“A new law to allow doctors to test new drugs on seriously ill patients without the fear of being sued has been killed off the Liberal Democrats…The Medical Innovation Bill would have allowed doctors to test cutting edge new treatments on patients to help find cures for cancer and other serious illnesses. It was being promoted by Lord Saatchi, the advertising magnate after his wife Josephine Hart died from ovarian cancer. However Norman Lamb, a Lib Dem health minister, has told Jeremy Hunt, the Tory health secretary, that his party will not support it despite it passing through the House of Lords. The veto - which was made because of concerns from patients' groups and experts - has killed off the legislation in this Parliament.”[1]
Views from opponents in the Medical profession, as discussed in the Editorial PH Online Issue 220:
“…I regard this well-intentioned Bill as a recipe for quackery, dangerous for patients and with little potential for improving science, let alone as a cure for cancer… Anecdote is not a good reason for primary legislation, let alone a law that would sweep away patients’ rights in the event of mishap… the Medical Innovation Bill is sweeping, affecting not just cancer but every form of treatment with the sole exception of cosmetic surgery, and touching every age group including children. There is no requirement for ethical overview. Any maverick doctor could experiment on the sick, every charlatan could prey on vulnerable patients, provided only that he or she had consulted a single colleague who might also be a maverick or charlatan. But quackery aside, even a fine and evidence-based clinician is likely to do more harm than good through uncoordinated experimentation on individual patients."
Nick Ross. The Medical Innovation Bill: kill or cure? HealthWatch Newsletter 96. www.healthwatch-uk.org January 2015.
and the seizure[3] and ban of importation of GcMAF[4] by the MHRA on the grounds of Health and Safety.
“The importation of GcMAF (Globulin component Macrophage Activating Factor) was ceased with immediate effect from Monday 2 February when the MHRA notified the local authorities in Guernsey of their view that GcMAF may pose a significant risk to people's health.”[4]
A petition to legalize GcMAF to treat diseases including cancer has been launched.[5]
“10 of them arrived, 4 in bullet proof vests, to terrorise the two female scientists who were there. And threaten and terrorise is exactly what they did.
“They raided the wrong lab, a new one we are building, in which we have never made GcMAF. They thought our chief scientist has a degree in Real Ale brewing, when he's a PhD biochemical scientist at the top of his profession.
“180 scientists from 8 nations have written scientific research papers on GcMAF. They said we do no research at the lab, when we've published 31 research papers from there, more than any other group. They had clearly never read a GcMAF research paper, and probably never will.”[6]
There have been numerous natural treatment approaches to cancer as outlined in many articles and books over the past >100 years.[7] The current PH Online Issue 221 publishes Part I of an authoritative, well-referenced article To the Cancer Patient: Natural Cures vs. Traditional Part I by Dr Tim O’Shea DC,[8], as well as a scientifically documented Case Study treated with Ayurvedic Medicine Herbal Therapy by Dr Ranjitsinh Solanki.[9]
The legal impasse which prohibits the use of alternative cancer treatments and contributes to the ignorance and dismissal of the efficacy of many of these approaches appears to have worsened with the above discussed events. The deaths of many cancer patients from the highly toxic and potentially lethal and the only legal standard medical treatments will continue until clinical research can establish that alternative, less toxic approaches exist.
“I have therefore been persuaded of the need to attempt to establish and compare cancer patient survival without toxic chemotherapy / radiotherapy treatments but with a robust integrated / alternative protocol and attach a brief proposal as a starting point for this research. Given the legal constraints in the UK and USA prohibiting alternative treatments for cancer patients, it is difficult to see how this much-needed research project can progress, as it would require a professional team with technical, medical and ethical experience, access to cancer patients and the construction of a multi-disciplinary, multi-field database. Initially results would merely compare survival of matched cancer patients who have or have not undergone chemotherapy and radiotherapy with those who have undergone an integrated multi-component alternative protocol. This is a fairly long-term project which would need to be followed up for 5-10 years.”[10]
My utter frustration, despair, even rage has no bounds, given that the medical / pharmaceutical and natural treatments community schism, far from being bridged, appear to be as gaping as ever. The attempt to bridge the divide between orthodox and alternative / complementary medicine was and has been, after all, a pre-eminent objective of Positive Health PH Online. It is to be hoped that through continual progress and research, development of individualized, personalized designed cancer treatments will lessen the harshness and toxicity of cancer patients’ ordeal and save more lives.
The orthodox / natural treatment approaches divide extends beyond cancer; to a certain extent it applies to every condition where treatment has been driven by the drug treatment paradigm - pretty much most of conventional medicine. Debate has recently been highly pronounced in the immune realms of the vaccination; challenges to the orthodoxy that vaccination confers immunity are currently raging:[11]
“vaccination does not equal immunization; antigenicity does not equal immunogenicity”
PH Online Issue 221 publishes a wide-ranging selection of articles, including, in addition to the above mentioned cancer features, articles about Emotional Medicine, Optimism, Hypnotherapy, Naturopathy, Lymphatic Function, Tips to Prevent Cataracts and Macular Degeneration, Emotional Eating, Attracting your Ideal Weight, Rhythm in Movement and Rehabilitation, Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Injuries in Yoga. Anne McIntyre’s Expert Column Galium aparine - Cleavers for Spring Cleansing is also published in current issue 221.
This is Anne McIntyre’s final Expert Column for PH Online; her activities, books, courses and busy practice have subsumed her available time. I pay tribute to Anne who has been a highly valued contributor to Positive Health PH Online since 1998. Links to Anne’s articles, columns, reviews, books and details of her current Ayurveda Online Course Living Wisdom can be viewed on her author profile page, Event and Therapist listing: www.positivehealth.com/author/anne-mcintyre/anne-mcintyre
www.positivehealth.com/therapist/anne-mcintyre-medical-herbalist-ayurvedic-practit
www.positivehealth.com/event/living-wisdom-foundations-ayurveda-online-course
Despite my expressed exasperation at the seemingly tortuous progress in achieving the integration of orthodox and complementary medicine, I still feel a deep commitment and conviction that the considerable body of work comprised in Positive Health PH Online continues to play a valued role and contributes to the knowledge base and experience of enhanced health and lifestyle of the PH Online readership.
References
1. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/saatchi-bill/11437789/Fury-as-Lib-Dems-kill-off-Saatchi-Bill.html?utm_source=Saatchi+Bill&utm_campaign=1780efe4e5-28th_Feb2_28_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_87c59b6bfe-1780efe4e5-338080097
2. www.change.org/p/support-the-medical-innovation-bill/u/9898666?tk=qZdKgs1urOA2_3JigkHVnbWW7UQexoqFsstQlo2lxA4&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&utm_term=
3. www.positivehealth.com/article/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor-issue-221
4. www.gov.gg/article/116048/Update---ban-on-importation-of-GcMAF
5. www.change.org/p/hssd-and-deputies-of-guernsey-channel-isle-to-legalize-gcmaf-and-goleic-in-guernsey-to-treat-diseases-including-cancer?recruiter=65197834&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition
6. www.facebook.com/FirstImmune/posts/798158080259907
7. Chemotherapy Heals Cancer and the Earth is Flat by Lothar Hirneise. Nexus. 2005. ISBN-10: 3981050207; ISBN-13: 978-3981050202 www.positivehealth.com/review/chemotherapy-heals-cancer-and-the-earth-is-flat
8. www.positivehealth.com/article/cancer/to-the-cancer-patient-natural-cures-vs-traditional-part-i
9. www.positivehealth.com/article/ayurveda/cancer-case-treated-with-ayurvedic-medicine-herbal-therapy
10. www.positivehealth.com/article/cancer/research-proposal-cancer-patients-survival-comparing-integrated-alternative-therapies-and-chemothera
11. www.greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/vaccination-measles
