The American Association of Poison Control Centres produces the NPDS annual report. What’s that? It is over 220 pages and gives statistics and information on all poisonings in America in a Calendar Year. It involves the largest database in health. The 2010 report came out at the end of 2011. It covers everything from calls and visits to centres, to reason for visit, to medical outcome.

The interesting fact is that during the whole of 2010 there was not one death caused by a herb or a vitamin, or a combination of either. Which is a lot more than can be said for prescription drugs, in combination or, even, on their own.

And remember, this is not some theoretical extrapolation of research results by scientists. This is real life and what actually took place.

As an example, let us look at information on ‘Substance Categories most frequently involved in human exposure’:

Analgesics                                                                                  9.70%

Cosmetic/Personal Care Products                           9.70%

Cleaning Products (Household)                                 8.41%

Sedatives/Hypnotics/Antipsychotics                      3.12%

Pesticides                                                                           4.02%

Antihistamines                                                                3.23%

Cold and Cough Preparations                                   2.69%

Antimicrobials                                                                2.57%

Cardivascular Drugs                                                    2.26%

Antidepressants                                                            2.03%

Gastrointestinal Preparations                                 1.99%

Vitamins were in the list at 2.92%.

But when the list of ‘Categories associated with the largest numbers of fatalities’ was presented……….

Acetaminophen Combinations                                 8.51%

Acetaminophen alone                                                 7.85%

Opiods                                                                               7.72%

Miscellaneous Cardiovascular Drugs                   6.94%

Miscellaneous Alcohols                                             4.97%

Misc Sedative/Hypnotics/Antipsychotics           3.80%

Miscellaneous Chemicals                                          3.80%

Cyclic Antidepressants                                               2.75%

Acetylsalicylic Acid Alone                                         2.75%

Miscellaneous Antidepressants                              2.09%

Antihistamines                                                               1.75%

Miscellaneous Hormones/Hormone Antagonists   1.05%

…….. vitamins was no longer an issue at all. Not one death from a herb or a vitamin.

Beware people claiming prescription drugs are safe and vitamins are dangerous. Their claims are simply not endorsed by reality.

I have had cancer for six years.

The most important thing I’ve learned is the most vulnerable patient is the ignorant patient; and that is why CANCERactive is the best cancer charity there is. The charity understands this.

Forget women running around in pink bras raising even more money for charities who frankly still haven’t come up with any answers. CANCERactive empowers the patient. I recommend it, and the Rainbow Diet, to every cancer patient I meet.

I regularly run half-marathons and am very healthy and active. This is in no small part because of what I have learned from the CANCERactive website.

The Rainbow Diet is by far the most sustainable and well researched cancer diet out there and believe me I have tried many!!!

The only way to give yourself the best chance of survival and quality of life is through knowledge.

For example, sadly Doctors don’t always make the right choices and to know something about the drugs you are being given is crucial. CANCERactive tells you, warts and all.

I am also a big fan of so called ‘complementary and alternative medicine’ but you need to know the pit falls. Again, CANCERactive tells you the truth – when there’s research and when there isn’t.

Knowledge about cancer is changing everyday all over the world – it is wonderful, via the charity’s research centre ‘Cancer Watch’, to know about those changes and the latest developments. They have told us things that appeared as front page headlines or in on other charities’ websites only several years later.

Chris Woollams and his team dedicate their lives to helping cancer patients in a way no other charity does and, to me, he is a modern day hero.

Becky Simpson

This article is from The Alliance for Natural Health, Europe.

Poorly written or implemented laws always lead to chaos, especially when they apply across a huge and diverse geographical and political area like the European Union (EU). And once again, the EU’s Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) is proving itself to be one of the most flawed pieces of legislation yet devised by the EU – which, given the competition, is quite an achievement!

Puppet on a string

In the UK, the medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is showing just how ‘independent’ and ‘unbiased’ is its interpretation of the THMPD. It has begun to crack down on ‘unlicensed medicines’ via the THMPD and EU medicines law – and its interpretation of those laws appears to be at the bidding of a shady campaign aimed at protecting the profits of the bigger companies that can buy their way into the narrow regulatory regime, built around their specific types of product. A far cry from the MHRA’s proclaimed virtues of integrity, openness and impartiality, we would say!

Predator becomes prey?

The latest victim of the MHRA is a sports nutrition company, Predator Nutrition. Predator was in the news recently after the MHRA became the first EU Member State competent authority to begin targeting companies selling products containing 1,3-dimethylamylamine or DMAA. DMAA is taken before a workout to help boost performance, and controversy has raged over possible links to liver damage and the deaths of two US servicemen – as well as over whether the substance is artificial or derived from the geranium plant.

Casting the net wider

It appears that the MHRA may be using the DMAA furore as a convenient ‘foot in the door’ at Predator, since it has also told the company that it must cease selling products containing milk thistle, valerian, clary sage and many other herbal ingredients. Some of the herbs in Predator’s products are on restricted lists in the UK, such as Ephedra spp. and Pausinystalia yohimbe (yohimbe). Therefore, the MHRA could be said to be only doing its job by targeting these products. The same cannot be said for herbs like milk thistle, with centuries of safe use in the UK and elsewhere – but the MHRA doesn’t see it like that. “The MHRA has told us that if our products contain higher doses of herbal ingredients than are found in foods, then they’re medicines and should be licensed under the THMPD,” Reggie Johal, Predator’s founder, told ANH-Intl. And that’s not all. “They’ve also told us that any herbs we’re using in our products that have never been eaten in the UK are medicines,” continued Mr Johal. A double whammy from the medicines regulator that could see many of Predator’s products disappear from the UK.

In justifying its draconian policy on herbal ingredients, the MHRA is sticking to a familiar position – but it appears to have expanded its enforcement strategy. Its opinion that herbal doses in excess of what can be obtained from foods are medicinal is explained in Figure 1, which represents our interpretation of the second limb of the EU medicines directive. This limb defines any substance as medicinal if it, “….may be used in or administered to human beings either with a view to restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions by exerting a pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action” (Article 1(2), Directive 2004/27/EC). This covers everything in the red zone of Figure 1 – anything that acts to bring the human body back to normality from a position of dysfunction, or illness – and includes doses of herbal ingredients beyond those obtainable from foods. It is also an astonishingly broad definition that technically classifies a glass of water as a drug: a loaded gun for regulators to use on products they don’t like. And the MHRA is as trigger-happy as they come.

Figure 1. The effect of the Human Medicinal Products Directive. Everything in red is defined as a drug.

A disputed history of food use

The MHRA has also long used ‘history of food use’ as a basis for deciding whether or not herbs are medicinal. In the past, a history of food use has meant that the herb can be sold as a food supplement. But in the case of Predator Nutrition, the MHRA is calling even benign herbs like milk thistle and clary sage medicinal – even though its own guidance document clearly states they have a history of food use!

According to UK-based magazine The Ecologist, “Milk thistle is another weed that can prove a tasty addition to your supper…raw shoots can…be eaten as crudités”, while the National Toxicology Program of the Department of Health and Human Services in the USA declares that, “Milk thistle has a long history of European cultivation for food”. As for clary sage, the Oxford English Dictionary entry for the plant reads, “An aromatic herbaceous plant of the mint family, some kinds of which are used as culinary and medicinal”.

So, what we have here are two herbs with obvious histories of food use. So, the only argument the MHRA has left is that the amounts of active ingredients within the herbal products – i.e. the silymarin in milk thistle and, say, the sclareol in clary sage – are way higher than those that could normally be consumed in food. Their evidence for this? We’re not sure they have any.

MHRA: the enforcement arm of Big (Phyto)Pharma

So, the MHRA is contradicting its own guidance and the published historical data by declaring certain herbs as drugs. Why might that be? Well, cackling gleefully in the background of this story is one Simon Mills, spokesman for the Herbal Quality Campaign (HQC). “It’s what we’ve been asking for,” he gloats. Behind the thin modesty veil of the HQC’s ‘public safety’ stance hides a campaign designed to protect the profits of companies, such as Schwabe and Bionorica, who invested heavily in the THMPD and are unhappy that the MHRA hasn’t been forcing the non-THMPD-registered competition, i.e. botanical food supplements, off the market. It seems that pressure from the HQC – whether direct or via UK Members of Parliament (MPs), who have been the main target of the HQC’s lobbying – might be persuading the MHRA to crack down. Never mind that its justification is spurious, or that the herbs, as opposed to the products, being targeted are perfectly safe and legal.

In a lovely example of synchronicity, George Monbiot wrote an article on conflicts of interest in public bodies for the UK’s Guardian newspaper on Monday 12th March – and guess who was one of the corrupt bodies he pointed to? “While the [MHRA] board contains retired senior executives from AstraZeneca and Merck Sharp & Dohme, it includes no one from a patient group, or any other body representing people whose health could be damaged by its decisions,” Monbiot wrote, drawing an instant response from the MHRA. Since the MHRA is entirely funded and partly staffed by the pharmaceutical industry, it’s difficult to see how its regulatory strategy could avoid being biased toward Big Pharma interests – which raises an interesting question. Now that they are being officially regulated by the MHRA, will phytopharmaceutical companies and HQC backers contribute to the MHRA’s upkeep in the same manner? It seems only fair for ‘services rendered’.

Alliance for Natural Health: http://anh-europe.org/

Junk Science? Number 10. Much more than placebo: Homeopathy reverses cancer.

This article is from, ´What Doctors don´t tell you´. They have asked that it is disseminated as widely as possible.

Doctors call it “nonsense on stilts”, professors of medicine have been bullying government and health authorities to stop offering it on the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), and yet studies paid for by the US government are showing that homeopathy could be our best defence against cancer. Several homeopathic remedies are as effective as powerful chemotherapy, according to clinical trials, and thousands of cancer cases are being reversed by homeopathy alone.

The extraordinary success of homeopathy remedies,which are diluted hundreds of times, against the most dreaded of diseases is being demonstrated every day at several homeopathic clinics in Kolkata (Calcutta) in India.

In one review of the work at the Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation, 21,888 patients with malignant tumours were treated only with homeopathy—they had neither chemotherapy nor radiotherapy—between 1990 and 2005. Clinical reports reveal that the tumours completely regressed in 19 per cent—or 4158—of cases, and stabilized or improved in a further 21 per cent (4596) of patients. Those whose tumours had stabilized were followed for between two and 10 years afterwards to monitor the improvement (Banerji, 2008).

This suggests that homeopathic remedies on their own are reversing, or certainly stabilizing, 40 per cent of all cancers, a success rate that matches the best results for conventional medicine, and without the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The foundation’s homeopathic therapy—the Banerji Protocol—has been independently tested under laboratory conditions, and two of the remedies used, Carcinosin and Phytolacca, were found to be as effective against breast cancer cells as the chemotherapy drug Taxol (Int J Oncol, 2010; 36: 395–403).

All of the remedies used at the foundation are available in shops, and Ruta 6 is one of several regularly prescribed. The Protocol refers to the foundation’s use of high-technology screening equipment and the mix of remedies—two practices that are contrary to Classical Homeopathy, which attempts to prescribe one precise remedy that fits with an individual’s mind/body profile.

Another clinic in Kolkata, the Advanced Homeopathic Healthcare Centre, claims similar levels of success with its cancer patients and, although well documented, they have not been subjected to the same level of scientific validation as the Prasanta Banerji Foundation.

Getting noticed

The work at the Banerji Foundation first came to the attention of the West in 1995 when Dr Prasanta Banerji and his son, Dr Pratip Banerji, presented a study at the 5th International Conference of Anti-cancer Research of 16 cases of brain tumour that had regressed, using only homeopathic remedies. At the time, they had been testing homeopathic remedies on cancer patients since 1992 at their Foundation, and they say they now treat around 120 cancer patients every day.

Dr Sen Pathak, professor of cell biology and genetics at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston, approached the Banerjis and, together, they set up a trial to test two homeopathic remedies, Ruta 6 and Calcarea Phosphorica 3X, on 15 patients with brain tumours. Six of the seven patients with gliomas —a type of brain cancer— had complete regression. In an accompanying in vitro laboratory study, scientists noticed that the remedies induced death-signalling pathways in the cancer cells (Int J Oncol, 2003; 23: 975–82).

The result is astonishing. Gliomas are considered to be incurable; of 10,000 people diagnosed with malignant gliomas each year in the US alone, only around half are alive a year later, and just 25 per cent two years later (The Washington Post, 20 May 2008).

The scientists at MDACC were so impressed by the results that they started to offer homeopathic remedies as part of their range of cancer treatments.

In 1999, the US government’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) independently evaluated the Banerji Protocol on 10 patients with different kinds of cancers. In four cases of lung and oesophageal cancer, the NCI researchers confirmed that there had been partial responses to the homeo-pathic remedies. None of the patients had received any previous conventional cancer treatment.

The NCI concluded that there was sufficient evidence of efficacy to support further research into the protocol, an historic decision as it marked the first time that any official health institute in the US had worked with an alternative therapy for cancer treatment (Oncol Rep, 2008; 20: 69–74).

In the laboratory

To understand the mechanism of the homeopathic remedies on cancer cells, eight scientists from MDACC tested four remedies — Carcinosin 30C, Conium Maculatum 3C, Phytolacca Decandra 200C and Thuja Occidentalis 30C on two human breast-cancer cell lines. Around 5000 cells were exposed to the remedies and to a placebo, the solvent without the active ingredients of the remedies, for periods of between one and four days. The experiment was repeated three times.

Two of the remedies—Carcinosin and Phytolacca—achieved up to an 80-per-cent response, indicating that they caused apoptosis, or cell death. By comparison, the placebo solvent achieved only a 30-per-cent reduction, suggesting that the effect was more than twice that of the placebo.

Also, the effect was strongest with the greater dilution, (which, in the contrary world of homeopathic medicine, means more powerful), and for longer periods of exposure.

The remedies triggered an ‘apoptotic cascade’ that interfered with the cancer cells’ normal growth cycle and, yet, the surrounding healthy cells were untouched, the researchers found. In other words, they targeted only the cancer cells, whereas chemo-therapy drugs attack all growing cells. And, say the researchers, the effects of Carcinosin and Phytolacca were as powerful as Taxol (paclitaxel), the most commonly prescribed chemotherapy drug for breast cancer (Int J Oncol, 2010; 36: 395–403).

Rooting for Ruta

Although Carcinosin and Phytolacca fared well in the laboratory, many of the Foundation’s patients are taking the Ruta 6 remedy and with extraordinary success, according to one survey of 127 American patients with brain tumours, half of whom were at grade IV, the end-stage before death.

The tumours had completely disappeared, according to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, in 18 of the 127 patients who were taking only Ruta and no conventional treatment. Another nine patients had significant tumour regression. The tumours were stable in around half of all patients scanned, but had grown in around 27 patients. Overall, around 79 per cent of the brain-tumour patients surveyed saw either great or some benefit from Ruta.

In an earlier study by the Foundation among patients who were taking Ruta alongside con-ventional chemotherapy for brain tumours, 72 per cent derived some or great benefit from Ruta and chemotherapy combined, suggest-ing that Ruta on its own is more effective than—or certainly as effective as—the drug, and without its debilitating side-effects (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Ruta6).

In a separate study of brain-tumour cases—148 patients with malignant gliomas and 144 with meningiomas—treated at the Foundation between 1996 and 2001, the 91 patients who had been treated exclusively with Ruta and Calc Phos had an average survival time of 92 months, whereas 11 patients who had been treated conventionally, and used homeopathy as a supplement, survived for 20 months. In addition, 7 per cent of the homeopathy-only patients had a complete cure, 60 per cent were improved, 22 per cent were stable, with the cancer neither improving nor worsening, and 11 per cent saw their cancer worsen, or died (Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation, www.pbhrfindia.org).

The other clinic

There is a second homeopathic clinic in Kolkata that is, confusingly, also run by two P. Banerjis—Parimal and his son Paramesh. The clinic, the Advanced Homeopathic Healthcare Centre, has not attracted the same interest from the West; although its claims appear to be equally as impressive, they have not been independently verified.

Paramesh’s grandfather, Dr Pareshnath Banerji, opened a homeopathic clinic in India in 1918, and his work was continued by his son, Parimal, who adapted Classical Homeopathy into the new approach he calls ‘Advanced Homeopathy’.

With this method, he uses homeopathic remedies in the way a conventional doctor would use drugs, by treating one presenting symptom at a time; a cancer patient with pain would be treated for the pain first, for example. Parimal claims the approach is scientific, based on around 14 million cases dealt with through past generations of his family, with results that can be replicated by any trained practitioner.

The claims that the Banerjis make for Advanced Homeopathy are extraordinary. They say that 95 per cent of their patients do not need surgery, not even for major diseases, including cancer. Although the Centre has not undertaken any clinical trials, its case studies draw an impressive picture.

• A 65-year-old woman with advanced pancreatic cancer, whose tumour was too large to be removed and who refused all other conventional treatment, was alive two years after starting Advanced Homeopathy.

 • A 35-year-old man had a malignant nasal polyp so large that it completely filled the left nostril. Initially, he had the polyp surgically removed, but it grew back each time. However, since 2007, he has not had any surgery but, instead, has relied exclusively on Advanced Homeopathy, and the tumour has not grown back.

• A 14-year-old boy had advanced glioma so severe that it was pushing against the eyeball. His only treatment was Advanced Homeopathy, says the Centre and, within a year, all of his symptoms had disappeared; the boy had gone from a comatose state to running around and playing.

•A 24-year-old man with a brain tumour that had spread to his spinal cord—which could not be treated conventionally because of the risk of permanent paralysis—was treated with Advanced Homeopathy. According to MRI scans, the tumour stopped growing, and the patient was able to carry on with his life, free of symptoms.

Other Research

Outside of India, research into the effects of homeopathy on cancer is very limited, primarily because it is seen as being no better than a placebo and, so, is an unethical treatment. Because of this, most studies in the West have reviewed homeopathy as a palliative therapy to help patients cope with the rigours of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

In one study, 100 women with breast cancer completed a one-hour consultation with a homeopath who was asked to help with any three symptoms chosen by the women that were the result of conventional treatment. The 67 patients who completed the homeopathic treatment and the two follow-ups all reported “significant improvements” in their hot flashes, fatigue, anxiety and depression, although the remedies did not ease pain (Palliative Med, 2002; 16: 227–33).

In another study of women with breast cancer, the homeopathic remedy Verum was tested against placebo for treating hot flashes after taking the drug tamoxifen. In this experiment, 26 women were given Verum, 30 took Verum and a placebo, and 27 were given just a placebo. Both the combination- and single-remedy groups reported improvement in symptoms compared with those in the placebo group (J Altern Complement Med, 2005; 11: 21–7).

Homeopathy also helped ease some of the effects of radiotherapy in a group of 32 women with breast cancer. Hyperpigmentation, or darkening of the skin, after radiotherapy was reduced in the homeopathic group compared with 29 controls who did not receive homeopathy, and their overall side-effects were also reduced (Br Homeopath J, 2000; 89: 8–12).

The homeopathic remedy Traumeel, for skin and muscular problems, has been successfully tested in several trials. In one, it was given to 15 patients (aged three to 25 years), who had undergone stem-cell transplants for their cancer, to treat stomatitis (mouth ulcers). Compared with a placebo, which was given to 15 other patients, Traumeel “may reduce significantly” the severity and duration of stomatitis (Cancer, 2001; 92: 684–90). In a second study, Traumeel was tested on 20 patients with various cancers, again for treating stomatitis. It reduced the duration of symptoms to just six days, compared with 13 days in the placebo group (Biomed Ther, 1998; 16: 261–5).

Individualized homeopathic remedies helped a group of 45 women who had been treated for breast cancer. Homeopathy was prescribed to treat symptoms following oestrogen withdrawal; the severity of hot flashes and other symptoms—except for joint pain—decreased, while their general quality of life and well-being scores increased (Homeopathy, 2003; 92: 131–4). Another group of 20 women recovering from breast-cancer treatment, including tamoxifen, also reported improve-ment in the severity and frequency of their hot flashes (Homeopathy, 2002; 91: 75–9).

The black hole

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently joined the chorus in the West that maintains that homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo effect. Responding to a Voice of Young Science Network campaign, which is calling for a ban on the promotion of homeopathy in developing countries, the WHO stated that homeopathy is not a cure for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis or malaria.

Welcoming the WHO statement, Dr Robert Hagan, a member of the Voice of Young Science Network, commented: “We need governments around the world to recognize the dangers of promoting homeopathy for life-threatening illnesses” (BBC News, 20 August 2009; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ 8211925.stm).

Yet, homeopathy is doing just that in India. In that culture, homeopathy is accepted as a genuine medical therapy, and is governed by laws that ensure that homeopaths are properly trained and registered.

It is perplexing why good medical studies—which are supported by the US government and by leading American academics—are not being recog-nized, let alone discussed, in the West. Surely, cancer is so serious a threat that every avenue needs to be explored with an open mind, and not left to the drug and academic cabals. Conventional medicine does not offer any genuinely effective solutions and, yet, blocks anything that might, especially something as “impossible” and “nonsensical” to their science as homeopathy.

Bryan Hubbard

Factfile A: Homeopathy in India

Mahatma Gandhi, the father of modern India, described homeopathy as a “refined method of treating patients economically and non-violently. Government must encourage and patronize it in our country.”

And so they did. In 1960, the Maharashtra Act—also known as the ‘Bombay Act’—set up a court of examiners, concerned with the teaching of homeopathy and the creation of new colleges to do so, and a board of homeopathy, which regulated and licensed practitioners.

Nine years later, a new act was passed that created a central council to govern homeopathy and Ayurveda, India’s traditional medical system. In 1973, the Homeopathy Central Council Act was passed, which standardized homeopathic education and allowed homeopaths to practice in different states throughout the country.

The legislation formalized a rich tradition of homeopathy in India that began in 1839, when Romanian doctor John Martin Honigberger successfully treated the Maharaja of the Punjab for paralysis of the vocal cords. Honigberger had been taught homeopathy by Dr Samuel Hahnemann, its creator, and became convinced of its efficacy when he treated himself for malaria. After treating the Maharaja, Honigberger moved to Calcutta, where he was known as the ‘cholera doctor’ because of his successful treatment of the disease using homeopathic remedies.

In 1867, Dr Salzar from Vienna began teaching homeopathy in India, and two of his students went on to create the first homeopathic college in India in 1878.

However, the British rulers were not sympathetic to homeopathy, and it began to flourish in India only after the country achieved independence in 1947.

Factfile B: Not just water

Scientists and doctors say homeopathy is a nonsense because of the high dilution of the active ingredient. Most remedies are diluted beyond Avogadro’s number, which is the final concentration at which molecules of the original substance can still exist.

Any homeopathic remedy with a potency of 12C (in other words, 1200 dilutions) or greater is beyond the Avogadro number, suggesting that only water is left. This means that any effect of homeopathy must be due to the placebo, or ‘feel-good’, factor, say sceptics.

But homeopathy turns conventional science and medicine on its head: it contends that greater dilutions have greater potency and, so, the more dilutions, the more powerful the remedy.

Conventional science doesn’t have a model to explain how homeopathy works and, yet, a meta-analysis of 75 studies concluded that 67 of them demonstrated an effect well beyond that of placebo (Complement Ther Med, 2007; 15: 128–38). The effects have also been seen using highly sophisticated measuring technology, such as:

• calorimetry, which measures the amount of heat given off by a sample (J Therm Anal Calorim, 2004; 75: 815–36);

• spectroscopy, which measures how a substance absorbs and emits electromagnetic radiation (Homeopathy, 2007; 96: 175–82); and

• thermoluminescence, which measures the amount of light produced by a sample when heated (Physica A, 2003; 323: 67–74).

Succussion, or vigorous agitation, is as important as very high dilutions in creating the remedies. One study even measured the effectiveness of two highly diluted therapies, one succussed and one not, and found a difference between the two (Biochim Biophys Acta, 2003; 1621: 253–60).

Factfile C: The new science of water

Undaunted by the public ridicule of his compatriot Jacques Benveniste and his theory that water has a memory, Nobel prize-winning virologist Luc Montagnier has confirmed that water does indeed retain frequencies, even at levels of dilutions as used in homeopathy.

Montagnier, who was awarded the Nobel prize for his discovery of a link between HIV and AIDS, has found that solutions containing the DNA of viruses and bacteria “could emit low-frequency radio waves”. These waves influence the molecules around them, turning them into organized structures. In turn, these organized molecules also emit waves.

Confirming what homeopaths have said for several centuries, Montagnier has discovered that these information-emitting waves remain in water even after it has been diluted, often to levels regularly prescribed in homeopathy (Interdiscip Sci, 2009; 1: 81–90).

Montagnier’s discoveries mirror those of French immunologist Jacques Benveniste, who spent the last 15 years of his life investigating water and its ability to ‘remember’ substances, even after it had been diluted many times.

However, after having had his original paper published in the prestigious Nature journal (Nature, 1988; 333: 816–8), Benveniste was visited at his laboratory by the journal’s editor John Maddox and ‘quackbusting’ magician James Randi.

They said that Benveniste was unable to replicate the findings that inspired his original paper, effectively accusing him of being a ‘quack’ and, thus, ruining his reputation.

Factfile D: Homeopathy and the NHS

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) spends around £100 billion a year, and £4 million of it on homeopathy, mainly by funding the UK’s four homeopathic hospitals.

Even though the expenditure is negligible, doctors continue to call for its complete abolition in the NHS. Groups of doctors have pressed primary care trusts (PCTs) to stop offering homeopathy to local patients, while the British Medical Association (BMA)—the doctors’ trade union—has called on the UK government to ban it outright.

The BMA meeting, where one doctor described homeopathy as “nonsense on stilts”, also called on the government to place all homeopathic remedies in pharmacies under a special ‘Placebo’ section (Mail Online, 2 July 2010; www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1290861/Homeopathy-remedies-labelled-placebos-banned-NHS-say-leading-doctors.html).

WDDTY Vol. 22, 12. March 2012

http://www.wddty.com/

Junk Science Number 9:  All Alternative Treatments are non-evidence based, by definition

 I have read an argument, put forward by several quite eminent scientists on their web sites and blogs, that all  ‘Alternative treatments’ (for example in cancer) are by definition not evidenced-based. For, once there is evidence to prove they deliver, they cease to be alternative and become mainstream and adopted by the scientific community. Thus the rump left behind must all be non-evidence based mumbo jumbo. QED.

 Unfortunately, life just ain’t like that. This argument is tosh.

 Alternative therapies – it’s not enough to have good research results

 Take Hyperthermia as an example.

 It has long been known that one of the few things to kill a cancer cell is heat. Cancer cells die at temperatures where healthy cells are still able to survive. A chap called Coley at American Cancer Hospital Memorial Sloan-Kettering noted that cancer patients who contracted another illness and developed a fever, sometimes went into remission.  He created Coley’s Toxins to try to bring this about but it only met with limited success.

Fast forward 30 years or so and a chap in Australia called Holt did the unthinkable – he left his post at the top of one of the regional cancer boards to become an ‘Alternative’ Doctor, claiming there had to be a better way than drugs to treat people. At his clinic he used Hyperthermia.

A TV team sent to expose him actually failed as over 2000 patients claimed he was doing a great job.

 Hyperthermia can be used at two levels – there’s the all over the body approach; and there is localised hyperthermia.

 Fast forward to 2003 when I received a letter signed by 7 Urologists from the UK and Europe. They told me about HIFU, claiming that this could cure prostate cancer when the tumour was still confined to the prostate. They asked me to give the treatment the publicity it deserved as they feared the threat to the drugs industry (the loss of so many potential patients and thus income) would be enough to guarantee opposition, and even kill the treatment off. I looked into the treatment and found it was already being used in over 60 centres in Europe. I talked to patients. An overnight stay, a 3,000 euro bill, no side effects and three years success so far from all. So at icon we have championed this ‘alternative’ to prostate surgery.

 Finally, in 2008/9 there were clinical trials in Britain (and America). Almost begrudgingly the powers-that-be reported success. The Daily Mail, that well-known medical journal, carried the front page headline ‘Breakthrough in Prostate Cancer Treatment’.  The research only compared surgery to HIFU for very early stage prostate cancer – it concluded that the outcome was the same but less side-effects were observed with HIFU. Now 2 years on, Professor Mark Emberton at UCH reports total success in 19 out of 20 patients, less expensive machinery, less cost to the NHS etc etc. (See our article on hyperthermia by clicking here)  (http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=3125&Title=Professor Emberton explains benefits of HIFU for prostate cancer)

 So, at this point you would assume if the tractor boys are correct, that localised hyperthermia would make it off the alternative list onto the mainstream list and leave the rest of the alternative therapies in their non-evidenced state.

 Alternative Therapies wreck the cosy status quo

 Sadly, I have 6 personal friends at ages 57- 63 all with early stage prostate cancer. All asked about HIFU and all were told no. Three were told they needed urgent surgery as their cancer ‘may have spread’. (If it has spread why is surgery needed urgently? If it hasn’t, then HIFU could be the perfect answer.) All three operated friends had no spread but are now in serious trouble with complications, side-effects and spread. The other three have done nothing so far except change their diets, take exercise and explore their options. Each is under a different oncologist from different backgrounds (surgery, radiotherapy, drugs). Each oncologist recommends his expertise as the first step of treatment. Asked about HIFU, all have bluntly refused to discuss it – one simply replied ‘No’. When my friend pushed for a view, the oncologist Professor simply said, ‘You’ve had my view – No’.

 A real Breast Cancer treatment breakthrough!

Three months ago the Karolinska Institute presented the results of three small scale clinical trials involving 80 women in total and the use of localised Hyperthermia to treat breast cancer. The methodology involved small electrodes and local anaesthetic and the Karolinska were saying the operation could be done in 10 minutes during a lunch break! A breakthrough beyond all doubt and a complete success in research terms. See http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=3155  &Title=Hyperthermia breakthrough treatment for breast cancer).

 The Karolinska’s PR release says that localised Hyperthermia is also sometimes used around the globe on bone cancers and kidney cancer.

 So will this ‘Alternative Cancer Therapy’ of Localised Hyperthermia now become mainstream? Will the evidence cause its promotion from the ranks of the unwashed?

 No, it will remain an alternative to surgery, a threat to jobs, profits and the status quo in Britain’s medical community for quite some time yet.

Could Hyperthermia part of the cancer industriy’s demise?

Worse is yet to come for the Pharma Industry – but it’s very good news for cancer patients. A Nottingham/Kansas scientific axis is developing a new diagnostic test that will detect cancers before they develop into tumours. That would be the death knell for those dreadful screening mammograms, for example, which if they do not harm you first, can only detect a tumour after about 20 cancer cell divisions (at 40 you’re dead).

But more than that – imagine that breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, indeed any solid tumour cancer could be detected at just a millimetre in size or less and that localised Hyperthermia was an adopted technique in all cancer centres. It could save the nation a fortune. The whole industry would change overnight.

The bottom line, to go back to the issue in the opening paragraph, is that the furnishing of sound evidence is actually not enough to gain promotion to the ranks of the mainstream. In order for an ‘Alternative Therapy’ to become mainstream it has to have the research credentials AND it then has to be ‘accepted’ rather like jolly good chaps join a gentleman’s club in London. Even then it also has to be ‘adopted’ as standard practice to become mainstream. New members have to pay their dues for a good few years before the hierarchy will acknowledge them and talk to them.

And so, rightly or wrongly, whatever your opinion, I still include ‘Localised Hyperthermia’ as an Alternative Cancer Therapy on the CANCERactive web site. But please don’t say that this means there is no evidence that it is of benefit. That is just not true. The generalisation borders on ignorance and/or a failure to be able to read.

What is acceptable evidence?

There are other issues too. I am on record as criticising both Homeopathy and the Gerson Therapy for lack of evidence – they have both had quite long enough to get sensible research numbers together, even a quantified record of treatments and patients would be a start.  But if lack of  research numbers is the criterion for saying something is ‘Alternative’ (implication: worthless) , then virotherapy remains firmly in the Alternative therapy camp. So too does Dendritic Cell therapy.

However, the MD Anderson Cancer Center web site chronicles their success using virotherapy with two lung cancer patients 6 or more years ago. Dukes Medical Centre in America have case studies using Dendritic Cell therapy with brain tumour patients. Both Hospitals see these developments as clever new treatments although they clearly are not yet the finished article.

So are we now to accept the anecdote? If it’s acceptable for Virotherapy and Dendritic Cell Therapy, why not for Gerson and Homeopathy? Double Standards must not apply.

For me, there is little difference between a survivor who had Virotherapy, and one who had Gerson Therapy – but until there are solid numbers all these stay, equally judged, in our Alternative Treatments section at CANCERactive along with Hyperthermia, Intravenous Vitamin C, PDT, Burzynski, Gonzalez and Ketogenic Diets.

Advancement with technology such as lasers and the extraction of natural compounds may well make some of today’s alternatives tomorrow’s mainstream. In the latest edition of icon, the Royal Marsden’s Mike Brada covered alternative treatments; in the previous magazine it was Dr Henry Friedman of Dukes. Should we really be ignoring their work because some or all of it is new and ‘alternative’?

As long as a cancer patient can find the information on the web, at CANCERactive we have a social responsibility to try to cover the treatment objectively, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses and where there is research, and where there is not. We don’t work for the Government, the Hospitals or Big Pharma – we are the ‘People’s Champion’. We provide information, with no vested interests for people who want to beat cancer. Full stop.

And judging by the mail we receive this objectivity and coverage is exactly what people with cancer need.

Many ‘Alternative’ Therapies have numbers behind them; the current status quo and a strong moment of inertia to avoid change is what makes them alternative and they will remain there until attitudes change.

 ****************************************************

For Hyperthermia – CLICK HERE http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=3078

Here’s today’s quiz question:

In Florida, what is the number 1 cause of death?

You may guess that, in this American state with such a high senior citizen level, the answer would be heart disease or heart attacks or something like that?

You’d be wrong.

How about cancer –  shortly to be the number 1 cause of death in the Western World? After all, various official cancer bodies tell us that cancer rates are growing because it is an ‘old person’s disease’.

Wrong again. (And it is getting younger all the time.)

How about road accidents?

Wrong again.

Something to do with diabetes?

Wrong again

OK. It’s something weird – alligator bites?

Er. No.

The number 1 cause of death in Florida, which will shortly be the number 1 cause of death in America, is PRESCRIPTION DRUGS. You may know these by another name: You may call them ……. medicines.

Prescription drugs are the things pharmacologists rant on about as having ‘Research evidence’ to support their benefits; while of course telling all of us that natural compounds, herbs and vitamins ‘may be dangerous’. After all, the Nordic Cochrane Institute reviewed lots of research concerning people who bought vitamins and concluded they may not do any good at all, and may even cause harm. That made front page news all over the UK. There are even self-styled ‘quackbusters’ the barmy pharmy brigade, who poke fun like deranged schoolchildren behind the bike sheds at anything ’complementary’ calling it all ‘non-evidenced based’.

Forgive me. But isn’t there a world of difference between ‘may cause you harm’, and being the actual number 1 cause of death’? Or have I missed something?

Anyway, regular readers will know that, I am hardly surprised that synthetic, deficient high street vitamins (which is, sadly, what most people take) are not as good as the real thing in natural foods or natural supplements. If you are going to buy a Thai copy of an authentic Gucci handbag, should you really be surprised when the handle drops off? High street ‘vitamins’ are most usually synthetic and thus on their way to being drugs anyway. Many do not actually contain the whole natural compound as in vitamin E, or beta-carotene for example. May not do any good? May even cause harm? It’s possible.

The braying  ‘quackbusters’ also fervently believe that a supplement cannot be medicine any more than food can. When did a vitamin ever cure anything?

Er. Scurvy with vitamin C; Rickets with vitamin D, burns with aloe vera, and a few hundred more.

Here’s your next quiz question: What do Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Anna Nicole Smith and now Whitney Houston have in common?

Ah, you guessed it – they all died having taken a cocktail of prescription drugs. Sorry, medicines. Some were aided and abetted by a game of squash, some alcohol, a non-prescription drug or nothing at all.

So what is going wrong?

Well firstly there are doctor prescribed medicines and there are over-the-counter medicines, which you are clever enough to ‘self-medicate’. Whether you have any of the former or not, you are free to take the latter as you wish. Cough mixture, pain-killers, anti-histamines, antacids and the rest.

In Whitney’s case the hotel suite she died in contained virtually empty bottles of an anti-depressant Xanax, the painkiller Ibuprofen, Midol for menstrual cramps and Amoxicillin, an antibiotic. There is also a rumour being investigated that she may have taken a vitamin supplement last year.

A couple of years ago at CANCERactive, we covered the story of a seventy-something lady found unconscious and bleeding from the mouth on her apartment floor in New York. She was rushed to hospital – it was discovered she had a burst stomach ulcer and she survived. She was taking various heart medications, other medicines to stop the side effects, then she developed a cough so added more pain-killers, cough mixtures, and an antacid because her stomach was playing up. No wonder. She was taking a total of 13 drugs. (Sorry, medicines.)

We also covered the story that Dr Stern of the New York Presbyterian Hospital had noted that a lot of older people were coming into A&E at the hospital suffering from a ‘drug overdose’; sorry medicine overdose. So he totted up the numbers and found that 28 PER CENT OF ALL ADMISSIONS AT THE HOSPITAL WERE DUE TO TAKING A COCKTAIL OF DRUGS (Sorry, medicines).

Since there was no ‘official’ disease he decided to give it a name – POLYPHARMACY – in the hope that authorities would take notice.

We now know that both admissions and deaths from polypharmacy have grown seven fold in the last 5 years in America. And, make no mistake, this problem is coming to a town near you in England right now.

How many of these medicines actually cure? How many tackle the root cause of the illness? I would think about two thirds of all newly diagnosed cancer patients who write to us at CANCERactive first fell ill about 6 years ago and were given a variety of medicines including antibiotics. Most are still taking the lot. So now they have a double problem – they still have the original illness PLUS a daily drug habit. Is it any surprise these people develop cancer?

She died. The doctor described the cause of her cancer as ‘Just bad luck’.

Maybe she was also taking those dangerous vitamins. She certainly didn’t visit a naturopath who might have been able to cure her IBS properly.

The fact is that Joe Public doesn’t have the first clue about ‘medicines’. Anything synthetic can have side-effects. But if you have to take more drugs to quell the side-effects, shouldn’t you be asking the question: Is the drug really safe in the first place? No one ever seems to ask this.

A few years ago in my advertising days I developed a stabbing pain in the stomach, lasting 3 days and every six or so weeks. Harley Street’s finest did even medical test known. Their solution was to suggest giving me a drug which would cut the acid production. I said no to this because I could not see how I would ever be able to come off the drug.

It was a good job I didn’t take it. Six months later it was banned. A friend who worked with natural supplements a couple of years later suggested I had a parasite. Sure enough I did. I took some herbs – end.

But of course, drugs are ‘evidenced-based’ unlike those dodgy vitamins. But why do clinical trials quantify the benefit, but not the side-effects? Surely measuring safety is a crucial pert of a drug trial. Why don’t Governments publish tables – we get them for schools in the hope that tables will embarrass the failures and improve standards of education. Why can’t we do the same for drugs in the hope that those with side-effects are ‘outed’ in the same way? Why can’t the scientists who develop the drug and the pharmacologists who study its action be more precise and even accountable?

Breast cancer rates fell seven per cent in America a couple of years ago. Why? Better diagnosis and better drugs (the usual industry claimed rubbish)?  No. Women read about the dangers of the drug HRT and vast numbers stopped taking it. But it took an independent study to tell them about the level of the side-effects; side-effects that had been reported and ignored in the Boston Nurses Study some 12-15 years before. 

It is now NOT COOL to take drugs, of any form. The fans of Michael, Elvis and the rest know this. The only people who argue for their widespread use are people who make a living working in and around the pharmaceutical industry. And doctors, who know about little else. Worryingly, in America some doctors make large sums of money out of group practices having their own pharmacy. If a new cancer drug costs $100,000 a year ,imagine the profit to the group practice. Are they going to stop prescribing the drug? There have already been court cases in America involving financial ‘incentives’ to prescribe one drug over another!

In the coming weeks I will be looking at the truth about clinical trials on drugs. There is no doubt that some drugs do a decent job. But. Suffice it to say here that 85 per cent of drugs have not gone through clinical trials, the placebo effect (often used against complementary therapies) is just as prevalent in Pharmaceutical Research, and maybe we should all worry more about just how many drugs are actually imported from China and third world countries with even the FDA admitting that less than 3 per cent are checked for purity and efficacy at source or on importation.

Should doctors be allowed by law to prescribe more than two drugs at a time, given there is rarely any  clinical research on these cocktails of drugs? Should you even be allowed to take more than two drugs at a time given there is no research on mixing, for example, a statin with an anti-histamine with an antibiotic? Should every pharmacy have warning signs? We could use the line,  ’These drugs may not be effective and may even cause harm’.

It just seems ever so slightly loopy that you can pop into the tobacconist and buy your cigarettes, then go to the high street pharmacy to buy pain-killers, anti-histamines, antacids and cough mixtures which you are legally allowed to self-medicate, and you can then sit in the coffee shop and be bombarded by WiFi and EMF’s even though EuroMPs have passed a damning resolution against them. Meanwhile natural supplements and herbs are treated as health terrorists and all but banned; you cannot self-medicate these – they are far too dangerous and you are clearly too stupid to avoid that well known disease ‘Vitamin abuse’.

So, there we have it. Did the dodgy vitamin that Whitney took last year play a role in her death? Or was it the equally dangerous yoga class three months before?  

Steve Jobs died on October 5^th 2011; he was just 56. The visionary founder of Apple was also the charismatic, no-nonsense, black turtle-necked presenter who introduced the iPhone, iPad and iPod to the world. His ‘simplify, simplify’ attitude to new ideas was coupled with an understanding of what the consumer would want – even if they didn’t yet know that they wanted it.

In his youth Jobs dropped out of Oregon’s Reed College after just one term, and then quit one of his first jobs (at Atari designing video games) choosing to backpack across India, live in an Ashram, become Buddhist and vegan whilst experimenting with psychedelic drugs.

In 2003 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Shortly after his death, it was announced that, when first diagnosed, Steve Jobs had ignored orthodox medical advice and pursued an ‘alternative’ approach to his cancer treatments. On October 20^th in CBS’ 60 minutes programme, his biographer Walter Isaacson said that Steve Jobs refused to allow surgeons to perform what could have been life-saving surgery on his pancreatic cancer and, in one particular interview, Jobs told him he regretted his decision to try alternative therapies and said he put off the operation because it was too invasive.

And then it started. One hundred and one articles all claiming that ‘Steve Jobs could have lived longer but for those mumbo-jumbo alternative therapies’. Better late than never, even the Daily Telegraph jumped on the bandwagon three months on with ‘Alternative Medicine is looking a bit sickly’. (Well California is a long way from London, after all).

I quote: One detail worth mentioning: anyone (sic) who has read Walter Isaacson’s superb biography of Steve Jobs is left in little doubt that unorthodox therapies hastened the death of Apple’s co-founder. Jobs’s (sic) pancreatic cancer was spotted very early, but he wasted precious months on faddy diets before he agreed to surgery, by which time the tumour had grown. Apple fans know this; it’s one of many reasons that CAM is no longer cool’. The writer then driveled on about everything from homeopathy to Ayurvedic medicine. It reminded me of black and white comedy programmes where old men sat in pubs criticising all things German because they tried to bomb the chip shop.

Let’s put some sort of scientific discipline on this:

1. Steve Jobs had pancreatic cancer:

The cancer was detected during a non-routine abdominal scan in October 2003 following a lengthy history of gastrointestinal problems. These problems quite probably would have also reduced his immune defences. However, there is no confirmation whatsoever that when the cancer was detected it was ‘spotted very early’.

Most pancreatic cancer has a terrible prognosis – half of all patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer die within ten months of the diagnosis; half of those, in whom it has metastasized, die within six months. These pancreatic cancers are cancers of the pancreatic cells, like the cancer of Patrick Swayze.

However, Jobs had a particularly rare cancer in the islets of Langerhans – the cells that produce insulin. This cancer is called a neuroendocrine cancer and, although it was inside the pancreas it was not typical pancreatic cancer. “If you catch it early, there is a real potential for cure” according to cancer surgeon Joseph Kim of City of Hope, the comprehensive cancer center in Duarte, California.

If he had symptoms before the scan they would have been driven by high insulin levels and a profound drop in blood sugar which can lead to shakiness, cold sweats, nausea, vomiting, blackouts, and neurological changes such as impaired judgment, moodiness, irritability, apathy, and confusion.

Importantly, the type of cancer Jobs had is defined as slow growing, or indolent. Indeed it can be so indolent that patients can die with it, rather than because of it. This rare cancer is diagnosed in about 2,500 Americans a year and is thought to be linked to poor diet and alcohol. Autopsies show that it is likely to be present in more than double this number of people – people who had no idea it was present, such is the slow growth.

2. Steve Jobs put off the surgery because he considered it too invasive.

Whichever way anyone might try to spin this, Jobs’ own account to his biographer (and also confirmed by his wife) was that he was afraid of having the surgery. This is quite understandable as the procedure is not without risks. Importantly, at the time, Jobs did not actually rule out having orthodox treatment – he made a positive decision to delay it whilst exploring other routes. With an aggressive cancer a delay of nine months might be serious but the neuroendocrine cancer is NOT an aggressive cancer.

He may well have been told his cancer was slow growing – that people died with it, rather than from it? He certainly would have found this out when he searched the internet. Did that make him think he had time to try less invasive routes?

When he finally had the surgery, the normal Whipple procedure needed to be modified to remove the right side of the pancreas, the gallbladder, and parts of the stomach, bile duct, and small intestine. Was this also part of his original fear? Did the metastases to his bile duct, stomach and small intestine really occur in the nine months delay? Or was there already a discussion about possible spread to other organs at the outset, thus making him worry even more?

Another option is that at the time of the original diagnosis no one knew that the cancer had spread so far – such extensive surgery is called for only after metastases and, according to Joseph Kim, these may not be detectable until the patient is actually operated on. Jobs was certainly not stupid – a few hours on the internet would have told him all the options.

Jobs would also have known that the surgery may be followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy, both of which can cause significant suffering. It’s a lot to handle if you are an independent spirit like Jobs; a spirit used to being in control of all around him. Would he really have wanted to hand over control to orthodox medical practitioners immediately?

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs

3.  Jobs did have orthodox treatment.

Even those neuroendocrine tumours that have been present for years, and in some cases decades, often stay safely confined to the pancreas.

However, a 2004 scan showed that Jobs’ tumour had grown in size – but I can find no confirmation that it showed spread.

And there is little debate about the best treatment – patients with neuroendocrine cancer that has not spread beyond the pancreas can live for many more years, again because this is such a slow growing cancer.

After spread to the liver, Jobs had a liver transplant. There must have been huge debate about that. On one hand his liver was damaged, on the other the immune suppressants following a transplant would have made the fight with the cancer harder, even unwinnable.

4. Steve Jobs did not have ‘alternative’ cancer treatments.

Let’s be clear about this. Alternative cancer treatments include such developments as Dendritic Cell Therapy (used, for example, by Duke University Medical Center for brain tumours), Virotherapy (used, for example, by MD Anderson for lung cancers); Localised Hyperthermia (see the research on HIFU for prostate cancer or from the Karolinska for breast tumours) and so on. (See http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=2656&Title=Alternative%20cancer%20treatments, where we try to get a sense of proportion on it all, whilst bring patients the latest information). There is a relevant ‘Diet Therapy’ from Dr Nicholas Gonzalez in New York and in early Clinical Trials it did seem to outperform the orthodox route for pancreatic cancer. There is debate on later trials and, anyway, Jobs did not have ‘common’ pancreatic cancer.

But this is not what Jobs did. He had a ‘special diet’ (apparently the Dr Dean Ornish anti-cancer diet) including a low fat and vegan approach, juice fasts, herbs, bowel cleansing, acupuncture and spiritual healing. He even consulted a psychic. These may be ‘complementary therapies’ but anyone who considers these ‘alternative therapies for cancer’ is in mumbo-jumbo land. And that includes both Jobs and the journalists who have been writing articles along these lines.

I have written before, for example, on subjects such as going vegan once diagnosed with cancer. Yes, I know there is research showing vegetarians get less cancer but there is not one single drop of research that says, once you have it, turning vegetarian extends survival times. I have also covered 4 research studies in the last 5 years on the dangers of glucose (people with lower blood glucose levels survive longer), but there is no research to my knowledge that says low fat diets increase survival times too.

Modified diets, bowel cleanse, acupuncture? These are, at best, treatments you may use to complement your core treatments, or reduce side effects. Yes, I know the woman down the road found homeopathy helped her through her chemotherapy. But as an alternative cure for cancer?

Did these unorthodox therapies ‘hasten the death of Steve Jobs’? Did they cause the spread of an indolent cancer? Was there hard evidence that surgery 9 months earlier would have found no metastases? I cannot find anything other than conjecture, but my take is that it is highly likely the slow spread from the islets had already taken place.

However, the orthodox medical profession will be rubbing their hands with glee, and the PR departments at the drug companies and orthodox charities will be working overtime to get more and more articles out, aided and abetted by journalists (?) who jump on the bandwagon, however tardy. Extrapolations will be made to include any treatment not approved in triplicate by the FDA, the BMA, the drugs companies and a committee of approved oncologists. We have had it all before; for example, if you are British you may remember how Jade Goody’s life would clearly have been spared had she received the wondrous HPV vaccine? Get your daughter vaccinated today – you have been warned.

I will leave the last (scientifically proven, of course) words to the Telegraph’s blogger from the article which featured Mr. Jobs in picture and content: The market for snake oil remains enormous in other countries: the dodgy “experts” who once had a foothold in Western universities are now offloading their vitamin treatments for Aids on the developing world. Despicable.

In Britain, however, the demand for expensive placebos and assorted rip-off courses is now severely curtailed. If we exclude immigrants, who have their own useless remedies, the major consumers of CAM are ladies who lunch. I keep meeting rich Tory women who spend a fortune on alternative medicine. They find it so rejuvenating, they mutter through their freeze-dried facelifts.

Oh dear – quick, where’s my bottle of shark cartilage?

Just recently I received an e mail from a lady asking for my ‘take’ on some e mails flying around the ether on dioxins, water bottles heating up and breast cancer. I have removed the names to protect the innocent but thought that many readers might like some clarification on it all, too.

E mail 1:

We were at a dinner the other eve, and a highly regarded Breast surgeon was there. I mentioned the Email I had sent around and she said the same thing – that we would have to have a vast amount of dioxin present to cause a problem. She keeps her water in a plastic bottle, and it’s in the car with her.

(I am only the messenger. It’s all very confusing.)

See you tomorrow.

E mail 2:  Dioxin…in breast cancer tissue

I contacted Breakthrough for an official response to your email about plastic bottles in cars. As you can see, they state categorically that this claim is not true.

I hope this reassures you, and please feel free to forward it to those to whom you sent the original circular email in which this misleading claim was made.

E mail 3 : Dioxin…in breast cancer tissue

From Breakthrough Breast Cancer:

Below is our standard response to Dioxin comments, please feel free to forward to anyone appropriate. I hope it clears things up;

Dioxins are mainly by-products of industrial processes, including the incineration of waste and metal production, but can also result from natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires.  The European Commission has adopted a strategy to reduce the presence of dioxins in the environment, animal feed and food.  Dioxins are not typically found in plastics, so water drunk from plastic containers should not contain higher levels of dioxins than tap water.

Although high levels of dioxins can cause cancer (for example among industrial workers who are in close contact with large quantities of them), the general population is exposed to much lower levels of dioxins.  It is not yet known whether the levels of dioxins that most people are exposed to will increase the risk of developing breast cancer.  One small study has indicated that women with normal exposure levels do not have an increased risk of breast cancer, but more research will be needed to confirm this.

An email has been circulating recently that claims that drinking water from a plastic bottle left in a car will cause breast cancer.  This claim is not true.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) has written an article to explain why the information in the e-mail is incorrect.  They say that the emails seem to be based on information from a student’s college thesis that a particular compound in plastic bottles, called DEHA, can potentially cause cancer.  The ACS go on to explain that there is no evidence that that DEHA is present in plastic bottles, or that it can cause cancer.

http://www.cancer.org/AboutUs/HowWeHelpYou/plasticwaterbottles

To clear all this up for readers let me give you some facts:

1 Dioxins are very dangerous chemicals. Correctly termed they are polychlorinated dibenzodioxins. Agent Orange was a dioxin. Wikipedia describes them as ‘significant pollutants’. The ’safe’ level is zero. They are produced as by-products when making certain chemicals, herbicides and pesticides, or generally in industrial manufacture where chlorine is involved (for example, the bleaching process for paper), or when burning certain materials, like PVC.

I did a presentation on their dangers about 18 months ago. The best source of information without doubt is The Cancer Prevention Coalition in the USA.

They are typically consumed in fat as fat is generally a good solvent, but they can also be airborne and water borne. ‘Consumption’ of dioxins can be greatly reduced, according to US studies, by consuming no river fish, cows’ dairy, farmed animals and so on. These restrictions can cut 90 per cent of dioxin consumption. Horror stories occur with a lengthy list of leaks from chemical factories; and we have talked with a number of women with breast cancer who live near paper mills.

Some dioxins are proven carcinogens; some are endocrine disrupters. Dioxins can alter and break DNA molecules and chains. Quite simply, they are poisons. In 1994, the US Environmental Protection Agency reported that dioxins are probable carcinogens. However, they also noted that non-cancer effects, for example in reproduction, sexual development and the immune system, could pose an even greater threat to human health. It should also be noted that TCDD is officially classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by IARC (The International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon).

They are known to accumulate in fatty tissue and breast tissue is one of these areas. They cannot be easily metabolized or excreted – the half life ranges from 5 to 14 years! The issue is not how much, or little, is in a pint of milk, but how much builds up (accumulates in the body) over time.

The bad news is that they can easily be passed on to baby when breast feeding and there are several US Government research studies on this.

2 Xenoestrogens are chemicals that are hormone disrupters when in the body. Some come from  certain ‘plasticisers’ used to make plastic cups, bottles, linings inside cans etc e.g. BPA and phthalates. BPA is banned now in Canada. They are known to reduce sperm counts and produce hermaphrodite fish. Many are oestrogen mimics and can bind to receptor sites on healthy cells and create havoc inside the cell. They can, just as estrogen can, drive breast, prostate, colon and other cancers.

If a hot liquid is used in the bottle or cup, several research studies have shown that the plasticizers can denature and leach even more oestrogen mimics into the liquid even on subsequent use. The US singer Sheryl Crow was vociferous in her belief that leaving her water bottle in the car parked in the sunshine every time she went to the gym, caused her breast cancer. (We have covered two research studies in Cancer Watch about this denaturing effect of heat on certain plastics).

One plasticiser that is a known oestrogen mimic is the phthalate DEHP found in PVC, and even in plastic bottles, dialysis bags and plastic tubing in hospitals. In 2011 Taiwan reported the presence of DEHP in food and beverages from plastic containers. Several research studies now link DEHP to sexual problems in men and even cardio problems.

One research study showed that in pregnant women with the highest levels of DEHP in their blood streams, 11 per cent of male offspring were born with some form of genital problem. This research study identified the DEHP as coming from perfumes. A number of xenoestrogens are found in perfumes and perfumed products – for example, toluene. Perfumes do not have to list the chemicals they contain. You should never use perfume or perfumed products on your skin.

DEHA , like DEHP, is found in film wraps like cling-film. In research DEHA can cause cancer in mice and rats. The South Africa Environmental Agency states clearly that research shows emission levels of DEHP and DEHA increase upon heating the plastics. The South African Government Health body therefore refutes the statement of safety of both Breakthrough Breast Cancer and the ACS.

There is an excellent article on the CANCERactive web site on Xenoestrogens (see http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=3148)

Most dioxins have little or nothing to do with Xenoestrogens – and vice versa. However, a very few dioxins have been identified as endocrine disrupters and do therefore function also as xenoestrogens.

Dioxins have nothing to do with water bottles.

Xenoestrogens have been shown by Dr Anna Soto of Tufts in the USA to be capable of causing breast and other cancers – and that they too are cumulative and thus, whilst a single one might fall inside Government safety levels, the overall effect is very different.

I hope this clears up the confusion. To imply that Dioxins do not cause cancer, or that xenoestrogens are not linked to breast cancer is tosh.