"In summoning even the wisest of physicians to our aid, it is probable that he is relying upon a scientific 'truth', the error of which will become obvious in just a few years' time."    Marcel Proust   

21st century medicine boasts a number of treatments that are actually very dangerous to human health, none more so than for cancer.

May this short report reach the many thousands of people currently undergoing conventional cancer treatment.

May it also reach the many thousands of doctors, physicians, nurses and carers who every day, are innocently inflicting only serious harm in the name of conventional cancer care.

Let the countdown begin.

Let there soon be an end to...

     Death by Doctoring

                           Cancer: the good, the bad and the ugly

                                                                                                       Steven Ransom

                                                                                               Credence Publications

 Every year in the UK, 200,000 people are diagnosed with cancer and 152,500 people die. [1] In the US, the annual death rate for this disease is approximately 547,000. [2] These deaths are recorded as cancer deaths, but how many of these deaths are really attributable to the disease itself? How many deaths should in fact be recorded as ‘death by doctoring’? When we consider that conventional treatment consists almost entirely of radiation, chemotherapy and the long-term application of toxic pharmaceuticals, treatments which are all well known for their life-threatening side-effects, then the question becomes all the more legitimate. On chemotherapy for instance, note the following:

“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 tumors.” Allen Levin, MD UCSF  The Healing of Cancer, Marcus Books, 1990

We examine the much-publicised story of UK media personality, the late John Diamond, who opted for conventional treatment. What does his story tell us? John was known for his critical attitude towards many of the more popular alternative therapies. We look at some aspects of the alternative approach and ask if his criticisms were entirely undeserved. We hear from those within the cancer establishment itself who cite the conventional cut, burn and dissolve techniques as ugly and inhumane and from those who seriously question the amounts of money being invested in conventional cancer today given the pitifully low recovery rate. In the UK alone, £2.8billion a year is spent in the conventional cancer emporium. That’s roughly £6,800,000 a day. US spending on cancer is ten times higher.

We also hear from those who defied conventional wisdom and opted for non-toxic, non-conventional cancer treatments, with remarkable results. And no, we are not talking dolphin or pyramid therapy. From the known range of anti-cancer treatments available, this story focuses on the naturally occurring Vitamin B17, Vitamin C and the supporting role of nutrition. Vitamin B17 in particular has been attracting a great deal of attention recently, despite the concerted efforts of the world-wide cancer establishment to suppress or distort all the positive reporting on this vitamin.

But should we find this so surprising? After all, it’s no secret that with global spending on conventional cancer running into the hundreds of billions of pounds and dollars annually, any news of a successful anti-cancer treatment extracted from the simple apricot kernel could do some serious damage to the wealth of the mighty Cancer Inc.

But first, by way of introduction to the subject of ‘death by doctoring’, we travel back a few hundred years, to the bedside of King Charles II, where fourteen of the highest physicians in the land are earnestly ‘reviving’ the king from a stroke.

King Charles II, 1685

Curiously, his strength seemed to wane

“The king was bled to the extent of a pint from a vein in his right arm. Next, his shoulder was cut into and the incised area was sucked of an additional 8oz of blood. An emetic and a purgative were administered followed by a second purgative followed by an enema containing antimone, sacred bitters, rock salt, mallow leaves, violets, beetroot, camomile flowers, fennel seeds, linseed, cinnamon, cardamom seed, saffron, cochineal and aloes. The king’s scalp was shaved and a blister raised. A sneezing powder of hellebore was administered. A plaster of burgundy pitch and pigeon dung was applied to the feet. Medicaments included melon seeds, manna, slippery-elm, black cherry water, lime flowers, lily of the valley, peony, lavender, and dissolved pearls. As he grew worse, forty drops of extract of human skull were administered, followed by a rallying dose of Raleigh’s antidote. Finally Bezoar Stone was given. Curiously, his Majesty’s strength seemed to wane after all these interventions and as the end of his life seemed imminent, his doctors tried a last ditch attempt by forcing more Raleigh’s mixture, pearl julep and ammonia down the dying King’s throat. Further treatment was rendered more difficult by the king’s death.”  [3]

We can be sure that the physicians gathered around the King’s bed were all leaders in their particular field - royalty and presidents do not settle for anything less. But as Proust observed, with hindsight, we can now see the hideous error of their therapeutics. Today, the skull-drops, the ammonia and the pigeon dung have long gone, but what will we say in a few years’ time when we look back on the ‘highly respected’ cancer therapeutics of 2002? Will we dare to venture that there is nothing new under the sun?

 John Diamond, 2001

Have we really progressed much further?

“He’s been poisoned, blasted, had bits lopped off him, been in remission, felt lumps grow again, been given shreds of hope, had hope removed.” Nicci Gerrard, Sunday Observer, 14.5.2001

Many thousands of people were touched by John Diamond’s regular Times newspaper column, giving stark and brutal insight into living with throat cancer. In a witty and very down-to-earth manner, John’s remarkable column explored numerous life-with-cancer issues, including the ups and considerably more downs in body and mind during radiation treatment, the effects of his illness upon the wider family, the rediscovery of everyday wonders previously taken for granted and his distaste for numerous cancer clichés such as ‘brave John’ and ‘staying positive’, replying, “I am not brave. I did not choose cancer. I am just me, dealing with it.”  and “Whenever somebody told me how good a positive attitude would be for me, what they really meant was how much easier a positive attitude would make it for them.” He was also well-known for his castigation of almost all non-orthodox treatments and for his willingness to submit to all that the medical orthodoxy had to offer –  a service that even he, a conventional advocate, had variously described as ‘pay-as-you-bleed’  and  ‘surgical muggings’.

For me, the most memorable images of John were captured in the BBC’s Inside Story – a television programme that followed John during a year of treatment, showing him clearly suffering. An operation on John’s throat caused him to lose his voice, which as a popular broadcaster was a serious blow. Later, through surgery and radiation treatment, he would lose most of his tongue and with it, all sense of taste and the ability to eat properly - a double whammy, given that he was married to TV super-cook Nigella Lawson.

In his extraordinary book ‘C: Because Cowards get Cancer Too’  (which I could not put down) he wrote:  “He who didn’t realize what a boon an unimpaired voice was, who ate his food without stopping to think about its remarkable flavour, who was criminally profligate with words, who took his wife and children and friends for granted - in short, he who didn’t know he was living.” [4]

John died in March 2001, aged 47,  after having suffered dreadfully for four years, In his death, he joined sports presenter Helen Rollason, Bill ‘Compo’ Owen, Ian Dury, Roy Castle, Cardinal Basil Hume, Linda McCartney and, most recently, ex-Beatle George Harrison, plus 152,500 others in the UK who succumb annually to the cancer ordeal. Kate Law of the Cancer Research Campaign said that John’s story helped to bring cancer out of the closet in Britain. John’s writings certainly brought home the ugliness of conventional treatment. But the more informed in the cancer debate who have read John’s columns and book will have recognised that John’s writings, brilliant though they were, did not bring out the full story of cancer at all.      

Fraught with risks and side-effects

Consider the following statement from cancer specialist, Professor Charles Mathe, who declared: “If I contracted cancer, I would never go to a standard cancer treatment centre. Cancer victims who live far from such centres have a chance.” [5]

Walter Last, writing in The Ecologist, reported recently: “After analysing cancer survival statistics for several decades, Dr Hardin Jones, Professor at the University of California, concluded “...patients are as well, or better off untreated. Jones’ disturbing assessment has never been refuted.” [6]

Or what about this?

“Many medical oncologists recommend chemotherapy for virtually any tumor, with a hopefulness undiscouraged by almost invariable failure.”- Albert Braverman MD 1991 Lancet 1991 337 p901 “Medical Oncology in the 90s”

Or this?

“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 tumors.” - Allen Levin, MD UCSF The Healing of Cancer

or even this?

Chemotherapy is an invasive and toxic treatment able supposedly to eliminate cancer cells. Unfortunately though, its ferocious chemistry is not able to differentiate between the cancerous cell or the healthy cell and surrounding healthy tissue. Put simply, chemotherapy is an intravenously administered poison that kills all living matter. Repeated chemotherapy and repeated radiation treatments kill the whole body by degrees. The immune system is hit particularly hard by chemotherapy and often does not recuperate enough to adequately protect from common illnesses, which can then lead to death. Some 67% of people who die during cancer treatment do so through opportunistic infections arising as a direct result of the immune system failing because of the aggressive and toxic nature of the drugs. [7] What is this if it is not death by doctoring?

And the side effects from both chemotherapy  and radiation itself are extensive. They can include dizziness, skin discolouration, sensory loss, audio-visual impairment, nausea, diarrhoea, loss of hair, loss of appetite, leading to malnutrition, loss of sex drive, loss of white blood cells, permanent organ damage, organ failure, internal bleeding, tissue loss, cardio-vascular leakage (artery deterioration) to name but a few.

Two years ago, Hazel was diagnosed with breast cancer. She described her chemotherapy as the worst experience of her life. “This highly toxic fluid was being injected into my veins. The nurse administering it was wearing protective gloves because it  would burn her skin if just a tiny drip came into contact with it.  I couldn’t help asking myself “If such precautions were needed to be taken on the outside, what is it doing to me on the inside?” From 7 pm that evening, I vomited solidly for two and a half days. During my treatment, I lost my hair by the handful, I lost my appetite, my skin colour, my zest for life.  I was death on legs.”

We shall be hearing more from Hazel later, although under very different circumstances! It seems though that with chemotherapy, we are once again looking at the acceptable face of King Charles’ ammonia treatment and once again, being administered by the highest physicians in the land. Similarly, on the toxicity of radiation ‘therapy’, John Diamond noted that it was only when he began his treatment that he began to feel really ill. Senior cancer physician Dr. Charles Moertal of the Mayo Clinic in the US stated: “Our most effective regimens are fraught with risks and side-effects and practical problems; and after this price is paid by all the patients we have treated, only a small fraction are rewarded with a transient period of usually incomplete tumour regressions....”  [8]

Dr Ralph Moss is the author of is the author of ‘The Cancer Industry’ - a shocking expose of the world of conventional cancer politics and practice. Interviewed live on the Laurie Lee show in 1994, Moss stated: “In the end, there is no proof that chemotherapy actually extends life in the vast majority of cases , and this is the great lie about chemotherapy, that somehow there is a correlation between shrinking a tumour and extending the life of a patient.” [9]

Scientists based at McGill Cancer Centre sent a questionnaire to 118 lung cancer doctors to determine what degree of faith these practicing cancer physicians placed in the therapies they administered. They were asked to imagine that they had cancer and were asked which of six current trials they would choose. 79 doctors responded of which 64 would not consent to be in any trial containing Cisplatin one of the common chemotherapydrugs they were trialling, (currently achieving worldwide sales of about $110,000,000 a year) And 58 of the 79 found that all the trials in question were unacceptable due to the ineffectiveness of chemotherapy and its unacceptably high degree of toxicity. [10]

Chemotherapy - A scientific wasteland

The following extract is taken from Tim O'Shea at The Doctor Within:

A German epidemiologist from the Heidelberg/Mannheim Tumor Clinic, Dr. Ulrich Abel has done a comprehensive review and analysis of every major study and clinical trial of chemotherapy ever done. His conclusions should be read by anyone who is about to embark on the Chemo Express. To make sure he had reviewed everything ever published on chemotherapy, Abel sent letters to over 350 medical centers around the world asking them to send him anything they had published on the subject. Abel researched thousands of articles: it is unlikely that anyone in the world knows more about chemotherapy than he.

The analysis took him several years, but the results are astounding: Abel found that the overall worldwide success rate of chemotherapy was “appalling” because there was simply no scientific evidence available anywhere that chemotherapy can “extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancers.” Abel emphasizes that chemotherapy rarely can improve the quality of life. He describes chemotherapy as “a scientific wasteland” and states that at least 80 percent of chemotherapy administered throughout the world is worthless, and is akin to the “emperor’s new clothes” - neither doctor nor patient is willing to give up on chemotherapy even though there is no scientific evidence that it works! - Lancet 10 Aug 91 No mainstream media even mentioned this comprehensive study: it was totally buried. [10a]

Separating the wheat from the chaff

Whilst in the main dismissing the alternativist treatments as he called them, and writing in a generally confident manner about his trust in the conventional medical paradigm, John Diamond would sometimes waver:

“What if those denying alternativists were right? What if the truth was that no life had ever been saved by radiotherapy and that there was every chance that my cancer would be made worse by it being irradiated? What if the truth as pronounced by a couple of books was that the main effect of cancer surgery was to release stray cancer cells into the body, allowing them to set up home elsewhere?…I turned to the medical books for solace and got none.” [11]

Talk with cancer patients and one soon discovers that many of them report that, although they have an uncomfortable gut feeling that there must somehow be a better way forward, they still find themselves returning to their oncologist for more of the same ‘uncomfortable’ treatment. Why is this, when there are proven, non-conventional and non-harmful treatments readily available?

Surely, one significant factor is our hereditary submissive attitude to the medical orthodoxy and its archetypal symbolism – the white coat, the stethoscope, the years of knowledge represented in those framed diplomas. Every artefact speaks of us being in the hands of experts. And then, there is the added pressure that can be exerted upon the patient at the point of diagnosis by the cancer physician. In his essay entitled The $200 Billion Scam, Jeff Kamen reports on how a cancer diagnosis was delivered to Kathy Keeton, the late wife of PentHouse Magazine magnate, Bob Guiccione:

“I’m sorry,”  she remembers her doctor saying. “It's a very rare form of the disease. It's the nature of this kind of cancer that it takes off at a gallop, and metastasizes quickly so we need to act quickly and get you started on chemotherapy at once. We have some of the best people in the world in this field. I urge you to let me get you into their expert care. There is no time to waste. This form of cancer is often fatal, and quickly so. Untreated, you have six weeks to live. We really must move aggressively with the chemo.” [11a]

Hazel recalls a similar experience:

“Basically, I was in shock from the diagnosis. I was sitting there, with the doctor saying that this treatment was the best available and that it was actually a matter of life or death that I received it. My husband was sitting next to me, telling me that I needed to go along with it. I kind of went into a trance and although something didn’t feel quite right, I found myself nodding to chemotherapy.”

Most definitely, the power imbalance that exists in all doctor-patient relationships, (whence the term ‘shrink’ in psychiatry) is a key agent in determining the direction of treatment.

Confusing and conflicting information

Aside from this very powerful influence, a mass exodus away from conventional cancer treatment towards proven, non-conventional treatments has also been severely hampered by the negative effects of the vast sea of confusing, conflicting and often bizarre information out there, posing as ‘helpful’, alternative cancer advice.  A first-timer seeking alternative advice on the Internet, for instance, can soon become thoroughly disheartened. Some four thousand links come up under “alternative cancer treatment” alone!

An anxious patient, with no time to separate the wheat from the chaff, is then faced with having to make a series of calculations, based solely on his negative experiences on the Internet and a sort of blind, desperate faith that somehow, the well-qualified oncologist has got to be right.  “..And didn’t he warn us that there were a lot of Internet kooks out there?”  The patient is then right back to square one and, by default, the chemotherapy suggested earlier seems overall to be the ‘safest’ bet. In the view of health reporter Phillip Day, author of ‘Cancer: Why We’re Still Dying to Know The Truth’, “Many people just gulp, enter the cancer tunnel and hope they come out the other end.”

Genuine treatments do exist!

But despite the fact that an Internet search can very easily generate confusion, there is actually a wealth of expertly documented, credible Internet information available on natural and genuinely efficacious treatments for a variety of serious illnesses, including cancer - information that, in some instances, has been in existence for many years. But information on such treatments is not widely available in the public domain. Perhaps because genuine medicine has had to fight tremendously hard to be clearly heard. And there are particular reasons why this has been so. Often, it is not so much where to look for genuine natural treatment and medical advice, as how to look for it. Before discussing specific cancer treatments in more depth, it is important that we briefly examine the reasons for the current levels of confusion surrounding genuine natural medicine as a whole. Wilful distortion, unwitting stupidity - you name it. Conventional and alternative, it’s taking place on both sides of the fence. We must learn to read between the lines.   

Fork-tongued drug merchants

In its long, hard battle for proper recognition, genuine natural treatments for  serious illnesses has always had to fight on two fronts. Firstly, it has had to do battle with those calculating opportunists the fork-tongued drug merchants who use every trick in the book to undermine any genuine treatments not under their own jurisdiction. And they will employ all means possible to disseminate their damaging disinformation as far and wide as possible in order to protect their own lucrative market. No department, private or public, is beyond the reach of their all-consuming influence. Thriller writer John Le Carre spent many years working in the British Foreign Office and knows the politics of big business very well. His most recent book The Constant Gardener, focuses on the corrupt nature of the pharmaceutical industry. In an interview on the subject, Le Carre stated recently:

“Big Pharma is engaged in the deliberate seduction of the medical profession, country by country, worldwide. It is spending a fortune on influencing, hiring and purchasing academic judgment to a point where, in a few years’ time, if Big Pharma continues unchecked on its present happy path, unbought medical opinion will be hard to find.” [12]

In opposition to the incessant drive by big business to dominate our health choices, Dr Matthias Rath (below left) provides a concise summary of the primary ethics of the merchant’s house:

“Throughout the 20th century, the pharmaceutical industry has been constructed by investors, the goal being  to replace effective but non-patentable natural remedies with mostly ineffective but patentable and highly profitable pharmaceutical drugs.  The very nature of the pharmaceutical industry is to make money from ongoing diseases. Like other industries, the pharmaceutical industry tries to expand their market - that is to maintain ongoing diseases and  to find new diseases for their drugs. Prevention and cure of diseases damages the  pharmaceutical business and the eradication of common diseases threatens its very existence.

Therefore, the pharmaceutical industry fights the eradication of any disease at all costs. The pharmaceutical industry itself is the main obstacle, why today's most widespread diseases are further expanding including heart attacks, strokes, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis, and many others. Pharmaceutical drugs are not intended to cure diseases. According to health insurers, over 24,000 pharmaceutical drugs are currently marketed and prescribed without any proven therapeutic value (AOKMagazine 4/98). According to medical doctors associations, the known dangerous side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs have become the fourth leading cause of death after heart  attacks, cancer and strokes (Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA April 15, 1998 )

Millions of people and patients around the world are defrauded twice: A major portion of their income is used up to finance the exploding profits of the pharmaceutical industry. In return, they are offered a medicine that does not even cure.”  

Dr Rath is currently spearheading the fight against the pharmacetical industries as they seek to legislate against our free use of vitamins and minerals. If this legislation is passed, it will directly affect YOU in many ways. Please visit www.vitamins-for-all.org right now and sign the petition. It will only take thirty seconds and is so important. And such is the nature of the information still to come on this site I have every confidence that you will be right back!

Writing in the UK Guardian on thursday, 7th February, 2002, senior health editor Sarah Bosely reports that:

“Scientists are accepting large sums of money from drug companies to put their names to articles endorsing new medicines that they have not written - a growing practice that some fear is putting scientific integrity in jeopardy.” [12a]

These supposed guardians of our health are being paid what to say. Said one physician in the article, “What day is it today? I'm just working out what drug I'm supporting today.” From top to bottom, 21st century medicine is being bought and taught to think of all medical treatment in terms of pharmaceutical intervention only.

Aside from the politicking and the big business string-pulling taking place behind the scenes, our minds are also being washed with the constant froth of emotive, unfounded, pro-establishment, populist headlines such as Another breakthrough at UCLA! … (yes…but with mice.)  It’s in the genes! (another £5 million NOW will help us to isolate the gene in 2010……perhaps.) Excitement at latest oncology findings! (Buoyant opening paragraph, descending into the usual mixture of hope extinguished by caution and the obligatory appeal to the pocket.) Cancer vaccine close! (Yes, and close since 1975 actually. But please, continue to give generously, because next time, it could be you!)

And so it goes on. And all the while, the mortality statistics worsen. Yet still, the money -  our money -  just keeps on rolling in. On that note, The Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research states: “The next time you are asked to donate to a cancer organisation, bear in mind that your money will be used to sustain an industry which has been deemed by many eminent scientists as a qualified failure and by others, as a complete fraud.” [13]

Mammograms!

Thank you to Dr Tim O'Shea for the following very important information on the practice of mammography:

“This is one topic where the line between advertising and scientific proof has become very blurred. As far back as 1976, the American Cancer Society itself and its government colleague the National Cancer Institute terminated the routine use of mammography for women under the age of 50 because of its “detrimental” (carcinogenic) effects. More recently, a large study done in Canada on found that women who had routine mammograms before the age of 50 also had increased death rates from breast cancer by 36%. (Miller) Lorraine Day notes the same findings in her video presentation “Cancer Doesn’t Scare Me Any More.” The reader is directed to these sources and should perhaps consider the opinion of other sources than those selling the procedure, before making a decision.

John McDougall MD has made a thorough review of pertinent literature on mammograms. He points out that the $5-13 billion per year generated by mammograms controls the information that women get. Fear and incomplete data are the tools commonly used to persuade women to get routine mammograms. What is clear is that mammography cannot prevent breast cancer or even the spread of breast cancer. By the time a tumor is large enough to be detected by mammography, it has been there as long as 12 years! It is therefore ridiculous to advertise mammography as “early detection.” (McDougall p 114)

The other unsupportable illusion is that mammograms prevent breast cancer, which they don’t. On the contrary, the painful compression of breast tissue during the procedure itself can increase the possibility of metastasis by as much as 80%! Dr. McDougall notes that a between 10 and 17% of the time, breast cancer is a self-limiting non-life-threatening type called ductal carcinoma in situ. This harmless cancer can be made active by the compressive force of routine mammography. (McDougall, p105)

Most extensive studies show no increased survival rate from routine screening mammograms. After reviewing all available literature in the world on the subject, noted researchers Drs. Wright and Mueller of the University of British Columbia recommended the withdrawal of public funding for mammography screening, because the “benefit achieved is marginal, and the harm caused is substantial.” (Lancet, 1 Jul 1995) The harm they’re referring to includes the constant worrying and emotional distress, as well as the tendency for unnecessary procedures and testing to be done based on results which have a false positive rate as high as 50%.” (New York Times, 14 Dec 1997) [13a]

                                                       ************

Whilst the remit of this article does not extend to a full exploration of the influence that money has had over the corruption of true medicine and medical practice, let the reader be assured that conventional medicine has more than its fair share of attendant commercial pressures, and especially so in the world of cancer, as we shall soon discover.

Non-conventional health care

Aside from the wiles of the merchant, genuine medicine also has always had to do battle with the well-intentioned para-healer, [14] who unwittingly has the capacity to prove equally as threatening to the cause, but for very different reasons.  The non-conThe non-conventional medical market place seems to be dominated by those who are able to deliver an admirably coherent deconstruction of the conventional paradigm, but who choose not to apply the same level of intelligent critique to their own often wacky nostrums. As such, we are subject to an equally misguided barrage of pronouncements such as, “Submit not to the ravages of chemo. Let White Eagle purge you of those negative energies.”  Visit a pyramid, a shaman, “My sickness is a shamanic gift and calling.” [14a] a cancer ‘guide’, “OK group. Eyes closed. Your cancer is receding. The lump is disintegrating. Envisage the all-consuming fire!” A coat of mud, of seaweed or both, some psycho-surgery, some radionics, this therapy, that therapy and of course, a thousand and one folk remedies, Grandma’s trusted ‘brain tumour elixir’ perhaps, a walnut kernel, perfectly preserved in rainwater, seven drops three times a day.  

Celebrities with the more serious illnesses receive these well-intentioned ‘tips and tricks’ by the sack load. John Diamond was no exception.

“I’ve had anecdotal evidence from those who believe in voodoo, the power of the fairy people - yes, really - drinking my own p**s and any number of other remedies… I should put my faith in the Bessarabian radish, the desiccated root of which has been used for centuries by Tartar nomads to cure athlete’s foot, tennis elbow and cancer, as detailed in their book Why Your Doctor Hates You And Wants You To Die, review copy enclosed…”[15]

Notwithstanding the genuine treatments available in the natural cabinet, which we shall discuss very shortly, a huge number of remedies being sold as ‘medicine’ today contain no sensible methodology, yet amazingly, they are selling very well. No better is this phenomenon illustrated than in the lucrative minor ailments market, where on a daily basis across the world, untold £millions is being spent on pharmacologically inert mixtures and ‘essences’, producing truly marvellous results with illnesses from which we were going to get better anyway.[16]

The dangers of uncritical thinking

In truth, were the general public to be given clear information on the nature of self-limiting illness and on the wondrous ability of a properly nourished immune system to overcome almost all ills unaided, the bottom would fall out of the minor ailments market tomorrow, both conventional and alternative. Unfortunately though, any of the more awkward questions arising from this discussion, such as “How can you continue to sell these ointments as 'medicines' in the light of this knowledge?” are usually defended not by answering the actual question itself, but by the therapist appealing to the worthiness of his wider philanthropic goals and to ‘the much greater threat to the global populace’ posed by the merchant’s house with all its toxic wares, etc., etc. Donald Gould, author of The Black and White Medicine Show, warns of the dangers we invite by adopting such laissez-faire reasoning:

“Why not make the most of what the non-conformists have to offer and to hell with uncharitable logic?  There is, I suggest, a powerful reason for rejecting this superficially attractive option.  Truth is a fundamental value. If we accept uncritical thinking in one area of our lives for the sake of convenience or because of the popular appeal of a seductive myth and the short-term comfort to be gained by believing in the unbelievable, or because the false answer lets us pretend we are competently coping with a painful problem we haven't truly tackled, then we are all the more likely to adopt the same strategy in other situations, from dealing with the family, to managing the national economy, and from chairing the parish council to handling arsenals of nuclear weapons.  The result is likely to be unhappy and stands a decent chance of proving a disaster. Irrational beliefs are always dangerously corrupting, even when they only relate to the cause and cure of piles.” [17]

Reputation is everything

But what relevance does all this have to the debate on treatments for cancer, you might ask? Where is all of this headed? This has been a necessary diversion firstly, that we might begin to understand some of the frustrations many reasoned thinkers have with the issues raised: and secondly, that we might begin to consider the impact  that such weakened thinking has on genuine natural treatments for disease.  For instance, what damage is secondarily being wrought upon the reputation of the genuine treatments in the cabinet, the ones that can actually heal? Sadly, there is no clear division between the reputation of much of the unregulated alternative health industry and that of the many sensible and proven, non-conventional treatments available today. It has all become a horrible blur and is a point of major concern even to the non-orthodox regulatory bodies overseeing the alternative/complementary health movement. The whole arena is fraught with as much vested interests and misunderstandings as conventional health, but commentaries drawing such conclusions even from those concerned bodies sympathetic to the natural approach are viewed as almost heretical and somehow betraying the brotherhood of the alternative heirachy.

Personally speaking, critical debate should commence as soon as possible with regard to those ‘helping’ therapies that only temporarily distract the seriously ill. In need only of sensible advice and sensible treatment, these people can very quickly end up worse off in body, mind and spirit; and last but not least, in pocket, leading very quickly to derision and a carte blanche dismissal of all the good that genuine natural treatments have to offer. John Diamond stated that there was as much chance of him going down the alternative treatment route as there was of the Pope getting drunk on the communion wine and getting off with a couple of nuns. [18]

Whilst we can perhaps understand some of John Diamond’s frustrations, his comparisons don’t exactly aid the cause. Because the truth is that the alternativist’s cabinet is not all ‘mumbo-jumbo’ by any means.  Genuine medicine can be found in there. Perhaps a name change is in order. Are we alternative? Are we complementary? But complementary to what? To chemotherapy perhaps? But then what medicine could possibly complement chemotherapy? Shouldn’t there just be medicine and non-medicine, full stop? Be that as it may, many people are wrongly assuming that the non-orthodox medical cabinet is barren and not worthy of closer inspection. The hazy and often crazy information being disseminated on numerous non-conventional treatments coupled with our innate and naïve trust in the orthodoxy is the reason why thousands of people like John Diamond are staying with, and relying upon conventional treatments for serious illnesses, including cancer. As a result, thousands of people like John Diamond are dying, and often in a horrible fashion.

Vitamin B17   “..cancer cells were dying like flies.”

In his UK Observer article entitled Quacks on the Rack, John Diamond summarily dismissed what is arguably the most famous of the natural and proven anti-cancer treatments known to man, the natural extract of the apricot kernel, otherwise known as Vitamin B17. 

“Supporters of Laetrile (vitamin B17) and Essiac, in particular, made so much noise about their miracle cures that both have been through the research mill on numerous occasions and found to be useless.” [19]

Now we can ask ourselves whether it was perhaps the fault of some kindly but misguided soul who posted John Diamond an essay on the benefits of Vitamin B17 mixed with walnut water that caused him to dismiss B17 so emphatically. Or it could be that John actually trusted the conventional research reports he had accrued on this vitamin? Interestingly, Dr. Dean Burk, the former head of the Cytochemistry Department of the National Cancer Institute, and one of the co-founders of this famous American medical institution, had worked on Vitamin B17 personally. He described this substance in very different terms:

“When we add laetrile to a cancer culture under the microscope,” said Burk, “providing the enzyme glucosidase  also is present, we can see the cancer cells dying off like flies.” [20] (glucosidase being the enzyme heavily present in cancerous cells which triggers the unique cancer-destroying mechanism found in Vitamin B17. An excellent clinical analysis of this mechanism is found in ‘B17 Metabolic Therapy – In The Prevention And Control Of Cancer - a concise history of the research into this vitamin, including many clinical assessments. More details on this book can be found at the end of this article.) [21]   Dr Burk also stated that evidence for Laetrile’s efficacy had been noted in at least five independent institutions in three widely separated countries of the world. [22]

So who do we trust in this matter? Diamond or Burk? By looking at where John Diamond might have got his B17 research ‘information’, the ugly features of conventional cancer research move more sharply into focus.