Billions of £’s and $’s poured into

PROSTATE CANCER

research but still no cure.

For many years now we have tried to get across to readers of Prostate Focus that there is no current treatment which will cure prostate cancer.  Treat yes, cure no.  To those who said that many have had early treatments and are still alive we would say it is just possible that they never had an aggressive cancer in the first place.

The fallacy that early diagnosis and early treatment, (the mantra used in the last decade of the last century, especially in the U.S.A.), has foundered on the rocks of later research.  Now it is accepted, even by doctors, that prostate cancer, like breast cancer, has been one of the most over treated conditions.

With over 200,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the U.S each year the latest report is of little comfort to those who now have the cancer (some 35,000 in the UK) and who look to the researchers with their multimillions of research monies to produce a cure.

Many sceptics call the charities and pharmaceutical companies the cancer industry.  Many also claim that the last thing the cancer industry wants to do is produce a cure as such a cure would put millions out of work and close down manufacturing plants around the world.

So what is the recent report which outlines the failure of the medical world in respect of prostate cancer ?  Produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, it is the result of the analysis of hundreds of studies in an effort to be able to advise men about the best treatments for prostate cancer. The report compared the effectiveness and risks of eight prostate cancer treatments, ranging from prostate removal and radioactive implants to no treatment at all.

None of the studies provided definitive answers.

Surprisingly, no treatment emerged as superior to doing nothing at all,

(i.e. Watchful Waiting).

Just think what that means, not one of the treatments your GP or specialist will suggest you have, if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, will provide you with any relief to a higher degree than not having any treatment at all.

Now that is what we have been saying for over a decade.

Now doing nothing at all may seem a cop out but it has the big advantage in that you, as a patient do not have to bear the often considerable side effects produced by the treatments on offer.  These can range from impotence and incontinence to incapacity if implanted radioactive seeds should migrate around the body and cause radioactive damage to vital organs. (This is exactly what happened to Dave Dee of the 60’s group Dave Dee, Mickey etc etc.)  

So bearing in mind the Agencies detailed research it would seem that unless your medic advises that you have a very high Gleason Score and death is imminent you would do better to enjoy life and avoid all treatments.

Of course there are other options which your medic may not mention.  A drastic diet change for one and/or high doses of Vit C or Vit B17 to name a couple, Google for more information.

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Vicar. "Now George, did our doctor sort out your prostate problem ?"

George. "'Well your reverence, yes and no. He offered me some treatments

but no cure so I thought I would just get on with life."

A recent email I received is relevant to a ‘cure’ using Vitamin C.

My mother beat end-stage
breast cancer with vitamin C

Now the American ‘cancer industry’ wants to control the supplements cancer victims take

My mother, Edith, was 76 when she was diagnosed with end-stage breast cancer.  She’d nursed the disease for more than two years without telling a soul.  By the time she finally went to the doctor, he gave her the grimmest prognosis:  she had just three months to live.  

Edith was too late for chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery or drugs; instead, he put her on morphine and told us we should get her ‘affairs in order’ and wait for her to die.

Suddenly our own research could help us

After helping thousands of others with the research we’d gathered in preparing our health journal ‘What Doctors Don't Tell You’, we suddenly found we needed it for our own family.

We knew that cancer isn’t always a death sentence, even when the person has reached the so-called end stage.  We also knew that cancer was the response to a complex series of inter-actions, including diet, lifestyle, and emotional well-being.  

But the key to Edith’s treatment was the knowledge that the ‘cancer industry’ had got it wrong about vitamin C.  Study after study had shown that the vitamin didn’t help kill cancer, but every one of them had tested the vitamin as an oral supplement – and we knew it was effective only when given intravenously.  Best of all, we knew someone who could administer the vitamin, and at very high doses.

The practitioner – who has since retired – also changed my mother’s diet, and put her on nutritional supplements.

Within six months, the tumours on Edith’s breast had cleared up. 

The family doctor who had forecast her death spotted her in the street a year later – and was sure he’d seen a ghost!  He whisked her back to the surgery, carried out x-rays on her breast – much against our wishes – and confirmed that, indeed, the cancer had completely disappeared.

Looking back, I suppose my mother was fortunate to have us around with the knowledge we’d gathered while working on ‘What Doctors Don't Tell You’.  She was certainly of a generation that was prepared to take the doctor’s word as final and, until she was diagnosed, hadn’t touched a vitamin supplement in her life.

The ‘cancer industry’ wants to stop us all taking vitamins.

This week we have heard that ‘the cancer industry’ would like to stop every cancer patient taking vitamins.  

Researchers funded by the National Cancer Institute have discovered that around 81 per cent of cancer patients are taking a vitamin.  Around a third of these just started taking vitamins after hearing they had cancer – after all, what could be a more normal response?  

But the researchers are worried because most doctors treating them don’t know their patients are taking vitamins – and the National Cancer Institute is concerned that the supplements might be interfering with the treatment they’re receiving.

In other words, cancer patients should be getting only chemo or surgery – not nutrition.  To ‘support the cause’, please begin by clicking here.

 Bryan Hubbard
Publisher
What Doctors Don't Tell You

What is not publicised about prostate cancer is that it is normally a slow growing cancer and most men die from causes other than their cancer. This is obvious when you link the numbers diagnosed in the USA at 218,000 last year with the number of deaths at 27,000.

It may seem shocking when I tell you that the risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer has doubled since the 1980’s until you are told that prior to this time most cancers just were not discovered until they had spread from the gland.  It was only in the last decade of the last century that many men in the UK became aware of the PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) test.  

What the PSA test did in many cases was diagnose men with minute cancers.  So the surgeons had thousands of men coming forward diagnosed with PC and began removing the prostate gland in a vain attempt to cure the cancer.  Now it has been discovered that the majority of men do not have aggressive cancer and do not need such early aggressive treatment.  

Indeed the risk of dying from a prostate cancer remains about 3 percent.

“Considerable over detection and over treatment may exist,'’ the Washington Post advised in an article earlier this year.

“When it comes to prostate cancer, we have much to learn about which treatments work best,'’ said agency director Carolyn M. Clancy. “Patients should be informed about the benefits and harms of treatment options.”

What does over treatment mean for the thousands of men who, through lack of knowledge, agree to go ahead with the treatments their medics advise :-

·                         All current treatments cause health problems, primarily urinary incontinence, bowel problems and erectile dysfunction. The chances of bowel problems or sexual dysfunction are similar for surgery and external radiation. Leaking of urine is at least six times more likely among surgery patients than those treated by external radiation.

·                        Urinary leakage that occurs daily or more often was more common in men undergoing radical prostatectomy (35 percent) than external-beam radiation therapy (12 percent) or androgen deprivation (11 percent). Those were the findings of the 2003 Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study, a large, nationally representative survey of men with early prostate cancer.

·                        External-beam radiation therapy and androgen deprivation were each associated with a higher frequency of bowel urgency (3 percent) compared with radical prostatectomy (1 percent), according to the 2003 report.

·                        Inability to attain an erection was higher in men undergoing active intervention, especially androgen deprivation (86 percent) or radical prostatectomy (58 percent) than in men receiving watchful waiting (33 percent), according to the 2003 report.

·                        Adding hormone therapy prior to prostate removal does not improve survival or decrease recurrence rates, but it does increase the chance of adverse events.

·                        Combining radiation with hormone therapy may decrease mortality. But compared with radiation treatment alone, the combination increases the chances of impotence and abnormal breast development.

Not a very good outlook is it ? 

If alternative treatments can work with no side effects then surely it would be worth while trying them during a period of watchful waiting.

It is many years since radical prostatectomy and radiation began to be used yet there have still not been any long term studies to see how effective they are. Studies comparing brachytherapy, radical prostatectomy, external-beam radiation therapy or cryotherapy were discontinued because of poor recruitment.

Two ongoing trials, one in the United States and one in Britain, are evaluating surgery and radiation treatments compared with watchful waiting in men with early cancer. Other studies in progress or development include cryotherapy versus external-beam radiation and a trial evaluating radical prostatectomy versus watchful waiting.

How the medical profession could continue to use techniques for decades without any trials is truly amazing.  If I produced a drug and claimed it cured prostate cancer I would not be allowed to market it without spending millions on trials. Yet here we have surgical and radiotherapy treatments being used on tens of thousands of men for decades with no proof of their efficacy.

So the cancer industry in an effort to show how well they are spending your  multi millions of pounds produce graphs usually based on five year survival periods to show, they claim, that things are getting better.  But like much else in our world today what is said is not borne out by the facts.

For instance Cancer Research UK have coloured graphs which appear to show ‘the relative five-year survival rate for men diagnosed in England in 2000–01 was 71%, compared with only 31% for men diagnosed in 1971–75.’  The problem is they are not comparing like with like. 

Very few men knew anything about prostate cancer in the seventies.  Indeed until the PHA was started in 1993 there was not one other prostate charity or help group in the UK.

So this meant only men with aggressive cancer were diagnosed, for there was no test to discover minute cells hidden in the prostate tissue. This also meant  that the majority of men had PC which was well developed and toward the end of its maturity. Ergo a patients chance of living another five years following diagnosis were very slim.

By 2000 however PSA testing was very much the ‘in thing’ and thousands of men were being diagnosed with PC but many were the carriers of minute cancer cells most of which would be ‘pussy cat cells’, or even if aggressive would not achieve maturity for years possibly exceeding ten years yet alone five.

So the fact is that it is early detection which has produced, what appears to show a better life span and not better treatment.

Billions of ££’s and $$’s have gone from the public and private purse into the coffers of the charities and pharmaceutical research departments. As already said the cancer industry is a vast and hungry collossus.

CaP CURE, also known as The Prostate Cancer Foundation, was founded in 1993 by philanthropist and financier Michael Milken and his family. The mission of CaP CURE is to eradicate prostate cancer as a health risk for men and their families. CaP CURE funds a diverse array of promising, early-stage research projects and has provided more than $120 million to 1100 critical research projects in 100 research centres around the world.

Through CaP CURE’s efforts, U.S. Federal funding of prostate cancer research has increased significantly, from $25 million to more than $500 million, enabling the development of important research programs throughout the world.

So add together CaP CURE’s and the U.S. governments inputs and you have a total of well over half a $billion.  With thousands of other prostate groups and charities also collecting and funding research we must be way over a $billion.

A more modest amount from the UK. Our major prostate charity has expended over £6 million since it began in early 1994.  Like the US we now have hundreds of prostate groups and charities raising thousands of pounds all pouring into the research organisations. 

As I said a vast and powerful web of businesses.  All this money for prostate cancer research.

Over a decade and yet not one of the existing treatments are deemed to be better than watchful waiting. What makes it even worse is that not one of those existing treatments are without serious side effects which can damage a mans’ enjoyment of life. But I guess the cash has kept researchers, secretaries, public relations, not to mention the fund raisers and other back room people in work and able to pay their mortgage payments. (PD)