The Man Who Questions Chemotherapy : Dr. Ralph Moss
http://www.mercola.com/article/cance...er_options.htm
*PERSONAL CONSULTATION: Dr. Moss offers written personal
consultation/report for people with cancer, providing detailed
information, up to 400 pages, on promising alternative treatments and
their sources. Follow-up written questions and answers are included.
Call 1-800-980-1234 or 1-814-238-3367, 9AM-5PM EST, Monday-Friday. He
also has a website:
www.cancerdecisions.com
If you are interested in obtaining such a report, which is usually
quite helpful and informative.
Dr. Ralph Moss has written the book, Questioning Chemotherapy, which
documents the ineffectiveness of chemotherapy in treating most cancers.
On November 19, 1977, he was fired for telling the public the truth. At
a press conference on November 18th, he and the Second Opinion working
group released a well-documented 48-page report that stated the top
officials of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center had lied about
the results of a study performed at the center regarding "Laetrile" --
(a natural, alternative cancer treatment).
Dr. Moss has gained credibility by writing eight books, including his
most recent work, Cancer Therapy: The Independent Consumer's Guide to
Non-Toxic Treatment. He also wrote The Cancer Industry, a documented
research work telling of the enormous financial and political
corruption in the "cancer establishment". He indicates that the
motivating forces in cancer research and treatment are often power and
money, and not the cure of cancer patients. He also writes, The Cancer
Chronicles, a newsletter reporting on new cancer treatments and
preventive measures.
Dr. Moss' work documents the ineffectiveness of chemotherapy on most
forms of cancer. However, he is fair in pointing out that there are the
following exceptions: Acute Iymphocytic leukemia, Hodgkin's disease,
and nonseminomatous testicular cancer. Also, a few very rare forms of
cancer, including choriocarcinoma, Wilm's tumor, and retinoblastoma.
But all of these account for only 2% to 4% of all cancers occurring in
the United States. This leaves some 96% to 98% of other cancers, in
which chemotherapy doesn't eliminate the disease. The vast majority of
cancers, such as breast, colon, and lung cancer are barely touched by
chemotherapy. However, there is another category where chemotherapy has
a relatively minor effect -- The most "successful" of these is in Stage
3 ovarian cancer, where chemotherapy appears to extend life by perhaps
eighteen months, and small-cell lung cancer in which chemotherapy might
offer six more months.
Effective cancer treatment is a matter of definition. The FDA defines
an "effective" drug as one which achieves a 50% or more reduction in
tumor size for 28 days. In the vast majority of cases there is
absolutely no correlation between shrinking tumors for 28 days and the
cure of the cancer or extension of life.
When the cancer patient hears the doctor say "effective," he or she
thinks, and logically so, that "effective" means it cures cancer. But
all it means is temporary tumor shrinkage.
Chemotherapy usually doesn't cure cancer or extend life, and it really
does not improve the quality of the life either. Doctors frequently
make this claim though. There are thousands of studies that were
reviewed by Dr. Moss as part of the research for his book -- and there
is not one single good study documenting this claim.
What patients consider "good quality of life" seems to differ from what
the doctors consider. To most it is just common sense that a drug that
makes you throw up, and lose your hair, and wrecks your immune system
is not improving your quality of life. Chemotherapy can give you
life-threatening mouth sores. People can slough the entire lining of
the intestines! One longer-term effect is particularly tragic: people
who've had chemotherapy no longer respond to nutritional or
immunologically-based approaches to their cancers. And since
chemotherapy doesn't cure 96% to 98% of all cancers anyway...People who
take chemotherapy have sadly lost their chance of finding another sort
of cure.
It's especially telling that in a number of surveys most
chemotherapists have said they would not take chemotherapy themselves
or recommend it for their families. Chemotherapy drugs are the most
toxic substances ever put deliberately into the human body. They are
known poisons, they are designed poisons. The whole thing began with
experiments with "mustard gas," the horrible chemical-warfare agents
from World War I.
Dr. Moss' position on chemotherapy is supported by many major students
of the study of cancer treatment. Following are some examples: Dr. John
Bailar is the chief of epidemiology at McGill University in Montreal
and was formerly the editor of the Journal of the National Cancer
Institute. In 1986 the New England Journal of Medicine published an
article by Dr. Bailer and Dr. Elaine Smith, a colleague from the
University of Iowa. Bailer and Smith wrote: "Some 35 years of intense
and growing efforts to improve the treatment of cancer have not had
much overall effect on the most fundamental measure of clinical outcome
- death. The effort to control cancer has failed so far to obtain its
objectives.
Dr. John Cairns, a professor of microbiology at Harvard, published his
view in Scientific American in 1985, "that basically the war on cancer
was a failure and that chemotherapy was not getting very far with the
vast majority of cancers."
As far back as 1975, Nobel Laureate James Watson of DNA fame was quoted
in the New York Times saying that the American public had been "sold a
nasty bill of goods about cancer."
In 1991, Dr. Albert Braverman, Professor of Hematology and Oncology at
the State University of New York, Brooklyn, published an article in
Lancet titled "Medical Oncology in the 1990s," in which he wrote: "The
time has come to cut back on the clinical investigation of new
chemotherapeutic regimens for cancer and to cast a critical eye on the
way chemotherapeutic treatment is now being administered."
Dr. Braverman says that there is no solid tumor incurable in 1976 that
is curable today. Dr. Moss confirms this and claims that the greatest
breakthrough in the objective study of chemotherapy came from a
biostatistician at the University of Heidelberg, Dr. Ulrich Abel. His
critique focused on whether chemotherapy effectively prolonged survival
in advanced epithelial cancer. His answer was that it is not effective.
He summarized and extended his findings and concluded that chemotherapy
overall is ineffective. A recent search turned up exactly zero reviews
of his work in American journals, even though it was published in 1990.
The belief is that this is not because his work was unimportant -- but
because it's irrefutable.
With the extensive documentation in Dr. Moss' book, and all the
statistics developed by the experts, why is chemotherapy still pushed
by the large majority of oncologists? Dr. Moss feels that "there's a
tremendous conflict going on in the minds of honest, sensitive, caring
oncologists." They're in a very difficult position because they've been
trained to give these drugs. And they've devoted many years to reaching
a very high level of expertise in the knowledge of poisonous, deadly
compounds. They're really in a bind, because they went into oncology to
help the cancer patient, yet the tools they've been given don't work.
And they see what happens to physicians who "step out of line" and
treat cancer with alternative means.
Armed raids, loss of licensure, professional smearing and ostracism are
some of the consequences. These could all be related to the quotation
in the book made by Dr. Lundberg, editor of the Journal of the American
Medical Association. At a recent National Institute of Health meeting,
he said of chemotherapy: "[It's] a marvelous opportunity for rampant
deceit. So much money is there to be made that ethical principles can
be overrun sometimes in a stampede to get at physicians and
prescribers." You never heard that on the evening news.
The economics of cancer treatment are astounding. Cancer treatment is
close to $100 billion annually ($100,000,000,000). The chemotherapy
part of that by 1995 will be up to $8.5 billion. Looking from another
angle: the Bristol Myers company owns patents on twelve of the nearly
forty "FDA-approved" chemotherapeutic drugs. The president, past
president, chairman of the board, and a couple of the directors of
Bristol Myers all hold positions on the board at Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Dr. Moss' book details the failures (and very few successes) for
chemotherapy with more than fifty types of cancer, includes a complete
description of the major chemotherapy drugs, and has a section about
questions to ask your doctor. All of Dr. Moss' books and Cancer
Chronicles newsletters are available from Equinox Press, 1-800-929-WELL
or 718-636-4433.
We are obviously losing ground with conventional cancer treatment,
because the death rates keep going up. The reason for this is because
conventional treatment is based on a faulty standard: That the body
must be purged of cancer by aggressive and toxic methods such as
surgery chemotherapy and radiation therapy. This, of course, seemed
reasonable back in 1894 when William Halsted, M.D. did the first
radical mastectomy, but it has proven to be so wrong over the last 50
years that continuing to adhere to it constitutes more fraud than
honest mistake. However, this standard still dominates conventional
cancer therapy, and until that changes, we will continue to lose ground
with cancer.
Dr. Whitaker, a firm believer in Dr. Moss' work and alternative cancer
therapy goes on to give some of his personal views:
Statistics Don't Tell the Real Story
What is lost in the unemotional statistic of 500,000 cancer deaths per
year is how those people died. Dr. Whitaker goes on to say more about
the treatment of cancer: In my opinion, conventional cancer therapy is
so toxic and dehumanizing that I fear it far more than I fear death
from cancer. We know that conventional therapy doesn't work -- if it
did, you would not fear cancer any more than you fear pneumonia. It is
the utter lack of certainty as to the outcome of conventional treatment
that virtually screams for more freedom of choice in the area of cancer
therapy. Yet most so-called alternative therapies regardless of
potential or proven benefit, are outlawed, which forces patients to
submit to the failures that we know don't work, because there's no
other choice.
Personal Belief Systems Determine the Choices You Make
Because cancer treatment is such a sensitive issue, I need to set some
ground rules before I tell you what I would do if I had cancer. What
follows is what I personally would do. It is not a recommendation for
you, and should not be considered as such. It is not even what my wife
would do(that would be her decision), nor is it what my young son would
do (that would be the joint decision of my wife and myself). The
choices to be made in treating cancer are not easy ones, because there
is so little certainty of cure in any of them. The course that someone
chooses to take is very personal, and reflects not only that person's
knowledge of the options, but also his/her beliefs.
Yet, because we are strongly influenced by our natural fear of death,
we lineup for conventional cancer therapy, not so much believing that
it will work, but hoping that it will not fail. If expensive,
debilitating procedures to eliminate acne scars had the same failure
rate as cancer treatment, they would be abandoned. It is only because
cancer is so often fatal that conventional approaches were not
abandoned long ago. We continue to use them not because they work, but
because those who perform them have so vigorously eliminated any other
choice.
My Imaginary Cancer Scenario
(by Dr. Whitaker)
Though I would approach my own dilemma with hopes of total cure, I
would be the first to admit that, regardless of the course I took, the
chances of that are small. Consequently, my choices of cancer therapy
are a mix of science and philosophy. They are as much a reflection of
how I would struggle for survival as of how I would wish to die if the
struggle failed. For the purposes of this discussion, let us assume
that I have just been diagnosed with cancer of the lung, and a
particularly virulent one. (Please understand that I do not have
cancer, nor do I smoke.) Before going into what I would do and why, let
me say what I wouldn't do, and why.
I Wouldn't Take A Passive Role
If I am going to fight for my life, I want to do just that. I am always
perplexed by the news stories of some celebrity, doped to the gills
with heinous poison, "courageously battling for his life." What does
this mean? The celebrity, who simply accepts conventional cancer
therapy, is no more "courageous" than a laboratory mouse. This is not
to say that what the celebrity is doing is wrong, only that it is the
very opposite of a willful act of courage.
Taking a passive role with today's conventional therapy is terribly
dangerous. Recently Jackie Kennedy, after a "courageous fight,"
succumbed to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma - or did she? Her early demise,
attributed to the cancer, was a shock to cancer specialists worldwide,
and brought into question the real cause of her death. She had been
given an unproved protocol of very high-dose chemotherapy. The drugs
alone could easily have caused her death - and this would not be
unusual. There are numerous cases of iatrogenic (doctor-induced) deaths
from chemotherapy.
I'd Actively Fight For My Life
On the other hand, the cancer patient who says, "no, thanks" to
chemotherapy recommended by large cancer treatment centers, and takes
off to Grand Bahamas Island to receive Immuno-Augmentative Therapy
(IAT); or to Houston, Texas, to receive antineoplastons from Dr.
Stanislaw Burzynski; or who heads to the public library to make a
battle plan, has begun fighting and is acting courageously.
Whether I win or lose, that is the course I would take. What have I got
to lose? Conventional treatment is toxic and simply doesn't work, so I
would throw my lot with something safe that might work, and folks, a
lot of approaches fit that description. I also believe patients who
seek alternative therapies are more optimistic. They have only one
worry - the cancer- not the cancer and the therapy!
And Now. Here's What I Would Do
(by Dr. Whitaker)
I'd turn my back on 50 years of institutionalized expertise, because it
follows the wrong paradigm. Everything that is done in medicine or in
any other discipline fits some paradigm. The paradigm I use for cancer
is that it is a systemic problem in which the normal control mechanisms
of your body are altered. Your immune system likely bears the largest
burden for this control; thus, all techniques that enhance it are
promising. Those that damage it are not.
Also, cancer cells are different from normal cells in many ways,
including their metabolic profile. At least one non-toxic therapy,
hydrazine sulfate, takes advantage of this difference. It has been
shown in double-blind trials published in respectable journals to
significantly reduce the severe weight loss (cachexia) of advanced
cancer, and markedly improve the patient's emotional state, almost to
the point of euphoria. It is also inexpensive. Even though hydrazine
sulfate has been shown to be effective and non-toxic, and it makes the
patient feel better, it is ignored by every major cancer center. Yet I
would take it immediately. (For more on hydrazine sulfate, see Ralph
Moss' book, The Cancer Industry.)
First, I would Change My Diet
I would switch to a mostly vegetarian diet. I'd also take the
Nutritional Supplements "Green foods," such as GREENS+ (800/643-1210)
or Green Magma (from Healthy Directions; 800/722-8008, ext. 572). These
supplements include the phyto-chemicals, antioxidants, vitamins, and
minerals required for optimal health.. I would enhance that basic
program with the following:
Vitamin C - 10,000 mg per day in divided doses. Ewan Cameron, a
Scottish physician, did a study in which 100 cancer patients were given
10,000 mg of vitamin C for the rest of their lives, while control
patients were not. The patients on vitamin C lived much longer than the
age-matched controls. The Mayo Clinic did two studies on vitamin C, and
in both studies found that vitamin C did not help. However, both
studies were set up in a manner that almost guaranteed failure.
Frankly, I think that this was done intentionally to generate negative
publicity for this non-toxic approach.
Cartilage - A three- to four-month trial of bovine or shark cartilage.
The mucopolysaccharides in cartilage stimulate the immune system and
normalize malignant cells. Ninety percent of patients with a variety of
cancers responded to a clinical trial of bovine cartilage; shark
cartilage has demonstrated success rates of 25 to 50%. VitaCarte bovine
cartilage is available from Phoenix BioLabs, 800/947-8482 (suggested
dose is 9 g a day). Shark cartilage can be obtained from MHP
800-647-0074 (suggested dose is 1 g per 3 pounds of body weight).
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) - Used as an effective therapy in congestive heart
failure, CoQ10 has only recently been studied as a cancer treatment.
Cancer patients have been found to have deficiencies of CoQ10. Clinical
trials in breast cancer have resulted in no further metastases,
improved quality of life (no weight loss and less pain), and partial
remission in six of 32 patients. Vitaline makes a chewable CoQ10 with
vitamin E (800/648-4755; 503/482-9231, in Canada).
Essiac Tea - 2 ounces 3 times a day. This blend of four herbs -burdock
root, sheep's sorrel, slippery elm and Indian rhubarb root- has its
genesis in Native American medicinal folklore. Since it was
"discovered" by Canadian nurse Rene Caisse in the 1920s, thousands have
claimed to have had their cancers cured by this tea. I'd keep on
searching. We have the formula if you are interested in purchasing the
individual herbs in bulk.
Finally, you should know that if I were battling cancer - or any
serious disease, for that matter- I would be in a constant search for
effective, non-toxic therapies. One place to begin that search is with
Ralph Moss, Ph.D. He is probably the most knowledgeable writer in the
world on alternative therapies for cancer, and has recently published a
530-page book, Cancer Therapy, The Independent Consumer's Guide to
Nontoxic Treatment and Prevention. (Equinox Press, New York, NY, 1995).
In addition, Dr. Moss offers a report service called Healing Choices,
which ascertains, through a questionnaire, the type and severity of
cancer, and suggests alternatives. This costs $250, and it is well
worth it. If I had cancer, I would start here for more information. You
can get more information by sending a large SASE to The Cancer
Chronicles, 2 Lincoln Square, Suite 31A, New York, NY 10023, or by
calling Melissa Wolf at 718/636-4433.
Another source of information is People Against Cancer, which provides
a comprehensive counseling service called the Alternative Therapy
Program. It includes a review of your medical records by a network of
doctors using alternative therapies. It also costs $250. People Against
Cancer can be reached at 515/972-4444. Their Internet address is:
http://www.dodgenet.com/nocancer.
This is certainly not my final say on cancer treatment, because it
changes as new research is done. I want to say again that what I would
do is not a recommendation for you. However, it is not a reasonable
belief to think that conventional cancer experts offer the best
approaches for most cancers. There is just too much evidence to the
contrary. One of these days there may not be a need for ''alternative'
approaches to cancer. Until then, look for the answers to the cancer
riddle in the growing field of alternatives, because they are obviously
not present in our armamentarium of conventional therapies.
The Man Who Questions Chemotherapy : Dr. Ralph Moss 
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