A Rant for the Cure: My Issue with the Cancer Industry

As I walked through the Safeway store this morning to pick up some snackies while I edit the Understanding MMS video, the piped-in Muzak-like program broke away for a recorded announcement, which celebrated raising $16.7 million for breast cancer research this past month, in this local area.

The fact that this is not a cause for celebration to me may be one indication that I am completely out-of-phase with mainstream thinking. So I’ll understand if you elect not to continue reading.

It is now fashionable for not-for-profit organizations to seek donations for cancer research. Problem is that cancer research is not really about a cure. Founded 25 years ago, the Susan G. Komen Foundation has elevated their “Race for the Cure” into a star-studded tax deductible fund-raising brand unto itself.

Started by Nancy Brinker as a promise to her sister Susan, the foundation is a fundraising juggernaut that brought in $242 million in 2006, of which almost $218 went out as research grants, other initiatives, and related expenses.

I’m not singling SGKF out as a bad guy here either. There’s no evil in seeking a cure for cancer, and SGKF is not alone as a “retail” fundraiser. Many other well-intentioned foundations are doing the same thing. There are some much larger “wholesalers” in this soup. And unlike regular business, money flows from bottom up, instead of from the top down, all made possible by the assured occurrence of disease, and the continued questionable chances, not of survival, but of the full recovery of one’s health.

All medical practice offers someone who is suffering from cancer today is survival. That’s why all the ads and literature presents survival as something to take pride in. I have spoken at length to cancer conquerors, who know that anyone can beat it, and why. They have lived decades after getting rid of cancer, and it didn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it. So why are these people raising billions each year, and not getting it done?

You know the answer. The cancer industry is big business, so much so that raising and distributing money has become the focus, and not curing cancer. But let’s all be honest about it, okay? The National Cancer Institute’s budget fiscal year 2006 totaled over $4.747 billion. That was just for one year, a 1% decrease from 2005. If you’d like to read the information yourself, download a copy of their Fact Book.

My problem with all this is also the areas of research that are not covered. It appears that mainstream cancer research is 100% pharmaceutical-centric. Researchers are looking for formulas that either synthesize or mimic natural processes, which aren’t patentable, or they come up with something brand new, which is. There are two problems with this approach.

1. They’ve yet to find one that works without messing up some other physiological function, sometimes irrevocably (e.g., mastectomy),
2. The ones they thrust upon the public tend to take patients further down in health, or out in death (e.g., chemotherapy, radiation, surgery),
3. they’re expensive (duh!),
4. natural modalities (the unpatentables) are not considered, and
5. natural modalities that somehow gain some attention due to favorable results (in spite of media oversight) more often than not, get attacked, not only by the medical industry, but by the FDA, and the media, and are unsupported by medical insurance, even though many such modalities are inexpensive.

Guess I had more than two issues with that.

Let’s stop stringing innocent, trusting people on by putting folks in white coats in front of cameras in commercials and telling the public how committed an organization is to finding cures when the results, given the knowledge that is readily available, don’t support it.

Let’s stop branding people and companies propose alternative methods as incompetent, especially when they can scientifically demonstrate the basis of their claims. The FDA’s mandate is to protect the public interest, not the interests of pharmaceutical companies. However, regardless of what the FDA does, it is your responsibility to protect your own health, and know that you can. Disease, which siphons away your life, maintains the livelihoods of many others who are choosing not to look at the entire spectrum of possibility.

I imagine that Nancy Brinker was sincere in her promise to find a cure in memory of her sister Susan, but I wonder if she’s sincere now. Now it’s big business. There is a wealth of information and knowledge available that suggests the true causes of cancer and how to make it go away naturally. None of them point to surgical or pharmaceutical options as viable or desirable treatment strategies. Apparently, mainstream “swayers” of public opinion don’t want you to look too closely into those areas.

You might mess around and heal yourself.

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