1. -He's vulnerable, not just because of age, but because of his diagnosis. And the greediest of the greedy, those charlatans, especially those banned in the US who head south to open up shop in Tijuana, who prey on the most vulerable are like vermin who steal one's life force away. I've seen it many times where someone regrets the decision made at the very end. Luckily, the internet can take these people, who have no understanding of cancer physiology, to task, as we educate the cancer patient. As one blogger wrote:

Those people that think this is some big conspiracy between "big-pharm" and "the medical establishment" need to take a step back. Alternative medicine and supplements generate hundreds of billions in revenue every year and are almost completely unregulated. If you are looking for people who are profiting off the backs of those in harms way you had better look at the harm that alternative medicine does every day by offering out a cure ( for not so small profit ) to those most in need of conventional medicine.


-He's uninformed. He has to be if he thinks he will get a cure from the Hoxsey treatment. In othe words he does not know the data.

-He's making an emotional decision. It's completely non-rational if he thinks it will benefit him.

Most of all, he's doomed.

Should he be forced? No. But he should fully informed and right now, he's not. He should also meet with families who have lost loved ones to these "treatments."

Maybe then, he'll change his mind.

Posted at 9:29PM on Jul 25th 2006 by Michelle

2. Vitamin C Treatment

In the mid 70s a dear friend of our family was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months - one year to live. He was told there is nothing we can do get your affairs in order. It was a cancer similar to what this young man has affecting the lymphatic system. He took a medical retirement from the Ingham Co Sheriff's department, they sold their home and headed for Phoenix AZ where there was a top Cancer research center at the University there. The treatment he received was 30,000 units of Vitamin C in crystal form 3 times a day.

I will never forget the look on his face 15 years later when he told us he had been given a full clean bill of health and was cancer free.

The Cancer did return in other forms about 12 years ago and he died 2 years ago of cancer of the spine. He contracted prostate Cancer about 12-13 years ago and the radiation treatment was over done burning his bladder causing bladder cancer which then required the removal of the bladder. It was discovered the clinic in FL he was going to for the treatment miscounted the treatments and ended up giving him 3 more treatments than called for. It then spread to the spine.

However my point here is. If this man had listened to the traditional medical advice of the time in our area he probably would not have had the extra 28 years of great quality of life. He died peacefully at the age of 80 in the arms of his loving wife. His last words to her were: "It has been an honor and a privilege to have you as my wife and best friend. I love you"

Traditional medicine has come a long way and are doing marvelous things with this devastating disease but they are sometimes too quick to poo poo non traditional methods that can and do work.

Vitamin C treatment does have it's place with certain types of cancer.

Posted at 9:15AM on Jul 26th 2006 by Nanc

3. There is no evidence that Vitamin C helped your friend. A testimonial does not mean evidence and testimonials can be harmful:
http://www.skepdic.com/testimon.html

Vitamin C evidence-the latest:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16808775&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

Posted at 12:24PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Michelle

4. I don't know whether Vitamin C or Taxol would be better for a cancer patient. As long as Big Pharma contols the purse strings at academic medical centers, this issue will never be resolved. Before 1981, research was owned by the government. In 1981, the Bayh-Dole Act in Congress changed research centers by giving individual institutions the ownership rights to intellectual property and new technologies developed on campus. Afterall, profits must be protected.

Since then, clinical trials had private industry enter into the equation. For-profit companies take over the venture, doling out payments along the way, paying the university royalties. The business side of academia has exemplified the commercialization of publicly-funded research.

We have produced an entire generation of investigators in clinical oncology who believe that the only valid form of clinical research is to perfrom well-designed, prospective randomized trials in which patients are randomized to receive one empiric drug combination versus another empiric drug combination.

Prospective, randomized, controlled clinical trials cost millions of dollars, but the most promising non-conventional drugs may be public domain, non-proprietary technologies, and therefore unpatentable. No company will invest that much money for something that is difficult to patent. This prevents serendipitous and fortuitous discovery.

Posted at 2:24PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski

5. From September 1993 through June 1994 my wife went through nine months of pretty heavy duty chemo for Hodgkin's. Hers was fairly advanced when diagnosed (no thanks to the HMO "doctors"!), but I don't recall the staging. She withstood all the horror stories one associates with chemo - hair loss, nausea, loss of appetite and weight, infections, and all the rest. There is not really too much I can say positive about the experience, save one thing: Eleven years later, I do not have to speak of her in the past tense, as she is still alive and apparently disease free.

Posted at 3:46PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Warren Taylor

6. You said, "I don't know whether Vitamin C or Taxol would be better for a cancer patient.

Then, you probably don't understand cancer's underlying mechanism. I'd like to know your hypothesis about Vitamin C's role in controlling cancer. Not a positive study result (because there are none), but a hypothesis.

You said, "As long as Big Pharma contols the purse strings at academic medical centers, this issue will never be resolved."

Very cynical. My Dad worked at FDA. The scientists there were highly dedicated and the scientists in private industry were,too. He met with them daily. They are smart, care about cures, and learned to follow the rules of study protocol. And longevity, despite our obesity, laziness, etc. has skyrocketed in 100 years.

You said, "Before 1981, research was owned by the government. In 1981, the Bayh-Dole Act in Congress changed research centers by giving individual institutions the ownership rights to intellectual property and new technologies developed on campus. Afterall, profits must be protected."

50% of funding is privately funded and if you don't think the scientists at those private institutions are trying to find a cure for this dreaded disease then you don't know the scientists.


You said, "Since then, clinical trials had private industry enter into the equation. For-profit companies take over the venture, doling out payments along the way, paying the university royalties. The business side of academia has exemplified the commercialization of publicly-funded research."

Sure this can be a problem, but do you have evidence that profiting means I don't need to do the good research? Give me an example.

We have produced an entire generation of investigators in clinical oncology who believe that the only valid form of clinical research is to perfrom well-designed, prospective randomized trials in which patients are randomized to receive one empiric drug combination versus another empiric drug combination.

That's called the scientific method. As Michael Shermer states:

"It is important to recognize the fallibility of science and the scientific method. But within this fallibility lies its greatest strength: self-correction."

Pseudoscience (see Vitamin C) on the other hand has claims presented so that they appear scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility.


You said, "Prospective, randomized, controlled clinical trials cost millions of dollars, but the most promising non-conventional drugs may be public domain, non-proprietary technologies, and therefore unpatentable. No company will invest that much money for something that is difficult to patent. This prevents serendipitous and fortuitous discovery."

I see no evidence for the statement that "non-conventional drugs are the most promising.

"No company...."

I hear this all the time from the "alternative" crowd. Have heard it for years, decades, yet I still see nothing from this group. No evidence. Nothing. Get some funding, a couple of alternative docs giving IV C infusions and test it. It's not that expensive. I see the cancer patients going into the local clinic for their Vitamin C drips all the time. Get a CA-125 on some ovarian ca patients. Treat half with C and the other half with saline.

Let me know the results.

If you want it done, get it started.

Michele


Posted at 2:24PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski 0 stars

5. From September 1993 through June 1994 my wife went through nine months of pretty heavy duty chemo for Hodgkin's. Hers was fairly advanced when diagnosed (no thanks to the HMO "doctors"!), but I don't recall the staging. She withstood all the horror stories one associates with chemo - hair loss, nausea, loss of appetite and weight, infections, and all the rest. There is not really too much I can say positive about the experience, save one thing: Eleven years later, I do not have to speak of her in the past tense, as she is still alive and apparently disease free.

Posted at 7:20PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Michelle

7. Oncologists have made huge advances in cancer treatment in the past decade...treatments designed to attack cancer cells on several different levels; that can be done in combination to make it even more effective.
On the other hand, why go on only one route? Studies show that patients who are trying alternative treatments and those in denial that the cancer is going to take their life have better survival rates. Hey, try the best of both worlds.

Posted at 11:55PM on Jul 26th 2006 by L

8. L said:

"Studies show that patients who are trying alternative treatments and those in denial that the cancer is going to take their life have better survival rates. Hey, try the best of both worlds."

Sources please? You should not make unsubstantiated statements like this to those who read this blog and may have cancer. Why?

Well, for one, read this:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/325/7372/1066

Michele

Posted at 1:52PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Michelle

9. Speaks the truth better than any media reports to date:

http://www.stats.org/stories/a_tale_two_cancer_jul26_06.htm

Posted at 2:38PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Michelle

10. Michelle -- The Cancer Blog welcomes different opinions and perspectives from all its readers, just has it has welcomed yours. We do not attack, nor do we try to de-value people or their opinion or perspective simply because we may not agree with what they have to say.

We invite all voices to the table for conversation at The Cancer Blog.

And all are welcome to respectfully disagree -- with an emphasis on respect.

Posted at 4:11PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Dalene

11. Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, the new FDA chief, says that he will preside over a transformation in medicine as scientists come to understand diseases in a more detailed way that could improve doctors' ability to treat patients. What he was referring to was the discovery about diseases like cancer at the molecular level. Much of what has been done previously, has been based on the antiquated model of empiricism.

Now doctors will be able to intervene with medical treatments more effectively matched to a specific patient's illness. Doctors treated illnesses based on how well other people have responded to a given treatment. Now, they can develop a tailored response built around specific understandings of the patient, the treatment and the disease.

I am enamoured by the thought of von Eschenbach's belief that much of what has been done has been based on a model of empiricism, but now, doctors should be able to intervene with medical treatments more effectively matched to a specific patient's illness (individualized treatment).

The era of empiric, aggressive multi-agent cytotoxic chemotherapy for adult solid tumors should come to an end. We should put much more emphasis on matching the treatment to patient, through the use individualized testing, have more respect for minimal partial response or stable disease, when it can be achieved through the use of the least toxic and mutagenic drug regimens, and reserve the use of higher dose therapy or agressive combination chemotherapy to those fortunate patients with tumor biologies most amenable to attack and total or near-total destruction by these aggressive treatments.

Improving cancer patient diagnosis and treatment through a combination of cellular and gene-based testing will offer predictive insight into the nature of an individual's particular cancer and enable oncologists to prescribe treatment more in keeping with the heterogeneity of the disease. The biologies are very different and the response to given drugs is very different.

I wish him much success.

Posted at 8:36PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski

12. Does a 16 year old have a "right to be duped?"
As suggested in the link, this is how the "truthiness", as Colbert states, should have been addressed:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/starchild-cherrix-case-_b_25919.html

Posted at 12:50AM on Jul 28th 2006 by Michelle

13. I guess if yo u want to refute my statements you should contact the University at Phoenix AZ and ask if they were doing treatment for Cancer in the 70s with Vitamin C in Crystal form. I know that is where they went and I know that is where he recieved the treatment I know when he announced to the family he had been given a clean bill of health by his oncologist there. So perhaps you should argue with the Drs there not with me. I know he just died about 3-4 years ago and live a very good life when he was not supposed to be on this earth 6 months after his diagnosis.

Posted at 10:57PM on Jul 28th 2006 by Nanc

14. I apologize if I offended you. I merely want to make sure that others who are interested in the topic see both sides to the story. As to your statement:

"I guess if yo u want to refute my statements you should contact the University at Phoenix AZ and ask if they were doing treatment for Cancer in the 70s with Vitamin C in Crystal form," I did not mean to refute this and I don't think I did. What I meant to say was that there is no scientific evidence that he was helped by Vitamin C. It is not up to me to disprove the association, it is up to proponents to prove the association. I could just as easily state that since I get my newspaper delivered every day at sunrise, then the sun must create my paper. There's merely an association, not a cause and effect.

So that other cancer patients, people who live with the knowledge daily that they have this dreaded disease, are fully informed before they make a decision that may have questionable benefit, may be beneficial, or in fact may be harmful, and can be very expensive, we should present the data.

Your statement, "Vitamin C treatment does have it's place with certain types of cancer," requires such data.

Actually, we can go back to the 1970s for some data:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=384241&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_docsum

Michele

Posted at 12:04AM on Jul 29th 2006 by Michelle

15. http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/Columns/articles.asp?articleID=3487

Posted at 12:30AM on Jul 30th 2006 by Nanc

16. "Dr. Sakamoto ran a similar test in Japan, and about 84 percent of his patients were living 13 years after the treatment."

This is an inflammatory article with no citations. OK, so he treated lymphoma patients with radiation. Was it low grade or high grade?

Researchers already know that 70 to 85% of patients with advanced-stage low-grade lymphoma respond to total-body irradiation. About 25% remain free of the disease five years after treatment. Notice, that's low-grade. Mr. Cherrix has high grade lymphoma. They are not the same. Mr. Cherrix wants a cure.

The article states, "Many successful treatments for cancer have been developed over the years which are far kinder and gentler, but they have been suppressed by the medical establishment."

Sources? Evidence?

The article states, "We have wasted billions of dollars and years of effort on cancer research with little to show for it."

Just plain wrong and could be seen by those with cancer as depressing. But, it is not depressing as the data indicates:

http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Health/6-02-09-CancerDeathsContinueDecline.htm

Sure, there is much work to do, but this conspiracy talk is along the lines of the internet urband legend stuff.

Before too many cancer patients think the scientists are in it for the money (and , btw, academics make little) and not the patient, perhaps one should be educated about conspiracy theories after they read articles like the one cited above:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

Michele

Posted at 9:28AM on Jul 30th 2006 by Michelle

17. I think it is our own choice what we do with our bodies and what we put in them. No court, doctor or social worker should even have a say let alone the final decision expecially when medicine is just considered a practice and there is no known cure.
I have seen what radiation and chemo can do to a person. It made my grandmother very ill. How can a body fight when it is weak and contaminated with toxic chemicals. It prolonged her death.
My cousins wife (33yrs old) had breast cancer. she is now cancer free but her thyroid was killed by the radiation. She is now on thyroid medication for the rest of her life. She now raises money for cancer research. Visit: WWW.InspiredByYou.org
My uncle had cancer removed and treated with chemo and radiation 1 yr ago. He just found out that it back now in his prostate.
He ,just like the 16 yr old, is refusing to be treated with the same conventional cancer treatment. Hes now researching doctors
that will give him the vit. C treatments. I will post back when he knows how this method is working.
I consider myself a high risk for cancer since both grandmothers along with 4 other aunts and uncles lost their life to cancer.
Until there is a cure, seek out information from all sources and choose what you are comfortable with.
Peace~

Posted at 2:28AM on Aug 2nd 2006 by lou

18. Abraham. I hope you are as well as you can be. My energies are in support of healing you.

i was diagnosed with hodgkin's lymphoma stage 4 a/b and given 6 months to live with treatment when I was 18. I am 34. i have not had a miraculous recovery. In fact over the past 18 years i have received over 6 1/2 years of various chemo cocktails, stem cell transplants, infusions, re-infusions, surgeries, infections, suffered from iron anchor like fatigue, nausea, vomitting, dehydration, chemical dependencies, severe and suicidal depressive episodes lasting months and years and 5 consultaions with specialists to discuss how long and how hellish they predicted the rest of my life to be.

i have read most of the comments on this particular blog and am fascinated by the personal knowledge of cancer from non-cancer patients(lucky them, so far).

I have spent almost two decades within the walls of the 'cancer society.' Cheers for longevity, hardly. My life has been crippled, hope dangled before me now a vision of rotting flesh. My mind has been mangled by probabilities and studies. My heart massacred by those who needed to believe that a hard, twisted, tortuous existence was better than no existence. In their insanity their suggestions and requests are barked out like omnipotent seers of futures told, futures sold. None with a moment or less of cancer infiltrating there being. Although projected with the clarity of one who knows.

Nobody knows. Nobody is more right or more wrong. yes there are charlatans, quacks, snake oil salesmen, like in every business, in every way. There are good physicians and bad physicians, positive studies and negative studies, sometimes there have been no studies. So what!!!

Follow your beleifs, your heart, your spirit.

Do what feels good, mentally and spiritually. Physically!? tough call. A call only you can make.

Stay strong and stay open. There is a world of possibilities out there.

As for the cancer. Scientific, spiritualistic, or homeopathic, there is a lot of money being made from disease, that is the fault of our societal structure not the blame of your personal choice.

Choose to remember each moment positively, exude kindness and when we all get smacked by our random Mac truck no one will be talking about treatment choices.

Whatever works for your entire life, not just your "still beating on the monitor must be alive" life.

Strength, laughter and stubborness. They will always be my weapons of choice.

After 20 years I would take a different path. And that my friend is an opinion made from true experience. Mine.

And as for all you other wanna be soap box cancer ravaged ranters. Shut up.

Posted at 12:10PM on Aug 2nd 2006 by spike

19.
Early stage Hodgkin's lymphoma means stage 1 or 2 disease. Between 75 and 95 out of every 100 people (75 to 95%) diagnosed with early stage disease are cured.

With the more advanced stage 3 and 4 Hodgkin's lymphoma between 50 and 70 out of every 100 people (50 to 70%) will be cured.

Pretty good odds. What are the chances of a cure from no treatment?

If you know the odds and would like a cure, I think there's no doubt what you try. If you've had enough, then stop trying.

The 16 year old does not know the data. He needs to know the data from the "clinic" in Tijuana. If he doesn't care to know and he understands that, in fact, there is none, then by all means, he should do what he wants to do.

Lou states, "How can a body fight when it is weak and contaminated with toxic chemicals. It prolonged her death."

At her stage of disease, her body can't fight cancer, but the chemicals can. It doesn't prolong death. Death comes when you take your final breath. It prolonged her life, although she was sick. She was hoping for a cure, but in her case it just didn't work. She took a chance, a good one. It was her decision and I'm hopeful she was informed about the side effects.

An informed decision should be respected.

Michele

Posted at 8:59AM on Aug 3rd 2006 by Michelle

20. Andrew Cherrix shouldn't be forced by the government to do anything regarding his health. This is the parents' responsibility, not the state, for a child's health. Whether Andrew is 16 or 6, it doesn't matter. His parents are the people in charge of his life, not the government. If they were abusing their kid or something, then it's a crime, of course the government would have to step in and do something about it. But this is a matter of opinion, which treatment is better. There's no crime in that. The government is way too involved in other people's business.

Posted at 2:46PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by Jessica Raymond