Pink Ribbons, Months dedicated to "Cancer Awareness", Nightly vigils, and National Advertising campaigns are all parts of what the Cancer industry does to spread its message of hope for those of us who are touched by cancer in some way. The industry perpetually asks you for donations to help cancer research, and pumps Millions and millions of dollars into "research" for pharmaceuticals that may one day "cure" cancer. But what if they are going about it all wrong? What if cancer can't be "cured" in the traditional sense?There are many out there (like me) who believe the cancer industry has no incentive to help those who have cancer. After all, if they "cured" cancer, where would the money come from? How would thousands of doctors, corporations, Pharmaceutical Sales Reps and Cancer Board of directors make money? The answer is they wouldn't. If people are sick, they make money. If people are well, they don't.
There are many things out there that the cancer industry does NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW. Things like:
1. 70% percent of all cancers can be prevented through simple changes in food and lifestyle. That number is probably conservative, though according to Mike Adams. His own opinion is that 90 percent of all cancers can be prevented through simple food and lifestyle changes. Yet no one in the cancer industry seems interested in teaching any of these strategies to people. In the cancer industry, there is no incentive to teach people how to avoid cancer, because to do so would eliminate a future customer! Billions of dollars in revenue are at stake here, and the cancer industry is banking on the continuation of this disease among the population.
2. Vitamin D supplementation produces an astonishing 77 percent reduction in all cancers in women, making it the single most effective medicine for preventing cancer that has ever been discovered by modern medical science. The American Cancer Society, however, seems stuck in the nutritional dogma of the 1950's and continues to claim that only drugs, radiation and surgery can treat cancer, and that nutritional supplements have no role to play whatsoever in cancer prevention. This view is so out of date that it belongs in a museum of medicine, not on the agenda of an advanced nation. (Stating that vitamin D has no useful role in preventing cancer is as hopelessly outdated as claiming the Earth is flat.)
There are so many other examples of how the corrupt cancer industry does nothing to really help people, and everything to help corporate profits. Unfortunately the vast majority of the American public doesn't seem to notice or care.
Hopefully this post will encourage some of you to actually do some research and open your eyes! Cancer doesn't just happen. Cancer is the result of the society in which we live. Daily exposure to pollution, Genetically Modified Foods, Toxic Chemicals in Foods, Lack of Exercise, Pharmaceuticals, Toxins found in drinking water, chemicals in plastics, toxins in our homes, and MANY more things are what causes cancer.
Click here for a series of articles on Cancer that will change the way you think!
Click here for a list of 18 things that CAUSE cancer and 22 things that PREVENT cancer.
Here is to changing minds and taking control of our health!
6 comments:
Ya thats why I'm in school. I spend all day monday through friday learning how to "keep people sick" I'm not learning how to remove cancer in its entirety even if it means removeing a whole breast or the whole of some other part. We sit there and try to figure out how to keep people there under our care the whole time. We being the Doctors, Nurses and all other medical staff are there for the single purpose of trying to cure people and to make their lives comfortable and happy. Without us there would be much fewer healthy people in the world. I love what I do, and I chose it to help people. Even if this job payed shit I would still do it because I am helping people and I care about the welfare and health of the community around me. Granted their might be some doctors out there that just want money, but the majority are there because they want to help people, every single person has to take the Hippocratic Oath that states "Do no harm." I don't know what your experience with doctors has been, but every single one that I have worked with has been a whole lot more concerned about the patients well being than the bottom line.
That is a pretty cynical view of the medical profession.
Hey now, what I posted was not an attack on anyone and especially not medical professionals or even the health care industry. Please go back through the post and read again what I specifically said. My post centered on the "Cancer Industry". I don't see anything in there that says being a Surgical Technician or Nurse is a bad thing. Definitely not. What I did say is that the people in the "Cancer Industry" have no incentive to put out materials that educate people on how to actually be healthy and fight cancer by preventing it altogether. I have great excitement and positive feelings that a new generation of educated health care workers are going to go in and change the paradigm from that of treating the symptom to that of educating the masses on how to be healthy and PREVENT cancer, and heart disease and so many other things. If we are truly interested in saving peoples lives then we must educate them and not simply give the drugs to cover up how their body is making them feel!
No matter how you look at it, there will always be a place for health care practices as we see it today. There will still be accidents and surgery and new babies and all that stuff. I'm just looking forward to a future that eliminates those types of things for illnesses and conditions that are completely preventable.
Thank you again for your comments Jen and allowing me to further explain what I meant by the post.
- Bryan
PS - now that I re-read this, I do see that I mention Doctors as being part of the problem. I don't think Doctors are inherently bad by any means, but I do think there should be more doctors out there calling for preventative medicine over symptom based medicine.
Coming from personal experience, I can tell you that the "Cancer Industry" people DO try to inform us of what to do, how to make healthy lifestyle changes, and what we can do to help. I promise you that when you're sitting there in the chair getting your veins pumped with chemo drugs, they give you plenty of material on how to prevent future cancers and maintaina healthy lifestyle. Of course, not everyone listens to their advice, but it is there.
What about the cancers that have no cause necessarily? I had a type of cancer which they have no idea what causes it or where it comes from. So I strongly believe in supporting organizations like The American Cancer Society, so that they can research not only the treatment, but the cause. As for doctors and nurses, particularly in the Oncology field, they actually care about thier patients. I've had plenty of surgeries and dealt with all different doctors, and the only ones who sucked were the ones in the Wood River Valley. And that is because they are too damn political. While I understand your point here, and somewhat agree with it, there is a lot more to this story. Cancer affects everyone differently (survivors, family, doctors, etc.) and so there are many different points-of-view.
xunshyne, thank you so much for the comment. It is nice to hear your perspective on the issue. Coming from someone who has first hand experience. I guess what it comes down to is the fact that people as individuals really do help and work hard to make sure patients are taken care of and get well. People who work in hospitals are amazing people that have bigger hearts and are probably much more altruistic than I am. The real problem I see is how the system over all works. If there is significant evidence that simple Sunshine and healthy eating can prevent most cancers, then why doesn't the industry spend some of the donation money they receive and simply educate the masses? Imagine how many lives we could save. There is just this idea in America that the only way to treat illness is with drugs and I completely disagree with that.
Cancer does happen for reasons other than pollution and the food we eat too. Genetics plays a HUGE part in your probability of getting cancer, hopefully you haven't forgotten that you are at a statistically higher risk for cancer due to your genetics. Cancer is when your cells mutate milignantly during cell division a process that happens continually throughout your body. The process itself is similar to the evolutionary process that created us. For more info on how Cancer starts check out this article by Karen Hopkin The Evolution of Cancer
By Karen Hopkin
Cancers grow and spread by a process akin to evolution. A cancer cell accumulates mutations, each of which can give the cell a growth advantage over its neighbors. This single cell will divide to populate the tumor until another cell with an even better growth advantage crops up. At that point, the more aggressive cell reproduces rapidly, taking over the tumor. It’s survival of the fittest, with every cell for itself.
But all these cancer-promoting mutations do not occur at once. At each stage, cancer cells face selective pressures that drive their evolution. Cells near the center of a growing tumor, for example, face shortages of oxygen and nutrients. And pioneering cells that escape the main tumor must adapt to life in a foreign tissue if they are to establish outposts in other organs of the body. Only those cells that acquire mutations that help them adapt to the changing environment and outcompete their neighbors will survive to divide and conquer.
For a cell to become cancerous, it must amass quite a few mutations—sometimes three or four but often many more. And these mutations must occur in the correct genes and in the correct place within those genes. That combination is, fortunately, statistically rare. What’s more, the process of acquiring multiple mutations can take decades. Most of us die from other diseases before cancer has had time to develop.
Although cancer-causing mutations can occur in several kinds of genes, all these mutations ultimately promote cell growth and survival, allowing cell division to outstrip cell demise. Bert Vogelstein and his colleagues have spent years identifying the specific genes and mutations responsible for colon cancer. This type of cancer is a good one to study because the resulting tumors can be removed and analyzed at various stages in their development, revealing the genetic progression that leads to cancer. Vogelstein’s studies of colon cancer have opened a window on cancer evolution and led to a deeper understanding of the formation and development of all cancers.
Loss of Control
The growth of a cancer is often likened to a car speeding out of control. Whether the car’s brakes are cut or its gas pedal is stuck, the vehicle hurtles forward, no longer responding to the driver’s attempts to control its speed. In a sense, the same thing happens in tumors, which form when normal cells lose the ability to control their growth and division. That loss of control can result from a number of different mutations. Cancer cells can activate genes that encourage proliferation—akin to giving the car too much gas. Such growth-promoting genes are called oncogenes, from onkos, the Greek word for tumor or mass. Cancer cells can also eliminate genes that inhibit replication—cutting the brakes that normally keep cell growth in check. These growth-inhibiting genes are called tumor suppressors. Mutations that activate oncogenes or inhibit tumor suppressors all promote cancer by upsetting the normal balance between cell birth and cell death.
Mr. Bad Wrench
Cancers can also speed their growth by acquiring mutations in genes that normally fix DNA damage. By disabling their cellular repair systems—the equivalent of hiring an inept mechanic—cancer cells further tip the balance in their favor. Shutting down DNA repair allows any mutations that crop up to be preserved. Thus mutations in repair genes promote the accumulation of additional mutations, fueling the evolution of cancer.
Defects in DNA repair genes are responsible for one of the most common forms of hereditary colon cancer, called hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC). Patients with HNPCC inherit a defective copy of an important repair enzyme that fixes the errors that sometimes occur as cells copy their DNA. Once cells lose their ability to repair these replication errors, mutations can accumulate in many genes, including tumor suppressors and oncogenes. Patients with this genetic defect develop one or two tumors that then progress rapidly to full-blown cancer.
A Model Cancer
Colorectal tumors begin as benign polyps—small outgrowths in the lining of the colon. Then, as mutations occur in genes that normally balance the relative rates of cell birth and cell death, the tumors grow larger. Eventually, the cells break away from the tumor and colonize the liver, lungs, and other tissues in the body. At this point the tumor is considered a malignant cancer.
In many colon cancers, a mutation that inactivates a tumor-suppressor gene called APC is the first, or at least a very early, step in cancer progression. APC mutations can be detected in small benign polyps at the same high frequency as in large malignant tumors, suggesting that they occur early in the process. The loss of APC activity gives the affected cell a growth advantage, allowing it to form a colony of cells that divide more rapidly than they die. The increased proliferation leads to the growth of a polyp.
Mutations that activate an oncogene called Ras take place later than those that knock out APC. Ras mutations are rare in small polyps but common in larger ones. Activation of oncogenes such as Ras enables the tumor to grow larger still. Elimination of other tumor-suppressor genes, such as p53, comes much later. Finally, additional changes—still poorly understood—permit the tumor to become invasive and spread to other tissues. Mutations that eliminate the activity of DNA repair genes, which can occur at any time, further help drive the process forward.
Putting Knowledge to Work
Knowing the genetic path that a particular cancer follows could someday help physicians better treat individual patients. By determining the genetic defects responsible for a specific cancer, physicians might be able to select the therapy that will be most effective at eliminating that cancer. Furthermore, each cancer-causing gene that researchers identify can serve as a target for the development of more specific therapies that will wipe out cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
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