Medical Malpractice

Having to watch the life force being quickly drained from another family member - I don't feel I can play the politically correct game anymore. This article may be a bit of a rant, but it is a rant from the heart. (I promise I'll get back to shiny, happy things next week.

The C-word I'm referring to is Chemo - not cancer (or the other unpopular C-word).

Cancer is the diagnosis that is everyone's worst nightmare. It's just plain scary - and your first instinct is to grasp for each and every straw of hope. But killing yourself to save yourself is ludicrous. Cancer is not a battle that you can slice and burn and poison your way through - and win.

Chemotherapy is the go-to for conventional cancer treatment. As a medical professional, for me to suggest otherwise is pretty much equivalent to malpractice. So when asked whether I think someone should do chemotherapy I'm forced to remain neutral and dance around the issue - and ultimately be of no use in their decision making process. I'm so done with that dance.

Ironically, the percentage of oncologists who said they would not choose chemotherapy for themselves or their family because of its "ineffectiveness and unacceptable toxicity" - is 81%! (Journal of Oncology, 1987) Some oncology staff members currently involved in my aunt's care count themselves among this 81% - and yet they still either counseled her to take the poisonous cocktail or kept their mouths shut, even though she has a cancer that is known to NOT respond to chemo.

Patients who do choose to make a different treatment decision will face an almost unbearable backlash from their family and medical practitioner. As if they didn't already have enough on their plate. And ultimately, many do decide to do chemotherapy against their better judgement - because that's what you are expected to do when you have cancer.

The medical journals and cancer associations like to have a lot of fun with their numbers to make chemotherapy look pretty. The success rate numbers you see are based on surviving 5 years past surgery, chemo and radiation. If you die in the 61st month it is still recorded as a success.

In more than one meta analysis of the existing research - chemo's ability to resolve cancer and prolong life is well under 5%. If this was an alternative therapy it would be thrown in jail for quackery. Certainly not a first line, seemingly mandatory, treatment.

Cancer is your ultimate wake up call that things have gotten so far off the track that the body has figuratively pressed the self-destruct button.

Cancer is not a tumor. This is why 9 times out of 10 tumors come back - maybe a different type or place - but they come back. Cancer is a metabolic process and if you don't change the conditions that allowed for it in the first place, it will keep going. It's really a shame that the medical community will poison, slice and burn people to remove tumors, but they won't tell them how to stop making tumors.

We all contain the cure for cancer. It's called an immune system. There is no cancer treatment on this planet that is more powerful and precise than your immune system. The development of cancer cells is a normal daily activity - but a normal immune system will clean them up immediately. Unfortunately, with the state of our food, water and air and the other stressors we pile on our systems, our immune systems are currently way over-burdened and under-resourced causing the scales to be tipped in favor of the cancer cells.

Chemo therapy is like killing an ant with the weapons of mass destruction. It obliterates everything in sight - including the immune system. At a time when you need every healing resource available to you - chemo pulls the rug right out from under your feet. Seen in this light - chemo can be considered the anti-cure for cancer.

In my personal experience with cancer, through patients and family members, I have never seen anyone die from cancer. But I have seen them die from the consequences of chemo - infections, pneumonia, kidney failure etc. And I have seen them make leaps and bounds with safe and effective treatments - only to ultimately lose the battle because they decided to put some chemo in "just to be safe".

So, no - I'm not a fan of pink ribbons or walk for the cures. I really hate to get in to the negativity of the ridiculous politics that seem to run our world, but these campaigns - as hopeful and shiny and rah-rah-rah as they are - are co-captained by pharmaceutical companies.

The cancer association's slogan "Early detection is the best prevention" actually came from the marketing department of one of the largest chemotherapy producers. (Not to mention how ludicrous the statement is - because if you are able to detect it...you haven't prevented it!!)

The ribbons and the walks are just public campaigns designed to pump up hope that a cure is around the corner so that we will dump more money into developing "better" chemotherapy, and I can't stand behind that. In the US, over 40 billion dollars has been spent in the last 30 years. The result? The (actual) survival rates have not changed and the number of cancer deaths have more than doubled.

We already know what it takes to prevent cancer and there are safe cancer therapies that currently exist that have 50%, 80%, 90% CURE (i.e. it doesn't come back in 5 and a half years) rates. If these billions of dollars that people have so willingly given had been spent teaching and supporting people, I know we would be in a very different place right now.

It's time to stop walking and start talking.

© 2009 Lisa Lavoie BSc., ND | Vitasential. All rights reserved.