In November of 1995, a few days before his 62nd birthday, my brother Ralph heard the three words every person fears the most; "You have cancer." The cancer was throughout his body. He refused chemotherapy and radiation, because he didn't want to be subjected to the torment, pain and terrible sickness that accompanied these treatments.

Finally, after two months of horrible suffering, a hospice nurse came to his house to give him a shot of morphine to ease his excruciating pain. When the hospice nurse asked him what medication he was taking, he brought out a box that had at least one dozen different bottles. I wondered how a "medicine man" could prescribe so many different drugs, many of them dangerous, some of them lethal, all of them with monstrous side effects. It was clear to me that if the cancer didn't kill him, the chemical warfare would have.

I'll never forget the look on his face when he said to me, "I don't feel the pain any more. Maybe the morphine will cause my heart to stop and I'll die in my sleep." For the first time in two months, he had a smile on his face from ear to ear. Yet, he was actually praying for death. The next morning, January 27, 1996, Ralph passed away.

This year, 500,000 Americans will die from this dreaded disease, with more than 1 million new cases diagnosed. The World Health Organization reported that more than 6 million people died of cancer last year worldwide. By the year 2020, they estimate that 15 million people will develop the disease each year.

In the next few years, cancer will surpass heart disease as the number one killer in America. The National Cancer Institute somberly agrees that one in three people in America will get cancer.

As I write this (1997), my entire family is stunned once again by the news that another brother has multiple tumors in his mouth. Last month, after 13 hours of surgery, and three different operations, the doctors are confident they removed the tumors. Unfortunately, they had to remove his entire lower jaw. When I walked into his hospital room four days after the ordeal, my knees got rubbery - like someone just punched me in the belly. It took all my energy and will to hold myself up. Fortunately, he is recovering well - and we're all very thankful about that.

With all the technological advances and medical breakthroughs since Richard Nixon declared "war" on cancer in 1971, and despite spending tens of billions of dollars on research and hundreds of billions more on treatments, there has been no real improvement in survival rates of cancer patients in the past 50 years. Ten million Americans have succumbed to this horrible killer in the past two decades.

Contrary to the hopeful claims of the American Cancer Society that a cure is just around the corner, things are worse, not better. In his excellent book, Prevent Cancer Now, best-selling author and leading nutritional scientist Dr. Michael Colgan declares, "We are not only losing the war against cancer, it's a bloody rout." 1

More people die of cancer every two months than were killed in the entire Vietnam War. I don't see anyone on the street corners protesting or burning their health insurance cards.

In his marvelous book Reclaiming Our Health, John Robbins reveals that,

"Treating a typical cancer patient today runs about $100,000. A bone marrow transplant can cost $150,000. In the United States, there are more people making a living off cancer than dying from it." 2

He goes on to say that "radiation is given to about half of all cancer patients. The procedure has been shown to be useful in only a small number of cancers. The vast majority of studies show that radiation cannot cure cancer, and that it can rarely extend life for people with the disease." 3

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center actually found that patients who received radiotherapy died sooner than those left untreated. 4

So why is radiation used and recommended so readily? It can't be possible that the cancer establishment has a vested interest in the war on cancer and the practice of chemotherapy. Or can it? Why does the medical community find it so hard to admit there might be a better way, when so many people have suffered and died as a result of the direction they've taken?

It couldn't have anything to do with the $8.6 BILLION in worldwide revenues from the sale of chemotherapy drugs, could it? If you ask Dr. Laurent Schwartz, a prominent Paris oncologist, he would tell you that conventional cancer treatment is, " the most important failure of modern medicine." 5

If we don't make changes soon, the financial cost and human toll of this killer will be the plague of the 21st century.

Even though he paints a bleak picture of our health care system and its ability to eliminate the pain and end the suffering of millions of people with cancer and other degenerative diseases, Dr. Colgan asserts that you can eliminate 90% of the threat of cancer from your life and provide your body with powerful weapons against it. He declares,

"The answer to all major cancers lies not in surgery, drugs or radiation therapy. The answer lies in prevention. Medical science is not focused on prevention. It earns no fat fees, sells no drugs, confers no status, hones no surgical skills, provides no immediate medical gratification. No person or agency can convincingly claim the credit for prevention. Few, therefore, are motivated to try." 6

John Robbins says, "The denial of the fact that orthodox Western medicine has few answers to cancer keeps a dysfunctional system in place. It keeps the public marching obediently and blindly through treatments that often mutilate without providing benefit. It prevents public support for alternative treatment approaches from building to a sufficient level of intensity to create real change" 7

Fortunately, there is a growing number of forward thinking physicians who are leading the charge to treat the body in a more holistic and compassionate way, instead of attacking it with lethal chemical warfare. Help is on the horizon.

In the August, 1997 issue of Natural Health magazine, in a feature article on surviving cancer, Dr. Keith Block reports on 10 case studies out of the hundreds of his patients who have beaten the odds and conquered cancer. Dr. Block treats his patients with "biotherapy," a non-toxic and non-invasive approach using nutrition, vitamin supplements and other health-promoting strategies. The results are astounding.

According to Dr. Block, Integrated Cancer Therapy (ICT) enhances overall health and quality of life, can slow or stop disease progression, increase survival time, and boost the chance of recovery. This integrated approach is helping patients rid their bodies of cancer and stay cancer-free. Dr. Block and his colleagues have documented cancer survival rates significantly higher than those found in nationally recognized cancer treatment centers.

Dr. Block is not alone. For decades, scientists, alternative practitioners and even mainstream medical doctors have demonstrated proven results using alternative cancer therapies that most of the traditional medical establishment could only dream about.

In 1976, Linus Pauling presented a groundbreaking report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences when he showed evidence that "vitamin C significantly prolongs the life of the cancer patient and improves the condition of the patient to such an extent that his life during his remaining months or years is comfortable, contented, useful, productive and satisfying." 8

In another remarkable finding, Dr. Abram Hoffer analyzed his own cancer patients. The ones who did not take vitamin C or other nutrients survived an average of six months. He was shocked to find that patients who took high doses of vitamin C and other nutrients lived an average of six years. Women with cancer of the breast, ovary, uterus or Fallopian tube who took high daily doses of vitamins lived an average of 21 times longer. 9

In 1981, Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez began analyzing the results of Dr. William Kelley, who achieved astounding results using alternative cancer therapy. He was out to prove Dr. Kelley was a quack. To his amazement, Gonzalez found Kelley actually seemed to be "curing the incurable" using diet, intensive nutritional support, pancreatic enzymes and detoxification. In commenting on Gonzalez' study, Dr. Harold Ladas wrote,

"The evidence is in, and it's stunning: diet and nutrition produce long-term remission in cancer patients, almost all of whom were beyond conventional help." 10

In 1985, although the National Cancer Institute officially recognized biotherapy as a promising new treatment strategy, the NCI and the American Cancer Society completely ignored and steadfastly refused to objectively evaluate the work and remarkable success Kelley and Gonzalez had in cancer treatment. Why would two of the world's leading organizations, fighting the most costly war of all time, refuse to look into any approach with such a long and consistent track record of results?

Because in 1971, the American Cancer Society put Kelley's therapy on its Unproven Methods list, where it has remained ever since, stigmatized and discredited. To this day, the American Cancer Society warns cancer patients against involving themselves with the treatment. 11

I suspect that if more people knew about these documented findings and eye-opening results, cancer sufferers would be lining up to try these alternative treatments.

Most people have never heard of biotherapy, or many of the proven alternatives that have been highly successful in treating cancer and many other degenerative diseases. Why?

Many of these therapies are natural, not pharmaceutical, and are not patent-able nor profitable for drug companies (yet). If I were suspicious, I might think that the American Cancer Society, with its half-billion dollar net worth and billion dollar annual budget, feels threatened by an alternative treatment or cure it did not discover. As unbelievable as it may seem, maybe the real threat is finding any cure at all?

How is it that radiation is so frequently used in the war on cancer, that nearly four out of five people with cancer receive some form of radiation or chemotherapy?

Dr. John Goffman, professor emeritus of Cell Biology at the U. of California at Berkeley, and author of the 1995 book, Preventing Breast Cancer, came to a frightening conclusion:

"Our estimate is that about three-quarters of the current annual incidence of breast cancer in the United States is being caused by earlier ionizing radiation, primarily from medical sources. An estimated 75% of recent and current breast-cancer cases would not have occurred as they did, in the absence of earlier medical irradiation." 12

The overuse (abuse) of radiation and chemicals to kill cancer cells are killing normal cells and destroying the immune system's ability to protect itself.

John Robbins asks, "Must we kill to cure?" The war on cancer is one of the longest and most expensive wars Americans have ever fought - and the casualties are mounting. The human body is not a battlefield. Yet, all too often, doctors and the media reinforce this mind-set using terms like war, enemy, invade, assault and kill.

There is a mountain of evidence in the mainstream medical journals which indicates cancer is a long-term, degenerative disease that is present in every human being throughout his or her life. We don't get cancer - we have cancer. It is ever-present, a result of our highly toxic world, poor diets, overly medicated bodies and drastically weakened immune systems. The people that get cancer, and succumb to it, are those of us whose immune systems can't fight it off. To worsen the problem, the deadly drugs used to destroy the bad cells also kill off the healthy cells, further weakening an already battle-weary immune system. Without an understanding or discussion of other alternatives, most people opt for what the doctor recommends. Most people simply do what their doctor tells them to do ­ without question.

Nine times out of 10, doctors recommend radiation and/or chemotherapy!

There is growing proof that cancer, like most degenerative disease, is highly related to oxidation and free radical damage. Apples turn brown when exposed to the air for even a short time. One year after refurbishing the Statue of Liberty, it was rusted from the toxic air.

Similarly, our bodies rust away on the inside from the oxidation that occurs when we eat (digestion and chemical additives), breathe (toxins in the air), drink (unclean water, lots of
soda, high sugar drinks), exercise heavily (which greatly accelerates oxygen intake), experience stress, and take medication (oxidation is one of the major side effects of medication that contributes to many other bad side effects).

According to Dr. Bruce Ames of the University of California at Berkeley, each of our cells endures about 100,000 free radical hits, or wounds, each day. About 1,000 of these wounds go un-repaired. This damage accumulates over the years.

In a real way, my body is at war with itself. My immune system produces free radicals as a side effect of the white blood cells killing outside invaders. Just like anti-aircraft guns are used in war to prevent airplanes from dropping bombs onto cities, anti-oxidants are the big guns that prevent outside invaders from dropping bombs (free radicals) on our cells.

According to statements made by the National Cancer Institute, hundreds of studies published in major medical journals, documented reports of spontaneous remissions and recoveries, stories chronicled in best-selling books, and thousands of real life anecdotal stories from physicians and their patients...there is undeniable and incontrovertible proof that anti-oxidants and other alternative methods of preventing and treating cancer are as, or more effective, and much less painful and debilitating than many of the traditional approaches.

Just recently, Dr. Donald L. Lamm, chief of urology at West Virginia University School of Medicine, gave large doses of vitamins A, B-6, C, D, and E, along with folic acid to patients who had been treated with bladder cancer. He found it reduced the recurrence rate of this cancer by 37%. 13

Why are physicians and healers who offer natural, non-invasive and non-toxic methods before invading the body with chemical warfare, considered alternative? Mainstream medicine's preference to cut, burn, radiate and chemically assault our bodies is too often a first choice, rather than a last resort. When cancer has spread, like it had in my brother's mouth, surgery is necessary. Now, he must find a way to enable his immune system to override the cancer's hold on his body. Against an attacking army, we must fortify the defenses, call for reserves and build our immune strength.

If you read studies being reported in the mainstream medical journals, you learn the seven most deadly diseases (cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis and Alzheimer's) and a host of other degenerative diseases can be prevented, and reversed (as hundreds of studies have proven) using a more loving, peaceful and holistic approach. This approach includes diet, nutrition, vitamin supplements and other health-promoting strategies - meditation, relaxation, and yes, even prayer.

You and I have witnessed far too much pain and terrible suffering in our own families, among our friends and the people we know and love. When we help others make informed choices that can reduce suffering, enhance well-being, and extend or save even one life, that is a holy act. I can't imagine a higher responsibility to ourselves, each other, and especially, to our children, and our children's children.

Conquering cancer should not and cannot be the sole domain of formal authority. You and I have something to say, and more importantly, we have something to contribute.

If you know someone who wants this article, or more information about a scientifically sound nutritional system that contains many of Dr. Block's bio-therapies and, more than 50 powerful immune-boosting nutrients and antioxidants, email us.

Call 1-973-736-1304
Fax 1-973-736-3930
Write, 14 Seaman Road, West Orange, NJ - 07052

Recommended Reading
Prevent Cancer Now and The New Nutrition - Dr. Michael Colgan
Reclaiming Our Health and Diet For a New World - John Robbins
Spontaneous Healing - Dr. Andrew Weil
Healing Nutrients - Patrick Quillen, Ph.D..
You Can Prevent Breast Cancer - Harvey Diamond
You Can Heal Your Life - Louise Hay
Preventing Breast Cancer - Dr. John Goffman

1- Omega-3 Fatty Acids - these "good" fats are found in canola, pumpkin seed, flaxseed oil, and fish. Dr. Block prefers supplements, flaxseed oil or omega-3 liquids.

2- Maitake Mushroom - the active ingredient is beta-gluten, which halts cancer cell growth. Patients taking maitake experienced fewer of the side effects while undergoing chemotherapy - pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite and immune system suppression.

3- Coenzyme Q-10 - a powerful antioxidant that neutralizes harmful free radical damage that accelerates tumor growth. CoQ 10 also promotes energy metabolism, and protects the heart from adriamycin, a common cancer drug with toxic effects so severe that it's use is strictly limited. Recommended in supplement form.

4- Flavanoids and Vitamin C - quercitin, catechin (in green tea), and proanthocyanadins (grape seed) are three of the more powerful of some 4,000 compounds that exist in nature. These flavanoids work together with vitamin C to selectively destroy tumor cells without harming normal cells and tissue. Dr. Block recommends high-potency vitamin C in conjunction with various flavanoids and minerals.

5- Melatonin - this hormone acts as the body's natural "sleeping pill" at night. Melatonin stimulates parts of the immune system known to fight cancer and evidence shows it inhibits tumor growth of cancer cells in the breast, colon, kidney, lung, stomach and endocrine system. Recommended with supplemental vitamins B6 and B12.

6- Astragalus - a powerful herb from China, it amplifies the tumor-killing effectiveness of interleukin-2 by as much as 1000%, and minimizes its toxic side-effects. Recommended in combination with other herbs, particularly ginseng.

7- Milk Thistle - bolsters immune system and neutralizes free radicals that damage the liver. May also protect the kidneys of cancer patients receiving conventional therapy. Recommends the liquid form taken between meals or the tablet taken with meals.

8- N-acetyl L-cysteine and Glutathione - Dr. Block says glutathione, a major antioxidant, "may prevent cancer and help cure it." N-acetyl L-cysteine (NAC) breaks up lung mucus, relieves respiratory ailments, protects DNA, supports liver detoxification and can protect normal tissue against toxic side-effects of chemotherapy agents. Recommends NAC and glutathione in supplement form.

9- Modified Citrus Pectin - a derivative of citrus fruit fiber, MCP enhances anti-tumor activity. Studies show MCP can prevent the spread of prostate cancer to the lungs. Other ICTs that fight prostate cancer include selenium, zinc, genistein from soy concentrate and saw palmetto. Recommends powder form of MCP.

10- Curcumin - the yellow spice turmeric contains curcumin which prevents DNA damage. Blocks and may decrease tumor growth in oral cancers, the colon and squamous cells (skin). It is also an anti-inflammatory. Recommends supplements with meals to include flavanoids, ginger and vitamin C.

References
1- Michael Colgan, Prevent Cancer Now (San Diego, CA: C.I. Publications, 1993), p. 6.
2- John Robbins, Reclaiming Our Health (Tiburon, CA: HJ Kramer), p. 229.
3- Ibid.
4- Richard Walters, Options: The Alternative Cancer Book (Garden City Park, NY: Avery, 1993) p. 13.
5- "Paris Doc Blasts War on Cancer," in R. Moss, ed., The Cancer Chronicles, July 1995, p. 7.
6- M. Colgan as per note 1, p. 8.
7- J. Robbins, as per note 2, p. 246.
8- Evan Cameron and Linus Pauling, Cancer and Vitamin C (Philadelphia: Camino Books, 1993), p. 130.
9- Abraham Hoffer and Linus Pauling, "Hardin Jones Biostatistical Analysis of Mortality Data for Cohorts of Cancer Patients" Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 5, 1990, pp. 143-54.
10- Harold Ladas, "Book Review," Cancer Victors Journal, Summer-Fall 1988, pp. 23-24.
11- J. Robbins, as per note 2, pp. 252-53.
12- John Goffman, Preventing Breast Cancer (San Francisco: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, 1995), p. 303.
13- Ronald Kotulak, KRT News Service, New Jersey Star Ledger, September 28, 1997, p. 16.