WHO’S INTEREST IS AT STAKE?
(Natural Life News & Directory – Nov/Dec 2010: Health Pearl # 14)
This article attempts to grow awareness, and may not provide the real answers. When browsing the Internet and reading research articles in profession-specific magazines, we realize information overload. This can often lead to saying “Ah, the heck with it; I’ll go with what I know”. But today’s topic is one that needs a second look, because we took the wrong exit on a scenic drive and need to get back on track.
October just finished and mammograms were in the news every day to remind us of the importance of early cancer cell detection. While it is an everyday battle for many who have been positively diagnosed, every October we remember breast cancer victims and celebrate its survivors.
Breast cancer seems to have become the “poster-child” for all cancers, and saying anything negative about its campaigns or fundraisers is almost considered sacrilegious.
Let’s face it, we all know somebody with breast cancer, and so it hits home with us. But it should also allow us to be angry, upset and disappointed with the lack of research progress that is presented to us through the allopathic medical channels.
For more than twenty years now, since 1991, I’d always heard that more than 400 million dollars has been fund-raised annually to find a cure for all cancers. That’s over eight billion dollars in this country alone! But according to Gayle Sulik, PhD, in her book, Pink Ribbon Blues-How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women’s Health, that number could now be as high as 6 billion annually for all cancers, the majority of which comes from the breast cancer campaign!
Exact numbers may never be known, but it has been said that finding a cure may not be the prerogative. The sad truth is that there are more people making a living from cancer than there are people who suffer and die from it.
Dr. Carlos Arteaga, Vice Chancellor’s Chair in Breast Cancer Research at Vanderbilt University Department of Medicine recently said, “I think what keeps us going is the realization that we are about to cure many types of breast cancer.” This was during September’s annual one-hour telethon “Stand-Up 2 Cancer”. In 2008 this broadcast, which plays simultaneously on all the major networks, raised more than a $100 million for cancer research! Doctor Arteaga received more than 600K out of this to help fund his work.
If you step away from this emotionally, several things have to come to mind:
1) this is a very lucrative business;
2) there is an innate desire in most people to cure diseases, and most people who do the research have the very best intentions to come to a speedy resolution; and,
3) how is this money divided between different research efforts and approaches – and where are the results?
Preventive Medicine is a noble concept, but not when the outside blinds are closed, and only the people inside the room set the policy. In the case of early breast cancer detection, this is still done through a fifty-year old technology – Digital Mammography – even though it has been thoroughly determined that screening mammography does not save lives!
Sarah Cimperman, N.D. points to the results of a 13 year randomized controlled research study of half a million women from the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Sweden, who received regular mammograms to those who did not, showed no statistically significant reduction in the risk of death. The well-respected Cochrane Collaboration, an international, independent, not-for-profit research organization, conducted this study that was completed in 2001.
Then there are the false positive and false negative readings that have truly messed things up in the world of Digital Mammography. False positive tests mistakenly identify normal tissue as cancerous; false negative readings don’t show active cancer cells, and/or the pathologists erroneously call them benign tumors thus the results do not stimulate stringent preventive measures or necessary therapies. In the April 2003 New England Journal of Medicine it was stated that only 3% of abnormal mammographies were valid – a 97% failure rate! This was followed-up in March 2005 when the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published research trials showing that 95 percent of positive mammography results were false!
Technology has developed to the point that we can look deeper into the body and detect cancer cells at a very early stage. But does detecting these cells automatically mean that they will become active cancer cells? And will this translate into a future cancer diagnosis? A 2009 study published in the British Medical Journal concluded that one out of every three breast cancers identified on screening mammograms was over-diagnosed and would not cause symptoms of death.
Just keep in mind what emotional reaction a positive diagnosis creates in a doctor’s office, and then how many families’ lives are turned upside-down because of the treatments that are to follow. Biopsies, lumpectomies, mastectomies (many women even have a double mastectomy by choice), chemotherapy, radiation, scarring, pain, infections (including MRSA/Staph), fatigue, toxic drugs, hormonal imbalances, lowered self-esteem, increased insurance premiums, financial stress, lost work, hardship in marriage and relationships – and in so many cases only to find-out that the diagnosing was wrong…
Another major issue is that women who return annually for a mammogram may be unnecessarily exposing themselves to ionizing radiation (or gamma rays), which can damage genetic material and cause cancerous mutations. Shane Ellison, M.Sc. in the 2010 November/December Well Being Journal states that “…Unlike the energy emitted from the sun, gamma rays penetrate the cell membrane (“the actual brain of the cell” – Bruce Lipton, PhD – jh), and cause a slurry of free radicals, which accelerate aging by destroying our internal How-to book, DNA. This can result in cancer in previously healthy cells. The official statement from the ACS is that “ionizing radiation has been shown to cause cancer in many different species of animals and in almost all parts of the body. It is one of the few scientifically proven carcinogens in human beings”.
There is a direct relationship between cumulative exposure to radiation of all kinds (mammograms, CT scans, dental pictures) and developing cancer. Also, mammograms tightly compress the breasts, which is not only uncomfortable but could lead to spreading or metastasizing of active cancer cells.
Joseph Mercola, MD in his regular free email-letter to subscribers (Mercola.com) quotes a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which suggests that, “Mammograms, combined with modern treatment, reduced the death rate by 10 percent; but the effect of mammograms alone could be as low as 2 percent, or even zero!” Dr. Mercola then comments that mammograms will not prevent you from getting breast cancers, and that the latest studies show they offer very little benefit in improving your chances of survival if you do have it.
Dr. Cimperman points out that there are benefits to mammograms, especially for those women with an increased risk of developing breast cancer because of a genetic predisposition, or because of early life exposure to radiation, or when a mammogram is used for diagnosing questionable breast issues.
But there is an alternative! Look into the much safer breast thermography option for early detection. This technology measures the radiation of infrared heat emanating from your body and translates this information into anatomical images. I highly recommend you to visit the website, www.ThermographyOfMontana.com and learn how this technique can see active breast cancer cells after only two years, whereas it takes mammography at least eight(!) years to detect these active cells. This will make it much harder to treat through natural methods that have less traumatic effects on the body and mind.
So, is cancer the symptom or the disease? Are doctors able to cure the symptom of what we call breast cancer? Will they be able to cure cancer all together? If doctor Arteaga and his colleagues find their expensive cures, can he guarantee that no cancer of any kind will return at some point (considering the 10-12 year window for returning cancer)?
Experimental and successful work is now being done in the natural-alternative fields with oxygen, H202 (hydrogen peroxide), bloodroot, yew, Essiac, stem cells, medicinal mushrooms, Inositol Phosphate 6, vitamin C, Vitamin D3, natural progesterone, and others. Mammograms are mostly ineffective and potentially dangerous. They have become obsolete and stand in the way of the new wave of technologies and treatments.
Promotional fundraisers should encourage integrative cancer research and should spread research dollars evenly among all therapies. With our own health at stake, we need to send our hard-earned dollars to the ones who can truly win this race to beat cancer.
* Jacobus is not a Doctor and does not intent to diagnose, treat or cure any disorder. The information is based on self-study, interviewing experts on his weekly 3-hour Saturday morning Radio Program “Gesundheit! With Jacobus”, which runs from 8-11, on AM 1450-KMMS and AM 1340 KPRK, and on feedback received from retail customers visiting his dietary supplements retail store Gesundheit! Nutrition Center at 2855 N. 19th Avenue, Suite N, in Bozeman (585-4668). If in doubt please visit a professional of your own choice and/or educate yourself with available published materials.
2010
i. Well Being Journal, Vol. 19, NO. 2 (March/April 2010): “Mammograms Misunderstood”
ii. Well Being Journal, Vol. 19, NO 6 (November/December 2010): “Prevent Cancer Now”
iii. www.mercola.com (Archive) October 15, 2010: “The Breast Cancer Screening Mistake Millions Make…”
