your doctors these questions:

  1. What is the contribution of chemotherapy to my cancer cure? Can the chemo you want to give me cure me or not?
  2. What is the chance of me getting a cure?
  3. If it does not cure, what is the chemo supposed to do? Give you a better quality of life? Stop it from spreading?
  4. If it is quality of life – is it not true that chemo makes life “miserable” with all those side effects? Ask what these side effects are.
  5. If chemo is to stop cancer from spreading – is it not true that cancer has already spread before you are even diagnosed with it? Is it not true that by the time you know you get cancer, the cells have already moved out of the tumour and spilled into the blood stream? If the cancer cells are already in your blood stream, can chemo-drug kill ALL of them without killing you too?
  6. If you get these kind of answers:
  • Oh, you have a 50:50 chance! Ask what do you mean by chance? Chance of what – curing or dying?
  • If you don’t go for chemotherapy you get three months, with chemo it is two years. What is the basis of this predication? It is written anywhere in medical journals or text books?

Don’t be afraid to ask even if this is done at the risk that you may get chased out of your doctor’s office (some patients told me that happened to them). It is better to get chased out of his office then to get chased out of this world!

If you seek an easy, ready-made canned-answer, you get an easy and lousy answer. If you are the kind who is seeking for the “instant-noodle” type of answer then you will be disappointed.

In life, I always believe that anything good never come easy. Do you want to know what is the contribution or exact role of chemotherapy to your cancer cure? If you want to know the truth, let me take you on a journey to find that answer. I shall be writing a series of articles under this heading:  Dissecting Chemotherapy. It you take time to follow all the articles I shall be writing, I believe you can learn something substantial and come out more enlightened.

By writing these articles, let me say this clearly and plainly: I am not anti-chemo or anti-doctor. The reason I do this is to empower patients so that you know some facts that can help you make informed (hopefully also wise) decision.  I wish to say too that at times, I did (and do, and will) urge patients to go for chemotherapy if the situation warrants it. But I am skeptical about a cook-book-style of package deal or one-size-fit-all approach.

Why Patients Refused to Undergo Chemotherapy, Part 3

A continuation from Part 1: Why Patients Refused to Undergo Chemotherapy, https://cancercaremalaysia.com/2011/04/19/why-patients-refused-to-undergo-chemtherapy-part-1/

Part 2: Why Patients Refused to Undergo Chemotherapy, https://cancercaremalaysia.com/2011/05/03/why-patients-refused-to-undergo-chemotherapy-part-2/

Case 9: Uncle Died After Chemo

A lady came to see us on behalf of her mother who was diagnosed with cancer. The surgeon said that her mother had to undergo chemotherapy. The family refused chemotherapy.

Why the family refused chemo:  Why did you not want her to do chemo? Because of her age – she is already 75 years old. Her brother, that is my uncle, had lung cancer and he was then only 68 years old. He died – could not take the chemo. He went for chemo – after the first chemo he became very weak. Then during the second chemo, he became unconscious and died.

The first time he was already weak – why continue with the second one? I don’t know la. Within two weeks – the first chemo and the second chemo – only two weeks and he died.

What do you mean? The first chemo was the first week, and the second chemo was one week later.

Within two weeks he died? Ya


Case 10:  Niece Died After Chemo
This lady was diagnosed with Lymphoma and the only treatment available to her was chemotherapy. She refused chemotherapy.

Why she refused chemotherapy:   The daughter of my younger sister had cancer. She had an operation followed by chemotherapy.  She died. My sister pleaded with me: “Sister, please … please listen to me. Do not go for chemotherapy. You will die.” My niece had two or three times of chemo and she was bald. Then she died. My sister told me not to go for chemo. I also do not want to go for chemo. My husband and children also told me not to go for chemo.

 

Case 11: My Friend Died After Four Cycles of Chemo

This young man is from Indonesia. He was diagnosed with colon cancer two years ago. He was asked to undergo chemotherapy. He refused.

Why he refused chemotherapy:  I do not want chemo! Doctors in Medan asked me to undergo chemotherapy since 2009 (i.e., two years ago). I refused.

Why did you refuse: Because of the adverse side effects!

How did you know the side effects were bad? From friends! One of my friends had colon cancer and another had breast cancer. Both of them had surgery. Then they went for chemo. The one with breast cancer was bad. She died. She received four cycles of chemotherapy and she died never completing the full treatment. The one with colon cancer received two cycles of chemo. Then he gave up. And he is still alive today.

What could have happened if he was to continue with chemo? May be dead by now (laugh). That is why I refused to go for chemo. My friend is alive and alright today. It has been three years now.


Case 12: I saw and I knew that chemotherapy did not cure cancer

Guat had breast cancer for many years.  It started with a small lump in her breat. When the tumour grew bigger (almost half a kilo!), she agreed to go for surgery but refused chemotherapy or radiotherapy.  She kept herself alive doing what she thought was good for her. She took herbs, supplements, etc. and had a very positive outlook of life. She learned to live with her breast cancer for more than ten years. Later, the cancer spread to her lungs and she eventually died.

We had a chance to talk to Guat. She shared her experiences and views about medical treatments for cancer.

Why she refused chemotherapy and medical treatments: I have seen many people with cancer. After chemo they also died in less than two years! I have seen many such cases. They suffered while undergoing chemo but at the end they all died anyway. So why suffer? After my surgery I was asked to go for radiotherapy to prevent recurrence, according to the doctor. I declined. Let it recur first and then we deal with it. I refused to go for chemo. Assuming after the surgery I would die within two years. It’s okay, at least I don’t have to suffer. If I go for chemo, there is no guarantee of a cure.

From what you observed – people who had chemo or radiation, don’t they benefit from the treatments? They suffered so much. I would rather not suffer and prefer to die sooner without   chemo. It is okay for me. I don’t want to suffer. For example, with chemo I would survive for two and a half years, without chemo two years. I would chose two years of quality life. You can take that half a year away. It is okay if I die sooner.

You made all these decisions on your own or were you influenced by others? I made my own decisions based on my observations of what happened to others. Many people tell me many things. I listened to their stories but at the end I made up my own mind. For example when I had a small lump in my breast, I decided to take chances and dealt with it the way I thought was right for me.  The lump grew bigger and bigger. I knew then that there was no hope that it would go away. So I decided to go for surgery. But when the doctor suggested radiotherapy to prevent recurrence, I said no. I told him, if there was to be a recurrence, we would deal with the problem as it occurs, not now. Even with radiation, I have seen many cases of recurrences.

I knew a few patients who had cancer. They underwent chemo – and all of them died, including your own distant relative – you remember?

When you see the doctors, they tell you to go for chemo. But there is no guarantee that chemo can cure. It cost RM 30,000 for the treatment. For a poor patient it is a lot of money. One doctor said this to my friend: “It is your mother, why don’t you want to “save” her? True, even a dog, we also want to save its life let alone a mother. But when the treatment cost so much money, where to find the money? Worse still, there is no guarantee that chemo can cure anyway. Unfortunately, many “village folks” don’t know how to respond to such “scolding” from their doctors. I am not angry, but I think doctors should not talk like that!

 

 

Read more about what they say about chemo …

  1. Killer cancer treatment: How toxic chemotherapy kills both cancer cells and cancer patients http://www.naturalnews.com/012727.html
  2. Can you trust chemotherapy to cure your cancer? http://www.ener-chi.com/trustchemo.htm
  3. Questioning Chemotherapy: How chemotherapy does not cure cancer or extend life.  http://www.drheise.com/chemotherapy.htm
  4. Argument against chemotherapy. http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=255

 

One reader sent us this comment:
My niece passed away this morning.  No, not from cancer! From chemo !!!   Her chemo did not even last her more than two months!! This is why so many holistic doctors say our modern GOLD-CLASS CANCER TREATMENTS kill faster than smoking.   More: http://twitpic.com/4wjd8f

I know of another who died after one and a half years of chemo (stomach cancer). He was barely 25.  And another…they let him have sleeping drugs instead.  He was my uncle… Sleeping drugs killed him in four day (he had advanced cancer in pancreas, liver and lungs).
WHERE IS THE FIGHT AGAINST CANCER?
If a fruit doesn’t cure, they say the person who promoted the fruit is a quack!
But when it comes to cancer medicine and therapy, if it does not work, it is not quackery!
Is there SOMETHING WRONG with our medical industry?  YOU TELL ME!

Note: We have documented 12 cases of why patients refused to do chemo – so, enough is enough?

 “For those who believe, no proof is necessary.

For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.”

Why Patients Refused to Undergo Chemotherapy, Part 2

A continuation from Part 1: Why Patients Refused to Undergo Chemotherapy, https://cancercaremalaysia.com/2011/04/19/why-patients-refused-to-undergo-chemtherapy-part-1/

Case 5: Mother died after the fifth cycle of chemotherapy for lymphoma

M604 is a 33-year-old male from Jakarta, Indonesia. He was diagnosed with Hepatitis B in 2005 and was put on medication. After six months on the drug, he gave up. In September 2008, he had pains with a bloated stomach. His HBV DNA (real time PCR) was 450,468,000 copies/ml. He was put on medication for three months.  In June 2009, another test showed HBV DNA (real time PCR) was 321,264,000 copies/ml. His ALT on 8 June 2009 was 71 (high). The doctor suggested weekly interferon injection for a period of 48 weeks. The total cost would come to RM 50,000. He refused further medical treatment and came to CA Care on 19 July 2009.

Why he refused interferon injection:  Mother was 55 years old when she was diagnosed with lymphoma. She received five cycles of chemotherapy. In addition, the doctor gave her “Mahtera injection” together with the first four cycles of chemotherapy. After the fifth cycle of chemotherapy, her condition “drop” or deteriorated. She had pains in her liver. The latent Hepatitis B virus in her flared up. Before the chemo treatment she was normal. Mother died while in the ICU in the hospital. The total expenses for her treatment came to about RM55,000.


Case 6:  Sister died in China after one cycle of chemotherapy

The son of M620 came to see us on 23 August 2009. His father, 63-years old from Medan, Indonesia, had difficulty opening his bowels. He also had pain in the back. The doctor in Medan said he had hypertension and prescribed him medication for  that. It was not effective. He came to a private hospital in Penang for further management. A CT scan showed nodules in the lung suspicious of underlying lung carcinoma. Some lymph nodes were enlarged. There were numerous nodules in the liver, ranging from 2 to 20 mm, suggestive of metastatic deposits. The doctor suggested a biopsy but he refused. He was given medication but his health did not get any better. His platelet count was low.

Why he refused a biopsy:  The next logical step after a biopsy is chemotherapy, which he would not want to do. Therefore, doing a biopsy is meaningless in this situation. He was indeed a wise man!

Why he refused chemotherapy: This is what his son said. “My aunty (father’s younger sister) had ovarian cancer. She underwent six cycles of chemotherapy. The tumour recurred after the treatment. She went to China for further treatment.

Before she went to China, she already had her chemo? Yes, six times done in Penang. It was not effective. My father accompanied my aunty to China. In China she received only one chemo and she died.

 

Case 7: Brother-in-law died after six cycles of chemotherapy

M930 is a 47-year-old female from Indonesia. She had vaginal bleeding in December 2010. There was no pain. Her menses was normal. She went to Melaka and had a biopsy done. The histopathology report dated 17 January 2011 indicated a moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma.  The doctor suggested chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She was told that most patients had good results from the treatment (whatever that means!).

Not convinced and not satisfied, she went to Singapore for a second opinion. The MRI of her pelvis indicated a 7.5 x 7 x 7 cm mass bulging down the uterine cervix. It involved the lower third of her uterus and also extended towards the vagina.  The doctor offered the treatment:  thirty-five times of radiation and chemotherapy. The cancer is inoperable. She was told that with these treatments she would have 60% to 70% cure. We asked  – Cure?. Yes, cure.

She was not convinced and refused further medical treatment. Her blood test done on 7 March 2011 indicated CEA = 39.0 and CA 125 = 964.0.

Why she refused chemotherapy and radiotherapy? When asked – Why don’t you want to go for chemo? She replied: No, no I don’t want. My sister in Singapore was really mad at me for not wanting to follow the doctor’s advice. Since childhood, I was skeptical. I have friends who had chemo and they were well for the while, then their conditions “drop” and they were gone. My husband’s brother-in-law (i.e. husband of his sister) had a lump in his neck. After six cycles of chemo, he died. He received the treatment in Penang. His whole body was dark. He was bald and his skin peeled off. Oh, I have seen so many cases like this and I am very afraid.


Case 8: Uncle died six months after operation and chemotherapy for his prostate cancer

M 935 is a 54-year-old female from Sumatera, Indonesia. In July 2010, she had difficulty moving her bowels. She came to Penang for consultation. A CT scan on 22 July 2010 indicated a 4.94 cm x 2.63 cm mass in the proximal sigmoid colon with  severe luminal narrowing consistent with carcinoma. Her tumour makers were elevated: CEA = 211.1 and CA 125 = 91.5.

She underwent an operation. It was a moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma, Duke Stage C. The tumour extended into the mesorectal lymph nodes. Three of five lymph nodes were affected.  She was asked to undergo chemotherapy. However, the oncologist was not able to say if chemotherapy would cure her or not. But she was told that chemotherapy would check the spread of the cancer.  She and her husband was not convinced and refused chemotherapy.

Why she refused chemotherapy:  The husband said: “My uncle, 75 years old, was dead after six months. He had prostate cancer. He underwent an operation followed by chemotherapy. Then he died after six months. He could not stand the treatments – could not eat, could not sleep and every day he had fevers. It was a difficult life for him.

How do you know all these? He is my uncle – my father’s younger brother. He lived just two doors away from my house. His life was really difficult. Money gone and then,  painful and difficult.


Quotation

If we didn’t kill the tumour, we killed the patient ~ William Moloney

Chemotherapy is an attempt to poison the body just short of death in the hope of killing the cancer before the entire body is killed. Most of the time it doesn’t work ~ Dr. John Lee, author of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer.

Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does not eliminate breast, colon or lung cancers. This fact has been documented for over a decade. Yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumours ~ Alan Levin, professor of immunology, University of California Medical School, USA.

In oncology, even prolonging a patient’s life for three months to a year is considered an achievement. Achieving a cure is like striking a jackpot. Not all cancers can be cured ~ A renowned oncologist of Singapore, The Straits Times, Mind Your Body Supplement, Page 22, 29 November 2006: