Absence of studies comparing chemo treatment survival vs non-treatment survival

[burtlancast]

There's a rumor around stating there doesn't exist any peer-reviewed published studies comparing chemo treatment survival vs non-treatment survival.

Does anybody know of them ?

It would be very hard for oncologists to propose treatment with cancer-causing chemo chemicals while not being able to show studies guaranteeing a longer survival.

 

[Such_Saturation]

I guess they say it would be "problematic" because of the "ethical issues".

 

[burtlancast]

I guess they say it would be "problematic" because of the "ethical issues".

These "ethical" issues don't prevent them from falsifying the cause of death reports, systematically substituting "cancer" when in fact it's the chemo side effects which killed the patients.

 

[XPlus]

It would be very hard for oncologists to propose treatment with cancer-causing chemo chemicals while not being able to show studies guaranteeing a longer survival.

A friend of mine was telling me the story of a friend's mother who was diagnosed with some cancer in an advanced stage. The family - although poor - wanted to put all their savings into chemotherapy.
After consulting with his uncle, who's one of the country's top oncologists, the uncle told him "I've been on top of my game for over 30 years and all I can do is tell her to pray"

Not long ago I had a relative pass away. He was treated with chemotherapy for a while.
Doctors stopped the treatment because his bones were "melting away".
I visited him on his death bed. He could not move, talk, eat or take control of his body.
He looked dead already but in no way looked from a "normal" cause.
Nuclear poisoning maybe the closest fit.

Chemotherapy seems like a tool with a child to play with when they try to weed out unwanted herbs from the garden.

 

[burtlancast]

A friend of mine was telling me the story of a friend's mother who was diagnosed with some cancer in an advanced stage. The family - although poor - wanted to put all their savings into chemotherapy.

I wonder if they would have reacted the same had they known:

1. All chemo is carcinogenic

2. Since it's 60 year inception, NO study got published in scientific peer reviewed journals comparing chemo treated survival vs no treatment survival.

3. Hospitals routinely falsify chemo-induced deaths to cancer death.

These 3 points defy belief.
95% of the people probably believe the exact opposite.

Someone said: "The bigger the lie..."

 

[Spokey]

On what basis does conventional medicine make the claim that chemo is a good idea for patients then? It sounds like it can't have any scientific backing if there are no true comparative studies.

It's really annoying this sort of thing, when someone says something like 'a vaccine gave my kid autism' the medical establishment jumps on it calling 'no evidence' as if absence of evidence was evidence of absence (usually ignoring some study that wasn't approved by a pharma monster somewhere). And yet when they make a claim founded on at best dubious evidence, it's okay. I realise I'm stating the obvious here, but, well I think you all know the feeling.

 

[gretchen]

I took Accutane which is a chemotherapy drug twice in my late teens. After I found out the truth about it in 2010, I wrote about my experience with it on various skin care forums only to be surprised that most people are totally for it. It's almost cherished actually, despite the overwhelming evidence of the damage it does. People become upset if you say they shouldn't take it, or that's it's harmful. The world would be a terrible place without it. Likewise, people believe chemo is good because it helps some people survive. It's seen as a legitimate treatment. (as opposed to pretty much all alternative or natural treatments which are viewed as bad due to not being "evidence based") With these mind sets, how can there be studies of non-treatment, especially with the outpouring of care and concern that cancer sufferers get, and the horror people express over their death irregardless of what treatment they use?

People don't want to know the truth. They're happy to remain uninformed. And the fact that doctors themselves don't use chemo doesn't seem to get through to many. It doesn't matter if there are no studies on it. If there were and it turned out natural treatments are actually effective they would be ridiculed as the latest fad like barefoot running or coconut oil. Or maybe some clever jerk will try to buy the sun and sell little bits of it to the rest of us. This is what we should expect from people who didn't know what color the sky was until recently.

 

[burtlancast]

Here's a naturopath ( Michael Farley) telling it like it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prvt9g6uiaQ

I've came across dozens and dozens of arguments against chemo, but only he definitely nailed it across in my mind .

 

[XPlus]

Your vid, burt, makes me wonder how people still trust doctors, blindly.

Few weeks ago I took my cat to the vet, they gave me the doc's number to contact in case of emergency.
Wonder why this doesn't happen with human health care.

Hospitals now are giant, sophisticated brothels with doctors running as high profile prostitutes. They rush though the service and try to see as many customers in the shortest time possible. Actually, they are worse, since they also try to sell the most expensive and health-destroying treatments available.

Those with cancer are getting the worst of it.
They're put to death and robbed of their money, systematically.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Your vid, burt, makes me wonder how people still trust doctors, blindly.

Few weeks ago I took my cat to the vet, they gave me the doc's number to contact in case of emergency.
Wonder why this doesn't happen with human health care.

Hospitals now are giant, sophisticated brothels with doctors running as high profile prostitutes. They rush though the service and try to see as many customers in the shortest time possible. Actually, they are worse, since they also try to sell the most expensive and health-destroying treatments available.

Those with cancer are getting the worst of it.
They're put to death and robbed of their money, systematically.

Those with cancer probably have been through the same thing in other places... most products in a supermarket are similar to prostitutes.

 

[tara]

I was of the impression that there are many different chemicals used for chemotherapy, that different chemicals are used to treat different cancers, and that there are requirements for studies for each one before they are released. I doubt that a general study comparing chemotherapy versus non-chemotherapy survival rates would be very meaningful, at least to me. I'd be a lot more interested in the survival rates with a particular cancer with and without a particular chemical.

They keep trying to find ways to make the chemicals target the cancerous cells more specifically. The side effects of some chemotherapy drugs are much worse than others. They also now at least sometimes make efforts to check how a particular persons cancer is going to respond to a particular drug before they go ahead with a full-scale assault.

Some of the chemicals used for some cancers are things like aromatase inhibitors, right?

I know a couple of people who have passed the 5 year survival mark who had both surgery and chemotherapy for bowel cancer, and one who seems well now but has not yet reached 5 years. Bowel cancer tumours large enough to cause noticable symptoms don't have a great survival rate untreated. I also knew people who died within months of diagnoses with treatment, but probably in both cases the cancers were well developed before discovery.

I'd be assuming all chemotherapy has risks, and in some cases those risks may far outweigh the risks of not using them, but I doubt the stats would come out the same for every drug.

I'm not arguing that all chemotherapy is a good idea - far from it. I think scepticism is often a healthy attitude to take to proposed medical treatments. I would suggest a more nuanced approach, though.

 

[burtlancast]

Hospitals now are giant, sophisticated brothels with doctors running as high profile prostitutes. They rush though the service and try to see as many customers in the shortest time possible. Actually, they are worse, since they also try to sell the most expensive and health-destroying treatments available.

Those with cancer are getting the worst of it.
They're put to death and robbed of their money, systematically.

You've summarized what pretty much all the well informed people in the alternative health movement feels ( except perhaps a mod from here).

In these past 5 years, i've tried unsuccessfully to warn several people with cancer around me not to do chemo, and presented them a few alternatives, like the Gerson therapy.

I never was successful once.
A few already died, well ahead of the predictions of their oncologists.

I kind of feel i didn't do a sufficient good job.

As Farley put it bluntly, oncologists are here to put the fear in you.
So, if one wants to convince someone, it is not enough to present non toxic alternatives; he also has to address this fear factor.

With Farley's new knowledge ( the 3 points i wrote above) i feel now i'm much better equipped in addressing this fear factor; if the oncologist agrees with all 3 of them, then it becomes perfectly logical for the cancer patient to ask himself where's the scientific argument for proposing chemo ?
And if there remains no scientific argument (except the 3 non-scientific ones * below) then why no other alternative is offered by these big shot cancer specialists ?

* Non-scientific reasons in favor of chemo:
- Because it's partly paid by insurance
- Because there's thousands and thousands of intelligent doctors proposing it
- Because everybody's doing it. Even friggin movie stars are.

All that remains is to propose an alternative therapy with documented proven cases.

I've found the 714-X of Gaston Naessens to be especially impressive, since he was put on trial in Canada and found not guilty by virtue of cured hopeless patients testifying for him. His product is fairly easy to obtain, to administer oneself, and is absolutely non toxic . Canada was forced to allow it on the market after Naessen's court victory.

There's too the Beljanski products, who recently announced they've had success with chemo-resistant pancreatic cancer.

Then of course there's Oleander, Essiac, Cannabis (Rick Simpson oil) which one can administer oneself.

The Gerson therapy has a very impressive track record, and presents the best documentation. It's few drawbacks are it's lenght and difficulty, and the fact it saddly hasn't integrated the latest scientific discoveries of these past 60 years, as Ray detailed them.

Vit C by IV and bicarbonate (Simoncini method) are also good ( Michael Farley is wrong about them) but need to be administered by a specialist.


Here's the video where Michael explains how hospital internists routinely falsify the cause of death of cancer patients

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3YEi4c5T5I

 

[XPlus]

I remember our paleo and Paleo-ish friends blaming sugar for cancers.
Some even propose that cutting sugar starves cancer and their low carb, clean diet will the heal the body.

I'm skeptical of the IV Vit C.
Is it applied in manner where it skips assisting iron absorption.

After reading Peat for a while I get the sense that cancer is actually more difficult to cure as compared to what a naturopath would think.

 

[burtlancast]

Here's the youtube channel of the Riordan clinic.
https://www.youtube.com/user/healthhunter1/videos

Hugh Riordan has treated thousands of patients with IV Vit C.

 

[tara]

Vit C is a chemical. So is aspirin.

 

[M Scott]

Many studies have been published where the use of common chemotherapy drugs improves survival when used in addition to non-chemical cancer treatments, like surgery and radiation. Does this satisfy your requirement? Here are two:

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/86/9/673.short

"Patients treated with perioperative chemotherapy and surgery had an estimated median survival of 64 months compared with 11 months for patients who had surgery alone"

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199010043231403

"In patients with Stage III non-small-cell lung cancer, induction of chemotherapy with cisplatin and vinblastine before radiation significantly improves median survival (by about four months) and doubles the number of long-term survivors as compared with radiation therapy alone"

Also, since you brought up Gerson therapy in this thread, here's an interesting study, which used a Gerson inspired treatment and compared it with chemotherapy:

http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/28/12/2058.short

"Of 55 patients who had inoperable pancreatic cancer, 23 elected gemcitabine-based chemotherapy, and 32 elected enzyme treatment, which included pancreatic enzymes, nutritional supplements, detoxification, and an organic diet...Kaplan-Meier analysis found a 9.7-month difference in median survival between the chemotherapy group (median survival, 14 months) and enzyme treatment groups (median survival, 4.3 months) and found an adjusted-mortality hazard ratio of the enzyme group compared with the chemotherapy group of 6.96 (P < .001). At 1 year, 56% of chemotherapy-group patients were alive, and 16% of enzyme-therapy patients were alive. The quality of life ratings were better in the chemotherapy group than in the enzyme-treated group (P < .01)"

 

[XPlus]

If the only criteria here is survival, this does not tell anything about the quality of life.
Is it just like the skewed fractured 6/6 vision after LASIK?

I bet it's more like those people survived few more months of pain, numbness emotional misery while they were hooked to breathing and IV machines.

 

[burtlancast]

Many studies have been published where the use of common chemotherapy drugs improves survival when used in addition to non-chemical cancer treatments, like surgery and radiation. Does this satisfy your requirement? Here are two:

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/86/9/673.short

"Patients treated with perioperative chemotherapy and surgery had an estimated median survival of 64 months compared with 11 months for patients who had surgery alone"

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199010043231403

"In patients with Stage III non-small-cell lung cancer, induction of chemotherapy with cisplatin and vinblastine before radiation significantly improves median survival (by about four months) and doubles the number of long-term survivors as compared with radiation therapy alone"

Also, since you brought up Gerson therapy in this thread, here's an interesting study, which used a Gerson inspired treatment and compared it with chemotherapy:

http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/28/12/2058.short

"Of 55 patients who had inoperable pancreatic cancer, 23 elected gemcitabine-based chemotherapy, and 32 elected enzyme treatment, which included pancreatic enzymes, nutritional supplements, detoxification, and an organic diet...Kaplan-Meier analysis found a 9.7-month difference in median survival between the chemotherapy group (median survival, 14 months) and enzyme treatment groups (median survival, 4.3 months) and found an adjusted-mortality hazard ratio of the enzyme group compared with the chemotherapy group of 6.96 (P < .001). At 1 year, 56% of chemotherapy-group patients were alive, and 16% of enzyme-therapy patients were alive. The quality of life ratings were better in the chemotherapy group than in the enzyme-treated group (P < .01)"

No.

Those are TREATMENT studies, not SURVIVAL studies, and are systematically biased in favor of the drug tested.

The patients who, after a few months of chemo treatment , die early get STATISTICALLY EXCLUDED because their premature death supposedly didn't give the chemo treatment the time to show it's full effect.

They simply are LEFT OUT, as if they NEVER ENTERED THE STUDY. They never get comptabilized against the chemo treated group.

These studies simply reflect those strong enough to endure the toxicity of chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy during this early time interval but tell nothing of the early mortality.

In a true SURVIVAL study, all deaths would have to be recorded, early or late.

Thus, 99% of these trials are biased in favor of the drug tested.

This shows quite clearly in your pancreatic study, where supposedly getting a toxic drug like Gemcitabine, responsable for immunosupression, anemia, coagulation disorders, pulmonary toxicity, and a plethora of other penible side effects inexplicably provides a better quality of life than a non toxic treatment
(http://www.drugs.com/sfx/gemcitabine-side-effects.html)...

 

[XPlus]

I looked at the last study, which supposedly measures quality of life, using a FACT-PA quality of life questionnaire.
First, what's a "FACT-PA quality of life questionnaire".
Second, the graph attached shows chemotherapy survivors having insignificantly higher "quality of life", while the general trend of their "quality of life" is in sharp decline. In contrast, those on "enzyme" therapy, had their "quality of life" improve after 9 months.

 

[Suikerbuik]

Burt, though you seem trying to make something clear, I don't get any of what you mean.. What is your view based on?? (Note, I only read that enzyme based therapy). Anyway there's a survival plot in the article and as far as I can see they included all 55 patients that met the criteria.

Xplus, that's just looking for something.. One could also argue that those, when enrolled in the study, in the enzyme groep were in better health initially.

These subjects I'd say fit a recent post in whereas someone stated:
"everyone becomes a so-called "expert" in nutrition and biochemistry/health".