When I first came to Penang some forty plus years ago, I met a lawyer — let’s call him Mark. Since then we became friends.

About a year or so ago, Mark suddenly dropped by the centre — it had been many years since we last met. Mark was diagnosed with colon cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy at a hospital which is supposed to be the “best” in the country (one doctor told me this!).

After relating his story, Mark left. No, I did not give him any herbs. Neither did I give him any advice. This is because from our conversation, I sensed that Mark seemed to know what he was doing. And during our conversation Mark did not ask for any advice or help either. So I just left it at that.

One of our principles that we uphold at CA Care is this: If you are still on chemo or radiotherapy (or are planning to do chemo or radiotherapy) or are taking other treatments elsewhere, please go ahead and continue with these treatments first. Do not take our herbs yet. We do not wish to intervene. 

If you have done everything and have nowhere else to go and need help, when you come to us, we shall try our best to  help you.

In early March 2018, as  I walked into our centre, someone greeted me but I could not recognise him, not until my wife told me that it was Mark who said hello. No, I was not being “arrogant” but Mark had “changed” a lot. He looked “much older”.  Perhaps I should not say that. My faulth, because I did not put on my glasses that morning (but generally, I don’t need to do that!).

Briefly, this was what happened to Mark.

1. In 2016, Mark was diagnosed with cancer of the rectum. Surgery was not done. Mark was fitted with a colostomy bag.

2. In September / October 2016, Marked received 25 sessions of radiotherapy and 2 cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with FOLFOX.

3. In early January 2017, Mark underwent a surgery. The tumour was removed. It was a moderately differentiated colo-rectal cancer, Stage B2.

4. On 3 August 2017, Mark had his stoma reversed and the colon rejoined. A colonoscopy was done a day before the reversal procedure. There was NO sign of malignancy.

5. Everything seemed okay.

6. Disaster — 30 January 2018. A follow up CT scan showed:

• Tumour recurrence at the anataomosis site and 6.5 cm anal verge. Biopsy of anal verge done on 8 January 2018 showed NO malignancy.
• Multiple ill-defined lesions at both lobes of liver – confirming the cancer has spread to his liver.
• Extensive intraabdominal and pelvic lymphadenopathy.
• Bone metastasis — both iliac bones, both sacral alae, right and left femoral heads were invaded by the cancer.

The cancer is now TxN2bM1b — call it Stage 4 if you like.

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In an earlier posting, I wrote about AB who had Stage 3 cancer. She declined chemotherapy and opted for the CA Care Therapy. It has been three years and she is still doing great. Mark had Stage 2 cancer — appeared to be less “dangerous” than AB’s cancer — but problems appeared within less than two years of treatment.

Do you ever ask why? Medical treatments for cancer are supposed to be proven and scientific — but why the metastasis so soon and so seriously?

Herbs and alternative therapies are supposed to be unscientific and unproven — yet patients like AB did so well.

Take time to understand the implications of the following quotations:

Dr. Richard Horton is the  Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, a very prestigious medical journal. In 2015 he wrote this:

• A lot of what is published is incorrect ….The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.
• Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.

Marcia Angell is the former Editor-in-Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journal. In her article, Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption she wrote:

• … conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. 

• I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. 

• One result of the pervasive bias is that physicians learn to practice a very drug-intensive style of medicine. Even when changes in lifestyle would be more effective, doctors and their patients often believe that for every ailment and discontent there is a drug.