In my capacity as Editor of Positive Health PH Online I receive numerous articles to consider for publication, research studies and books to review across a large array of subjects and disciplines. PH Issue 213 was published 20 March 2014 with several cancer-related articles and two books reviewed, both with wide-ranging aspects regarding cancer including the patient experience, the interface with medical and other healthcare professionals, and myriads of alternative cancer tests and treatments. These embrace the many dietary, supplements, herbal remedies, as well as energy, metabolic and psychospiritual approaches.
Another aspect of my work involves trying to provide information and guidance to cancer patients and their carers / families: books to read, online information regarding treatment options and details of reputable clinics and qualified physicians.
The number of people with whom I speak in both capacities - as Editor or PH Online and as Dr S Goodman - who are currently being diagnosed with some type and stage of cancer has increased dramatically. When they discuss their kind of cancer, the tumour grade and stage of cancer, operation and subsequent treatment, it becomes apparent that the very same treatment options recommended to cancer patients 30 or 40 years ago - i.e. surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy - are still being offered today. The more innovative types of surgery, various systemic infusions which are not as toxic as chemotherapy, dietary and nutritional / herbal supplements regimens are simply not on offer.
I have referred to the catch-22 situation with regards to innovative alternative cancer treatents which current are in breach of the 1939 Cancer Act: treatments can't be offered, therefore there is no gold-standard research evidence regarding their clinical efficacy, so oncologists can't and don't offer them. Also they don't know anything about these treatments. We are hopeful that the Saatchi Medical Innovation Bill currently in discussion in the House of Lords will progress the situation somewhat and that the log-jam may clear and cancer patients may be provided with options not so toxic that perhaps 10% die of the treatment. And recent research has revealed that chemotherapy treatment creates cancer stem cells, enabling the cancer to return, resistant to chemotherapy hence every more aggressive.
An even more bleak picture was revealed recently in a Film aired on BBC4 about multiple drug resistance (MDR) tuberculosis in Swasiland, African, where patients are treated to fiercely painful and toxic injection and drugs from 40 years ago and which don't necessarily work. There is virtually no nutritional component of the drug regimen - no fruit or vegetables. Patients die a very slow and lingering death and they know they are dying because their mother / sister / daughter have already died. To witness this so-called treatment regime in the 21st century is tantamount to witnessing death by cruel treatment.
Treatment of tuberculosis (TB) patients with vitamin C even in the 1930s provided amelioration; it is inconceivable that TB patients in western countries today are subjected to such inhumane treatment. It is truly time to ditch the uni-modal drug treatment regimen and graduate to a truly integrated treatment model.
