The previous posting dealt with the efficacy or lack thereof of chemotherapy in the treatment of organ cancers. Because of the undeniable statistics, places like the Ratan Tata Center in Mumbai and several other mainstream medical establishments here in India recently have started experimenting with adjunct therapies that, for one, at least reduce the pernicious side effects of the chemo treatments.
Ozone therapy is one of the approaches, colon hydrotherapy another.
Of course, as doctors and conditioned as we are by our “multiple choice question paper farce of a training”, we can continue to treat the problem in the same old manner that some financially interested parties want us to. As a matter of fact, we ourselves can become one of these parties, with our own interest vested in the disease. And it is true: more money can be made in medicine when the interest of the physician is vested in the disease, rather than the health of the patient. However, when it comes to cancer, if we have the benefit of our fellow human beings at heart, one good look at the following figures will give us reason to pause and think.
We will refrain from mentioning some of the other figures, for example the net worth of each cancer patient to the medical establishment. Such figures, although they play an important role in the politics of medicine, are an insult to any sense of decency. Let us just say: when it comes to the net worth of the patient to the doctor [or doctors] cancer is a gold mine to the doctor[s] and a disaster to the patient, a financial bloodletting, too. Usually the patient loses his life, and his or her family their shirt, or if they are well off, anything from a cuff to a full sleeve. We can see this easily reflected in the fact that the cash drain and subsequent second mortgages triggered by medical emergencies, is one of the main reasons for personal bankruptcy filings in the US. In the past thirty-three years tens of thousands or probably even several hundred thousand families have lost their homes because the “War on Cancer” has completely and utterly failed. This is a very high cost of additional misery beyond the cost in human lives.
Thus, the signs, if we are even willing to read them, are pointing unmistakably in only one direction: that a re-evaluation of the way we look at and treat cancer is overdue. Which of course cannot be accomplished, not even laid out in one short blog posting, like this one. [I am not so naïve as to over-estimate my impact, in the big scheme of things]. But food for thought and hints at a new [albeit not entirely new] perspective, or perspectives, are always helpful, for those whose capacity to think for themselves remains intact. Fortunately, there are more of us than we might have considered possible.
As the figures above suggest, we have to acknowledge the failures of the last forty years cancer research. Considering the results dispassionately, many of the recent approaches appear to have looked at cancer the wrong way. Were it not so, the cancer rate would have come down instead of shooting ever higher. Well maybe there is one exception: leukemia and lymphomas have become more treatable through advances in chemo research. That is a point that needs to be conceded. It is also something to be valued.
However, this one exception of a particular class of cancers notwithstanding, if we truly want to re-evaluate the primary cause for this condition and a suitable approach to dealing with the cancer problem it might actually be a good idea for us to review the findings from the early days and revisit the pioneers in the field.
Based on these “innumerable experiments” that Warburg had conducted together with his staff, toward the end of his career in 1966, he held his famous “Lindau Lecture”, entitled: “The Prime Cause and Prevention of Cancer.” The title alone is a bombshell.
Three words make it so, “prime cause” and “prevention”. Thus, after close to fifty years of research, Otto von Warburg boldly stated at that particular Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting that he had finally understood what causes cancer and also that he could point out how to prevent it, according to his own words, “for 80% of all cases.” Furthermore, since he was addressing this lecture at fellow scientists of the highest caliber and was not at all talking out of the blue to a newspaper reporter of the sensationalist kind, or some uneducated TV news anchor with an attractive face, he had to back his statements every step of the way with data and reproducible experiments. He did both. For this reason it is sort of ridiculous when people today speak of Warburg’s findings as the “Warburg hypothesis”. In truth, we can only speak of the “Warburg discovery”, or the “Warburg proof”. Or does anyone question the validity of Newton’s discoveries by speaking of “Newton’s gravity hypothesis”?
Early on in his scientific career, Warburg had learned to cherish the value of exhaustive experimentation. In fact, in his own words he distinguished between “Experimentation made for the truth and repeated experimentation to convince others.” Having once satisfied himself as to the truth of a discovery, he always proceeded to repeat his experiments twenty to a hundred times before publishing, which explains why he, like his mentor Fischer, produced such a mass of virtually error-free and reproducible results. Which short elaboration of Warburg’s methodology goes to show that, before he held his Lindau lecture, according to his habit Warburg must have run hundreds of different experiments, to make absolutely sure.
Now we can come back to our simplistic headline: Yes, “the trick to being cancer free is in minimal sugar and more oxygen input to the cells!”
At this point, we will not explore the ways and means in which this could be achieved. It would go beyond the scope of this particular posting. What we wanted to accomplish today, is demonstrate that there exists sufficient hard scientific data that confirms that less sugar and better oxygenation combat cancer. This we have done.
Of course it is better to fireproof a house rather than calling in the fire brigade once the fire started. In other words: an ounce of prevention is worth more than ten pounds of cure! Did Otto von Warburg have anything to say about prevention at the Lindau meeting and, if yes, what?
He was indeed very outspoken. He said, “That many experts agree that one could prevent about 80% of all cancers in man, if one could keep away the known carcinogens from the normal body cells. This prevention would require little further research to bring about cancer prevention in up to 80 percent.”
Warburg concluded, “Why then does it happen that in spite of all of this so little is done towards the prevention of cancer? The answer has always been that one does not know what cancer or the prime cause of cancer be, and that one cannot prevent something that is not known. But nobody today can say what cancer and its prime cause be. On the contrary, there is no disease whose rime cause is better known, so that today ignorance is no longer an excuse that one cannot do more about prevention. That prevention of cancer will come there is no doubt, for man wishes to survive. But how long prevention will be avoided depends on how long the prophets of agnosticism will succeed in inhibiting the application of scientific knowledge in the cancer field. In the meantime, millions of men must die of cancer unnecessarily.”
There is nothing that we could add. The good professor said it all. But even if cancer prevention on a large scale is a low priority, who says that you, or I, or anyone cannot individually decide to do the right thing? We actually can. And we do.
If you are interested to find out more about Otto von Warburg, go to: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Otto_Heinrich_Warburg.aspx
If you are interested in the complete text of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Lecture, go to: http://beyondthecurtain.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/the-prime-cause-and-prevention-of-cancer-revised-by-dr-otto-warburg/