Alternative Medicine
You Don't Have to be Sick: On the Edge with Burton Goldberg
Cancer Facts & Betrayals
The Government Is Lying to You about Alternative Cancer Treatments
Like many American taxpayers, until recently I believed that the Office of
Alternative Medicine (OAM), within the National Institutes of Health in
Washington, D.C., was there to provide citizens with information about
alternatives in disease treatment.
When I recently inquired what OAM had on alternative cancer treatments, I
was shocked to discover that all they offer is party-line conventional
methods courtesy of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) which seems to
exist solely to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on unproductive research
and the suppression of effective alternatives.
Until earlier this year, OAM sent out a free copy of the "Cancer" chapter
from our Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide to those who needed
information on alternative cancer treatments. This has stopped abruptly.
Now OAM sends out a 3-page statement that dismisses "unconventional"
treatments as being essentially worthless and unproven. Here's what their
"Cancer Facts" sheet says:
First, "Many proponents of unconventional methods of cancer treatment make
claims that are not or cannot be scientifically confirmed." The proof is in
the clinic. Ask the patients who have been healed; study the medical
reports of the doctors who have produced these healings. Science is based
on real observation, not abstract theory. Alternative physicians observe
their patients and adjust accordingly. I ask the NCI: where is the
scientific proof for the claims that chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery
are effective in treating cancer? The proof does not exist.
Second, "Practitioners of unconventional treatments are held to the same
research standards as those of any scientist." This means they must be
evaluated in controlled double-blind clinical trials. This is impossible
and inappropriate given the way alternative therapies work. They are based
on a multifaceted treatment; very often an "unconventional" cancer doctor
uses several dozen substances and therapies at the same time to get the
best combined effect.
There is no single magic bullet in the alternative approach; conventional
research standards are worthless with respect to proving what works in our
kind of medicine. Further, each patient is different and needs a different
dosage and combination of remedies. There is no single boilerplate recipe
for treating cancer.
Third, the OAM paper advises readers that "because treatments for cancer
must be very powerful, they frequently have unpleasant side effects." This
is shameful. Of course chemotherapy and radiation are powerful: like a
nuclear bomb, they kill everything in sight. The side effects are not
"unpleasant;" they are always toxic and sometimes fatal. There are almost
always no "side effects" in alternative cancer approaches; there are only
healing effects because the remedies and therapies actually work with the
body, not against.
Fourth, OAM states that if you use unconventional methods this "may result
in the loss of valuable time and the opportunity to receive potentially
effective therapy." This "consequently reduces a patient's chances for cure
or control of cancer." Since when does conventional oncology ever talk in
terms of "cure"?
The alarming fact is that the reverse is true: If you rely on conventional
methods, you are much more likely to lose time and possibly your life than
if you gave the alternatives a chance. Many people with cancer die because
of their misplaced trust in chemotherapy and radiation.
Fifth, "No one genuinely committed to finding better ways to treat a
disease would knowingly keep an effective treatment a secret or try to
suppress such a treatment." This is an amazing piece of contortionist
propaganda. OAM offers this in defense of the claim by alternative doctors
that the mainstream medical community tries to keep their alternative
treatments from the public. The fact is that medical alternatives are
suppressed, so we must conclude that the OAM, NIH, and NCI, by their own
statement, are not genuinely committed to finding better ways to treat
disease because they actively suppress information about these treatments.
For complete information on the bills in Congress pertaining to alternative
medicine and more political perspectives on medical care, see "The Politics
of Medicine," this issue.
These are the cancer facts. The betrayals come next. The OAM was set up a
few years ago at the instigation of a few well-intentioned members of
Congress. Granted, they gave OAM only a few million dollars to work with to
investigate the claims and successes of a burgeoning medical field, but the
project was launched with a good measure of enthusiasm, integrity, and
promise.
However, the fatal mistake was placing OAM within the NIH. This is like
asking the fox to guard the chicken coop. How can NIH, dedicated to
conventional methods, objectively oversee the investigation of
alternatives? What NIH can oversee quite skillfully is the adulteration,
perversion, and ruin of a publicly-funded office that was supposed to
fairly inform the taxpayer about new and alternative treatments for disease.
From what I've heard through the Washington grapevine, the OAM has been
sanitized and made submissive by NIH, so that it is now an obedient and
unproductive bureaucracy. People who know about alternative medicine are
being forced out while people who are indifferent to it or lack any working
knowledge of it are pushed to the forefront. Projects are being derailed,
funds are wasted, and public information activities are staffed by people
unsympathetic to alternative medicine.
Now, information available to the public is restricted to only those
alternative treatments with the NIH seal of approval. We might as well have
the FDA running the show for all the legitimate attention alternative
therapies will receive in this climate of lying and betrayal of the public
trust.
But as NIH, NCI, and OAM are financed by our tax dollars-my money and
yours-I am not willing to settle for this betrayal. I hope you're not
either. We're paying for it. We must demand better because they're supposed
to be working for us. The life you save may be your own.
Express your dissatisfaction by writing:
NIH, Office of the Director, Harold Varmus, M.D., Room 126, NIH 1,
Bethesda, MD 20892; tel: 301-496-1766;
National Cancer Institute, Richard D. Klausner, M.D., Director; 31 Center
Drive, MSC 2590, Building 31, Room 11A48, Bethesda, MD 20892. tel:
301-496-5615; fax: 301-402-0338; e-mail:
[email protected].
Office of Alternative Medicine, Wayne Jonas, M.D., Director; NIH, EPS
Building, Room 450, 6120 Executive Plaza Blvd., Rockville, MD 20852; tel:
301-402-2466. e-mail:
[email protected]
The cancer fact is this: cancer is treatable and reversible using
alternative therapies. The betrayal is in OAM's refusal to tell the public
and in their NIH-inspired lie that unconventional methods are medically
suspect.
I challenge OAM Director Wayne Jonas, M.D., to talk with our alternative
cancer doctors and examine their results. We have seen cancer reversed; we
have talked with the patients and taken their testimonials. The public has
a right to learn this, especially when it is funding a government office
supposedly chartered for precisely that purpose. OAM must be allowed to
operate independently of NIH's party line.
The lies and betrayals of the conventional medicine establishment are
coming to light. We must all use our citizen's right to call, fax,
complain, demand, and vote until we have a medical system able to serve our
health needs.
The American Medical Association (AMA) recentlyapproved a resolution to
"encourage its members tobecome better informed regarding the practices and
techniques of alternative or unconventional medicine." A representative of
AMA's Council of Scientific Affairs urged members to reduce their use of
negative language, such as "quackery," and to remain open to information
about alternatives.