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“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair
Here is a shocking fact you most likely did not know: Unlike other kinds of doctors, cancer doctors (oncologists) are allowed to profit from the sale of chemotherapy drugs. In fact, most of the annual income oncologists earn comes from the profit that they make from selling these highly toxic drugs to their patients.
That’s not supposition on my part. That’s a fact reported by NBC Nightly News back in 2006. You can watch the report here.
As NBC reported, oncologists buy chemotherapy drugs at wholesale prices and then sell them to their patients at “marked up prices.”
This absurd practice was made legal years ago after Medicare and health insurance companies decided it would be a good idea to move cancer patients out of hospitals and into the care of private practice oncologists. Their reasoning was that this was necessary in order to save money. What happened as a result of this misguided decision was the exact opposite.
Instead of saving money, the cost of chemotherapy drugs skyrocketed to tens of thousands of dollars a year, and in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars per month.
Medical ethicists have for years questioned the wisdom of allowing oncologists to continue to earn the majority of their incomes from the sale of chemotherapy drugs, correctly pointing out that doing so creates a serious conflict of interest between patient welfare and oncologists’ desire to prescribe the drugs that they are going to make the most money from even when they are not what their patients needs. This includes over-prescribing drugs beyond the point in which they are effective.
How many cancer patients have died because their doctors succumbed to the lure of maximizing their profits and administered chemotherapy drugs inappropriately?
No one can say, but in all likelihood at least some cancer patients did die because of their doctors’ desire for profits.
This is a travesty and it needs to stop!
Correctly this great wrong won’t be easy, however, nor can oncologists as a whole be blamed.
Although I strongly disagree with the use of chemotherapy drugs the way they are administered by conventional oncologists—for the simple reason that, in the majority of cases, they do not work—at the same time I recognize that most cancer doctors and their staffs are extremely dedicated professionals who are doing all they can, based on how they have been taught (persuaded, would be the better word) to treat cancer.
In short, it’s not oncologists who are at the root of this problem; it’s the system in which they are trapped!
This fact was admitted to by Dr. Peter Eisenberg, a conventional cancer specialist who was interviewed as part of the NBC report mentioned above. In it, he said, “Patients should feel that their physician has their best interest at heart, always. And the way the system is set up, because of the incentives [for selling chemotherapy drugs to their patients], does something to destroy that.”
So, what can be done about this?
The first step appears clear-cut. The profit motive for oncologists must be eliminated in the arena of cancer care, by eliminating their ability to buy drugs at wholesale and then to sell them at often much higher prices. (Note: Usually, it is not the cancer patients who pay these exorbitant prices; it is health insurance companies and/or Medicare/Medicaid. The end result is higher health insurance premiums for all of us, and a further drain of taxpayer money from our federal government’s already overstrained resources.)
Oncologists must return to administering their drugs in the same way that all other MDs do: Instead of selling drugs directly, they must simply prescribe them, as they once used to do.
But this step alone, will not fix the problem, and here’s where things get more complicated. And more suspect.
You see, the real reason cancer drugs cost so much has very little to do with how much it costs drug companies to develop them and bring them to market. Nor does their cost have anything to do with their potential to save lives. If that were the case for chemotherapy drugs, their price would be extremely low given how abysmal a track record they have for improving cancer patients’ quality of life and extending their survival rates, let alone actually curing cancer, which they most certainly do not (at best, they only temporarily put cancer into remission).
No, the real reason cancer drugs in the United States costs so much (well over $100,000 a year for a single patient in the case of many of the new generation of cancer drugs) is very simple:
Cancer drugs—especially the new generation of drugs—cost so much because they have no competitors.
In other words, drug companies can charge whatever they want for their cancer drugs, and they do exactly that!
You might think that such price-gouging by the drug companies could easily be curtailed if health insurance companies if they simply refused to pay the prices Big Pharma demands for their cancer drugs. In theory, this is correct, but the reality of this situation paints a different story. First, refusing to pay the cost of cancer drugs would garner a lot of ill-will towards health insurance companies by the public, and these companies already have enough of that as it is.
But the bigger issue has to do with Medicare. You see, when it comes to paying for the price of drugs, both cancer drugs and otherwise, health insurance companies take their lead from Medicare. Medicare does not provide coverage for most types of drugs, but it does cover the use cancer drugs. Most health insurance companies simply follow the guidelines for drug reimbursement that are established by the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). And when it comes to the price of cancer drugs, as far as CMS is concerned, anything goes!
This is in stark contrast to how CMS acts with regard to all other types of drugs. Aside from cancer drugs, CMS controls medical costs by establishing the fees that are paid under Medicare/Medicaid for nearly all other medical procedures, including drug usage, by both doctors and hospitals. Once CMS establishes these fees, health insurance companies set their own rates of coverage to coincide with them.
What this means is very simple to understand: If CMS dealt with the price of cancer drugs in the same way that it does for all other medications, the price of cancer drugs would quickly plummet, largely sparing oncologists of the temptation to try and profit from their use.
When it comes to cancer drugs, CMS must change its policies!
Then there is a third, and equally important factor to consider: The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). PhRMA bills itself as the pharmaceutical industry trade group. In plain English, it means that it’s a drug lobby. And since 1992 its work has paid huge dividends for Big Pharma, from which its funding is derived. You see, PhRMA convinced the US Congress and President Bill Clinton to enact a bill known as the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) of 1992. Once the act was passed and signed into law, Big Pharma effectively became the fox guarding the henhouse of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This came about because the act means that, since its passage, Big Pharma actually helps fund the FDA’s research and approval process of the very pharmaceutical drugs the FDA is supposed to be regulating on our behalf. Not only does Big Pharma’s funding of the FDA create a direct and serious conflict of interest, it also ensures that the FDA provides a speedier approval process of pharmaceutical drugs, many of which later prove to be ineffective, life-threatening, or both!
By now, I’m sure you can understand that one of the most serious underlying problems that have kept conventional cancer treatment in the US focused almost entirely on dangerous and ineffective cancer drugs is the fact that cancer is big business. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each and every year on behalf of cancer patients and their loved ones who are desperate to reverse this terrible disease. And all of that money winds up in the pockets of the doctors and clinics that treating cancer with these cancer drugs, and, most especially, the pharmaceutical drug companies who manufacture them and promote their use.
Human nature being what it is, it would be foolish to expect those who profit most from the use of these cancer drugs, including oncologists, will suddenly change course and start investigating the cheaper, safer, and far more effective cancer treatments that I have spent decades of my life investigating. Not when their livelihoods depend so greatly on the status quo of cancer care today.
Therefore, it is up to each and every one of us to pressure our elected officials to clean up this sad state of affairs that we are in. To do so, we must insist on the following:
• Oncologists must be prohibited from buying and reselling cancer drugs for profit.
• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services must begin to establish the fees that are paid under Medicare/Medicaid for cancer drugs and cancer treatments, just as they do for all other drugs and medical procedures.
• The influence of Big Pharma and their lobbyist group the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America must end, both at the FDA, and within Congress (the drug lobby has more lobbyists in Congress and spends more lobbying money there than any other lobbyist group), and the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992 must be rescinded.
If we as a nation can achieve these goals, then truly effective approaches for treating cancer in the United States may at last come into the full light of day.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Thermography: The Safer, More Effective Alternative To Mammograms
Both holistic and conventional doctors agree that early detection of cancer is very important. Simply put, the earlier cancer is detected, the better the odds are for a full and long-lasting recovery.
One of the most effective ways women can detect breast cancer, as well as other types of cancer, early and safely is by using thermography. Thermography is a safe and effective alternative to mammograms. Let me explain why this is so and why you absolutely must know about thermography in your fight to protect yourself from cancer.
What Is Thermography?
Thermography is the name given to a diagnostic technique that employs thermal (heat) imaging to allow health practitioners to get a clearer idea about what is taking place inside their patients’ bodies. Breast thermography is the name given to thermography when it is used to screen for signs of breast cancer, as well as for determining the overall health of the breast. Unlike mammograms, breast thermography is 100% safe, and is far more accurate in detecting signs of breast cancer than mammograms are. Mammograms fail to detect breast cancer 20 to 40 percent of the time. By contrast, breast thermography successfully detects breast cancer 90%, and has the added benefit of being able to do so up to 8 to 10 years earlier than mammography.
Research published in the American Journal of Radiology confirms how important breast thermography is in the fight against cancer. In addition to confirming thermography’s 90% accuracy rate, the Journal reported that breast thermography has a 90% specificity rate and a 99% sensitivity rate. No other screening method for breast cancer comes close to these rates. For example, the sensitivity rate for physical breast exams is only 18%, while for mammograms and MRIs it is 70 and 71% respectively. Moreover, since 1982 breast thermography has also been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Despite all these facts, few physicians are even aware of the powerful, health-saving benefits thermography can provide, and fewer still ever tell their patients about it. This is a travesty of the highest order! And it exists largely because of the multiyear and multibillion dollar campaign by the American mammography industry to suppress pubic awareness of thermography. All for the sake of profit at the expense of public safety and well-being!
The following facts make it clear why I stress the importance of thermography to doctors and patients alike. I hope you will pay attention to what I am going to share with you next because it’s vitally important.
Cancer cells double every 90 days. That means it takes 90 days for a single cancer cell to turn into two cells, and approximately one full year before that single cancer cell grows to 16 cells. By the end of year two, if left unchecked, that single cancer cell will have grown to 256 cancer cells, forming a tumor that is .25 centimeters in size. Thermography can detect tumor cells that are even smaller than that—about the size of a single grain of rice. When tumors that small are detected, patients have nearly a 100 percent (99%) chance of long-term survival.
Now consider this: at best, mammography can only detect breast tumors that are 2.5 centimeters in size (about the size of a dime and 10 times the tumor size at the end of year two). This equates to tumors comprised of nearly 4.3 billion cancer cells, a number that will not occur until the end of the eight year after the first cancer cell took hold. Most times, however, mammograms fail to detect breast cancer tumors until they have grown to contain between 69 billion to over 1 trillion cancer cells! Meaning that it is not until the 9th or 10th year, or even later, that mammography will detect breast cancer. (The same is true if breast self-exams, too.) By then, the spread of cancer can often prove too much for conventional cancer treatments to reverse, and also more challenging for practitioners of alternative and integrative cancer care to treat.
Based on the above facts, doesn’t it make sense for all women over the age of 35 to replace their annual mammograms with annual thermography checkups instead? Of course it does!
How Thermography Works
Perhaps you are familiar with night vision goggles used by the military and police agencies. These goggles enable their wearers to spot people in the darkness by the heat signature of their bodies. Thermography works in much the same way. It employs a special infrared sensitive camera to digitally record images of the surface temperature of the body. This enables technicians trained in the use of thermography to detect variations in surface body temperature throughout, as well as the entire body. (As a result, thermography is also highly useful for detecting a wide range of other disease conditions, including prostate and other cancers, inflammatory breast disease, fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal disorder, thyroid issues, hiatal hernias, and even early warning signs of heart disease and stroke!)
Abnormal variations in surface body temperature are biomarkers, or “fingerprints”, indicating the sign of tumors or other potential health problems. These temperature variations can be very subtle, but where they occur, it is highly likely that they are signs of a pathology in the breast. That’s because research has shown that the metabolic activity and vascular circulation in both pre-cancerous and cancerous tissues and the surrounding areas of the breast are almost higher, resulting in an increase in surface body temperature compared to that of normal, healthy breast tissue.
This rise in surface body temperature is also due to the way that cancer cells nourish themselves. As cancer cells and tumors grow, they require an ever-increasing supply of nutrients. In order to obtain these nutrients, tumors increase circulation to their cells by diverting nutrients through existing blood vessels, as well as by opening dormant blood vessels and creating new ones (a process called angiogenesis), all of which raises surface body temperature in the areas of the breast wherever blood vessels have been taken over by tumors. These temperature variations are among the very earliest signs that breast tissue has entered into a pre-cancerous or cancerous state. In fact, studies have shown that an abnormal thermography reading is the single most important indication of high risk for developing breast cancer, ten times as significant as a family history of cancer. Currently, only thermography is capable of detecting these temperature variations at their earliest stages.
Another major advantage of thermography is that it is noninvasive and quick, and free of the discomfort associated with mammograms. There is no compression, no direct contact with the body, and no harmful substances to be exposed to, let alone the cancer-causing radiation emitted by mammograms. Instead, all you have to do is allow your body to reach a steady temperature state that is compatible with the special temperature conditions of the thermography room. This usually takes no more than 15 minutes. After that, you will be positioned in front of the thermography camera so that all surfaces of your breasts, upper chest and underarms can be imaged. The images are captured in real time and then transmitted to a sophisticated computer for analysis. The computer allows your doctor to isolate differences in surface body temperature and vascularity. After the images are analyzed, they are graded using a strict standardized system based on five categories. Depending on the results of your exam, further tests may be ordered should there be any indication of breast abnormalities. (It’s important to note that neither thermography nor mammograms can definitively determine whether or not breast cancer is present in patients. Subsequent testing is always necessary for confirmation.) If your reading is normal, then your doctor has a baseline reading of your breasts that she or he can compare to followup thermography readings as part of your annual health checkup.
Now that you know more about thermography I think you will agree with me that thermography belongs on the frontlines of every early cancer detection program.
To locate a thermography center near you, visit www.iact-org.org/links.html
One of the most effective ways women can detect breast cancer, as well as other types of cancer, early and safely is by using thermography. Thermography is a safe and effective alternative to mammograms. Let me explain why this is so and why you absolutely must know about thermography in your fight to protect yourself from cancer.
What Is Thermography?
Thermography is the name given to a diagnostic technique that employs thermal (heat) imaging to allow health practitioners to get a clearer idea about what is taking place inside their patients’ bodies. Breast thermography is the name given to thermography when it is used to screen for signs of breast cancer, as well as for determining the overall health of the breast. Unlike mammograms, breast thermography is 100% safe, and is far more accurate in detecting signs of breast cancer than mammograms are. Mammograms fail to detect breast cancer 20 to 40 percent of the time. By contrast, breast thermography successfully detects breast cancer 90%, and has the added benefit of being able to do so up to 8 to 10 years earlier than mammography.
Research published in the American Journal of Radiology confirms how important breast thermography is in the fight against cancer. In addition to confirming thermography’s 90% accuracy rate, the Journal reported that breast thermography has a 90% specificity rate and a 99% sensitivity rate. No other screening method for breast cancer comes close to these rates. For example, the sensitivity rate for physical breast exams is only 18%, while for mammograms and MRIs it is 70 and 71% respectively. Moreover, since 1982 breast thermography has also been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Despite all these facts, few physicians are even aware of the powerful, health-saving benefits thermography can provide, and fewer still ever tell their patients about it. This is a travesty of the highest order! And it exists largely because of the multiyear and multibillion dollar campaign by the American mammography industry to suppress pubic awareness of thermography. All for the sake of profit at the expense of public safety and well-being!
The following facts make it clear why I stress the importance of thermography to doctors and patients alike. I hope you will pay attention to what I am going to share with you next because it’s vitally important.
Cancer cells double every 90 days. That means it takes 90 days for a single cancer cell to turn into two cells, and approximately one full year before that single cancer cell grows to 16 cells. By the end of year two, if left unchecked, that single cancer cell will have grown to 256 cancer cells, forming a tumor that is .25 centimeters in size. Thermography can detect tumor cells that are even smaller than that—about the size of a single grain of rice. When tumors that small are detected, patients have nearly a 100 percent (99%) chance of long-term survival.
Now consider this: at best, mammography can only detect breast tumors that are 2.5 centimeters in size (about the size of a dime and 10 times the tumor size at the end of year two). This equates to tumors comprised of nearly 4.3 billion cancer cells, a number that will not occur until the end of the eight year after the first cancer cell took hold. Most times, however, mammograms fail to detect breast cancer tumors until they have grown to contain between 69 billion to over 1 trillion cancer cells! Meaning that it is not until the 9th or 10th year, or even later, that mammography will detect breast cancer. (The same is true if breast self-exams, too.) By then, the spread of cancer can often prove too much for conventional cancer treatments to reverse, and also more challenging for practitioners of alternative and integrative cancer care to treat.
Based on the above facts, doesn’t it make sense for all women over the age of 35 to replace their annual mammograms with annual thermography checkups instead? Of course it does!
How Thermography Works
Perhaps you are familiar with night vision goggles used by the military and police agencies. These goggles enable their wearers to spot people in the darkness by the heat signature of their bodies. Thermography works in much the same way. It employs a special infrared sensitive camera to digitally record images of the surface temperature of the body. This enables technicians trained in the use of thermography to detect variations in surface body temperature throughout, as well as the entire body. (As a result, thermography is also highly useful for detecting a wide range of other disease conditions, including prostate and other cancers, inflammatory breast disease, fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal disorder, thyroid issues, hiatal hernias, and even early warning signs of heart disease and stroke!)
Abnormal variations in surface body temperature are biomarkers, or “fingerprints”, indicating the sign of tumors or other potential health problems. These temperature variations can be very subtle, but where they occur, it is highly likely that they are signs of a pathology in the breast. That’s because research has shown that the metabolic activity and vascular circulation in both pre-cancerous and cancerous tissues and the surrounding areas of the breast are almost higher, resulting in an increase in surface body temperature compared to that of normal, healthy breast tissue.
This rise in surface body temperature is also due to the way that cancer cells nourish themselves. As cancer cells and tumors grow, they require an ever-increasing supply of nutrients. In order to obtain these nutrients, tumors increase circulation to their cells by diverting nutrients through existing blood vessels, as well as by opening dormant blood vessels and creating new ones (a process called angiogenesis), all of which raises surface body temperature in the areas of the breast wherever blood vessels have been taken over by tumors. These temperature variations are among the very earliest signs that breast tissue has entered into a pre-cancerous or cancerous state. In fact, studies have shown that an abnormal thermography reading is the single most important indication of high risk for developing breast cancer, ten times as significant as a family history of cancer. Currently, only thermography is capable of detecting these temperature variations at their earliest stages.
Another major advantage of thermography is that it is noninvasive and quick, and free of the discomfort associated with mammograms. There is no compression, no direct contact with the body, and no harmful substances to be exposed to, let alone the cancer-causing radiation emitted by mammograms. Instead, all you have to do is allow your body to reach a steady temperature state that is compatible with the special temperature conditions of the thermography room. This usually takes no more than 15 minutes. After that, you will be positioned in front of the thermography camera so that all surfaces of your breasts, upper chest and underarms can be imaged. The images are captured in real time and then transmitted to a sophisticated computer for analysis. The computer allows your doctor to isolate differences in surface body temperature and vascularity. After the images are analyzed, they are graded using a strict standardized system based on five categories. Depending on the results of your exam, further tests may be ordered should there be any indication of breast abnormalities. (It’s important to note that neither thermography nor mammograms can definitively determine whether or not breast cancer is present in patients. Subsequent testing is always necessary for confirmation.) If your reading is normal, then your doctor has a baseline reading of your breasts that she or he can compare to followup thermography readings as part of your annual health checkup.
Now that you know more about thermography I think you will agree with me that thermography belongs on the frontlines of every early cancer detection program.
To locate a thermography center near you, visit www.iact-org.org/links.html
Medical Genocide?
Each an every day in the United States, more than 5400 people die as a direct result of properly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs or because of a medical error. Since doctors rarely report medical errors, some experts claim that over 15,000 Americans die each day from medical errors.
Illness is not due to pharmaceutical drug-deficiencies. This basic fact underlies the primary flaw inherent in most of conventional Western medicine.
Illness is not due to pharmaceutical drug-deficiencies. This basic fact underlies the primary flaw inherent in most of conventional Western medicine.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Dangers of Mammograms: What You Need To Know (Part 2)
Last time I explained to you why mammograms are so often ineffective at accurately detecting breast cancer. Today I want to tell you why mammograms can actually increase women’s risk of developing breast and other types of cancer. This shocking fact is well-documented, but you won’t hear it from most doctors. But knowing the truth can safe your life, and sharing the truth about cancer is what my mission is all about.
A Man Ahead of His Time
To fully appreciate the information I’m going to share with you today, you first need to know about one of the most brilliant and accomplished doctors and researchers it was my good fortune to learn from. I’m talking about the late Dr. John W. Gofman. Besides being a doctor, John was also a nuclear chemist and one of the world’s foremost experts on the dangers of low-level radiation, including low-level radiation emitted by x-rays and mammograms.
You may not have heard of John before, but chances are very good that you are familiar with at least one of his scientific developments. You see, it was John who, during the 1940s and 50s, discovered the full range of lipoproteins that exist in the bloodstream. More importantly, John’s work produced the first evidence that high blood levels of certain of these lipoproteins, including LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, were an important risk factor for heart disease. John, in collaboration with his colleague Frank T. Lindgren, created a variety of techniques that led him to discover both LDL and HDL (“good”) cholesterol, as well as a variety of other lipoproteins, including those in the triglyceride-class. Thanks to John, today doctors routinely screen their patients to determine their cholesterol and triglyceride levels to help determine their risk of heart disease.
Because of his pioneering work in this area, John received numerous awards and recognition from his medical peers. In 1954, he received the Modern Medicine Award for his “outstanding contributions to heart disease research.” In 1965, the American Heart Association bestowed him with its Lyman Duff Lectureship Award for his research on atherosclerosis and heart disease, and in 1974 The American College of Cardiology selected him as one of the 25 leading researchers in the field of cardiology of the previous quarter-century.
Impressive as John’s work was in the field of cardiology, his greatest contributions came in the field of nuclear energy, which he began working in during the early 1940s, while still a graduate student at Berkeley University. During this period, John was awarded two patents for his work in developing processes that enabled plutonium to be separated from the uranium and fission products of irradiated nuclear fuel. His work in this field eventually led to him joining the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). At the AEC’s request, at the beginning of the 1960s John established the Biomedical Research Division of the AEC’s Livermore National Laboratory in order to study the effects of nuclear energy on health. As his research in this area continued, John began to focus his attention on studying cancer and chromosomes, and the effect that radiation had on chromosomal mutations and gene stability.
By 1969, John, once a strong proponent of the nuclear energy industry, had concluded that human exposure to ionizing radiation was far more dangerous than scientists, including himself, had previously realized. From that point on, he became a leading spokesman calling for a moratorium on the expansion of nuclear power plants and an end to underground nuclear testing. In 1969, he urged that federal safety guidelines for low-level exposures to radiation be reduced by 90 percent, but was ignored. He was ignored. Soon thereafter, the AEC defunded John’s research on chromosomes and cancer.
After a stint as a professor at U.C. Berkeley, John chose to spend the rest of his life conducting pro-bono (free) research into the effects that radiation has on human health. He also founded the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility. His research led him to conclude that “by any reasonable standard of biomedical proof” there is no safe threshold of ionizing radiation for any human being, and that the use of medical diagnostic tools such as x-rays, mammograms, and CT scans, all of which expose patients to ionizing radiation was a co-factor in approximately 75% of all cases of breast cancer in the United States.
Nor was John afraid to speak his mind on this important topic. Here are excerpts from an interview he gave on the subject in 1994:
“The human experimentation that has been done is bad…But for 25 years the DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] has not shown any concern for the health of Americans. Their concern has been for the health of the DOE. Their falsehoods concerning the hazards of ionizing radiation have put not thousands of people at risk, not millions of people, but billions of people.”
“They have been conducting a Josef Goebels propaganda war, saying there’s a safe dose when there has never been any valid evidence for a safe dose of radiation…We can now say, there cannot be a safe dose of radiation. There is no safe threshold. If this truth is known, then any permitted radiation is a permit to commit murder.”
In spite of these views, John was not against the use of x-rays, mammograms or CT scans altogether. He was all for them if, as he said, “there’s a diagnostic gain for you, something that can really make a difference in your health and your life.” But, as he warned, there is another important part to this equation. As John often pointed out, government studies have repeatedly shown that most hospitals and radiologists “didn’t have the foggiest notion of what dose [of radiation] they were giving you for a procedure,” and that doses could vary by as much as a 20 times higher than what was actually needed for diagnosis.
In his book The Health Effects of Common Exams, which he co-wrote with Egan O’Connor, John showed that simply reducing the average dose of radiation used in medical diagnoses by one-third would prevent 50,000 fatal cancers each and every year. That adds up to saving one million lives in every generation!
Despite John’s stature as one of the world’s leading experts on the health effects of ionizing radiation, his claims about radiation’s link to cancer were strongly refuted by the medical establishment and the nuclear energy industry. But to this day, no one has been able to refute any of John’s claims.
John’s struggle to warn us about the dangers of ionizing radiation, including from mammograms, reminds me of the 19th century physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who was the first Western doctor and surgeon to recommend that physicians wash their hands before treating their patients, and especially before surgery. Dr. Semmelweis made this recommendation after his discovery in 1847 that the incidence of puerperal fever, a common life-threatening condition that killed many women during his time after they gave birth, could be reduced to as low as 1% if physicians would simply first wash their hands before they delivered babies. For making this simple and life-saving recommendation, Semmelweis was ruthlessly attacked by the medical establishment of his time, to the point that he suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum where he died. He was only 47 years old. It wasn’t until years afterward that Semmelweis was proven correct, when Louis Pasteur published his famous theory of germs. Think how many lives might have been saved had Semmelweis been listened to instead of mocked and destroyed!
The Medical Establishment Is Still the Same Today
Though Dr. Gofman was also mocked and attacked by his peers over his findings about the health risks of radiation, x-rays, and mammograms, fortunately he was able to live a long and productive life (he passed away in 2007 when he was 88). And, unlike Dr. Semmelweis, decades didn’t have to pass before others confirmed John’s findings. In fact, others came to his defense even while he was still alive. Among them is Dr. Samuel Epstein, another outspoken critic of the cancer establishment.
In his book The Politics of Cancer Revisited, Dr. Epstein estimates that a 20% increased risk of breast cancer could be expected for pre-menopausal women exposed to ten yearly mammograms with two rads per exposure. Yet women today continue not to be warned about this very serious potential risk. Instead, as Dr. Epstein writes, they are “being falsely assured of the benefits” of mammograms, which are still being highly promoted as a preventive deterrent for cancer.
So, here we are in the 21st century, faced with the same arrogance and obstinance on the part of the medical establishment and our own government that Dr. Semmelweis faced two centuries previously. With the same unfortunate results—untold numbers of women who are developing and dying as a direct result of current widely accepted medical procedures, in this case the overuse of mammograms and other diagnostic techniques that emit ionizing radiation.
Fortunately, information, as they say, is power, and my mission is to empower you so that you can escape the clutches of the medical establishment when their recommendations are harmful. Next time, I will tell you about an alternative to mammograms that are not only much safer (completely safe, in fact), but also capable of detecting cancer up to ten years earlier than mammograms can. It’s called thermography, and I will tell you all you need to know about it in my next post. Be sure not to miss it.
To find out more about Dr. John Gofman and his work, I recommend you visit www.ratical.org.
I also recommend the Cancer Prevention Coalition, which was founded by Dr. Samuel Epstein. To find out more, please visit www.preventcancer.com.
A Man Ahead of His Time
To fully appreciate the information I’m going to share with you today, you first need to know about one of the most brilliant and accomplished doctors and researchers it was my good fortune to learn from. I’m talking about the late Dr. John W. Gofman. Besides being a doctor, John was also a nuclear chemist and one of the world’s foremost experts on the dangers of low-level radiation, including low-level radiation emitted by x-rays and mammograms.
You may not have heard of John before, but chances are very good that you are familiar with at least one of his scientific developments. You see, it was John who, during the 1940s and 50s, discovered the full range of lipoproteins that exist in the bloodstream. More importantly, John’s work produced the first evidence that high blood levels of certain of these lipoproteins, including LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, were an important risk factor for heart disease. John, in collaboration with his colleague Frank T. Lindgren, created a variety of techniques that led him to discover both LDL and HDL (“good”) cholesterol, as well as a variety of other lipoproteins, including those in the triglyceride-class. Thanks to John, today doctors routinely screen their patients to determine their cholesterol and triglyceride levels to help determine their risk of heart disease.
Because of his pioneering work in this area, John received numerous awards and recognition from his medical peers. In 1954, he received the Modern Medicine Award for his “outstanding contributions to heart disease research.” In 1965, the American Heart Association bestowed him with its Lyman Duff Lectureship Award for his research on atherosclerosis and heart disease, and in 1974 The American College of Cardiology selected him as one of the 25 leading researchers in the field of cardiology of the previous quarter-century.
Impressive as John’s work was in the field of cardiology, his greatest contributions came in the field of nuclear energy, which he began working in during the early 1940s, while still a graduate student at Berkeley University. During this period, John was awarded two patents for his work in developing processes that enabled plutonium to be separated from the uranium and fission products of irradiated nuclear fuel. His work in this field eventually led to him joining the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). At the AEC’s request, at the beginning of the 1960s John established the Biomedical Research Division of the AEC’s Livermore National Laboratory in order to study the effects of nuclear energy on health. As his research in this area continued, John began to focus his attention on studying cancer and chromosomes, and the effect that radiation had on chromosomal mutations and gene stability.
By 1969, John, once a strong proponent of the nuclear energy industry, had concluded that human exposure to ionizing radiation was far more dangerous than scientists, including himself, had previously realized. From that point on, he became a leading spokesman calling for a moratorium on the expansion of nuclear power plants and an end to underground nuclear testing. In 1969, he urged that federal safety guidelines for low-level exposures to radiation be reduced by 90 percent, but was ignored. He was ignored. Soon thereafter, the AEC defunded John’s research on chromosomes and cancer.
After a stint as a professor at U.C. Berkeley, John chose to spend the rest of his life conducting pro-bono (free) research into the effects that radiation has on human health. He also founded the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility. His research led him to conclude that “by any reasonable standard of biomedical proof” there is no safe threshold of ionizing radiation for any human being, and that the use of medical diagnostic tools such as x-rays, mammograms, and CT scans, all of which expose patients to ionizing radiation was a co-factor in approximately 75% of all cases of breast cancer in the United States.
Nor was John afraid to speak his mind on this important topic. Here are excerpts from an interview he gave on the subject in 1994:
“The human experimentation that has been done is bad…But for 25 years the DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] has not shown any concern for the health of Americans. Their concern has been for the health of the DOE. Their falsehoods concerning the hazards of ionizing radiation have put not thousands of people at risk, not millions of people, but billions of people.”
“They have been conducting a Josef Goebels propaganda war, saying there’s a safe dose when there has never been any valid evidence for a safe dose of radiation…We can now say, there cannot be a safe dose of radiation. There is no safe threshold. If this truth is known, then any permitted radiation is a permit to commit murder.”
In spite of these views, John was not against the use of x-rays, mammograms or CT scans altogether. He was all for them if, as he said, “there’s a diagnostic gain for you, something that can really make a difference in your health and your life.” But, as he warned, there is another important part to this equation. As John often pointed out, government studies have repeatedly shown that most hospitals and radiologists “didn’t have the foggiest notion of what dose [of radiation] they were giving you for a procedure,” and that doses could vary by as much as a 20 times higher than what was actually needed for diagnosis.
In his book The Health Effects of Common Exams, which he co-wrote with Egan O’Connor, John showed that simply reducing the average dose of radiation used in medical diagnoses by one-third would prevent 50,000 fatal cancers each and every year. That adds up to saving one million lives in every generation!
Despite John’s stature as one of the world’s leading experts on the health effects of ionizing radiation, his claims about radiation’s link to cancer were strongly refuted by the medical establishment and the nuclear energy industry. But to this day, no one has been able to refute any of John’s claims.
John’s struggle to warn us about the dangers of ionizing radiation, including from mammograms, reminds me of the 19th century physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who was the first Western doctor and surgeon to recommend that physicians wash their hands before treating their patients, and especially before surgery. Dr. Semmelweis made this recommendation after his discovery in 1847 that the incidence of puerperal fever, a common life-threatening condition that killed many women during his time after they gave birth, could be reduced to as low as 1% if physicians would simply first wash their hands before they delivered babies. For making this simple and life-saving recommendation, Semmelweis was ruthlessly attacked by the medical establishment of his time, to the point that he suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum where he died. He was only 47 years old. It wasn’t until years afterward that Semmelweis was proven correct, when Louis Pasteur published his famous theory of germs. Think how many lives might have been saved had Semmelweis been listened to instead of mocked and destroyed!
The Medical Establishment Is Still the Same Today
Though Dr. Gofman was also mocked and attacked by his peers over his findings about the health risks of radiation, x-rays, and mammograms, fortunately he was able to live a long and productive life (he passed away in 2007 when he was 88). And, unlike Dr. Semmelweis, decades didn’t have to pass before others confirmed John’s findings. In fact, others came to his defense even while he was still alive. Among them is Dr. Samuel Epstein, another outspoken critic of the cancer establishment.
In his book The Politics of Cancer Revisited, Dr. Epstein estimates that a 20% increased risk of breast cancer could be expected for pre-menopausal women exposed to ten yearly mammograms with two rads per exposure. Yet women today continue not to be warned about this very serious potential risk. Instead, as Dr. Epstein writes, they are “being falsely assured of the benefits” of mammograms, which are still being highly promoted as a preventive deterrent for cancer.
So, here we are in the 21st century, faced with the same arrogance and obstinance on the part of the medical establishment and our own government that Dr. Semmelweis faced two centuries previously. With the same unfortunate results—untold numbers of women who are developing and dying as a direct result of current widely accepted medical procedures, in this case the overuse of mammograms and other diagnostic techniques that emit ionizing radiation.
Fortunately, information, as they say, is power, and my mission is to empower you so that you can escape the clutches of the medical establishment when their recommendations are harmful. Next time, I will tell you about an alternative to mammograms that are not only much safer (completely safe, in fact), but also capable of detecting cancer up to ten years earlier than mammograms can. It’s called thermography, and I will tell you all you need to know about it in my next post. Be sure not to miss it.
To find out more about Dr. John Gofman and his work, I recommend you visit www.ratical.org.
I also recommend the Cancer Prevention Coalition, which was founded by Dr. Samuel Epstein. To find out more, please visit www.preventcancer.com.
The Dangers of Mammograms: What You Need To Know (Part 1)
Most women and the men who love them are concerned about breast cancer, and for very good reason. Of all cancers, only lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer each year. Not only will breast cancer strike 1 out of every 8 women during the course of their lives, today breast cancer is striking more and more women much earlier than before. Although it remains true that the risks of developing breast cancer increases with age, being young is no longer a protection against this terrible scourge. In fact, the research shows that 15% of all cases of breast cancer in the United States occur in women who are 45 or younger. More alarmingly, when breast cancer strikes earlier in life it is usually more aggressive, and more fatal than when it strikes older women.
In years past, such a high incidence of breast cancer among young women would have been unthinkable, but no longer. The reason, as I constantly point out, is that we are poisoning ourselves to death with all of the toxins that are so rampant, not only in our environment, but even in our food supply!
But environmental toxicity and poor diet are not the only things you need to be aware of. When it comes to breast cancer, there are other important risk factors to be aware of, as well. One of the most important breast cancer risks is a family history of cancer. If cancer runs in your family, then your risk of developing cancer of any kind is higher. However, 75% of all women who develop breast cancer have no family history of cancer.
Women who are childless or who have their first child after age 30 also tend to have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, as to women who have undergone synthetic hormone therapy, including the use of birth control pills, due to the hormonal imbalances that such therapy can cause. Lifestyle factors, such as smoking, lack of exercise, and poor sleep habits, also increase cancer risks, as does alcohol consumption, including wine. (According to cancer researcher Charles B. Simone, MD, drinking as little as two glasses of wine per week can increase the risk of cancer in women by as much as 50%.) Being overweight is another important risk factor.
Sadly, one of the biggest threats comes from the conventional medical establishment and is routinely used by doctors to detect breast cancer. In reality, as I will explain, the use of this diagnostic technique actually significantly increases the risk of cancer. But the medical establishment refuses to admit it.
I’m talking about mammograms.
Why Mammograms Aren’t Your Best Option
Mammograms, along with breast self-examinations, are recommended by most conventional doctors as the best way for women to detect breast cancer. They involved the use of X-rays that allow doctors to look for dense structures within the breast that can be an indication of a tumor. This form of detecting is known as structural imaging. Research shows that mammograms are useful for detecting breast cancer in 80 percent of all women over the age of 50. However, that means that 20% of women age 50 or older can have breast cancer and not have it detected by mammograms! And the problem is even worse when it comes to women under age 50. Among younger women, a shocking 40% of all cases of breast cancer will fail to be detected by mammograms. As I mentioned above, breast cancer in this age group is usually more aggressive (meaning fast-growing) and more likely to prove fatal.
On top of that, mammograms are largely ineffective for detecting cancer located in the upper area of the breast and within the peripheral areas next to the chest wall. They are also likely to miss signs of breast cancer among women who have large or dense breasts, and women who have had breast augmentation. Fibrocystic breast disease can often also prevent breast cancer from being detected by mammograms.
Based on these facts, along with the reliance on mammograms by the medical establishment, it’s no wonder that so many cases of breast cancer fail to be detected until the cancer has metastasized.
The ineffectiveness of mammograms was highlighted by a study conducted by researchers in Norway that was published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study showed only a 10% decrease in breast cancer death among women who regularly screened for breast cancer using mammography. Based on these findings, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and author of the book Overdiagnosed, stated that “2,500 [women] would need to be screened for 10 years to avoid one death from breast cancer.” In other words, those same 2,500 women, over the course of 10 years, would receive a total of 25,000 mammograms (once every year) and only one life would be saved! Dr. Welsh also pointed out that such widespread used of mammograms among the women would result in about 1,000 false-positive findings (meaning women would be told they had breast cancer when they didn’t, and would invariably then undergo painful and unnecessary biopsies).
Despite these shocking limitations of mammography, both the American Cancer Society and the American College of Radiology continue to recommend that all women 40 and over receive annual mammograms. Fortunately, other organizations, including the American College of Physicians and the U.S. Preventative Task Force, are wising up and no longer recommend mammograms for women under 50.
But that’s not enough. That’s because mammograms can actually cause breast and other types of cancer. This startling fact is something all doctors should be telling their women patients, but they’re not. Not because they are bad people. But because even they don’t realize how dangerous and ineffective mammograms are.
I’ll explain why next time.
References
American Cancer Society. Breast Cancer Guidelines and Statistics, 2009-2010.
Kalager M, et al. Effect of Screening Mammography on Breast-Cancer Mortality in Norway. New Eng J Med 2010 Sept 23; 363:1203-1210.
In years past, such a high incidence of breast cancer among young women would have been unthinkable, but no longer. The reason, as I constantly point out, is that we are poisoning ourselves to death with all of the toxins that are so rampant, not only in our environment, but even in our food supply!
But environmental toxicity and poor diet are not the only things you need to be aware of. When it comes to breast cancer, there are other important risk factors to be aware of, as well. One of the most important breast cancer risks is a family history of cancer. If cancer runs in your family, then your risk of developing cancer of any kind is higher. However, 75% of all women who develop breast cancer have no family history of cancer.
Women who are childless or who have their first child after age 30 also tend to have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, as to women who have undergone synthetic hormone therapy, including the use of birth control pills, due to the hormonal imbalances that such therapy can cause. Lifestyle factors, such as smoking, lack of exercise, and poor sleep habits, also increase cancer risks, as does alcohol consumption, including wine. (According to cancer researcher Charles B. Simone, MD, drinking as little as two glasses of wine per week can increase the risk of cancer in women by as much as 50%.) Being overweight is another important risk factor.
Sadly, one of the biggest threats comes from the conventional medical establishment and is routinely used by doctors to detect breast cancer. In reality, as I will explain, the use of this diagnostic technique actually significantly increases the risk of cancer. But the medical establishment refuses to admit it.
I’m talking about mammograms.
Why Mammograms Aren’t Your Best Option
Mammograms, along with breast self-examinations, are recommended by most conventional doctors as the best way for women to detect breast cancer. They involved the use of X-rays that allow doctors to look for dense structures within the breast that can be an indication of a tumor. This form of detecting is known as structural imaging. Research shows that mammograms are useful for detecting breast cancer in 80 percent of all women over the age of 50. However, that means that 20% of women age 50 or older can have breast cancer and not have it detected by mammograms! And the problem is even worse when it comes to women under age 50. Among younger women, a shocking 40% of all cases of breast cancer will fail to be detected by mammograms. As I mentioned above, breast cancer in this age group is usually more aggressive (meaning fast-growing) and more likely to prove fatal.
On top of that, mammograms are largely ineffective for detecting cancer located in the upper area of the breast and within the peripheral areas next to the chest wall. They are also likely to miss signs of breast cancer among women who have large or dense breasts, and women who have had breast augmentation. Fibrocystic breast disease can often also prevent breast cancer from being detected by mammograms.
Based on these facts, along with the reliance on mammograms by the medical establishment, it’s no wonder that so many cases of breast cancer fail to be detected until the cancer has metastasized.
The ineffectiveness of mammograms was highlighted by a study conducted by researchers in Norway that was published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study showed only a 10% decrease in breast cancer death among women who regularly screened for breast cancer using mammography. Based on these findings, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and author of the book Overdiagnosed, stated that “2,500 [women] would need to be screened for 10 years to avoid one death from breast cancer.” In other words, those same 2,500 women, over the course of 10 years, would receive a total of 25,000 mammograms (once every year) and only one life would be saved! Dr. Welsh also pointed out that such widespread used of mammograms among the women would result in about 1,000 false-positive findings (meaning women would be told they had breast cancer when they didn’t, and would invariably then undergo painful and unnecessary biopsies).
Despite these shocking limitations of mammography, both the American Cancer Society and the American College of Radiology continue to recommend that all women 40 and over receive annual mammograms. Fortunately, other organizations, including the American College of Physicians and the U.S. Preventative Task Force, are wising up and no longer recommend mammograms for women under 50.
But that’s not enough. That’s because mammograms can actually cause breast and other types of cancer. This startling fact is something all doctors should be telling their women patients, but they’re not. Not because they are bad people. But because even they don’t realize how dangerous and ineffective mammograms are.
I’ll explain why next time.
References
American Cancer Society. Breast Cancer Guidelines and Statistics, 2009-2010.
Kalager M, et al. Effect of Screening Mammography on Breast-Cancer Mortality in Norway. New Eng J Med 2010 Sept 23; 363:1203-1210.
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