Sunday, October 3, 2010

"The Health Ranger" on Cancer Charities

I have heard Jones admonish his listeners not to donate to cancer research, because science isn't really looking for a cure (or has already found it, but won't tell us). Today, Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams said essentially the same thing. When you donate to cancer charities, a lot of the money goes toward cancer screening in poor neighborhoods.
So this is a bad thing? According to Adams, it is. He says that public health workers deliberately target low-income neighborhoods occupied by racial minorities in order to kill them. The example he used was of mobile labs offering free mammograms to poor black women. The women may think this is a sensible health precaution, but the radiation will end up killing them, he and Jones agreed.

Current research indicates that "mammography has an average lifetime risk of inducing 1.3 fatal breast cancers per 100,000 women aged 40 at exposure", according to an August New York Times story on the risks of imaging tests. In other words, mammograms can slightly increase the risk of breast cancer for women over 40. But of course if your breast cancer goes undetected, the chance of survival is low indeed. Screening is recommended for women over 40, and I see nothing sinister about offering free exams to women who could otherwise not afford any screening at all. The level of radiation used in mammography is lower than that used in other X-ray exams. It's highly unlikely that THEY give some free mammograms every year just to minutely increase the risk of breast cancer in a very small number of minority women. There are far more effective ways to eliminate a population, and THEY surely know that.

Cancer research funds do, believe it or not, go into actual cancer research. The notion that THEY will withhold a cure when/if one is discovered is absurd, because whoever makes that discovery is going to make himself and a lot of other people very, very rich. A cancer cure will be just as lucrative as cancer treatment, if not more so.

But cancer research doesn't focus solely on a cure; improved treatments, a higher standard of care, and more effective screening are all goals of cancer researchers. We've seen astonishing improvement in all these areas in the past decade alone. When I was a child, even the lowest doses of chemotherapy were a guarantee of terrible sickness, hair loss, and fatigue. Today, it is not. My grandfather recently underwent chemo without suffering more than a few minor side effects like constipation. Five years ago, my brother-in-law reached his fifth year with multiple myeloma. Thanks to state-of-the-art treatment in Toronto, he was active and independent until the very end of his life (in contradiction of what you'll hear about Canadian medicine from those who would prefer the more lucrative, privatized variety). It is worthwhile to donate to cancer research and cancer charities, if that's what you want to do. Don't let bizarre scare tactics and conspiracy speculating (I can't even call it theorizing) stop you.

16 comments:

Eugene said...

Great post, I could not agree with you more! I'm alive today because people donated to cancer research so crap like this really rubs me the wrong way.

This comic does a very good job at explaining the actual challenges of cancer research. Things are hard enough for the field, no one needs the "health ranger" muddying the water

Sorority Luchesi said...

It is people like Alex Jones that make people fearful of what science can do. Yeah we know that radiation isn't good for you, put how many people do you know get x-rays, mammograms, etc everyday? These tests usually are sporadic and the amount of radiation one is exposed to is minimal. Hell I'm not a scientist so I really don't know. Also if THEY wanted to kill off the "undesirables" such as minorities and low income people, why are THEY dilly dallying around? I mean c'mon there are far more effective ways to achieve their objective whatever that is.
Alex Jones medical fearmongering is dangerous in that those that listen to his crap and believe in it can be a danger to themselves and society, like with the vaccines. That really irks me. If it wasn't for vaccines we would still be dying from polio, diptheria et. al. Alex Jones is a dangerous man.

S.M. Elliott said...

Most of what Alex Jones says on air is relatively harmless. If people are paranoid about their tapwater or flu shots, so what? But this cancer stuff truly is absurd, and I see only negatives from inculcating fear of medicine. It's the things like this that make me angry at Jones. When it comes to science, he functions at a primitive, superstitious level, and apparently he wants to drag his listeners down with him into his medieval abyss. Telling people that schizophrenics are not mentally ill but demons, urging them to stay away from doctors at all costs - this is where his siege mentality and unchecked paranoia become most hazardous.

pølsemannen said...

Alex Jonesieboy is a fear monger who sells gold Swiss francs, survivalist seeds and colloidal silver. Fear is good for business.
Gold, God (Is that even commodity?) and GunZ and run for the hills!!! (Since Dec. 31st 1999)

(I wonder why Midas resources are STILL selling gold for currency LOL).

Alex is like a broken watch showing the correct time twice a day.
Sometimes he has a point (i.e. the ones in power want to have as much control over the populous as possible. But... that was happening even during the stone age).

Anonymous said...

If 'they' are unable to profit from a 'cure', due to it belonging to someone else, then 'they' might try to prevent it from seeing the light of day, esp.if this 'cure' would put 'them' out of business. Your statement would be correct if it were rephrased.

"The war on cancer is largely a fraud"
- two time winner of the Nobel prize, Linus Pauling

"As a chemist trained to interpret data, it is incomprehensible to me that physicians can ignore clear evidence that chemotherapy does much, much more harm than good."
-Alan Nixon , PhD., past president of the American Chemical Society

"The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn't. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks its doing are as different as day and night." - Dr. Herbert Ley, former commissioner of the FDA (1968-9)

Less than 1% of all money raised for cancer research has been spent on studying ways to prevent the spread or metastasing of cancers in the body......Less than 1% of money raised has been spent to determine the amount of carcinogens in ordinary household products...and very little has been spent on ways to try to influence people to eat healthier....If research was focused in these areas, the cancer rate would fall precipitously.

Investigative journalists have found that 95% (?) of the money raised by the American Cancer Society is used for salary and overhead.

Isn't there a safer, better, alternative to the mammogram, the thermo-gram?

S.M. Elliott said...

I fully expected one of the Anonymi to rant against cancer treatment. But show me a viable alternative to the treatments available today. Thermography is a viable alternative to mammography, but you won't find a comparable alternative to chemo (yet).

If you ever find the source of that "95% goes to overhead" info, by all means let us know.

Anonymous said...

The overall success rate for treating or curing cancer with allopathy is quite low- about a 5% success rate.

Chemotherapy is, or was, mustard gas. A very blunt instrument which kills the healthy cells along with the cancer cells. Chemo was pioneered in the 1940's, mainly by Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital, which unfortunately has interlocking directorates with the tobacco and synthetic chemical/pharmaceutical industry or cartels, a connection which drives research along certain channels. Often, chemotherapy is what kills the patient.
A majority of physicians would never take chemo.
Sometimes the treatment is carcinogenic-Tamoxifen is a drug sometimes used as a preventative measure for breast cancer, but the clinical trials were rigged, as exposed by the Chicago Tribune. Tamoxifen increased the risk of uterine cancer (New York Times, May 16, 1999)

I would rather use Hemp oil and/or Dichloroacetate myself, rather than chemo. The newer chemo is getting more and more targeted, though, so soon it wont kill so many healthy cells. The Gamma knife and HIFU, are other newer allopathic therapies that show promise.

S.M. Elliott said...

Hmm. Just what is the component of hemp that inhibits cell growth?

Tokyo Shemp said...

Polsemannen nails this. Fear is what Alex delivers. His audience is the one who will buy the gold. Alex Jones is the internet version of the John Birch Society. He's a variation of Lyndon LaRouche.

TLNL makes good points how a lot of Alex's supporters rail against thinking in terms of right and left. Yet, it's clear that Alex Jones is a right winger as is his audience. So if their is no difference between left and right, why are they all right wingers?

As for the cancer issue, I do believe that chemo is mostly no good, except for those with an early stage diagnosis. Others will need to limit their chemo and go for the smart drugs, the silver bullets.

I also recommend folks find a physician who has at least an awareness of the eastern traditions. Homeopathy can help. In my humblest opinion, the best cancer treatment is one which utilises both eastern and western medicine. Knowledge is power.

Each person should come up with their own strategy to beat it. The internet is a great tool to find a lot of information. Don't get overwhelmed by it. Focus on diet- brocolli, grapes, veggies- more raw than cooked, fresh carrot juice, no meat, if you want meat, find deep sea fish .... I think the cure is right around the corner. Some cancers are much more difficult to beat than others. I think for many cancers, most of them will become very treatable and soon.

Chemo in low dosages can work well with the newer, less intrusive drugs.

Cancer survivors need to live each day with hope and love. It's that simple. Keep your chins up. There's always hope.

S.M. Elliott said...

Sorry, Socrates, but homeopathy is crap. Huge delusion/scam.

As for Jones being a right wing LaRouche/Bircher clone - that's exactly it. Right-left paradigm, my arse.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Sorry S.M. Elliott, but it's you who is wrong. There is something referred to as integrative medicine, in which the best of Eastern and Western medicine may be offered.

One of the keys to good health is having a proper ratio of alkalines and acids. Thus, for some it is no surprise that a grape seed extract helps their condition. Ginger, for another example, is known to help with people's digestive tracts. You need to step back from your closed-minded debunking, or it will hurt your other blogging. A healthy skepticism is good. A debilitating cynicism is not.

Of course there are quacks. And of course people have to be careful to pick out the best alternative medicine to try.

Your calling it crap says more about your own ignorance of this topic than the truth of it.

Major hospitals even disagree with you.

What is homeopathy?

S.M. Elliott said...

I don't see herbal medicine as the same as homeopathy. Herbals definitely have their value, but isn't homeopathy predicated on micro-doses (or even non-doses) of non-medicinal, non-herbal substances like salts? My friend is seeing a homeopathic doctor/chiropractor who is so full of crap, I'm amazed people can't smell his office from five blocks away. You must admit, there's a lot of b.s. in the world of alternative and complementary medicine. That's not to say "allopathic" medicine is perfect, but at least it's science-based and has clear legal standards. A GP can't get away with giving you some salt and telling you it will cure Epstein-Barr, without being sued for malpractice. But for some reason, alternative practitioners are allowed to get away with this sort of thing every day.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Ok, it sounds like we're more in agreement than not.


I don't know about the salt thing. That does sound shady. Though I don't know. Chiropractors actually do help with neck and back problems, though some number of them are tied in with ambulance chasers. I think Acupuncture is covered by many health insurance policies.

When one is faced with a disease, it's a good idea they attack it with good diet and supplements. Chemo will eventually be phased out. It's good for early stage cancer, because it has the chance to wipe out the disease before it's taken hold. For late stage cancer, it will buy people some time.

The problem is chemo destroys too much of the body in addition to the cancer cells. Many cancer patients actually die of secondary illness, such as bowel obstructions brought on by the chemo.

There are many things people can do to beat it. One of them is giving up on sugar. We get plenty of that from fruits. Cancer is nourished by sugar. There is an alternative called agave syrup.

What I was trying to especially point out is that new treatments are being developed to fight cancer other than chemo. I'm talking western medicine too, not the holistic. They are called silver bullets or smart drugs, because they go after the cancer alone unlike chemo which gives the whole body a whallop. I think cancer is about to be cured. I don't think it will be done in America where chemo is big business. I think it will develop in a country like England with socialised medicine where economically it is in the state's interest to cure it. A lot of cancer is chronic rather than fatal. It'd be cheaper to cure it than to keep it in check. Take care.

Anonymous said...

In Germany in the 1920-30's, Otto Warburg learned how cancer cells respire- the are anaerobic as opposed to normal aerobic cells....cancer cells ferment. They crave glusocose/sugar. Warburg eventually got a Nobel prize....

Starve cancer by denying it refined sugars....go lite on compex carbs too....increase your ph scale to about 7.9 or 8, to alkaline the blood, which oxygenates it, which is aerobic, thus conducive to normal cell repiration.

Socrates is right about the overall, full body doses of chemo about to go over the wayside. Newer, more targeted chemo is being rolled out, but I still prefer Hemp and DCA.....A VCU study in the 1970's and a later 2000's Madrid Spain study shows that hemp oil (NOT hemp seed oil) can safely kill canncer cells.

There are too many links on this to post, just google something like 'hemp oil for cancer' or such.

S.M. Elliott said...

I think it will develop in a country like England with socialised medicine where economically it is in the state's interest to cure it.

That's entirely possible. One of the many upsides of socialized medicine is that it tends to be more prevention- and cure-oriented than privatized medicine.

I don't know enough about chiropractic or acupuncture to know if they're truly effective or not when practiced correctly, but traditional medicine of various kinds is just fine with me (in conjunction with some Western medicine). I use a lot of home remedies myself, including ginger.

I don't know anything about the cancer-sugar connection mentioned, but I do know you can only benefit from cutting out processed/refined foods. I avoid them as much as possible.

Anonymous said...

Your statement that "a lot" of money donated to cancer charities funds free screenings is inaccurate. The two leading cancer charities in the US spend the vast majority of donations on administrative and overhead costs: they are tax shelters. I wish it wasn't so, but it is.

Which is why the idea that they are involved in a eugenicist conspiracy is ridiculous. It's not that they're aren't rich weirdos looking to sterilize poor people--it's that they aren't using the cancer charities to do it. They're too busy begging for handouts and writing themselves paychecks.

About Me

My photo
I'm a 30ish housefrau living in Canada

Followers