War on Cancer

In 1971, many sponsors of the War on Cancer predicted a cure by 1976. Instead, this multibillion dollar research program has proven to be a failure.

Overview
The age adjusted total cancer mortality rate climbed steadily for decades until the early 1990s, when the rate started to fall slowly, due largely to reduced smoking. To encourage continued support for cancer research, now exceeding two billion dollars annually in the U.S. alone; researchers and administrators have misled the public. In 1987, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the statistics from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) "artificially inflate the amount of 'true' progress", concluding that even simple five-year survival statistics were manipulated. The NCI termed five-year survival a "cure" even if the patient died of the cancer after the five-year period. Also, by ignoring well known statistical biases, the NCI falsely suggested advances had been made in certain cancer therapies.

Failure of toxic "therapies"
In 1971 when the U.S. declared war on cancer, scientists still hadn't identified the immune defense system. Doctors and scientists, along with the American Cancer Society, continue to refer to a non-contagious condition with no incubation period or identifiable foreign invader as a "disease". Scientists have requested and received billions in grants from the federal government, non-profit organizations, corporate and private donors. However, according to critics, like the New England Journal of Medicine, the "war on cancer" is a failure. According to John C. Bailar III, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of the Dept. of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at McGill University:


 * "Despite $30 billion spent on research since 1970, cancer remains undefeated, with a death rate not lower but actually higher than when they started. The effect of new treatments for cancer has been largely disappointing. The failure of chemotherapy to control cancer has become apparent even to the oncology establishment."

The late Professor of Medical Physics, H.B. Jones, was a leading U.S. cancer statistician. In a 1969 speech to the American Cancer Society, he stated that studies had not proved that chances of survival were improved by early intervention. In fact, according to his studies, untreated persons with cancer lived up to four times longer and with a better quality of life than treated ones. He was not invited back. According to the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet:
 * "If one were to believe all the media hype, the triumphalism of the medical profession in published research, and the almost weekly miracle breakthroughs trumpeted by the cancer charities, one might be surprised that women are dying at all from breast cancer."

Cancer for profit
According to the oncologist, Glen Warner, M.D.:


 * "We have a multi-billion dollar industry that is killing people, right and left, just for financial gain. Their idea of research is to see whether two doses of this poison is better than three doses of that poison."

NCI & clinical trials for hydrazine sulfate
According to "The $200 Billion Scam", published in Penthouse in 1997:


 * "In the 25 years since the federal government declared War on Cancer, an estimated $200 billion has been spent by U.S. taxpayers and private investors on research that has produced so little bang for the buck that it makes the Pentagon's $600 toilet seats look like bargains for every American home. The cancer industry has become a huge jobs program for brilliant, even highly motivated, doctors and other scientists, whose efforts are misguided by the economic forces behind the industry. Directly put, it's in the interests of all the fat cats in government and private enterprise who earn their living and status from what is largely a failed enterprise, to stick with it. That is why a drug like hydrazine sulfate is dumped on by the cancer establishment, instead of given legitimate support and honest evaluation."

The General Accounting Office (GAO) defied logic, reason, and science to give its blessing to the NCI's deliberately biased testing of hydrazine sulfate which produced false results to make it appear ineffective. NCI higher administrators who wrote the report also and ignored evidence pointing to rigged clinical trials.

American Cancer Society
The American Cancer Society ACS is largest non-religious charity in the world. As of the fiscal year ending in August of 2007, the ACS had a net revenue 1.17 billion dollars. ACS's daily expenditures exceed one million dollars with only approximately 16% going into patient cancer programs. The rest is funneled into expensive research and bureaucratic overhead. Meager prevention programs are designed not to offend the industry. The average American diagnosed with cancer spend upwards of $25,000 of their savings on cures to save or lengthen their lives. However, claims of 'progress' include many people with benign diseases. Those in remission for longer than 5 years are declared cured, although many of those will die from either cancer or treatment after five years. Corporate donors include processed food industryand pharmaceutical industry giants like Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, AstraZeneca, Novartis and Walmart as well as Metropolitan Life Insurance.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
A look at financial relationships between large facilities such as the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and corporations making billions in profits from chemotherapy drugs, is extremely telling as to its continued use in the face of such failure. Furthermore, expensive laboratories and diagnostic equipment have already been paid for by large corporations.

Craig B. Thompson, MD President and CEO of MSKCC, is also on the Board of Directors for Merck Corporation.

James D. Robinson III Honorary Chairman, is also former Chairman of Bristol-Myers Squibb, the world's largest producer of chemo drugs. Paul Marks, MD, MSKCC's former President and CEO, is the former Director of Pfizer. Another board member, Richard Furlaud, recently retired as Bristol Myers' president.

The late Richard Gelb was Vice-Chairman of the MSKCC board as well as CEO of Bristol-Myers. ,

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency in the U.S. government conducting and funding medical research. MSKCC Director Thomas Kelly, M.D., Ph.D. serves on the both the NIH Advisory Committee and Scientific Management Review Board.

Cancer United
Cancer United is a pharmaceutical industry front group established by the Weber Shandwick public relations firm. It is funded entirely by Roche.

Cancer & animal testing
More is spent on cancer than any other medical problem. There are more people living off of cancer than cancer sufferers. Millions of laboratory animals, including rats, mice, monkeys, guinea pigs, cats and dogs have been injected with cancerous material or implanted with  malignancies. , Why hasn't progress been commensurate with the effort and money invested? One explanation is the unwarranted preoccupation with animal testing. Crucial genetic, molecular, immunologic and cellular differences have disqualify animal models as an effective means to a cure. Mice are most commonly used, although "Mice are actually poor models of the majority of human cancers"; according to the industry's own laboratory animal publication. According to leading cancer researcher, Robert Weinberg:


 * "The preclinical (animal) models of human cancer, in large part, stink… Hundreds of millions of dollars are being wasted every year by drug companies using these models."

A widely discussed 2004 article in Fortune magazine entitled "Why We're Losing the War on Cancer" laid the blame on animal research. The basic approach in the 1970s was to grow human cancer cells in a lab dish, transplant them into a mouse whose immune system had been tweaked to not reject them and throw experimental drugs at them to see what happened. However, few successes in mice are relevant to people. According to Fran Visco, who founded the National Breast Cancer Coalition four years after being diagnosed with cancer in 1987, "Animals don't reflect the reality of cancer in humans. We cure cancer in animals all the time, but not in people."

Newsweek combed through three decades of high-profile successes in mice for clues to why the mice lived and the people died. According to oncologist Paul Bunn, who leads the International Society for the Study of Lung Cancer:


 * "Animal models have not been very predictive of how well drugs would do in people. We put a human tumor under the mouse's skin, and that micro-environment doesn't reflect a person's—the blood vessels, inflammatory cells or cells of the immune system."

Human tumors that scientists transplant into mice and then attack with their weapon du jour, almost never metastasize. For decades, scientists ignored metastatic cells (which are responsible for 90% of all cancer deaths) because metastasis didn't occur in animal models. Throughout the 1980's and 90's, researchers focused on increasingly detailed molecular mechanisms, instead of looking into the real problem. See also animal testing.

Food Additives & adulteration
Today, over 6,000 synthetic chemicals are officially condoned for use in the processed food industry. These include some that are known carcinogens. Processed foods contain high levels of the debilitating, denatured ingredients such as white sugar, refined starch, pasteurized cow's milk, land mined salt and hydrogenated vegetable oils. The human immune system correctly recognizes chemical food additives as toxic foreign agents and attempts to rid the body of them; thus causing severe biochemical reactions and stress on the immune system.

After years of daily exposure to inorganic chemicals, the immune system breaks down and burns out, leaving the body vulnerable to microbes, toxins and cancerous cells. The food industry has duped the public and government health agencies into believing that their products are safe for human consumption; even in the face of abundant scientific evidence to the contrary. In fact, such information is in the public domain and openly available to anyone who seeks it. See also processed food industry.

Animal products & health issues
The China Study culminated a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The survey of diseases and lifestyle factors in rural China and Taiwan is widely thought to be the most comprehensive study on nutrition and related diseases to date. The project produced over 8,000 statistically significant associations between diet and disease. The findings indicated that the consumers of the most animal-based foods suffered the most chronic diseases while those with the most plant based diets avoided these diseases and were the healthiest. Chronic diseases included heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Also studied were the effects of diet in reducing or reversing the risks of chronic disease. The study also examines the source of nutritional confusion produced by powerful lobbies, government entities and irresponsible scientists. According to Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell, "we're basically a vegetarian species, should be eating a wide variety of plant foods and minimizing animal foods." ,

The focus of published reports on dairy consumption are infections, colic, intestinal bleeding, anemia, allergies and more serious issues of diabetes and viral infections of bovine leukemia, an AIDS like virus. Common childrens issues include ear infections, tonsil infections, bed wetting and asthma. Adult issues include heart disease, arthritis, respiratory distress, osteoporosis, leukemia, lymphoma and cancer. Overall health issues include milk contamination by pus cells and chemicals such as pesticides. Most cows' milk contains toxins such as herbicides, pesticides and dioxins and up to 52 powerful antibiotics; blood, pus, feces, bacteria and viruses. Both organic and non-organic milk contain fat, cholesteral and various allergens as well as 59 active hormones. This includes the powerful Growth Factor One (IGF-1) which has been identified in the rapid growth cancer. It has been positively documented and affirmed that dairy consumption leads to clogged arteries, heart attacks and strokes and exposure to contaminants. , Research has demonstrated a calcium wash or a loss of calcium and other critical minerals like potassium, magnesium and iron from the blood stream as a direct result of dairy consumption starting at 24 ounces per day. Low animal protein diets create a positive calcium balance, whereas high animal protein diets create a negative balance resulting in bone density loss. While many have turned to low fat dairy products, these products contain higher concentrations of protein. Low fat and particularly non-fat dairy products have actually been shown to increase osteoporosis, kidney problems and some cancers.

See also meat & dairy industry, sections 4 & 5 & section 6 on animal products & health issues.

SourceWatch articles

 * AIDS industry
 * Alternative Medicine
 * American Cancer Society
 * American Institute for Cancer Research
 * Health Care
 * Micheal Berens
 * National Cancer Institute
 * National Institutes of Health
 * Pharmaceutical industry
 * Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
 * Smoking beagles
 * Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
 * The Jackson Laboratory
 * World Cancer Research Fund
 * Cancer Research UK

External articles

 * Linda Greene The Environmental Causes of Cancer: How to Reduce the Risks, Counterpunch, February 4-6, 2011
 * Jarrod Baily, PhD NEAVS Responds to Newsweek, New England Anti-Vivisection Society, October 2008
 * Anne Landman Pinkwashing: Can Shopping Cure Breast Cancer?, Center for Media & Democracy, June 2008
 * Iris Atzmon The American Cancer Promoting Society, August 2007
 * Ralph Moss, "Our Futile War on Cancer", New Scientist (pg. 19), December 16, 2006.
 * Is the American Cancer Society More Interested in Cancer Profit than Cancer Prevention?, Organic Consumers Association, Sept 2005
 * Mary Ann Swissler Is silence golden? California grassroots activists get a big win, but where was the American Cancer Society?, Sacramento News & Review, November 3, 2005
 * Heather Moore Dying for a Cigarette, Impact Press, February-March 2002
 * Michael Horwin, "War on Cancer": Why Does The FDA Deny Access To Alternative Cancer Treatments?", California Western Law Review, Volume 38, Number 1, 2001
 * Erik Marcus, "Fighting the wrong war, Salon, October 14, 2000
 * Samuel S. Epstein M.D. American Cancer Society: The World's Wealthiest "Nonprofit" Institution”, International Journal of Health Services Vol. 29, No. 3, 1999
 * Ralph W. Moss, PhD "Questioning Chemotherapy", Equinox Press, July, 1995.(Article) (Authors Website)
 * The American Cancer Society: Ties to the radiology industry, Cancer Prevention Coalition, accessed May 2009
 * The American Cancer Society: Indifference and hostility to prevention, Cancer Prevention Coalition, accessed May 2009
 * Micheal Berens Conducts Failed Brain Tumor Research on Female Dogs and their Puppies, In Defense of Animals, accessed February 2009

External resources

 * Ralph W. Moss, PhD Cancer Decisions, accessed November 2009
 * Therapies: Suppressed Cancer Alternatives, Whale, accessed December 2010
 * Chemotherapy, International Wellness Directory, accessed May 2009
 * Effectiveness of Chemotherapy, Anti-Cancer, accessed March 2010
 * Who is Losing the Cancer War?, Cancer Prevention Coalition, accessed January 2011
 * Samuel S. Epstein: Founder/chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, Huffington Post (blog), accessed January 2011

Books

 * Guy B. Faguet The War on Cancer: An Anatomy of Failure, a Blueprint for the Future", November 2005, ISBN 1402036183
 * Robert N. Proctor The Nazi War on Cancer, Princeton University Press, November 15, 2000, ISBN 0691070512, ISBN 978-0691070513
 * Ralph W. Moss he Cancer Industry: The Classic Expose on the Cancer Establishment, Equinox Press, January 1996, ISBN 1881025098, ISBN 978-1881025092
 * Samantha King, Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy (University of Minnesota Press, 2008).

Category :Industry lobby groups