Many people diagnosed with cancer are "treated" with cytotoxic (that is, cell killing) chemotherapy (that is, treatment with chemicals or drugs). Commonly people refer to this treatment as having "chemo".
It is important to be aware that cell killing drugs injected into a person with cancer are distributed throughout the body and do kill many cells that are perfectly healthy along with some of the targeted cancer cells. This is largely why people react in such a toxic way and frequently experience profound nausea and vomiting, hair loss and other less obvious problems.
According to Gordon Zubrod, M.D., (a researcher for the National Cancer Institute), chemotherapy is considered to be highly effective only in these 10 types of cancers:
- Burkitt’s lymphoma
- Choriocarcinoma
- Acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Hodgkin’s disease
- Lymphoscarcoma
- Embryonal testicular cancer
- Wilms’ Tumor
- Ewing’s sarcoma
- Rhabdomyosarcoma
- Retinoblastoma
Apart from testicular cancer, all of these malignancies are rare in adults. These are not the only cancers that can be treated by chemotherapy of course, it all depends on the type of cancer, how early the cancer is caught, what other measures are taken to treat the cancer, and so on.
Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D., one of the leading researchers in alternative cancer therapies, and author of the book "Questioning Chemotherapy" states that when an oncologist (cancer specialist) speaks of a "response" to chemotherapy, that should not be taken as an implication that "increased survival" is probable. Dr. Moss urges cancer patients to ask these questions before beginning chemotherapy:
- What is being promised: short-term tumor shrinkage, or actual life-prolongation?
- What effect will chemo have on quality of life?
- What is the cost?
I have seen far too many people treated with chemo who should not have had the treatment. Unfortunately, in the shocked state newly diagnosed people often experience, it is far too easy for doctors to lead patients down a particular path or to make referals to their oncologist colleagues who will offer very predictable patterns of treatment.
It is worth recalling that when oncologists were asked if they would themselves have the treatments they regularly prescribe for others the overwhelming response was a clear "no". Nor would they use the treatments on their family members. This should make a person think twice before resorting to the oncologists and their toxic treatments.
Regretably, after the damage caused by chemo has been done, alternative therapies face a much more difficult task. First, the chemo damage must be adequately dealt with before maximum benefits can be expected. Why do people first go down the orthodox route and then try the alternative path when orthodoxy has nothing more to try? It is because of the dominance in health care that orthodoxy enjoys. It’s a pity, because it makes much more sense to tackle the problem in the reverse order, using orthodoxy’s destructive techniques only if absolutely necessary.