So you've been diagnosed with Cancer...
I sincerely hope that this never happens to you, but let's face it: many thousands of people receive the dread diagnosis every year. As a matter of fact, approximately 39.6% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some time during their lives.
You leave the doctor's office in a sort of daze. You can't quite believe what you've just been told. Surely there must have been some mistake? This couldn't be happening to you − cancer, like death itself, always seemed to be something that happens to other people, but certainly not to you! And yet here you are, facing the most disquieting uncertainty imaginable: will you still be alive a couple of years down the road, or will you gradually waste away and die a pitiful death, causing your loved ones months of emotional anguish in the process?
The doctor has told you that chemotherapy is one option you ought to consider. Once you arrive home and plop down into your favorite armchair to try to mentally come to terms with all of this, you remember that when you asked your physician what the statistical probability is that you will be cured of your cancer through one or the other of these treatments, he was peculiarly evasive. He said he didn't know the exact numbers, but that most people do choose one of those treatment options.
You wonder how it could be that he, a trained specialist who is professionally obligated to keep abreast of advances in his science, was not able to give you the numbers. After all, this information is of the utmost importance to you, is it not? You thus go to your computer to do a bit of research in order to discover just what the odds really are that such an invasive therapy might indeed save your life.
In Google, you come across the site "cancer.org". In their section on statistics, you discover that for your type of cancer − let's say, stomach cancer − the 5-year survival rate is only between 31% and 67% (the latter figure applies if it is treated before spreading to other organs).
Chemotherapy is going to be very expensive, so it's only natural that you now are anxious to know how much chemo will improve your chances of survival. In other words: cancer.org has listed the statistic that of all the people diagnosed with stomach cancer, 31% survive for at least five years. But they do not say which treatment method(s) those people used. Surely, there must be a difference?
In cancer.org's page on treatment methods for stomach cancer, they list surgery, chemo, targeted therapy, radiation therapy, and Immunotherapy. OK, fine. There are options, it appears. That's the (seemingly) good news. But now, you simply must find out: of that 31% of people who survive stomach cancer for at least five years, how many of them opted for chemo? For radiation therapy? For one of the other options listed? And more importantly:
Assuming I choose chemo, how much will it contribute to my chances of surviving five years or more?
For after all, that is the essential question. If you are to choose a treatment, especially one that costs a fortune (and all of the “standard” treatments are extremely expensive), shouldn't you know what the probability is that that treatment will be successful for you? Considering the huge number of people who are diagnosed with cancer every year, surely someone must know just how likely it is that any single one of the treatment methods will help, right?
Yet though you read every single page on the cancer.org site, you can't find that crucial information anywhere.
Thus, for all you know, the 31% that survive stomach cancer could have chosen any one of those treatment methods, or maybe, just maybe, some of them didn't resort to any of those methods, but chose so-called "alternative therapies" instead. (This is even more likely to be the case for the 67% whose cancer had not yet spread, and who treated it using natural methods). Is this not extremely important for you to know? Thus, why does cancer.org not tell us these numbers?
You then spend some days doing research in other sites, desperately seeking the information that you crave in order to make the right decision about how to deal with your illness. Finally, you come across just what you need, at least as far as chemo is concerned. It is a study published in 2004, entitled "The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy on 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies" (discussed earlier in this book.) True, the study was done some fifteen years ago, but your research has shown that there haven't been any tremendous changes in chemo. True, different combinations of drugs are often used, and sites like cancer.org say that success rates have therefore risen somewhat. Yet it is plain that they haven't gone up all that much. You study a graph at cancer.org that shows death rates due to stomach cancer, and see that the death rate has indeed gone down between 2000 and 2015: whereas slightly more than 5% were dying of that specific disease in 2000, in 2015, that figure was slightly less than 5%. A step in the right direction. You speculate that this improvement could be due to better combinations of chemo drugs. Of course, on the other hand, this decrease could also simply be due to people becoming more aware of the importance of diet. Perhaps fewer are dying of stomach cancer now because more people have adopted healthier nutritional habits, cut down on drinking alcohol, etc. Therefore, the graph at cancer.org does not help you much at all.
Now you feel that perhaps you are over-thinking the issue. After all, you see on the graph that fewer people are dying of stomach cancer, and at that very site, they speak at length about expensive therapies such as chemo, so there must be some connection, right?
Yet you have this nagging doubt: if indeed many more people are surviving stomach cancer thanks to chemo (for instance) then why don't they put it plainly? In other words, why don't they say something like this:
"In the year 2000, the contribution of chemotherapy to five-year survival rates was X %. In 2018, that figure improved: now, thanks to developments in chemo drugs, the survival rate is higher: X%"
Don't you, and everyone else who has been diagnosed with cancer, and who are on the verge of accepting an extremely costly treatment method, deserve to know all the facts?
Yes, of course you do. But you will not find those facts at cancer-org, or at any other site that is in collusion with the Pharmaceutical Industry.
And as your further research will show quite plainly, the reason why cancer.org and other such sites do not tell you all the facts about how effective their treatment methods are is because if they did, many, if not most people would not choose any of those methods, but would instead choose more natural, and much cheaper therapies, which would result in the loss of billions of dollars each year for the MedicalPharmaceutical Industry.
That is the only logical conclusion you can reach after you have carefully read the systematic review that you stumbled across, "The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy on 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies".
Why? Because in that systematic review, we find that the contribution of chemotherapy in cases of stomach cancer is only 0.7%. In other words: of the 31% of people who are diagnosed with stomach cancer, and who survive for five years, chemo contributes to the survival of only 0.7% of them. Obviously, the great majority of stomach cancer survivors are not being helped by chemo at all, but by some other treatment, either main stream or alternative. Of course, if some other main stream treatment were shown to be extremely successful in treating this cancer, the medical industry would no doubt give that treatment preference; they would tell us (for example) that "this or that therapy contributes 90% to five-year survival rates in cases of stomach cancer". Of course, they do not tell us that, and legally, they could not, since it would be a lie. The very fact that chemo is sometimes recommended for stomach cancer, despite the shocking fact that it contributes a mere 0.7% to survival rates, is strong evidence that perhaps none of the main stream methods is worth much at all to the patient. Though plainly, each and every one of those methods is worth a whole lot − in dollars − to the Medical/Pharmaceutical Industry.
Now you wonder why it took you so long to find the systematic review on the Internet. Surely, a study of such tremendous relevance to cancer sufferers should be easy to find?
Considering the importance of the information given in the study, one might think that cancer.org, and other "official" cancer sites would offer it as a free download. Yet in such sites, you will not find a single mention of this study. As a matter of fact, unless you know its exact name even before you've discovered it, your chances of finding it are quite slim indeed. But now, you have found it, and eagerly turn to the page that reveals just how much chemotherapy contributes to five-year survival rates in cases of stomach cancer, for this is the information that your doctor could not − or would not − tell you; the information that you sought in vain at cancer.org.
Reading the study, you find what was mentioned above: the contribution of chemo to 5-year survival rates among stomach cancer patients is only 0.7%. In other words, there's a 99.3% chance that chemo will not help you at all. As a matter of fact, due to the severe side effects that chemo drugs have, such a “therapy” would almost undoubtedly do you much more harm than good.
Then it fully dawns on you: This is why you received no clear answer either from your oncologist, or from cancer.org. For if they told you the truth, you, and many others, would obviously reject the idea of chemo altogether, and neither your oncologist, nor the Pharmaceutical Industry, would make the fortune they take in every year thanks to chemotherapy.
Naturally, you would now wish to discover just how much radiation therapy, and those other treatment options mentioned at cancer.org, might contribute to survival. Yet those statistics are also not revealed to you.
I myself have not seen a study about radiation therapy, nor the other therapies, which is as comprehensive, relevant and clear as is the systematic review about chemo. In this book, I have chosen to focus on chemo, though I strongly suspect that the Industry has no interest whatsoever in letting people know the full statistics pertaining to any one of the methods they promote.
Nonetheless − as a patient, or as a family member of someone who is suffering from some sort of cancer − you have the right to know all the facts, including the precise statistics that the Industry no doubt possesses, and yet refuses to make public. And just in case you read the pages of cancer.org, the official site of the American Cancer Society, and are tempted to believe what they say unquestioningly, allow me to quote from TruthWiki (the highlights are my own):
“In a debate this year, Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society did not deny the agency's connection to corporate interests. ‘The American Cancer Society views relationships with corporations as a source of revenue for cancer prevention,’ said Dr. Thun. ‘That can be construed as an inherent conflict of interest, or it can be construed as a pragmatic way to get funding to support cancer control.’
So it is in fact true that the ACS' 22-member board was created in 1990 to solicit corporate contributions. It's also true that board members include Gordon Binder, who is the CEO of Amgen, a biotechnology company that sells chemotherapy products. Another board member, David R. Bethune, is president of Lederle Laboratories, a multinational pharmaceutical company and a division of American Cyanamid Company. In fact, many board members seemingly stand to make more money by treating cancer than by preventing it.
But as Thun said, these relationships are "pragmatic" ways to garner funding. Money, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, is the name of the ACS' game. The Chronicle of Philanthropy is a watchdog organization that monitors major charities. After analyzing the ACS' budgets and programs, they concluded the agency is "more interested in accumulating wealth than saving lives."
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I have no illusions as to the state of mind of someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer, or who has a loved one who has recently received such a diagnosis. Shock, disbelief, denial, hopelessness, depression, and above all, tremendous fear – all conspire to cloud the minds of both the patient and his/her family. It takes a tremendous effort of will to even approach a semblance of mental clarity; despair seduces everyone involved into putting one’s faith in the medical professionals, even without insisting on being informed of all the facts that might be available (such as the systematic review so frequently discussed in this book). Indeed, when fear takes hold of a family, most would prefer not to know “the whole truth”, for they are terrified that that truth might be that death will soon be knocking at their door.
To this, I will say two things that I want you to consider. Read them, and re-read them as many times as it is necessary for you to grasp their supreme importance:
1) It is absolutely necessary for you to ask your doctor(s) the right questions, and to formulate those questions as precisely as possible, in order to get the facts – all the facts – about any treatment option recommended, and most especially, about “treatments” whose side effects alone could end up killing you before your time.
2) There are good reasons to believe that someone who has cancer is not at all in a “hopeless” situation. The truth is, you might just be able to do away with the cancer yourself by adopting certain life-style changes that will greatly strengthen your immune system – whose weakened state, due to your previous life-style, might well be the very reason why you got cancer in the first place.
I realize that this is a seemingly “daring” statement. Yet since I myself have known people who, when dealing with cancer, cured themselves completely by using the most natural methods imaginable, I do dare to make this statement. And by the way: the methods they used cost them virtually nothing at all.
Now, as for point 1): the questions you should ask your doctor(s) if and when chemotherapy (or any other expensive, invasive treatment option) is recommended, or even suggested, are:
1) How much does chemotherapy contribute to five-year survival rates for my type of cancer? (The systematic review dealt with in this book gives those figures quite precisely, yet only for 22 types of cancer).
If the physician does not know this, politely ask him/her to find out, and let you know. If, on the other hand, he/she says something like “Well, I don’t know the numbers, but I do know that most people in your condition opt for chemo”, then respond in this fashion: “Excuse me, doctor, but I don’t want to bet my life merely on ‘what other people tend to do’. Instead, I want to know the facts. And I must assume that, considering the huge amount of money that such a treatment would cost, there must be some objective statistics available as to the success rate of the treatment method. So please get this information for me as soon as possible, OK?”
I know that most people usually don’t speak so directly to their physicians, since they tend to show great respect for these professionals. There’s nothing wrong with being respectful towards an individual who has dedicated his or her life to helping the ill. Nonetheless, let me be plain: if you are diagnosed with cancer, your life is on the line. If you choose the wrong treatment method, you might just end up dead before every long. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for you to discover all the information possible about the treatment methods available. Thus, you must do all you can to find out the success rates of those treatments. I think you will agree that the importance of sparing your doctor’s ego dwindles to nothingness when compared to that of saving your very life.
Therefore, I repeat. The first question you should ask is: “How much does chemotherapy contribute to five-year survival rates for my type of cancer?” Ask for this information in writing, or in printed form. You can justify this request by saying you would like to show it to your spouse, or other family members, before making any final decisions concerning treatment. Of course, you also want it in writing just in case your physician, when telling you the numbers, isn’t being honest: having it in writing would assure you that the numbers weren’t just “made up”, because if they were, it would open the door to a malpractice lawsuit, which every physician greatly fears.
To sum up: when faced with a cancer diagnosis, before accepting any expensive, invasive, and potentially extremely harmful treatment (chemotherapy, or radiation therapy, for example), you should definitely insist on being given objective statistics on the success rate of these treatment options. If these statistics are not available, you may consider it a clear warning sign. Why? Because if the success rates were very good, there would no doubt be clear statistics showing how much they help people; if they aren’t available (or are not freely given to you), you should smell a rat, for almost certainly, the statistics would show that those treatment options do not help at all, or at the most, they help only a little. And considering their severe side effects, one can safely assume that they will do you more harm than good.
In the following chapter, we will consider cancer from a perspective that is rather different from that which is routinely given by the Medical-Pharmaceutical Industry. I shall be suggesting a sort of “paradigm change” − so open your mind, and let reason be your guide!