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The world lost a true visionary yesterday with the passing of Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple. I remember back in the late 80’s when I was a young computer programmer/designer fresh out of grad school using the (Apple) MacIntosh computer for the very first time.
The MacIntosh user interface was so intuitive and such a leap ahead of the predominant Microsoft DOS operating system (remember? type commands at the green screen prompt) that I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
This new and emerging user interface in the 1980s that is taken for granted today rocketed the task of computer design light years ahead and allowed the development of computer systems to at last be something users could be involved in and easily understand.
There is no doubt that Steve Jobs’ passing at 56 years old was premature. He had much more to contribute to the world and I for one feel the world has been cheated now that he is gone.
Pictures of him in his final days showed a frail, shockingly thin frame consistent with a person who had undergone chemotherapy treatments for cancer.
While every single detail of Mr. Jobs’ cancer treatments over the years are not publicly known, one can’t help but wonder if his chemotherapy and radiation treatments contributed to his demise.
Just a few weeks ago, Kara Kennedy, daughter of the late Senator Edward Kennedy died at age 51 from a heart attack. Her brother, Patrick Kennedy said that her many years of chemotherapy to treat lung cancer took a severe toll on her health and weakened her physically to the point where “her heart just gave out.”
Is Conventional Treatment for Cancer Worse Than the Disease?
It seems that chemotherapy/radiation treatments causing death rather than preserving life are becoming more common.
Radiation in particular ups the risk of heart problems in women undergoing conventional treatment for breast cancer. The May 2000 issue of The Lancet reported that women who had undergone radiation for breast cancer increased their odds of dying from other causes, usually heart related, by 21% compared with women who had not undergone radiation with the 20 year survival rate for breast cancer improving by only 1%.
Does that seem worth it to you? It sure doesn’t to me.
Chemotherapy is another conventional treatment for cancer that seems to hasten people’s death. The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death in the UK reported that its review of 600 cancer patients who died within 30 days of treatment revealed that over one quarter had in fact been killed by the chemo and not cancer.
The extreme toxicity of chemo treatments is what causes the rapid demise, usually infections such as the very serious neutropenic sepsis.
In the case of Mr. Jobs, this appears to be what happened. According to reports from multiple sources, he had received chemotherapy treatments in recent months at the Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto California and his devastating physical deterioration from these treatments almost certainly contributed to his quick passing.
Would You Ever Use Chemo or Radiation to Treat Cancer?
If you received a cancer diagnosis, would you ever agree to chemotherapy or radiation treatments or would you explore nontoxic alternative therapies?
I, for one, would not consider conventional cancer treatment as such an approach to disease seems more than a little misguided. How can use of toxic chemicals and/or radiation possibly be beneficial when both of these treatments actually have been shown to cause cancer in the long run?
It seems that a more holistic approach to cancer would be wiser than the slash and burn approach of conventional cancer treatments.
In his article A Holistic Approach To Cancer, Dr. Tom Cowan MD writes:
“… the job of the doctor is to distinguish between the therapy and the illness. What I mean by that is if you get a splinter in your finger, and then your body makes pus to get the splinter out, is the pus the therapy or the disease? We know that pus indicates infection and the presence of microorganisms, and we learned in medical school that doctors should kill the pus. But I don’t think it is that far of a stretch to see that if you have a splinter in your finger, the pus is the therapy for the splinter. If you don’t take the splinter out, the pus will do it for you. If you mistakenly think that the pus is the disease and you destroy the pus, the splinter will stay and your body will attempt this process again. If you destroy the pus again, your body might repeat this process three or four more times. Then you have a chronic infection as the body keeps trying to remove the splinter. Eventually it will either succeed, or it will encapsulate the splinter, which is a tumor, a new growth. It is not a cancerous tumor but a benign cystic tumor of the splinter. The understanding that the pus is the therapy allows you to predict what is going to happen in the future.
Now think of this example. Joe Bloke is a smoker. In other words, he puts a bunch of splinters in his lungs every day. Twice a year Joe gets cough, fever, mucus–all to get the splinters out of his lungs. I prefer to say “cough, fever, mucus” rather than “bronchitis” because the word “bronchitis” separates you from the reality of the situation. His body is producing an inflammatory response–it is making a mucus-pus-fever response to cleanse his lungs of splinters. If Joe goes to a doctor who makes the mistake of thinking that the response is the problem, he will give drugs to stop the bronchitis–which is actually the medicine. So Joe will be left with the splinters. That scenario will happen twice a year for thirty years and then Joe has a big bag of splinters in his lungs, and we call that lung cancer.”
Holistic approaches to cancer help resolve whatever caused the cancer in the first place. Conventional chemo/radiation treat only the “pus” of the cancer as described by Dr. Cowan.
Stopping cancer symptoms by “killing” the cancer cells with chemo or radiation is not in any way a cure as Mr. Jobs tragically discovered in his long running quest to regain his health.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com
Source: Doctors Rely on Chemo Too Much
I think as far as the liver goes….I’d avoid a transplant also. If they can grow new teeth from a persons DNA then they can also grow them a liver. Besides….your liver regenerates up to 75% I’ve read.
I wonder if most of medical treatments are about generating revenue.
Isn’t cancer an immune system failure? Isn’t cancer something that everyone of us gets every day, but in most cases is attacked by our immune systems?
Ciao, Pavil
Exactly. We are all cancer survivors every single day.
That’s incredibly inflammatory to the people who have truly battled cancer, and you both know it.
Yes Katie, I’m sure Sarah and Pavil both woke up this morning just ITCHING to get their fingers on the keyboard and offend some cancer-survivors.
We are all cancer survivors every single day?
Fuck. You.
I wish the answer to cancer was as easy as saying it’s an immune ailment. I’ve heard numerous theories and I think, to some extent, they’re probably all close to the mark, but not totally correct for each type of cancer. I’ve heard cancer is a lack of oxygenation, or a yeast overgrowth problem, or an over-acidic/over alkaline body, or it’s not enough NK cells (natural killer cells). You name it, I’ve heard it.
The biggest problem I can see with alternative care is there are too many options (really). Who would know where to start? Laetrile (B17) is found to work in some cases, even after being thoroughly debunked in the 1970’s. Medical Cannabis Oil is now the talk of the internet and I’m sure it, too, has merit for some cancers.
The problem with cancer is one size doesn’t fit all, which is how the medical industry LOVES to view dis-eases. “You have cancer? Well, we’ve got chemo, radiation and failing that, we’ve got surgery”. Uh-huh.
It’s a problem to choose your avenue, for sure.
If someone becomes ill, it is fair to inquire as to what may have happened and could that illness have been prevented. I doubt that any illness is truly random. Getting hit by a drunk driver is random. Becoming ill, not so much.
We Westerners are sick, malnourished people. We know far more about filling our bellies and tantalizing our taste buds than we know about nutrition. For most of us, nutrition is an afterthought that requires too much effort. When we see a fat person we assume that he eats too much. We never stop to consider that that person may actually be fundamentally malnourished. If it wasn’t for grocery stores, most of us would starve. Yet ironically, grocery stores are a sorry choice for accumulating nutrition.
As to cures, I would much rather see a protocol that enabled my body to overcome an illness than one that tried to fight the illness in spite of my body.
Ciao, Pavil
Well said, Pavil!
My son(2.5) has never had fast food ever, we follow a WAPF diet, have our own cows and chickens and grow as much of our own produce as we can. He is still being breastfed as WHO code recommends. He was in an accident and through that the doctors found a softball size tumor on his liver. He is now going through chemo.
It’s not as black and white as ppl think it is.
I know this was long ago, but I’m so sorry that you’re going through this Megan. You’re right, it’s not as black and white as we think. Praying for your son! (For real)
Yes Pavil, such an important point “protocol that enabled my body to overcome an illness versus one that tried to fight the illness in spite of my body.”
But everything in how the medical community functions is is “fighting” and “waring” against some disease or condition. It is quite perceptive to see (and the clue of how we should proceed) that the normal design of the body is in overcoming illness via various processes within the body that lead to rebalancing and greater health versus leaving one imbalanced, tramatized, impaired and with permanent damage, which only leads to greater loss of health.
A great place to start is http://www.cancertutor.com
Absolutely true, Pavil..
I would avoid chemo and radiation at all costs.
My husband and I watched this documentary:
Have you heard of Dr. Burzynski? I hadn’t, but his clinic is where I would go if I had the opportunity. Neither of us want chemo or radiation…
I saw that. But there are conditions for eligibility to go there. I think you have to have that specific type of cancer, as well as already having done chemo with no success. I think that’s sad…
Also the passing of Steve however sad did occur during Cancer Awareness month. I think focusing on prevention and talking about cancer in general is important since many people still believe “It can’t happen to them”. Thank you for your article I think different treatments should be discussed.
A big concern I have is our right to choose the therapy we want. I’ve been reading about health freedom and how our ability to make informed choices is being stripped away. For example, Dr. Mercola has done a series of posts on cancer and the freedom, or lack thereof, in selecting the approaches that make the most sense to us. (See his articles The Great Cancer Hoax I and II, etc.) Another good resource is the National Health Freedom Coalition (http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org). There’s a parallel between the efforts to deny our choice of food and our choice of medical treatment. The mega corporations have merged to the degree that the parent companies of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and foods are one and the same. And the revolving door between these and govt agencies that set and enforce policy, combined with a system that forces doctors to present only the mainstream “standard of care” lest they lose their license, is extremely worrisome.
Not all splinters exit naturally. I had one in my hand (it was deep) for close to a year. My skin kept healing over the site and it would pus. Well my mom took me to the doctor and they finally decided to investigate with an incision and after poking around (instrument in my hand) it came out. I’m sure surgery is probably best, but people dying of cancer without treatment have a painful road ahead. In some patients (one elderly person I knew was dying from it) it eats through bones and can actually surface through to the exterior of the body. Either way it’s sad.
You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by making a charcoal drawing pack. I had some splinters from a wicker basket in my leg for a month or more (although at the time I didn’t even know they were there) and I woke up one morning with a leg looking like a football. Mixed up some charcoal, ground nuts (for the oil, and I think we used walnuts but I can’t remember for sure) and water. Placed it on a gauze pad and put it on the reddest area on my leg. Within six hours the splinters were where my Mother could get at them with a tweezers. The hardest part of the whole thing is that the gauze has to be kept wet in order for the charcoal to keep drawing. As I said, the nut oil helps it stay wet longer but still the whole thing has to stay pretty wet. It worked, that’s all I know. Pretty dern fast, too. I’ve since learned this same treatment also works for boils and cysts to help draw and clear infectious stuff. Best thing to do to avoid boils and such though is aloe (internally).
I read that Steve Jobs wss a vegan/fruitarian sp? and I would think that was a big detriment to his health /well being. it is so sad . no I would never have chemo or radiation. my older brother just died earlier this Summer at 46 . he had Hodgkins lymphoma when he was 12 and massive amounts of chemo/radiation he looked like a waling skeleton/ they also removed his spleen. He did smoke and drink which I know wasnt good but I honestly believe his immune system was so compromised from that early blow to his immune system/
Sarah,
My father passed away five years ago. He was diagnosed with lung cancer (which had metastasized by the time of detection). He agreed to undergo the standard chemo/radiation procedures because we just didn’t know any different! Sadly, he passed away just four short months after diagnosis, shortly after starting radiation treatments. I truly believe that it was the radiation that killed him so quickly, not the cancer!! (He’d obviously had cancer for quite some time!)
I will never forget what he said to me after we first heard the “C” word. He said, “The bad thing about cancer is you don’t know anything about it and always think it’ll never happen to you or anyone you know. Then when it does, you KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT and by then it’s too late!”
When the radiation burned his throat so badly that he could not even eat, I started reading all I could about natural alternatives/cures for cancer. Sadly, it was too little, too late!! Unfortunately, DAD WAS RIGHT!!! By this time his body was too frail to withstand anything else and we watched him slip away. It was heartbreaking to watch!
Dad also told us that we’d be stronger for having gone through this. Of course we just wanted Dad to be healthy again, we didn’t want to be “stronger”!! But I must say, my mom, sister and I have certainly become stronger and more knowledgable since Dad’s passing! We pay more attention to our diet now and what we are fueling our bodies with! We no longer eat over-processed foods, but instead fuel ourselves with organic, whole foods like our ancestors did! We are determined that if we can help it, cancer will never again hit our family! And if it does (cuz only God knows the future!), we will KNOW more about diseases (malfunctioning cells!) and what the alternative treatments are instead of blindly following the recommendations of standard doctors who will never find a “cure” as long as their paychecks depend on people being sick.
BTW–I did not find your post disrespectful, just a timely discussion of the facts! More people need to KNOW,,,,,,before it’s too late! Thanks for constantly spreading the knowledge!
Blessings,
Misti
Misti, your post breaks my heart. I’m sorry you had to watch your dad go through that. As painful as it was to lose my dad, at least he just dropped dead and we didn’t have to watch him suffer through something like that. How he would have hated that. I’ll bet your dad would be so pleased to know that his suffering was not in vain, that your family has taken note and made real, positive changes as a result of what happened. Blessings to you…
It is very tragic to lose this man at such a young age. I am a physician, and as someone who is able to think outside the box of traditional medicine, I am able to see how much our traditional scope of medicine is formed by companies who just want to make money. There are so many life-saving alternatives that are unknown to the general public, because they actually work, and hence, don’t require ongoing treatment that keep you continuously needing more drugs of all sorts to combat the effects of the others.
What many don’t understand is that we all have ‘cancer’. It’s merely a cell whose growth exceeds the ability for our body’s natural immune processes to overcome it. There are many ways to boost our immune system’s capabilities to control the abnormal cells, or other non-toxic ways of turning off genes that halt the growth of these abnormal cells.
If anyone is interested, they can just do some research into things like the Gerson method, antineoplastons, laetrile, etc. There’s a nice film regarding some of these treatments called “Cut Poison Burn”.
Thank you for commenting Ami. The world desperately needs more physicians like you.
While your definition of cancer isn’t incorrect, Mr/Mrs “Physician”, yours is an extremely boiled down, irrelevant, and incorrect version of carcinogenesis. Thank goodness that you’re able to think outside the box and recommend treatments for this disorder that you understand so well.