Cancer go away.

The news is not good today. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, and there seem to be so many of us now, it does not diminish the initial response when you find out someone else has cancer. The news is still a shock to the spirit, a moment where the breath catches and pauses out of rythmn, and the heart drops into another pool of sadness. As a cancer survivor, you know what is to come for the newly diagnosed, not just the physical, but the mental, the emotional and the spiritual effects for the cancer patient and those who love them.

Cancer. I hate this disease.

You have just learned you have cancer, and I am surviving cancer. With all my heart, I want you to survive cancer too. I walk back through my mind, retracing my footsteps from the day of my cancer diagnosis to this, remembering all the things I did that might have tipped the scales in favor of my living and not dying. I cannot say I know the one thing that it might have been, or the combination of things I might have done, so I want to remember it all. I want to share all of it with you. I want you to be able to tip the scales in favor of life and not death too.

Here is how I approached my diagnosis of cancer, these are the perspectives I held and the steps I took during my cancer treatments and healing. Maybe there is something in all of it that matters, that made a difference, that if you know too, will help you in your healing too.

If passed and signed into law, the Health Freedom Protection Act, H.R. 4282, will provide cancer patients with the right to be told of potential health benefits regarding vitamins, minerals, herbs and other supplements. As it stands now, it is against the law for a company to provide any treatment claims or refer to any relevant scientific evidence proving the effectiveness of a nutrient, herb or supplement that they manufacture or sell.

An excellent example of this restriction is made in the case of curcumin. As stated in the March issue of CancerWire, there are over 500 scientific articles about curcumin and cancer. Curcumin, also known as turmeric, has been shown to be effective in protecting against colon cancer. However, a curcumin manufacturer or distributor can run into serious trouble with the law by sharing this information with a customer who is fighting colon cancer.

Cancer Monthly interviewed attorney Jonathan Emord who practices food and drug law, deceptive advertising law, and libel law. Mr. Emord supports the Health Freedom Protection Act. I am going to share one of the statements he made during the interview that might stun you, as it did me, "Right now FDA censors EVERY nutrient-disease treatment claim. The FDA now prohibits companies from giving to consumers peer-reviewed articles by independent scientists and institutions if they concern the role of a nutrient in treating a disease, including the government's own scientific publications on the role of nutrients in treating disease."

Here is the stunning part of the interview. Emord goes on to say, "Dr. David Graham, the senior FDA drug safety officer explains that on dozens of occasions, FDA allowed into the market unsafe drugs, knowing that deaths would result -- all because it aimed to protect the economic interests of the drug companies that sponsored the drugs." And yet, a company cannot make any claims to the public that curcumin might offer cancer prevention benefits? I checked on H.R. 4282, and it appears there has been no activity on this bill since November 2005.

I do not want to go back to the days where snake oil salesmen traveled from town to town duping the vulnerable out of their hard-earned cash. But this is the 21st century of information-rich, consumer-savvy grown-ups capable of making informed decisions. In my opinion, we do not need big brother protecting us from ourselves. Your opinion?