This inexcusable situation has been described eloquently in a recent Letter to the Editor by Madeline Hickey-Smith and on the Cambridge Institute of Complementary Health (CICH) website.

www.positivehealth.com/article/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor-issue-198

http://cichealth.org.uk/#/why-we-held-the-cancer-convent/4566597188

Lord Maurice Saatchi’s beloved wife Josephine Hart died in 2011 from inoperative and terminal ovarian cancer following chemotherapy and radiation treatments which he describes as "medieval, "degrading and ineffective” in interviews and articles recently published in the mainstream media:

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10024231/I-was-a-desperate-lover-trying-to-save-his-love.html

http://news.msn.com/world/grieving-husband-pushes-bill-for-unproven-medical-aids

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2319272/A-love-affair-death-end-In-moving-interview-advertising-genius-Maurice-Saatchi-explains-breakfasts-wifes-grave-day.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

The following extract about Lord Saatchi, by Janet Grice is from The Daily Telegraph 13-05-13.

Regrettably, he says, her death has made him an expert in women’s gynaecological cancer. “Tens of thousands died of it last year. More thousands will die this year. Further thousands next year. The premise of the [Medical Innovation] Bill is that all these deaths, with their attendant tragedies, are wasted. We are not learning from them. The scientific process has been cut in half. The half that takes place between the doctor and the patient has been stopped completely. The other half has been outsourced to randomised clinical trials, from which doctors are excluded.”

But Saatchi is also driven by what he sees as the primitive reality of the cancer ward. “I have witnessed scenes that would not be permitted in a Hollywood horror movie.” Hair loss may be the most obvious side-effect but it is the least appalling. The drugs mimic the disease, causing nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting, fatigue. “Worst of all, they cause such damage to the immune system that the woman is as likely to die from the treatment as from the cancer itself.”

He breaks off suddenly. “Have you ever seen a chemotherapy room in a hospital? I hope you haven’t. It’s death row. If you were to lift her gown, you would see that the woman’s arm makes a heroin addict’s arm look attractive. There are so many attachments. What you have here is a situation where the woman is first tortured and then dies. Why? Because this is what is required by law. If doctors don’t stick to standard procedure, the consequences are that they could lose their livelihood, their reputation, and face ruin. So they are obliged to repeat a failed experiment over and over again."

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10024231/I-was-a-desperate-lover-trying-to-save-his-love.html

http://news.msn.com/world/grieving-husband-pushes-bill-for-unproven-medical-aids

Readers of Positive Health PH Online are very aware of the huge array of cancer articles, research updates and book reviews which have been published over the past nearly 20 years since Positive Health PH Online was launched in 1994.

www.positivehealth.com/articles/cancer

www.positivehealth.com/researches/cancer

www.positivehealth.com/reviews/cancer

This was immediately following the setting up of the Cancer and Nutrition database for the then Bristol Cancer Help Centre (BCHC) [now Penny Brohn Cancer Care] following the debacle in the early 1990s when BCHC was almost closed down following high-profile yet erroneous research – the now infamous and tragic Chilvers study - which appeared to suggest that women with breast cancer attending BCHC were more likely to die than those receiving standard treatment.

www.positivehealth.com/article/editorial/editorial-issue-193

Additionally are innumerable publications, charities, books, organizations, individuals and websites devoted to communicating to health professionals and general readers important advances in cancer treatment approaches. Here are just a few.

Icon magazine from Canceractive: www.canceractive.com

The Rainbow Diet and how it can help you beat cancer by Chris Woollams: www.ournaturalselection.com

Cancer the Complete Recovery Guide by Jonathan Chamberlain: www.fightingcancer.com/

Lord Saatchi’s proposed Medical Innovation Bill would permit physicians to use cancer treatments other than those currently legal now. Already one is seeing the usual perennial arguments assembling against this Bill: citing “false hope”, prescribing “whacky” treatments for which there is no “evidence” to name but a few.

Lord Saatchi’s high profile has enabled him to received considerable media attention; I am regularly consulted by cancer patients and their carers seeking information and direction for appropriate cancer treatments and am witness to the overwhelming fear, distress and loss which follows the journey of many cancer patients. This is worsened to a large extent by the communication divide which exists - like two solitudes - between the cancer ‘establishment’ and often innovative and clinically successful physicians using many treatment modalities which have been shown by research and clinical evidence, perhaps not in randomized clinical trials which is the only evidence approved of by oncologists and for which it is impossible to conduct because researching, even discussing, these methods appears to be illegal. The list of treatment approaches is considerable, as well as is the ongoing biochemical and genetic research toward developing individual detection and treatment approaches.

• Nutrition
• Diet
• Herbal and Ayurvedic Herbal Medicine
• Oxygen Therapy
• Infusions
• Hyperthermia
• Stress Management
• Mind-Body and Energy Therapies

Until we reach that time when all healthcare professionals are legally permitted to work together in the best interests of cancer and all patients, then we must continue to encourage patients to always interrogate their doctors with common-sense questions such as “what happens if I undergo the treatment you suggest?”, “what happens if I don’t undergo the treatment you suggest?”, “are there other non-conventional treatments?” and “how long do I survive if I undergo the treatment and if I don’t?”