9 Cancer Esoterica

An understanding of cancer cell behavior and the effects of the body’s defenses and
other phenomena will influence treatment protocols. These extraneous phenomena
may include viruses or microorganisms, assorted chemicals or biochemicals, and
even electromagnetic interactions. The following constitutes a partial review and a
deeper examination of some of the topics from the preceding chapters.

THE MORPHISM OF CANCER CELLS

In the formation of oncogenes, depending on the action of still other viruses, or
helper viruses, the end result will be either a solid tumor or a blood-related cancer
such as leukemia. In turn, solid tumors may be classified as carcinomas or sarcomas,
depending on what kind of body tissue is involved. Furthermore, cancerous cells
mimic the normal cells from which they originated, resulting in the classification of
more than 100 different kinds of cancer, with some figures above 300, or even as
many as 600 different kinds.
Moreover, the fact that cancerous cells mimic normal cells prevents a triggering
response from the immune system. The immune system simply cannot recognize a
person’s cancerous cells. Nevertheless, it can recognize another person’s cells,
including cancerous cells, as evidenced by the fact that organ transplants require
suppression of the immune system. Research is proceeding, however, on ways to
trigger an individual’s own immune response against cancer cells. (This line of
investigation was described by Stephen S. Hall in the April 1997 issue of the Atlantic
Monthly and in his book, A Commotion in the Blood [1997], and it pertains princi-
pally to melanoma.)
There is also the consideration that the action of gut flora may produce carci-
nogenic biochemicals that enter the bloodstream and result in the formation of
cancerous cells.
As for the skin cancer named melanoma, its formation involves the action of an
enzyme called tyrosinase, which is required for the production of the skin pigment
called melanin. The processes are said to be entirely different than for the formation
of solid cancers and blood-related cancers.
Speaking further of viruses and cancer again brings up the subject of polymor-
phism or pleomorphism, whereby the same microbe, microorganism, virus, or virus-
like organism may exist in two or more forms, as large as a bacterium, or maybe
even as a subviral particle, such as a prion (e.g., as implicated in mad cow disease,
or bovine spongiform encephalitis, and in the human form called Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease). The general subject has been reviewed, for instance, in Moss’s Cancer
Therapy: The Independent Consumer’s Guide to Non-Toxic Treatment and
Prevention (1992), Hoffman’s Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical

355

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356 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

Inhibitors (1999a), and in an article by Schaefer and Majnarich appearing in the

August/September 2001 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients. A
partial listing of prominent investigators who have been involved includes the names
of Rife, Livingston, and Naessens — plus many others cited in the previous refer-
ences, which also serve as a critique for the state of affairs.
Adding to the confusion is that there are as yet no systematic methods of
cataloguing or classifying viruses that exist in terms of species of other microorgan-
isms, and organisms. Most viruses are thought to remain unknown, and the relatively
few that are known are merely classified by size and shape.
The subject is in flux, but the existence of polymorphism or pleomorphism is
confirmed by such everyday examples as insect larva and their morphological trans-
formation, for example, the caterpillar–pupa–butterfly sequence. The oceanic phe-
nomena called red tide include a metamorphic organism that in one form exists as
an animal-like flagellate, evidencing a trailing appendage, but in another form is
more like a plant or alga (e.g., Hoffman, 1999a, pp. 187, 188). These are the concerns
of Rodney Barker’s And the Waters Turned to Blood: The Ultimate Biological Threat
(1997). In any event, toxins are produced that can be life-threatening.
While on the subject of pleomorphism and the like, there is a video out titled
The Rise and Fall of a Scientific Genius, about the career and findings of the much-
cited Royal Rife, written and directed by Shawn Montgomery. A review was fur-
nished in the January 2004 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients,
and another in the November 2005 issue. Mentioned is the fact that in the early part
of the twentieth century, Rife’s work was respected by eminent medical researchers
and physicists and was financially supported by Henry Timken, Jr., of the Timken
Roller Bearing Company. (A device invented by Rife had saved the company millions
of dollars.) A laboratory was provided by Timken in San Diego, and Rife received
the cooperation of a Dr. Milbank Johnson, head of the local medical society, who
was affiliated with the University of Southern California. Two prominent bacteriol-
ogists also worked with Rife: Dr. E. C. Rosenow of the Mayo Clinic and Dr. Arthur
Kendall of Northwestern University.
Rife’s work included the development of the Universal Microscope, which
achieved magnifications of up to 31,000X on living organisms — rather than on
dead organisms as with the electron microscope. A result was confirmation of
Antoine Béchamp’s conclusions that disease developed within the biochemical envi-
ronment of the body by various ongoing and changing processes, rather than uphold-
ing the rigid view of Pasteur and Koch, that of “One bug — one disease.” A prominent
discovery was that of a fungus in people with cancer, a fungus that is said to have
started out as a virus and is called the Bx cancer virus.
It is further added that Rife’s Beam Ray Instrument (the radio frequency device)
was clinically tested in a University of Southern California study on 16 terminally
ill cancer patients in 1934, all supervised by a panel of medical experts. Fourteen
were pronounced cured within 70 days; the other two required 20 more days before
being clinically cured. Nevertheless, Rife’s work was discounted by certain of the
medical establishment, who succeeded in restrictedly defining a “virus” only as a
particular microorganism that proliferates by modifying the genetic machinery of

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Cancer Esoterica 357

the host cells, rather than as encompassing the pleomorphism phenomenon discov-
ered by Rife and others.
The video is subtitled Part I: Rife’s Rise and is followed by Part II: Rife’s Fall.
The latter highlights the (successful) efforts at suppression with examples, courtesy
of Morris Fishbein of the American Medical Association. A further application is
furnished in Bryan Rosner’s When Antibiotics Fail: Lyme Disease and Rife Machines,
with Critical Evaluation of Leading Alternative Therapies; it was reviewed in the
November 2005 Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients.
Interestingly, in the December 2005 issue of the same periodical, Ralph Moss’s
column “The War on Cancer,” asks the question, “Do Radio Frequency Energy Fields
Cause Cancer?” The question pertains mostly to mobile phones. The American
Cancer Society says no, but Moss offers some information to the contrary. In any
event, there is the work of Rife and others using radio frequency electromagnetic
fields (RFEMFs) against cancer.
In the same issue there is a remarkable article by Gitte S. Jensen, Ph.D., an
immunologist and cancer researcher affiliated with McGill University. Descriptively
titled “Microscopy and the Search for the Soul,” it updates present research and
laboratory instrumentation and also, interestingly, reinforces Béchamp’s view that
there is more to life than meets the eye via mere microscopy, contrary to Pasteur’s
restricted outlook. Among the findings is that the blood from patients with various
chronic and acute illnesses can look drastically different than the blood from healthy
people. A number of other researchers were pursuing work along the same lines,
and their findings resulted in two world conferences on pleomorphism put together
by Jensen.
A prominent discovery indicates that bacteria can exchange genetic information,
resulting in evolutionary forms that thrive even under extreme circumstances. A
further assessment is that there is no single cancer-causing bacterium, symbiont, or
parasite, though bacterial presence and inflammation are linked to cancer (Personnet,
1999). There are still other considerations, with references supplied. Thus, biophys-
ical forces and their interactions are mentioned (see L. McTaggart, The Field: The
Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe.) Bioelectric potentials also enter (Becker
and Selden, 1985). It is noted that the DNA decoding has been viewed as the near
end of the search for the essence of life, whereas the subject is much more complex
even than this, because DNA interacts with electromagnetic phenomena. Caution is
advised in genetic manipulations, because our views are oversimplistic, there being
so much not yet known in the interactions that could occur.
Jensen discusses several unusual concepts, that of the somatid (Naessen’s sym-
biont, a particle associated with lifelike qualities), the protit (a living protein particle),
and the bion (a transitional form between nonliving and living matter). Mention is
made of Naessen’s 714X, which can be described as a camphor compound used
against cancer; however, it was conversely found to reduce the ability of natural
killer cells to kill cancer cells in vitro.
Other references listed include Clark (1997) and Lockshin et al. (2004), as well
as the earlier work of Germany’s G. Enderlein, mentioned elsewhere.
In partial conclusion, the foregoing ties in with the more recent advances
in medicine: chronic inflammation, or the inflammation response, is a common

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358 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

characteristic associated with all sorts of diseases, including heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, arthritis, asthma, and maybe even Alzheimer’s. In other words, over the
long term, the body’s immune system or immune response to a particular condition
can eventually turn against itself, causing still other diseases or manifestations. (A
term used is autoimmune disease.) The marker for the inflammatory condition is
called the C-reactive protein, but the counter is yet in abeyance, and may be more
a matter of diet and lifestyle rather than immunity per se.
The subject is explored, for instance, by Christine Gotman and Alice Park in
the February 23, 2004, issue of Time, with the article reprinted in the July 2004
issue of Life Extension. Of special interest is a paragraph relating to the broader
implications of inflammation and its treatment: “The concept is so intriguing because
it suggests a new and much simpler way of warding off disease. Instead of different
treatments for, say, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and colon cancer, there might be a
single inflammation-reducing remedy that would prevent all three.” (Or, in comment,
there might well be a single treatment for all kinds of cancer.)
The same issue of Life Extension contains an article by Dean S. Cunningham,
M.D., Ph.D., where the possibility is brought up that the herb Stephania tetranda
(stephania), long used in China against various ailments, might act against inflam-
mation. (Aspirin is the most well-known anti-inflammatory chemical substance, with
Celebrex® a newer drug on the scene.) The herb stephania, known in China as han-
fang-chi or fen-fang-qi, contains a number of identified compounds: tetrandine,
fangchinoline, cyclanoline, stephanathrine, oxofangchinoline, 2-N-methyltetrandine,
and cyclanine. Some can be classed as alkaloids, and it is noted that in Chinese
medical philosophy, the use of multiple ingredients is considered to be more effective
than a single ingredient.
The subject is further examined in terms of chronic drug treatment by Sherry
A. Rogers, M.D., in The High Blood Pressure HOAX!, published in 2005, and
reviewed in the August/September 2006 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors
& Patients. One readily becomes a “heart” patient if a first reading is above the
current guidelines for risk (which sometimes change). Doctors who study sudden
cardiac arrest have found that C-reactive protein was the most predictive risk factor
rather than cholesterol. Because C-reactive protein is a marker for inflammation, for
example, from infections and the environment, finding the source is a critical task.
Furthermore, statin drugs counter cholesterol, which is necessary for many body
functions, and attempts at resolution lead to still other problems, and the start of
“the drug merry-go-round.”
Some interesting facets of cancer cell behavior were furnished in biologist Lyall
Watson’s The Romeo Error: A Matter of Life and Death. Thus, there is something
called the Hayflick limit, which occurs in all cell cultures, but presumably not for
cells in their proper place in the body (Watson, 1975, pp. 24–26). In an isolated
culture, say after about 50 generations, a limit is reached, which is different for
different species, and the cells die out. Moreover, the cells change their identity
during this period, “losing their memories” and “forgetting” what they are supposed
to represent. Furthermore, all cells ultimately look the same, regardless of their
origins. They retain all the cellular instructions but have forgotten how to “read.”

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Cancer Esoterica 359

These cells may be rejuvenated, however, by furnishing new instructions, even

though these instructions may be different. For example, if exiled human cells are
treated with horse serum, they become more horselike. Or if a mutation takes place
in one or another of the cells, furnishing new instructions, the new proliferation will
then grow beyond the Hayflick limit, no longer being constrained by the old cellular
restraints. The new cellular line thus becomes cancerous.
If a flagging cell culture is placed back in its host, cancer may be produced if
the cells had mutated; otherwise, the cells will function normally. Interestingly, it is
noted that if cells from the orbital area of a frog embryo are placed somewhere in
the stomach region, these cells will act to produce new gut lining, and not internal
eyes. In other words, there is a coordinating system that ensures that all the cells in
a given area act or function in the same way.
In Chapter 5 of Watson (1975), he first introduces the subject of vital energy,
identified in Hindu writings as prana, which, by means scientifically unknowable,
coordinates the living organism as a patterned and functional whole (Watson, 1975,
p. 122ff). He next considers the body vital centers called chakras, which can be
located by photographs without light. These chakras are related to the practices of
acupuncture, which presuppose twelve main channels or meridians through which
energy flows, and which correspond to the chakras. When these channels come close
enough to the surface, manipulation can take place via acupuncture. More than 700
such points have been pinpointed empirically, and an electronic device called a
tobiscope locates these points with an accuracy of less than one tenth of a millimeter
(Watson, 1975, p. 125).
The jury is still out on acupuncture per se as a treatment against cancer, although
there have been some positive results for electroacupuncture (Moss, 1975, pp.
373–375). The subject is further explored in the following section. Like so much in
the arena of cancer therapies, there is no consensus, apparently with nothing abso-
lutely definitive.

ELECTROMAGNETIC PHENOMENA AND CANCER

There have been investigations into the use of electromagnetic treatments for cancer.
Among the more interesting is the use of radio frequency waves in what is called
Rife therapy, which seemingly has never been duplicated, although there are modern
devices on the market. An exposé about the suppression of this therapy has been
written by Barry Lynes, and will again be cited subsequently. There may be addi-
tional support in terms of the work of Harold Burr of Yale University on the effects
of electrodynamic fields (Watson, 1975, pp. 138–142). Burr thought in terms of a
life field that served as an organizer for cells of the body — how and why new cells
arrange themselves in a pattern and function like the old cells (although we now
think more in terms of DNA and RNA). Central to the consideration are enzymes,
whose structure turns out to be extremely malleable, so as to lock into the substrate
(or reactant) key, or vice versa. This is affected by electrical fields, and Burr and
associates have determined, presumably beyond reasonable doubt, that every living
thing, plant, or animal, possesses an electrical field. This field can be measured at
some distance from the body, and mirrors or even controls changes in the body.

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360 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

Experiments by Burr showed that chromosomal changes relate to life fields. For
instance, in studying the seeds from pure and hybrid strains of maize, which differed
by only one altered gene, there was a difference in the voltage patterns, permitting
a distinction even before the seeds had sprouted.
(Versions of the Rife generator may be found for sale on the Internet. For
instance, there is the Ultrasonic Rife Generator at about $1695 and the portable
battery-operated unit at about $395, available from Transformation Technologies,
POB 2698, North Hills, CA 91393, 877-287-0912, in care of Gary Wade. It is
indicated that the generator can dissolve blood clots, so healing must first take place
after surgery and phlebitis cases must be avoided. Also to be avoided are patients
having strokes caused by artery rupture in the brain, and pregnancies, real or sus-
pected. Another source is the International Center for Nutritional Research, 303
Corporate Drive East, Langhorne, PA 19047, 215-968-4324. There are in addition
the names of the Royal Rife Research Society, Rife Technologies, Horizon Tech-
nology, and JW Labs. The qualifier is that the units must be used for investigational
purposes. However, clinical treatments are routinely permitted in Canada and Mex-
ico. Quackwatch notes that the attorney general of Minnesota filed a suit circa
1997–1998 for nonperformance. There is the observation that although ultrasonic
waves can act against cancer cells, these units are not sufficiently energy intensive.
An update is the Energy Wellness Frequency Instrument offered by Natural Energies
Inc., 1825 Tamiami Trail A6-108T, Port Charlotte, FL 33948, 914-851-5383. These
Rife-based generators developed for home use have the trademark Energy Well-
nessTM and are priced at about $3000. The included brochure mentions “exciting
reports on experiments” involving many diseases and conditions other than cancer.
There is a warning to consult a physician if the patient is epileptic, or has a pacemaker
or other electronic heart implant.)
A letter from a certain Daniel Haley of Daingerfield, Texas, appeared in the
April 2004 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, with the heading
“The Benefits of Medical Freedom.” Successful treatments against cancer and other
ailments using the Rife Blue Light device, and other devices, are described as having
occurred under the auspices of a Dr. Hector Romero at Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.
Without attempting here to pass judgment, an e-mail address for Dr. Romero’s
alternative clinic is: qaborq@yahoo.com.mx. (For confirmation of the treatment’s
effectiveness, at least for a particular patient’s Stage IV liver cancer, one can call
Haley’s brother-in-law, Tex, at 512-556-3424.)
A lengthy article that appeared in the June 2000 issue of the Townsend Letter
for Doctors & Patients may have some bearing on this. Titled “A Far-Infrared Ray
Emitting Stone (SGES) to Treat Cancer and Degenerative Diseases,” the article was
written by Professor Serge Jurasunas of Natiris, LDA (Centro Indústrial de Abóboda,
Estrada de Polima, Armasém D, 2785-543 Sao Domingos de Rana, Portugal, 21-
448-04-10, FAX: 21-448-04-18 or 21-448-04-19, e-mail: natiris@mail.telepac.pt).
The note is provided that Tenko-Seki stone (SGES, or “super growth ray-emitting
stone) is extracted from hills on the island of Kyushi in Japan, where it has been
used extensively in baths for therapeutic purposes, and some of the Japanese studies
are cited. In the initial paragraphs of the article, as an aside, there is mention of the
medical importance of organic germanium in treating many diseases, including

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Cancer Esoterica 361

cancer. The far-infrared ray wavelength is 4 to 14 microns and can be called a

“growth ray” because it is apparently involved in the growth of plants, animals, and
humans. Theories and case histories are furnished in the article.
Continuing in a somewhat similar vein, there is a long letter appearing in the
October 2004 issue of the same periodical, titled “Effective Alternative Cancer
Treatments Suppressed.” Written by a certain Dr. Curt Maxwell of Winterhaven,
California, a young patient had been receiving the insulin potentiation treatment
(IPT), which involves dropping the blood sugar way down with insulin and then
killing the cancer cells with low-dose methotrexate or some other recognized cyto-
toxic chemotherapy drug. (The treatment was developed by Dr. Donato Perez Garcia
at his Tijuana clinic, and is carried on by his grandson.) Dr. Maxwell was concerned
that the patient was not receiving any protocols to build up health at the same time
— such as IV vitamin C, a Myers cocktail, and the like. It was also mentioned that
patients who attend the Mexican cancer clinics have a very high survival rate if no
prior chemotherapy was involved. In speaking of double-blind scientific studies on
alternative treatments, he wonders what these studies say about chemotherapy, a
proven “scientific” treatment that poisons several hundred thousand people to death
every year. In turn, he gives a plug for a number of alternative physicians, starting
with Dr. Hariton Alivazatos of Greece, whose treatment or formula is available from
the International Biologies Hospital in Tijuana, under the direction of Roberta Tapia,
M.D. Other names listed, for the record, are Virginia Livingston Wheeler, Kurt
Donsbach, Geronimo Rubio, Ernesto Contreras, Harold Manner, Johanna Budwig,
Gerhard Ohlenschlager, Heinrich Kremer, Xavier Mayr, Abram Hoffer, Robert Brad-
ford, Hulda Clark, Hans Nieper, Emanuel Revici, William B. Coley, Jese Stoff,
Hariton Alivazatos, Lawrence Burton, Stanislaw Burzynski, Joseph Issels, Keith
Brewer, and Jimmie Keller.
Dr. Maxwell cautions against the request to forward names to the National
Cancer Institute of doctors actively treating cancer using alternatives, — at least
without the doctors’ permission, for in some states the practice of alternatives can
lead to prosecution. Nevertheless, it may be added, merely belonging to ACAM
(American College for the Advancement of Medicine) may be a giveaway. In fact,
the editorial, or letter from the publisher, in the same issue of the periodical lists a
number of prominent names of alternative practitioners: Jonathan Wright, Alan Gaby,
Robert Atkins (deceased), Abram Ber, Emmanuel Cheraskin, Deepak Chopra, Elmer
Cranton, Charles Farr, Garry Gordon, Abram Hoffer, Evarts Loomis, Theron Ran-
dolph, Norman Shealy, Bernie Siegel, Lendon Smith (deceased), Melvyn Werbach,
Julian Whitaker, James Carter, James Gordon, John Lee, Christiane Northrup, Wil-
liam Philpott, Doris Rapp, Bernard Rimland, Hugh Riordan, and Andrew Weil.
The extrapolation may be to healing or faith healers Watson (1975, Chapter 9).
In this regard, experiments once conducted at the University of California using a
“high-frequency apparatus” showed that the photographic aura produced by a healer
is significantly different from that for an ordinary person, and during healing is
dramatically different (Watson, 1975, p. 221). Matters of uneducated medical diag-
nosis are described, as performed by a Brazilian nicknamed Arigó, and of inexpli-
cable surgical operations by the unwashed. (Exposés of these kinds of operations
have been aired on TV from time to time.) The Israeli psychic Uri Gellor, who could

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362 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

presumably bend eating utensils and stop clocks from a distance, rates a paragraph.
(There has subsequently been an exposé, however, by magician James Randi, better
known as “The Amazing Randi.”)

SOME INEXPLICABLES
Nevertheless, these things said, there are examples here and there of cures, or at
least remissions. Thus, there is Elaine Nussbaum’s Recovery from Cancer: A Per-
sonal Story of Sickness and Health, published in 1997. And there is the organization
called Institute for Noetic Sciences in Sausalito, California, that keeps track of such
cases (“noetic,” pertaining to the mind). It would be extremely informative to deter-
mine if there is any sort of a common thread that links these recoveries.
Another set of such circumstances is set forth in Michael Gearin-Tosh’s Living
Proof: A Medical Mutiny, published in 2002, which furnishes some more “for
instances.” (A favorable review of the book in the June 2002 issue of the Townsend
Letter for Doctors & Patients cites a couple more.) Gearin-Tosh, a don or teacher
of literature at St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, was diagnosed with
myeloma, a usually fatal cancer of the bone marrow. He consulted a number of
orthodox cancer specialists or oncologists, whose advice uniformly was to com-
mence chemotherapy immediately, and expect to live only two or three years.
(Another option is a double marrow transplant, costing about $150,000 to $200,000
at the time — if there are no complications — as per p. 39 of the book.)
Nevertheless, Gearin-Tosh decided otherwise, and kept seeing yet other M.D.s,
and found a few who thought differently. One in particular, who is cited several
times in the book, was Ernst L. Wynder, M.D. and D.Sc., of Sloan-Kettering,
considered preeminent in cancer research. Wynder’s credentials within medical
orthodoxy are simply outstanding (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, pp. 84, 85). Wynder’s
thoughts, relayed to Gearin-Tosh, were: “If your friend touches chemotherapy, he’s
a goner” (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, pp. 42, 43, 84, 85, 87, 88, 117, 130, 145, 165). Another
citation worth noting is that of the eminent Professor Sir David Weatherall, Regius
Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, who stated that “we know so
little about how the body works” (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, pp. 165, 166). Gearin-Tosh
also consulted with Dr. Gonzalez of New York City, an M.D. noted for utilizing
alternative therapies (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, pp. 80–84, 92).
Accordingly, Gearin-Tosh went with alternatives, mainly the Gerson Therapy,
which utilizes a vegetarian-type diet and coffee enemas (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, pp.
80ff, 113ff, 106), although Wynder said, “I would not put my dog on Gerson”
(Gearin-Tosh, 2002, p. 117). Another therapy used was acupuncture, courtesy of a
certain Dr. H. (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, pp. 112ff, 144, 145). A Chinese breathing exercise
as described by a Dr. Jan de Vries was also utilized (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, pp. 55,56,
59, 66, 92). The work of Linus Pauling and A. Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., is cited,
particularly with regard to vitamin C (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, p. 111, 142–145, 260).
Garlic is also mentioned (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, p. 249).
Gearin-Tosh followed these regimes for about a year, then wrote the book after
about 7 years, and although not in perfect health was still alive in 2002. The first
half of the book is a personal chronicle, with the last half consisting of a critique.

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Cancer Esoterica 363

Among other things, it is recommended that one should not rush to treatment, and
one should not be bullied and crushed into submission (Gearin-Tosh, 2002, p. 200,
201, 207). Philosopher Byron Magee is also quoted, who speaks of atheistic human-
ism among the “able and intelligent” and which “tends to identify itself with ration-
ality as such, and to congratulate itself on its own sophistication” (Gearin-Tosh,
2002, p. 239).
The comment can be added that those of medical orthodoxy agree to certain
protocols of treatment to protect their backsides. In other words, even if the treatment
fails (or almost always fails), it will still be recognized (in court) by the attending
physician’s medical peers as the therapy of choice. Not necessarily so with alterna-
tives, although a consent form is signed.

METASTASIS, RESISTANCE, AND ABERRATIONS

There are other differences in behavior between normal cells and cancerous cells,
as noted in Francis X. Hasselberger’s Uses of Enzymes and Mobilized Enzymes.
Thus, cancer cells tend to lose adhesion, breaking away from the normal cells of
their origins (Hasselberger, 1978, pp. 143, 144). These mobile cancerous cells then
travel elsewhere, displaying a low level of adhesion but a high degree of stickiness,
which is diametrically different from the behavior of normal cells. In other words,
cancer cells may metastasize, spreading to other parts of the body, and proliferating
at these other locations. Perhaps most importantly, there are differences in metab-
olism, to be further discussed subsequently, especially in terms of enzymes and
enzyme inhibitors.
In principle, chemotherapy of some kind is the way to go, if only it could be
made selective against cancer cells. Conventional chemotherapy drugs are nonse-
lective, however, and for this reason are referred to as “cytotoxic,” or cell toxic,
indicating that they act against all body cells to some degree. That is, it kills normal
cells as well as cancerous cells, especially the faster-growing cells of the immune
system and gastrointestinal tract, whereas cancer cells are generally slower-growing,
although much longer-lived. The action ordinarily is to block key enzymes involved
in the sequence for DNA→ RNA→ protein synthesis.
Another facet is that cancer cells themselves can build up an immunity or
resistance to the chemotherapy agent, a fact well known but not publicized. Reasons
for this behavior are set forth by Madeline Drexler in Secret Agents: The Menace
of Emerging Infections. Though directed primarily at pathogens that exist as bacteria
and viruses, there is a mention that cancer cells, fungi, and parasites all deploy what
is known as the drug efflux mechanism (Drexler, 2002, p. 146). The drug is pumped
out faster than it can accumulate inside, as in the case of tetracycline-resistant
bacteria.
Furthermore, microorganisms that produce antibiotics contain resistance genes
that act against these same antibiotics (Drexler, 2002, p. 147). These genes can in
fact be deployed by still other bacteria to resist the drug. In comment, and extended
to anticancer chemotherapy agents, the cancer cell itself can be suspected of har-
boring genes that will confer resistance. There is the further note that genes move
around, so what, in absolute fact, is a species? (Drexler, 2002, p. 149).

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364 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

Drexler’s book carries a wealth of other information, making nearly all foods
suspect of carrying disease-inducing pathogens. There are observations about the
overuse of antibiotics causing the buildup of resistance, which is compounded by
their routine use in the livestock industries (Drexler, 2002, p. 150ff).
As for influenza viruses, a subject in itself, it is stated that “the primordial source
of all flu strains is migrating aquatic birds” (Drexler, 2002, p. 171ff). Moreover, not
only can these viruses leap the species barrier per se, but the mixing of human and
animal strains is even more worrisome. As for the latter, relating to novel flu strains,
southeast China is today’s presumptive source, what with its close proximity of
humans, domestic animals (pigs), and domestic birds (ducks).
In jumping the species barrier between animals and humans, the AIDS virus is
apparently the most prominent example. However, we can also wonder if a virus
cannot jump (or mix) the species barrier between animals and insects, or animals
and plants? And thence between humans and animals? Or, more directly, between
humans and insects, or humans and plants? The as-yet-unknown sources for the
Marburg and Ebola viruses give pause for thought.
In a chapter “Infection Unmasked,” Drexler first underscores the point that some
70% of all deaths are due to lingering or chronic illnesses rather than to the abrupt
severity of acute afflictions. Furthermore, there is the statement that “today, a grow-
ing number of researchers claim that these disabling conditions may be caused by
infection.” Thus, more than 90% of cervical cancer cases are caused by the human
papillomavirus, and more than 60% of liver cancer cases result from the hepatitis
B virus. The retrovirus HTLV-1 is the precursor for adult T cell lymphoma, with
the cancerous condition occurring decades after the infection. The Epstein-Barr
virus, a herpes-type virus causing mononucleosis, also has an effect on people with
malaria, producing a cancer known as Burkitt’s lymphoma, the leading cause of
childhood cancer deaths worldwide. Kaposi’s sarcoma, known as a complication of
AIDS, is said to be caused by human herpesvirus 8.
(The foregoing is in line with the mechanism presented in the chapter “Cancer
and Viruses” in Hoffman [1999] and stated early on herein, whereby viruses invade
the cell chromosome to produce oncogenes.)
Peptic ulcers are induced by a spiral-shaped bacterium named Helicobacter
pylori (and which may also be an agent for stomach cancer, as per the illustration
on p. 206 of Drexler’s book). Foodborne pathogens are guilty on many counts,
triggering such chronic and autoimmune diseases as Guillain-Barré syndrome and
reactive arthritis.
Drexler comments that the foregoing may very well be only the starting point.
Whereas the germ theory of disease, as attributed to Robert Koch, paved the way
for discoveries about acute infections, emerging ideas about the nature of chronic
infections may prove similarly fruitful — although, expectedly, “some of these
theories are based on wild hope and dubious information, and will yield nothing,”
but yet others “may change the practice of medicine.” For instance, the Epstein-Barr
virus has now been implicated in Hodgkin’s disease and in aggressive breast cancers.
Even multiple sclerosis (MS) behaves as if from an infection, and juvenile onset
diabetes (Type I) may follow from a Coxsackie B enterovirus (intestinal virus)
producing an immune response that adversely affects the pancreas. The chronic

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Cancer Esoterica 365

inflammation of the bowel called Crohn’s disease acts like an infection suspiciously
similar to intestinal tuberculosis, and Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, a relative of
the TB bacterium, has been implicated. Not only this but nearly half the asthma
cases in this country, and even juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, can be linked to Myco-
plasma pneumoniae, described as a free-living organism smaller than most bacteria.
Meningitis, pneumonia, and deaths of newborns, as well as childhood asthma,
can be traced to the sexually transmitted organism Ureaplasma urealyticum.
Clostridia and eubacteria in the intestines are associated with a far higher incidence
of gallstones, and kidney stones have been linked to what are called nanobacteria,
being much smaller even than viruses. A woman infected with bacterial gum disease
(or periodontal infection) has a dramatically greater chance of birthing a premature
baby. It is thought that schizophrenia may be initiated just before or after birth by
a viral infection that cross-circuits neural connections in the developing brain.
Another theory attributes schizophrenia to a parasite transmitted from cats. Now,
rather than a one-to-one, cause-and-effect relationship between the agent and the
acute disease; the new thinking in chronic ailments is that “sly viruses and bacteria”
act more subtly. The organisms always present in us, labeled “benign commensals,”
may in partial fact be hostile. This new attitude has been variously designated as
the Second Golden Age of Bacteriology, Koch’s Postulates Part II, and the New
Germ Theory.
In a major development with widespread ramifications, the plaque formed in
heart disease, or arteriosclerosis, has been traced in part to the action of the organism
Chlamydia pneumoniae, although the picture in its entirety is more complex (Drexler,
2002, pp. 207–209). Interestingly, it was once thought that yeasts could transmute
into bacteria, and that the bacterial hordes found in body tissue contributed to disease
(Drexler, 2002, p. 210). In comment, transmutation may not have been too far off
the mark, for now there is (controversial) evidence of pleomorphism or polymor-
phism, whereby microorganisms assume different embodiments and characteristics,
say, between viral and bacterial forms. As for Koch’s postulates regarding rigorously
confirming the relationship between the organism and the disease by using an animal
host, it has been found that many human diseases have no animal equivalent (Drexler,
2002, p. 211). The new attitude, as furnished by microbiologist Hal Nash, is that
“the nature of acute disease allowed for the development of ‘rules’ and ‘postulates.’
The nature of chronic diseases is likely that there are no rules.”
(Along these lines, a reading of Atul Gawande’s very readable Complications:
A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science indicates that in surgery, as well as in
other branches of medicine, the protocols are not always clear-cut. Blind luck can
play as big a part as expertise, and the interaction between physician and patient
can be equally important. In other words, the rule is that there are sometimes no
rules. Dr. Gawande’s book, published in 2002, was followed up by an article in the
December 6, 2004, issue of the New Yorker in the section “Annals of Medicine”
titled “What Happens When Patients Find Out How Good Their Doctors Really
Are?” Enter the bell curve, here with an emphasis on the treatment of cystic fibrosis.)
Some generalizations are in order, however, in that illnesses occurring in people
with compromised immune systems are likely to be infectious (Drexler, 2002, p. 212).
An example is Kaposi’s sarcoma in AIDS victims and organ transplant patients. If a

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366 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

disease is negated by taking antibiotics, the indication is that it is (bacterial) infectious.

When people living in poverty are disproportionately affected, the indication again is
infection (as in the case of stomach cancer induced by Heliobacter pylori). The same
may be said when occurrences vary with the time of year (a notable example being
respiratory diseases). Or if the disease varies geographically (a notable example being
MS, whose incidence increases with the distance away from the equator). And scien-
tists are beginning to realize just how much they do not know about what is living on
and in the human body. For instance, the estimate is that less than 1% of bacterial
species have been identified. (Not to mention viruses, for which there is no systematic
system of classification other than size and shape. There is, however, what is called
“Virus databases on-line,” courtesy of the BioInformation Group, Research School of
Biological Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, PO
Box 476, Canberra, ATC 2601, Australia.)
Speaking further of ubiquity, the human bowel itself contains hundreds of
organisms, called the intestinal flora, or gut flora, which serve many purposes, such
as breaking down foods, countering carcinogens, and synthesizing vitamins (Drex-
ler, 2002, p. 213). About 1% of the human genome itself is said to contain endog-
enous retroviruses, an internal heritage from times past. (Intestinal flora constitute
a subject taken up in Hoffman, 1999a, based in considerable part on Rowland,
1988.)
Nor are these endogenous microorganisms necessarily benevolent, for they may
also initiate disease, simply by persistence (Drexler, 2002, p. 214ff). Whereas rep-
licating viruses ordinarily destroy cells, those that produce persistent infections may
merely replicate continuously in what are called differentiated or specialized cells,
such as endocrine cells that make hormones, such as insulin. The cell is not destroyed
per se, but its specialized function is. Possibilities include MS, juvenile diabetes,
and assorted psychiatric illnesses as caused by viral infections and sustained by the
immune system’s response to still other infections.
The last-mentioned item brings up the subject of autoimmune diseases, which
have chronic inflammation as the common denominator. (Examples range from
rheumatoid arthritis and MS to lupus and Crohn’s disease.) Thus, infectious agents
can manage to make themselves look like human cells and avoid action by the
immune system, or else make themselves slightly different so that the body responds
against both the human cell and the infectious agent. Although the infectious agent
may be ultimately destroyed, the immune system will still think that the correspond-
ing human cells are foreign. The conclusion provided by David Relman, Stanford
physician and microbiologist, is that an autoimmune disease becomes the “conse-
quence of this imperfect balance between the immune system’s need for vigilance
and its need for tolerance of structures that should not be attacked.”
Speaking of inflammation, it is now recognized that heart disease is strongly
associated with inflammation via an agent having the designator C-reactive protein,
whose increased level serves as a marker for all kinds of inflammation, as previously
noted. There also may conceivably be an association with cancer, evidenced by a
low-grade fever, or night sweats. In turn, the extrapolation may be to viruses as the
causative agent.

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Cancer Esoterica 367

In an article titled “The Prudent Heart Diet and Cholesterol Lowering Drugs:
Why They Don’t Prevent Heart Attacks” in the August/September 2002 issue of the
Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, frequent contributor Wayne Martin takes
a long look at the track record of polyunsaturated fats vs. saturated fats in preventing
heart attacks. Referring frequently to articles in The Lancet, the unnerving conclusion
after several rounds of comprehensive tests on various populations is that myocardial
infarction (MI), as coronary thrombosis is now called, is not only not alleviated by
a diet in polyunsaturated fats, but the cancer rate goes up. (The term “infarction”
pertains to hemorrhaging and necrosis in an organ from obstruction of the local
circulation by a thrombus, or embolus, i.e., blood clot.) And although MI was
seemingly not known circa 1900, despite a diet of saturated fats such as butter and
lard, there are now some 400,000 deaths per year.
(No explicit mention is made of the effect of trans-fatty acids or hydrogenated
vegetable oils, nor of monounsaturated vegetable oils such as olive oil, as per the
Mediterranean diet.)
In the same issue of the periodical just cited, an article by Owen Richard Fonorow
of the Vitamin C Foundation reaffirms that vitamin C works against heart attacks,
as suggested by Linus Pauling.
A year later, in the August/September 2003 issue, Wayne Martin again addresses
the prudent diet vs. saturated fats in an article titled “The Role of Dietary Polyun-
saturated Fats in Heart Disease and Atherosclerosis.” (Atherosclerosis is a form of
arteriosclerosis.) The data overwhelmingly indicate that saturated fats, whether butter
or lard or whatever, are preferable to polyunsaturated fats, contrary to the present
conventional wisdom. Moreover, aspirin was found to have no beneficial effect
against heart attacks.
As if all the foregoing were not enough, Wayne Martin reported on hyperbaric
oxygen for stroke in a letter in the June 2005 issue of the same periodical. Following
surgery, his daughter had a seizure that showed the symptoms of paralytic stroke:
she was completely blind and could not walk nor use her hands to feed herself. A
doctor friend recommended hyperbaric oxygen therapy at once, but the resistance
of medical orthodoxy was virtually unanimous, save for the counsel of another family
friend who was an M.D. So after about a year, getting nowhere, Martin himself
bought a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The husband of the patient reported that after
3 weeks of daily treatments, she was showing definite improvement. After about 10
weeks, the patient was mobile, could feed and dress herself, and could watch TV.
The husband, in his comments, thanked his father-in-law profusely. A follow-up
letter from Martin in the January 2006 issue provides an update. His daughter
continues to improve, and is using air under pressure with no added oxygen. Martin
further discusses the problems of obtaining hyperbaric treatment for stroke, outside
of buying one’s own unit, which costs about $13,000. Also mentioned is that he —
now 94 — has been an amputee since the age of 17, and that hyperbaric oxygen
treatments might prevent diabetic amputations.
(As for oxygen therapy against cancer, the subject is discussed in Chapter 7 in
the section titled “Still Other Options.”)

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368 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

MORE ON IMMUNITY
Autoimmune diseases may involve “molecular mimicry,” whereby organisms exhibit
the surface substances called antigens that can at times mimic substances in human
tissues (Drexler, 2002, p. 216). Ordinarily the antigens will initiate specific antibody
and T cell (or T-lymphocyte) responses that act only against diseased cells. However,
if the diseased cells or tissue cannot be distinguished from the normal condition,
then the antibodies and T cells may attack both diseased and normal cells. An
example provided is that of an antigen as per the Coxsackie B virus, whereby the
T cells may sometimes also attack an enzyme occurring in the pancreatic cells that
make insulin. The result is diabetes. Still other viruses may compound the damage.
Another example of autoimmune misbehavior is that of obsessive-compulsive dis-
order (OCD), which may arise from childhood infections with Streptococcus pyro-
genes, denoted as Group A strep.
Retroviruses inherent in the human genome may in fact produce certain psychi-
atric conditions, including schizophrenia (Drexler, 2002, p. 217). The retrovirus
involved may possibly be activated by herpes simplex viral infections, and by
hormones and immune cells. Some cases can possibly be attributed to a mother-
transmitted infection of the fetal brain with the parasite Taxoplasma gondii, as occurs
in cat feces. These theories are in line with some earlier medical literature, whereby
many nineteenth century doctors thought schizophrenia an infectious condition.
Evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald of Amherst College, previously cited,
advances the idea that many bacteria and viruses have evolved in ways that cause
chronic diseases to be mysterious or “cryptic,” so to say, rather than obvious (Drexler,
2002, pp. 218–220). Speaking further on the subject, he classifies diseases as being
of genetic, environmental, and infectious origins, with the last-mentioned by far the
most common and damaging, of which examples are atherosclerosis, strokes, many
or most cancers, brain malfunctions, and autoimmune disorders. Even some diseases
of genetic origins such as sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis may be initiated by
infections. The major pestilences of malaria, smallpox, TB, typhoid, bubonic plague,
cholera, yellow fever, etc., had to be infectious, by virtue of their having been
commonplace. And the major cause of female infertility in the 1970s, the sexually
transmitted Chlamydia trachomatis, became commonplace, due to freewheeling
sexual mores — as are other pathogens transmitted by intimate contact. The list
includes the Epstein-Barr virus, human papillomavirus, hepatitis B virus, that virus
designated HHV8, and HIV. The catchall designator is STPs (sexually transmitted
pathogens). Although there may be some argument as to whether a disease is
infectious or not, Ewald’s distinction is to the point: if the infectious agent were
eliminated, so would be the disease, whether we are speaking of acute or chronic
diseases.
Additional space is given to the work of Stanford physician and microbiologist
David Relman regarding the curved rod-shaped bacteria causing bacillary angio-
matosis, a skin condition associated with immunocompromised patients, for exam-
ple, those having AIDS (Drexler, 2002, pp. 221, 222). Using what are called genetic
angling techniques, Relman found that the bacterium was closely related to Bar-
tonella quintana, the cause of trench fever in World War I, and was in fact B.

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Cancer Esoterica 369

benselae, the source of cat-scratch disease, which produces mild, flu-like symptoms
in humans. Similarly, the wasting syndrome called Whipple’s disease was found to
be infectious by Relman, and his experiments are now regarded as definitive.
In another turn of events, Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) was found to be infectious by
other investigators, namely pathologist Yuan Change of Columbia University, and
her husband epidemiologist Patrick Moore (Drexler, 2002, pp. 222, 223). A formerly
benign form of cancer confined to elderly men of the Mediterranean and Middle
East, and to equatorial Africa, and an occasional immunosuppressed organ transplant
patient, KS became rampant with the emergence of AIDS. Eventually, Chang showed
that KS was caused by a previously unknown herpesvirus, now called Kaposi’s
sarcoma herpesvirus (KSVH) or human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8).
Another work cited by Drexler is a 2001 report from University of Michigan
researchers, whereby the herpesvirus known as the Epstein-Barr virus counters a
block to cell migration and thereby permits (cancer) cells to metastasize or spread
(Drexler, 2002, p. 223). In turn, Drexler mentions the work of Peyton Rous of the
Rockefeller Institute, who in 1909 discovered a tumor virus occurring in chickens
(the Rous virus), and who belatedly (in 1966) received the Nobel Prize in medicine
and physiology. In fact, it is cited that there have been five recent Nobel Prizes
awarded for the study of tumor viruses. These viruses are described as having the
ability to trigger the genes that cause cells to become malignant. Newer technologies
called DNA chips or DNA microarrays can register the tens of thousands of genetic
sequences in bacteria and viruses, which can be compared with human tissue’s
binding properties. The prospect is that this technology could be used to compare
normal and abnormal conditions.
The remaining pages of Drexler’s chapter are devoted to critiquing these new
discoveries about chronic diseases. However, medical oncologist Beatriz G. T. Poge
of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York has studied more than 1000 samples
of breast tumors from the operating room and found that more than a third have
genetic swatches that are nearly identical to those of the mouse mammary tumor
virus (Drexler, 2002, p. 229). This is a slow-growing retrovirus transmitted through
the mouse mother’s milk, resulting in cancer in the female offspring. Moreover, in
humans, the virus is evidently exogenous, not being part of the woman’s genome.
The hypothesis that breast tumors could be caused by a virus produces much
opposition in some quarters.

BIOTERRORISM
In a concluding chapter, Drexler takes up the subject of bioterrorism, in which
bioagents kill by suffocation via pneumonia, septic shock, massive bleeding, or
paralysis (Drexler, 2002, p. 233ff). The spores and vegetative cells from the anthrax
bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, are prominently discussed. Under stress, the bacteria
change into deadly spores, and will revert to the rapidly multiplying vegetative form
when conditions are ripe.
Past efforts at biowarfare are also presented, notably the Japanese program,
which ran from 1932 to 1945 (Drexler, 2002, p. 244ff). The following are listed by
Drexler as having been studied: plague, typhoid, paratyphoid A and B, typhus,

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370 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

smallpox, tularemia, infectious jaundice, gas gangrene, tetanus, cholera, dysentery,

glanders, scarlet fever, brucellosis, tickborne encephalitis, hemorrhagic fever,
whooping cough, diphtheria, pneumonia, venereal diseases, tuberculosis, and sal-
monella. Conducted near the small Manchurian village of Ping Fan under the
direction of Japanese army doctor Shiro Ishii, the human testing was inhuman in
the extreme, involving shrapnel bombs, tainted food, and vivisection. The victims
were predominantly Chinese citizens, but also white Russians, Soviet prisoners,
criminals, and mental patients. Estimates of those who died in these experiments
range from 10,000 to at least 270,000. In 1947, the American military debriefed
Shiro Ishii and others involved, and made a bizarre secret deal whereby immunity
from prosecution was granted in exchange for the details of the experiments.
Bioweapons developed in the United States between 1950 and 1969 in the project
designated “Operation Whitecoat” comprised seven biological disease-causing
agents, as follows (Drexler, 2002, p. 248): Bacillus anthracis (bacterium causing
anthrax), Clostridium botulinum (a soil bacterium causing botulism), Francisella
tularensis (bacterial agent for tularemia or rabbit fever), various Brucella species
(bacteria causing brucellos or undulant fever), the mosquito-borne virus for Vene-
zuelan equine encephalitis, Staphyloccus enterotoxin B (bacterial food poisoning),
and Coxiella burnetii (the rickettsial organism causing the highly contagious Q
fever).
In 1973, after signing a treaty the previous year prohibiting the development of
bioweapons, the USSR embarked on a massive buildup that peaked in 1980 with
some 50-plus labs and 65,000 researchers and technicians (Drexler, 2002, p. 249).
Dubbed Biopreparat as a cover-up, ostensibly to develop pharmaceuticals, some 52
agents were studied or in production, including those for smallpox, anthrax, plague,
Ebola and Marburg fevers, yellow fever, tularemia, brucellosis, Q fever, botulism,
Venezuelan equine encephalitis, and assorted genetic hybrid agents.
In the last chapter of Drexler (2002), the worldwide infectious disease situation
is brought up to date, noting in particular the work of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) and director Bill Foege, M.D. The catchall term is “emerging
infections.” The latter include Legionnaire’s disease, the Marburg and Ebola hem-
orrhagic fevers and, of course, AIDS, as well as some that have been around for
awhile, such as smallpox and TB. The top three infectious killers worldwide are in
fact AIDS, TB, and malaria, all being closely associated with poverty (Drexler, 2002,
p. 383).
More on anthrax, the Ebola virus, and especially the smallpox virus, are pre-
sented in firsthand accounts in Richard Preston’s The Demon in the Freezer: A True
Story, published in 2002. Following the format of his previous book The Hot Zone:
A Terrifying True Story, Preston interviewed many of the principals involved in the
CDC and, in particular, in the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases at Fort Dedrick, Maryland. He gives particulars about the highly successful
program to eradicate smallpox, and about still-remaining sources of the stored virus.
Included is the fact that genetic modification has produced a new strain that is not
affected by conventional vaccinations.
There are also food concerns, as per Marion Nestle’s Safe Food: Bacteria,
Biotechnology, and Terrorism (2003). Nestle, chair of New York University’s

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Cancer Esoterica 371

Department of Food Studies and Nutrition, has also written Food Politics: How the
Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002), and What to Eat (2006). She
is coeditor with L. Beth Dixon of Taking Sides: Clashing Viewes on Controversial
Issues in Food and Nutrition (2004). In this regard, there is also Russell L. Blaylock’s
Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills (1997) and Carol Simontacchi’s The Crazy Mak-
ers: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Minds and Harming Our Children
(2000). Christopher D. Cook’s Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry Is
Killing Us (2004), will be further cited subsequently.

THE HALOGENS AND CAUSE AND CURE

The observation can be made that anything that kills the patient will also destroy
cancer cells. In fact, in his Cures Out of Chaos, M. Lawrence Poldolsky, M.D., notes
that mustard gas (dichloro-diethyl-sulfide) was found early on to be an anticancer
agent. Presumably, this observation could be extended to phosgene (carbonyl dichlo-
ride) or to other deadly chemical warfare agents. The presence of the halogens
fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine is in fact indicative of toxicity — for example,
polychlorinated or polybrominated biphenyls known as PCB and PBB, which rate
a chapter in Podolsky’s book — and continue on to the chlorinated solvents that are
used routinely, and to such common plastics as vinyl chloride, which have become
sources of environmental pollution. Along these lines, the routinely used
chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) contains halogen, and its side effects are
devastating.
As for halogens, the routine use of chlorine in municipal water supplies comes
under occasional attack, for example, in an article by Joseph G. Hattersley titled
“The Negative Health Effects of Chlorine.” Originally published in the Journal of
Orthomolecular Medicine, it was republished in the May 2003 issue of the Townsend
Letter for Doctors & Patients. Early on, Hattersley comments on the highly reactive
nature of chlorine, and characterizes it as another industrial waste product that is
“profitably disposed of by using people as garbage cans.” He notes that chlorine
oxidizes certain contaminants in the water to create excessive free radicals, which
damage arteries and initiate cancer, among other kinds of harm. For one thing,
chlorine in water destroys the protective acidophilus that nourishes the immunity-
strengthening “friendly” bacteria lining the colon, where most immune cells are
located. Chlorine also combines with impurities in water to produce trihalomines
(THMs), also called chloramines, which are carcinogenic. Free radicals generate
dangerous toxins in the body, and contribute to arteriosclerosis, among other dis-
eases: notably gastrointestinal, bladder, and rectal cancers. As for drinking water
purity in general, an estimated 5000 different chemicals have shown up, and aquifers
occurring below 8000 ft altitude are contaminated with heavy metals, not to mention
that some drinking water may have been recycled from sewage wastes. Pesticides
and other toxic wastes from farmlands and pastures add to the stream of industrial
wastes, and this totality of chemical pollution is compounded by microbial pollut-
ants. Nevertheless, there are alternatives to the chlorination of drinking water, includ-
ing such means as ozone contacting and ultraviolet light absorption, and carbon-bed
filtration.

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372 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

The previous mention of fluorine toxicity brings up the subject of the fluoridation
of municipal water supplies, an ongoing issue. We here defer to Tooth Truth: A
Patient’s Guide to Metal-Free Dentistry by Frank J. Jerome, D.D.S. Although the
main emphasis is on the avoidance of utilizing metals such as mercury amalgams
for fillings, Jerome also has a chapter on fluoridation. Thus, Jerome notes that most
European countries, which formerly used fluoridation, have abandoned the practice,
with the only major countries continuing the practice being the United States,
Canada, and Britain (Jerome, 2000, p. 385ff). Moreover, the purported benefits have
not been definitively substantiated: for instance, Toronto, which has fluoridated for
36 years, has a higher rate of decay than does Vancouver, which has never fluoridated.
Moreover, the source of the fluoride used is from an industrial waste that also
contains lead, arsenic, and radium, all of which are carcinogenic (Jerome, 1995, p.
387).
As for cancer, a multiyear study, authorized by Congress, finally concluded that
fluoride does indeed cause cancer (Jerome, 1995, p. 392). In response, the FDA
merely recommended that the safety limit for fluoride in water be doubled. The
study was rebuked, not scientifically, but politically, accompanied by a call for “more
studies,” although nothing changed except an increasing death rate.
In a section “Protecting Reputations, Not the Public,” Jerome indicts many public
health officials and organizations, including the American Dental Association, which
has staked its esteem on the advisability and safety of fluoridation: “Nothing is more
tenacious than bureaucrats trying to protect their reputations.”
More about the subject was presented in a series of three articles on “The
Fluoride Controversy Continues: An Update,” by Gary Null, Ph.D. and Martin
Feldman, M.D., in the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, starting December
2002. (Null is the author of numerous articles and some 50 books on health and
nutrition. Feldman is assistant clinical professor of neurology at Mount Sinai Medical
School in New York City.) In the first article, designated Part 1, the authors note
that fluorides are indeed toxic. Most fluorides used are a major (toxic) waste from
aluminum production, and rather than being simple sodium fluoride, these toxic-
waste fluorides are more complex — for example, occurring as silicates — and are
more rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract. The authors also cite mounting
evidence that fluorides have in fact not reduced tooth decay, contrary to claims by
the American Dental Association and others. Toothpastes come under fire, as do
fluorides contained in fruit juices and other beverages, even in baby foods and infant
formulas.
In the second article, appearing in the January 2003 issue and designated Part
2, it is added that ingested fluoride produces skeletal fluorosis, which may be a factor
in arthritis and contribute to bone fracture, rather than enhancing bone strength.
Fluoride also constitutes a thyroid-depressing substance, producing hypothyroidism,
and is a known carcinogen. The authors quote Paul Connett of the Fluoride Action
Network to the effect that “some of the earliest opponents of fluoride were biochem-
ists and at least 14 Nobel Prize winners are among numerous scientists who have
expressed their reservations about the practice of fluoridation.” Other effects pin-
pointed by the authors are enzyme toxicity and genetic damage, adverse reproductive
effects, reduced intelligence, interference with the functions of the pineal gland,

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Cancer Esoterica 373

which may contribute to early puberty and allied problems, and elevated lead levels
in the blood. Of further note, a connection emerges between fluoride and aluminum
in the form of aluminofluoride complexes, which may turn out to be the real culprit
in Alzheimer’s disease, rather than aluminum alone.
The third article, appearing in the February/March 2003 issue, is concerned with
ways to avoid fluoride accidents, namely an overdose, and describes how a city can
reject fluoridation, a course of action beset with difficulties, however. Among the
adverse effects cited is that fluoride can affect the central nervous system and thus
serves as a neurotoxicant. Moreover, there is a correlation between water fluoridation
and increased hip fractures for persons 65 years and older, and a correlation for a
decrease in fertility rates. Furthermore, fluoride is a potential carcinogen, and is a
known inhibitor for many enzymes involved in cell metabolism. It is mentioned that
fluoride disposal is costly, requiring a class-one landfill, and would be an added cost
for the aluminum and fertilizer industries, which produce fluoride as a waste by-
product. The ready alternative is to dispose of it via water fluoridation and toothpaste,
although the risks have been found to outweigh the benefits, and fluoridation is
outlawed in most of Western Europe, for instance.
In a follow-up article appearing in the April 2005 issue, Null and Feldman
describe the neurotoxic and toxic effects of fluoride on the brain and thyroid gland.
For instance, increased brain concentrations of aluminum compounds or complexes
were observed in animal studies where aluminum or sodium fluoride was adminis-
tered, the connection being that presence of aluminum is sometimes associated with
Alzheimer’s disease. The call is to “Stop Fluoridation Now.”

THE EFFECT OF TOXINS IN THE ENVIRONMENT

The analogy as per the foregoing is to Duff Wilson’s Fateful Harvest, where toxic
chemicals are disposed of by inclusion in fertilizer, to be spread across the land, as
next discussed. Accordingly, any discussion of fluoride from industrial wastes further
leads to the subject of industrial wastes that occur in commercial inorganic fertilizers,
a subject exposed in Duff Wilson’s book. Wilson was an investigative reporter for
the Seattle Times, which had published a series of articles titled “Fear in the Fields
— How Hazardous Wastes Become Fertilizer,” beginning July 3, 1997, which were
picked up by the wire services (but not the New York Times). Thus, there is the
prospect, for instance, of toxic heavy metals being introduced into croplands and
entering the food chain. Wilson’s exposé traces the efforts of housewife and mayor
Patty Martin of Quincy, Washington, to do something about the spread of toxic
materials introduced with inorganic fertilizers as chemical wastes. Along the way
she collided with the interests of corporate agribusiness and the chemical industry,
and with political inertia, and in fact with the antagonism of the people, losing the
next election for mayor of Quincy, a community that is part of the rich agricultural
legacy of central Washington — and dependent on this same agriculture, fertilizer
and all. In Duff Wilson’s Epilogue, he summarizes the as yet vain efforts of Patty
Martin, and notes that fundamental questions remain to be answered, both nationally
and around the world. For instance, it is not known for sure how much toxic acid,
ash, slag, dust, and other industrial wastes are being spread in the guise of fertilizer.

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In fact, it is not necessary to list the entirety of the fertilizer contents on the bag or
container, though supposedly this information can be found on the Internet for those
who go to the trouble (Wilson, 2001, p. 242).
Some of the major contaminants are the heavy metals lead, cadmium, arsenic,
mercury, etc., as well as, sometimes, radioactive wastes, even discarded wallboard.
A difficulty of making a definitive assessment is that the dose makes the poison, or
Dosis sola facit venenum (Wilson, 2001, p. 272), and the scenario has not yet been
put together, including the long-term effects, if any. That is, there is a lengthy time
gap between cause and effect. (One can wonder at what point the ancient Romans
might have realized that they were being slowly poisoned by their lead cooking
utensils?)
So far, neither the U.S Department of Agriculture nor the Environmental Pro-
tection Agency (EPA) wish to become embroiled in the issues. Vice president and
presidential candidate Al Gore declined to become involved. Thus, the agricultural
usage of these toxic wastes remains legal, though if declared a hazardous waste, it
is illegal to use it, even if diluted (Wilson, 2002, p. 239). Thus, a “bustling toxic
commerce” was found between factories and fertilizer makers (Wilson, 2002, p.
251). Between 1990 and 1995, there were 454 companies designated as farms and
fertilizer manufacturers that received a nominal 271 million pounds of toxic wastes.
Not only were heavy metals involved, but solvents and industrial chemicals, some
69 different types of toxics all told, with those designated carcinogens totaling some
13.9 million pounds.
Not only have toxic metals been implicated notably in cancer, but crops have
been found to absorb these chemicals from the soil. Thus, lettuce absorbs cadmium
“like a sponge” (Wilson, 2001, p. 251). During the controversy, a Colorado soil
professor, John Mortvedt, called “Mr. Micronutrient,” was consulted, who admitted
that plants picked up various heavy metal compounds, notably cadmium, especially
in acidic soils (Wilson, 2001, p. 172ff). His findings were watered down in subse-
quent hearings, when he waffled by stating that very little research had been done
on heavy metals in micronutrient fertilizers (Wilson, 2001, p. 215); which, Wilson
notes, is precisely the point.
Another volume of like genre is Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agri-
culture, edited by Andrew Kimbrell and published in 2002. (The publisher is Island
Press, Washington, D.C., and the sponsor is the Foundation for Deep Ecology,
Sausalito, CA.) This extra-large, coffee-table-sized, important and colorful volume
is divided into seven parts, with sections or chapters by various prominent authorities,
and with other sections presumably by the editor. These seven parts are: “Farming
as if Nature Mattered: Breaking the Industrial Paradigm;” “Corporate Lies: Busting
the Myths of Industrial Agriculture;” “Diversity, Scale, and Beauty: Contrasting
Agrarian and Industrial Agriculture;” ”Industrial Agriculture: The Toxic Trail from
Seed to Table;” “Biodiversity and Wildlife: The Overappropriation of Wildlife Hab-
itat by Agriculture;” “A Crisis of Culture: Social and Economic Impacts of Industrial
Agriculture;” “Organic and Beyond: Revisioning Agriculture for the 21st Century.”
The material is extensive and comprehensive, so only a few of the highlights of this
extraordinary volume will be set forth here, as follows.

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Cancer Esoterica 375

In Part One, Wendell Berry speaks of the preservation of the agrarian outlook,
a local economy that rises from the fields, woods, and streams — being neither
regional nor national, let alone global. He notes that the World Trade Organization
itself contradicts the industrialist conservatives’ professed anathema to big govern-
ment, when in fact big business is the cause of big government. In turn, Helena
Norberg-Hodge addresses the worldwide destruction of diversity in terms of eco-
nomic globalization, once defined as “a world of homogeneous consumption.” In
the long term, a homogeneous planet is seen as disastrous to us all, “leading to a
breakdown of both biological and cultural diversity, erosion of our food security, an
increase in conflict and violence, and devastation of the global biosphere.” Hugh H.
Iltis, in a section dealing with the fallacies of agricultural hope, notes that there is
a bioclimatic paradox, for instance, in the fact that tropical latitudes have low
productivity for grains such as wheat, rye, barley, and rice. The plant respiration
cycle that occurs during the long, warm, tropical nights burns up most of the
carbohydrates formed during daytime photosynthesis. Wes Jackson, in a section on
natural systems agriculture, compares the fossil-carbon equivalent of industrial fer-
tilizers, noting that ten fossil-fuel calories are required to produce a single food
calorie.
In Part Two, the editor addresses what are called the Seven Deadly Myths of
Corporate Agriculture, being: (Myth One) Industrial Agriculture Will Feed the
World; (Myth Two) Industrial Food is Safe, Healthy, and Nutritious; (Myth Three)
Industrial Feed Is Cheap; (Myth Four) Industrial Agriculture is Efficient; (Myth Five)
Industrial Food Offers More Choices; (Myth Six) Industrial Agriculture Benefits the
Environment and Wildlife; (Myth Seven) Biotechnology Will Solve the Problems
of Industrial Agriculture.
In Part Three, a section on monoculture vs. diversity sets forth the varieties of
several staple crops lost from 1903 to 1983: tomatoes, 80.6% lost; lettuce, 92.8%
lost; field corn, 90.8% lost, and sweet corn, 96.1% lost; apples, 86.2% lost; potatoes,
out of over 5000 varieties worldwide, only 4 major commercial varieties are now
grown. In discussing industrial grain production, only corn, rice, and wheat have
emerged as staples. And in the case of wheat, for example, although there are over
30,000 natural varieties of wheat falling into 6 classifications, with some 1,500
developed for commercial production, this diversity amounts to only a miniscule
part of the commercial wheat grown today. Most production is of hybrids and
genetically modified varieties. The monoculture casualty is that of diversification,
which protects the gene pool against unknown plant diseases. Sugar politics is also
discussed, with the example given that during the Clinton administration, a call from
a sugar producer (and campaign contributor) derailed a proposed tax on sugar that
would offset environmental damage to the Everglades. As for cotton’s devastating
legacy, it is first noted that genetically modified cotton was found not to produce, a
financial setback to scores of farmers. Not to mention that only one type of cotton,
short-staple upland cotton, dominates 97% of the crop, another blow to diversity.
This and devastation of the soil, as well as a dependence on cottonseed oil as a
major food component, more usually known as vegetable oil or hydrogenated veg-
etable oil, never mind the presence of crop chemicals and genetic engineering.
Apples, oranges, and grapes also get an evaluation, with the note that weeds can

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376 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

serve beneficially as ground cover among the orchard trees, instead of having only
sterile soil.
In Part Four, while discussing the hazards of genetically engineered food, Joseph
Mendelson III notes that pests eventually develop resistance to the gene-developed
pesticides produced by the modified plant. Taking note of the “exotic” organisms
that have invaded the United States in the past, causing the Dutch elm disease and
chestnut blight, and other such exotics as killer bees and the kudzu vine, he mentions
that crops altered by genetic engineering produce the same consequences, even
mutating in unpredictable ways. As an example, the unpublicized case of a geneti-
cally engineered tomato is cited, which caused stomach lesions in laboratory rats,
plus the case of genetically engineered fish, which fail to reproduce at a rate
necessary for the long-term survival of the species. There is also the specter of
“superweeds” as well as “superpests.” The twin subjects of soil and water are also
discussed, with the reminder that “death swamps” are being created from the runoff
and seepage of chemically laden waters that have nowhere else to go. It is noted,
in particular that, as the rate of pesticide use increases, so does the rate of breast
cancer (Wilson, 2001, p. 256). Thus, the National Cancer Institute found 50 to 60%
higher levels of organochlorine pesticides in the breast tissue of women with the
cancer, compared to normal. The as yet unknown dangers of food irradiation are
taken to task by Michael Colby, who observes that the consumer is the guinea pig.
In Part Five, Catherine Badgley asks whether (modern or industrial) agriculture
and biodiversity can coexist. Thus, she notes that current estimates of extinction
rates are three to four orders of magnitude greater than “background” extinction
rates. (An order of magnitude nominally being a factor of 10, we are therefore
speaking of rates 30 to 40 times normal.) With what is called habitat destruction,
there is the extinction or endangerment of about 90% for threatened plant species.
Soil degradation and erosion and pesticide contamination has been known to elim-
inate fish species (three extinct in Michigan, and another three reduced to relic
populations). Large mammal species affected or endangered in North America
include bison, bighorn sheep, elk, grizzlies, and wolves. Exotic plants introduced
have taken over in a considerable part of the arid grazing lands in the western United
States. Introduced bees are competing with native species. As for soil degradation
and pesticides, some 80% of agricultural lands show moderate to severe soil erosion.
Soil erosion of 1 in. per year compares with 1 in. of natural formation in 300 to
1000 years. The implementation of viable alternatives to present-day practices is
recommended. Small farms are seen as a way to protect biodiversity.
In Part Six, the growing epidemic of hunger is addressed by Anuradha Mittal.
The problem is seen as not that of not enough food, but of the faulty distribution of
food not only worldwide but in the United States as well. The “Green Revolution”
is perceived as a myth. However, it is noted that from 1970 to 1990, total food
available per person worldwide increased by 11% and the estimated hungry people
declined from 942 to 786 million. But if China is eliminated from the analysis, the
number of hungry people in the rest of the world increased by over 11%. The
discrepancies caused by China’s inclusion or exclusion are attributed to a major
redistribution of land, whereby the number of hungry people decreased from 406 to
189 million. And as for genetic engineering producing a “second Green Revolution,”

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Cancer Esoterica 377

there are matters of high seed costs, royalties, and other inputs, plus the higher cost
of cultivation, all accompanied by a higher market price.
In Part Seven, Texas author and populist Jim Hightower, publisher of the award-
winning newsletter The Hightower Lowdown, describes the experiences of a certain
Jim Crawford out in the Texas Panhandle, in the Muleshoe area, a region with more
cattle than people. A graduate of Muleshoe High and Texas Tech University, for
some 17 years Crawford farmed his corn crop the usual way using chemical fertil-
izers and pesticides. However, the price of fertilizer and pesticides kept going up,
and the price of corn kept going down, so something had to change. Accordingly,
Jim Crawford decided to try (feedlot) manure, of which there was aplenty there-
abouts. The first year, his corn crop was about half of the usual, so the locals
snickered. The second year, it was about even-steven, but the third year the crop
was one-and-a half times the usual — and was of premium quality. The snickering
stopped.
Whereas Wilson (2001) focuses on soil and crop contamination, epidemiologist
Devra Davis emphasizes air quality, and the lack thereof, in When Smoke Ran Like
Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution (2002).
This, plus a large dose of the political machinations that abound. Thus, in the preface
she notes that, though witnesses are under oath, the lawyers are not — and can say
anything, whether outrageous or not. Her first chapter concerns the steel town of
Donora, Pennsylvania, her home territory, which was enveloped by a killer fog
starting on October 26, 1948. The massive fog that settled in was itself not toxic; it
was the gaseous and particulate effluent it contained, variously from coke ovens,
blast furnaces, and the zinc works, where part of the steel product received a coating
of corrosion resistant zinc. Despite studies, there have been no final conclusions and
many of the people involved did not want to talk about it — the same kind of
situation uncovered in Wilson (2001), for jobs and economics are ubiquitous, and
never mind that the initial fatalities were only the start, for there were the many who
died later or much later, and those who were permanently debilitated. Moreover,
there was the partial conclusion that the fluorspar (an ore of calcium fluoride) used
in the operations was a major culprit, for the victims’ lungs were not scarred as they
would be from sulfur oxides, a sign that liberated fluorine gas was immediately
absorbed into the lung tissue and bloodstream, causing death. The killer fog paral-
leled an earlier incident in Liege, Belgium, in 1930, which was also mostly swept
under the rug.
In turn, the London killer fog of 1952 is discussed, with the note that here it
was the sulfur oxides (i.e., sulfuric acid) from burning high-sulfur coal that was the
major cause of death. The following chapter is about the Los Angeles Basin, vari-
ously highlighting ethyl lead in gasoline, carbon monoxide, and smog, and the efforts
to eliminate or control these pollutants. Chapter 4 addresses the EPA, its teething
troubles, and current problems. Chapter 6 takes on breast cancer, with the causes
mostly yet inconclusive: for example, the National Cancer Institute’s massive
increase in funding has not resulted in any major developments about the environ-
mental factors involved (Davis, 2002, p. 187). However, in the next chapter, notably
about male sterility, distinct chemical causes are pinpointed. Along the way, DDT
is discussed, and the last chapter is concerned with chlorinated fluorocarbons (CFCs)

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378 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

and global warming. Throughout there are many accounts, first-hand and otherwise,
of the many-sided arguments and machinations that always occur whenever it is
government vs. industry vs. the people.
Speaking more so about the effects of chemicals, one can tread further into the
cancer-causing morass by mentioning that there are substances in minute or trace
quantities which may act as anticancer agents, say, but in greater quantities may act
as carcinogens. (Thus the old saying, that the dose is the poison.) Compounds of
the heavy metal selenium are a purported example. Germanium compounds may be
beneficial in minute quantities, but can be deadly in greater quantities or concentra-
tions. Digitalis is another example.
A recent addition to the file of anticancer inorganic compounds is the chemical
element indium, whose compounds constitute another instance of the trace minerals
or metals. Its testing and beneficial effects have been described by Robert Lyons in
Indium: The Missing Trace Mineral (2001). Most active as the water-soluble sulfate
form, and although prolonging the lifetimes of patients, it was nevertheless found
not to be a cancer cure in the complete sense of the word, in whatever form or
concentrations used.
In sum, any good attorney can point all these things out, even as truisms, and
forever muddy the waters. Reason enough for the saying that in many or most
situations, we merely “muddle through,” clear-cut decisions being a rarity.

MORE ON CHEMOTHERAPY, ALKALOIDS, AND

OTHER PLANT BIOCHEMICALS
For some of the reasons previously addressed, there is sometimes a preference for
localized chemotherapy injections into the cancer growth itself rather than intrave-
nous injections, which presumably confines the effects to the cancerous mass proper.
There are problems here as well, however, including that of the cancer further
spreading or metastasizing, one possibility being that the drug chemical may in itself
be carcinogenic.
The body itself may try to fight off the chemotherapy via the immune system,
manifested by fever and an increased white blood cell count, although the chemo-
therapy itself works against the immune system. Another quandary is that these
symptoms may indicate that the immune system is reacting against the cancer, rather
than against a conventional bacterial or viral infection. There are ways, in other
words, that medical orthodoxy may misinterpret the body’s resistance to cancer.
In a further and much-repeated comment regarding chemotherapy, Mathew
Suffness and John M. Pezzuto, the former from the National Cancer Institute and
the latter from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, declared that conven-
tional chemotherapy is ineffective against solid tumors, and only works against
blood-related tumors (Hostettmann, 1991, Methods in Plant Biochemistry, Vol. 6,
Assays for Bioactivity, pp. 72ff, 116).
Such successes as there are against blood-related cancers can be judged intermit-
tent, using such agents as Catharantheus and Vinca alkaloids, for example, vincristine
and vinblastine, as derived from the Madagascar periwinkle Catharantheus roseus —

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Cancer Esoterica 379

but which are cytotoxic, acting against normal cells as well as cancer cells, and
producing the usual debilitating side effects. In fact, blood-related cancers are of
different origins than solid tumors, and it may be added that the skin cancer called
melanoma involves completely different biochemical processes. Thus, expectedly, in
these instances the treatments need to be different. What may work for one type will
not work for another. In fact, different words or wording may be used to distinguish
between types; for example, with regard to solid tumors per se, there are sarcomas
and carcinomas, depending on the body region of occurrence.
The Vinca alkaloids have the property of killing white blood cells, and thereby
act against the proliferation of white blood cells that occurs with leukemia (Swer-
dlow, 2000, p. 220). At the same time, there are the harsh side effects from these
toxic alkaloids in their use as chemotherapy agents.
It may be added that cancer specialist David Plotkin, M.D., in the June 1996
issue of the Atlantic Monthly, summarized the situation by noting that chemotherapy
is most effective when needed least and least effective when needed most.
Alkaloids are among the most bioactive of plant constituents, ranging from the
fairly innocuous to the deadly. The subject is reviewed in depth in Geoffrey A.
Cordell’s Alkaloids: A Biogenetic Approach (1981). In addition to the detailed
chemistry of the subject, Cordell provides extensive information on what plants have
which alkaloids, along with the history and other background knowledge. In fact,
as has been noted, in screening the tropical rain forests for bioactive plants, the
presence of alkaloids is the main indicator of bioactivity. Alkaloid compounds for
the most part have a unique nitrogen-containing ring structure, which makes them
basic or alkaline, and which may render them particularly active as enzyme inhib-
itors, with the total makeup of the compound determining which enzymes are
deactivated or inhibited.
Alkaloids, however, are merely one category of bioactive compounds, which in
general include classes or categories having such other names as glycosides (which
may include cyanogenic compounds such as laetrile, or amygdalin), phenolics,
saponins, flavonoids, certain vegetable proteins (some of which are deadly), and
amino acids. The related subject is poisonous and medicinal plants, the two going
together, and the title of the book by Will H. Blackwell, with a chapter on fungi by
Martha J. Powell.
As for plants that may have anticancer properties, the baseline reference remains
Jonathan L. Hartwell’s extensive compendium Plants Used Against Cancer, pub-
lished in 1982. As has been repeatedly indicated, Hartwell lists some 3000 different
species as found in medical folklore, comprising 1430 genera from 214 plant fam-
ilies. Most are probably ineffective, and some may be exceedingly toxic, as Hartwell
warns. There are still other and newer compilations of bioactive or medicinal plant
species from around the world, for example, from North America, Central and South
America (Neotropica), and the various divisions of Africa, as well as India, South-
west Asia, and China. Among these bioactive plants are those that native folklore
prescribes against cancers. If mostly ineffective, these compilations are nevertheless
a starting point for continued testing. Many are listed in Hoffman (1999a).
(The National Cancer Institute, or NCI, formerly had a program for testing tens
of thousands of plant species, a fact previously mentioned. This was shut down about

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380 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

the time Hartwell’s book was published, in favor of turning everything over to the
pharmaceutical companies, as noted with dismay by botanist James A. Duke in the
foreword. The testing has since been revived, but the search for new plant medicinals
seems to have plateaued for a number of reasons, according to Swerdlow’s book.
For one thing it is easier and much faster to test synthetic compounds. Nevertheless,
James A. Duke, prominent in phytochemicals, has gone on to write and compile a
number of botanical books about bioactive plants and their uses, as cited elsewhere.)
China, in particular, is noted for its herbal medicines. To which can be added
India, as embodied in the yurveda Encyclopedia: Natural Secrets to Healing, Pre-
vention, & Longevity by Swami Sada Shiva Tirtha. (yurveda is the “science of life”
or longevity, the holistic alternative science from India, said to be more than 5000
years old and the oldest healing science in existence.) The subject of cancer is taken
up on pp. 499–501 among the many other diseases and illnesses discussed. Causes
are first listed, then some therapies, with herbal therapies cited in terms of either
English or Indian names. The chapters “Herbology” and “Herb Therapy” assist in
the translation from one language to the other. No surefire therapy or cure emerges,
however, and the Western reader is very likely to be turned off (at least this reader
is, in spite of favorable reviews from other quarters).

RECOURSES
It appears that everything is getting more and more complex, including the study of
cancer and its treatment — which often translates into stasis. Thus, Jacques Barzun
wrote in the prologue of his latest, about his 30th, From Dawn to Decadence: 500
Years of Western Cultural Life: 1500 to the Present (2001), that, in a stalled society,
for any proposal or project, there are contrary arguments that seem equally sensible.
And Isaac Newton declared that for every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction.
Therefore, regarding cancer and other diseases, consider again Swerdlow (2000).
On page 286, Swerdlow refers to Ernest Hemingway’s warning never to confuse
movement with action. “Screening provides considerable movement. Plants are
gathered and checked, money is spent, jobs are created, numbers are added, scientific
papers are published, and numerous plant chemicals demonstrate activity against
disease. But how much action, in the form of actual treatment for disease, is there?”
(Another observation is that screening is made on an in vitro and in vivo basis —
but not on a clinical basis. In other words, the effect on humans may be different
from what occurs in a culture dish or in mice — and likely is.) With the Internet
and such sources as Medline, the proliferation of information is enormous, almost
incomprehensible, but mostly inconsequential, making it impossible to see the forest
for the trees, so to speak.
As for reporting on the status of alternative cancer therapies in general, there
are, for instance, the frequently mentioned volumes Ralph W. Moss’s Cancer Ther-
apy: The Independent Consumer’s Guide to Non-Toxic Treatment & Prevention and
Richard Walters’ Options: The Alternative Cancer Therapy Book. Moss also fur-
nishes the Moss Report and is a regular contributor to the Townsend Letter for
Doctors & Patients. It can be assumed that there will be much more information

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Cancer Esoterica 381

forthcoming. Suffice to say, no surefire, 100%, guaranteed cure is proffered. For

each claim, it seems, there is a counter claim.
There are innumerable books concerned with orthodox treatments for cancer,
the titles of which are readily found by a computer search, say under the subject of
cancer (Books in Print lists those presently in print, and First Search or WorldCat
lists all that have ever been published). And according to the computer-retrieval
system Medline, there are on the average 15,000 to 20,000 papers, articles, and
publications about cancer forthcoming every year, and likely increasing. Not to
mention the millions of items accumulated on the Internet. Who knows, something
useful may be buried in this mass of information. But in fact, as Swerdlow (2000)
emphasizes, we seem to have a surfeit of information, almost too much.
As for the anticancer action of these plant-derived or herbal medicines, or still
other chemicals, the most probable route is that of enzyme inhibitors. In fact, this
is seen as the role of modern medicines such as antibiotics, which act against a
critical enzyme in bacterial cells (prokaryotes), but in the dosages used, not against
human cells (eukaryotes). Each and every body biochemical reaction in the body is
in fact catalyzed and controlled by a particular enzyme. In turn, there are other
substances that may inhibit, block, control, or modulate the action of these enzymes.
These substances are known as enzyme inhibitors, and in rare instances may also
promote a biochemical reaction. More than this, a particular substance will usually
act against or inhibit more than one enzyme. This diversity produces side effects.
In brief review of previously presented findings, a distinction has been found in
the metabolism of cancer cells vs. normal cells, dating back to the discovery of
German biochemist Otto Warburg circa 1926, who later won a Nobel prize for other
work (Voet and Voet, 1995, p. 595). And in the same reference there is the previously
noted comment that understanding the metabolic differences between cancer cells
and normal cells may be the key to successfully treating cancer.
As for human cells or eukaryotes, the metabolic path or sequence involves the
conversion of glucose by what is labeled glycolysis. In a series of ten steps there is
first produced a compound called pyruvic acid or pyruvate (the latter designating a
so-called salt or compound of pyruvic acid). In the presence of oxygen, this is further
converted to carbon dioxide and water in what is variously called the tricarboxylic
acid cycle, or citric acid cycle, or Krebs cycle. The overall operation may be
conveniently called aerobic glycolysis, with each step requiring a particular enzyme,
and most usually requiring supportive reactions.
In cancer cells, however, the pyruvic acid or pyruvate is instead converted to
lactic acid or lactate. This does not utilize oxygen, and the overall sequence can be
referred to as anaerobic glycolysis. The conversion of pyruvic acid or pyruvate to
lactic acid or lactate requires the action of a form, or forms, of an enzyme called
lactate dehydrogenase.
In consequence, the inhibition of this particular enzyme has the potential of
blocking cancer cell metabolism. The subject was further discussed by the author
in the articles, “Enzyme Inhibitors for Cancer Cell Metabolism” and “Garlic and
Allicin and Other Sulfur-Containing Compounds as Anticancer Agents,” and in
Hoffman (1999). There are still other metabolic pathways that can be considered,
such as aminolysis, but in the main, cancer cells undergo anaerobic glycolysis.

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382 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

Among the enzyme inhibitors noted is allicin, derived from freshly chewed
garlic, whereby the enzyme allinase is contacted with certain sulfur compounds
naturally present, notably alliin. There are still other inhibitors listed in the hand-
books, some of which may be benign and some not. For the record, the handbook
references include M.K. Jain’s Handbook of Enzyme Inhibitors (1982), and H.
Zollner’s Handbook of Enzyme Inhibitors, in two editions (1989, 1993). Allicin as
a chemical compound, unfortunately, has a half-life of only a few hours, negating
its commercial preparation and use as such. This problem may have been solved
however, as there are several brands of garlic tablets that are claimed to produce
active allicin, and are so rated. (Examples being Garlicin®, Garlique®, and Garli-
nase®.) Further information appears in the previously cited references by the author.
More recently, an article appeared in the March 2003 issue of Life Extension,
titled “Garlic May Reduce Risk of Prostate Cancer,” by Elizabeth Heubeck. A study
by the National Cancer Institute was cited whereby it was found that a diet rich in
the allium food group — garlic, shallots, and onions — would cut the risk of prostate
cancer in half. Eating as little as a tenth of an ounce of scallions each day reduced
prostate cancer risk by 70% and the same amount of garlic reduced the risk by 53%.
A clove of garlic a day was suggested. A China investigation was mentioned, where
the diet is heavy on garlic, scallions, and onions, and where men have the lowest
prostate cancer rate anywhere. A previous published study was also cited, where
garlic was found to inhibit gastric cancer [Dorant et al., British Journal of Cancer,
(1993)]. The principal component of crushed (and masticated) garlic, notably allicin,
was found to inhibit the proliferation of human mammary, endometrial, and colon
cancer cells [Hirsch, et al., Nutrition and Cancer, (2000)]. In the interim, until more
comprehensive studies can be made, the outlook is that of cautious optimism at NCI.
(The National Institutes of Health, of which the National Cancer Institute is part, is
also studying the treatment of prostate cancer utilizing vitamin E and selenium, as
reported by biochemist Wayne Martin via a letter to the editor in the January 2003
issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, but which mistakenly appeared
as vitamin K because of a typo.)
It may be noted that other steps in the metabolic sequence are subject to the
action of inhibitors, some of which appear in medical folklore as anticancer agents.
With regard to melanoma, which involves the enzyme tyrosinase, there are a
number of inhibitors listed in the handbooks for this particular enzyme. Among
them, interestingly, is ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, as well as some other commonly
encountered substances such as lactic acid (from sour milk products) and butyric
acid (from rancid butter). The aforecited alpine sunflower/yucca extract developed
by Owen Asplund of the University of Wyonming may very well act as an enzyme
inhibitor for tyrosinase.
It may be mentioned in passing that there are independent studies that found
vitamin C or ascorbic acid to destroy cancer cells, as propagated by two-time Nobel
laureate Linus Pauling, which was much resisted by the medical community. The
update by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., a former associate of Linus Pauling, titled
Vitamin C and Cancer, merits another mention. Vitamin E has demonstrated some
positive anticancer effects, according to the June 2001 issue of Life Extension.
Milkweed is another candidate, and is a part of medical folklore. (Milkweed is of

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Cancer Esoterica 383

the genus Asclepias, named after Asclepius, the Greek god of the healing art.) The
listings grow, as do the controversies.
Milkweed, for instance, contains an enzyme that digests or dissolves protein,
and has been used as a folkloric remedy, notably for warts. Continuing along these
lines, reference can be made to a book by Maud Oakes titled Beyond the Windy
Place: Life in the Guatemalan Highlands (1995). Oakes was funded by a foundation
to investigate ancient religious practices as may have been handed down from the
Mayas. She chose an isolated village named Todos Santos, which was on the other
side of a wind-swept pass from the larger village Huehuetenango, located in north-
western Guatemala, in fact near the Pan American or InterAmerican Highway. There,
at Todos Santos, a cure for skin cancer came to light using poultices of the pulp
from a small cactus that is rare and grows at great heights, but Oakes was not able
to arouse any interest among her contacts in the United States (Oakes, 1951, pp. 70,
71, 81, 82).
There are a number of forms of human lactate dehydrogenase, that is, what are
variously denoted as LDH1, LDH2, LDH3, LDH4, and LDH5 (e.g., Voet and Voet,
1995, pp. 183, 164; Hoffman, 1999, pp. 386, 387). The fifth form of the enzyme,
sometimes denoted as the M-type, for muscle (and liver), is presumably the most
efficient for the conversion (or reduction) of pyruvate to lactate, or pyruvic acid to
lactic acid.
The metabolism of the malaria parasite or protozoan (a one-celled organism)
involves a form of the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase. (The malaria parasite can be
any of several species of the genus Plasmodium, but is more commonly P. falci-
parum.) The inhibition of the form of lactate dehydrogenase occurring is the objec-
tive of studies under way at several institutions, notably by David L. VanderJagt and
coworkers at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Leo Brady and
coworkers in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Bristol, and Karl
Werbovetz and coworkers in the College of Pharmacy at the Ohio State University.
The general subject is that of antiparasitic drug discovery, that is, the development
of new and alternative (chemotherapy) agents for the treatment of such protozoal
diseases as leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis, as well as malaria. Another serious
tropical parasitic disease is schistosomiasis (caused by a parasitic fluke of the genus
Schistosoma), a disease better known as bilharziasis, or bilharzia. Further informa-
tion and references about the foregoing antiparasitic work can be obtained from the
Internet or Medline.
It would be interesting to know whether there is any (say, epidemiologic) con-
nection between malarial immunity and cancer immunity. Thus, many native inhab-
itants of the tropical areas fortunately develop immunity to malaria, which may or
may not be related to the inhibition of the malarial enzyme lactate dehydrogenase
or other critical malarial enzymes.
Another drug under study against both malaria and cancer is artemisinin, derived
from “sweet wormwood,” Artemisia annua, which has a long history as an antima-
larial agent, as well as for other purposes. (Of the sages or sagebrushes, A. annua
is of the same genus as the more notorious A. absinthium, or “wormwood,” the
source of absinthe.) The foregoing subject is discussed in an article appearing in the
December 2002 and July 2006 issues of The Townsend Letter for Doctors and

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384 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

Patients, by Robert Jay Rowen, M.D., who is editor in chief of Second Opinion.
Artemisinin is known to be cytotoxic in the presence of ferrous iron, and inasmuch
as cancer cells are naturally high in iron influx, the connection can be made. The
article presents a number of positive clinical results for various advanced cancer
cases.
Artemisinin is classed as a lactone glycoside (e.g., in Hoffman, 1999, p. 111),
one of a number of bioactive compounds in the genus Artemisia of the plant family
Compositae or Asteraceae. The most notorious source of course is the species A.
absinthium, which contains brain-damaging alkaloids (e.g., in Hoffman, 1999, p.
506). There is a revival of interest in artemisinin’s potential as an anticancer agent,
notably against colorectal cancer that has metastasized to the liver, as per the Web
site Keep Michael Blair Alive! at www.blairalive.com, and which mentions other
alternative therapies and causative agents — including parasites — as well as an
extensive listing of supporting references.
Speaking further of parasites, there is the previously cited book by Hulda Regehr
Clark titled The Cure for All Cancers, in which it is advanced that an intestinal fluke
parasite, namely Fasciolopsis buskii, is the primary cause of all cancers. A deworm-
ing or anthelminthic procedure is recommended such as utilization of absinthe (that
is, Artemisia absinthium of the family Compositae or Asteraceae). Absinthe, of
course, has its own well-known toxic effects, or adverse side effects, but the plant
is listed in Hartwell’s compendium as an anticancer agent. Although there have been
adverse comments regarding Clark’s conclusions, it may at the same time again be
remarked that British physician J. Jackson Clarke once wrote a series of books (the
last published in 1922) in which, in a chapter “Cancer-Bodies,” he mentioned that
he had found protozoa in cancers, as well as elsewhere (Clarke, 1922, p. 92). These
developments are presented notably in Section 7.7 of Hoffman (1999). (A layman’s
guide to the subject is provided in The Parasite Menace by Skye Weintraub, 1998.)
Increasingly, therefore, parasites (living things that live off other living things)
are blamed for all sorts of ills. The classic example is the intestinal tapeworm, but
there are myriad others, such as roundworms and hookworms, and trichonomads,
the flagellate protozoa that cause trichomoniasis. The treatments can be as severe
as the disease, ranging from using antimony compounds to using carbon tetrachloride
(once used for hookworm). Accordingly, (herbal) intestinal purification has become
a part of the medical subculture.
This discussion is not complete, however, as the methods of administration —
oral, intravenous, or intramuscular — and the dosage levels and frequency, as well
as other factors, must be established for successful clinical therapy. Thus, a drug or
remedy may be effective if administered intravenously but not orally, because the
digestive processes may affect the drug itself. An exception is penicillin and some
other antibiotics, which can be successfully used orally. And it can be added that
there are such peripheral matters that in vitro, in vivo, and clinical test results do
not always agree. There is also biochemical individuality among patients, with the
result that what works on one does not necessarily work on another.
(In an editorial on page 122 of the January 2002 issue of the Townsend Letter
for Doctors & Patients, physician Alan R. Gaby, M.D., urges caution in extrapolating
favorable test tube, or in vitro, results to the actual patient. For instance, “most

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Cancer Esoterica 385

natural substances that have shown antibacterial activity in vitro have not been found
to be clinically useful as antibiotics.” Thus, these substances may not achieve high
enough concentrations in the infected tissues to be effective. These are variously
involved: the absorption, transport through the bloodstream, and efficient penetration
into the infected tissue, which in the case of bacterial infections may be barred by
mucus, pus, and other debris. At the same time, the active substance must avoid
sequestration by binding proteins, deactivation by body enzymes, and elimination
by the normal body functions. In further comment, however, it may be noted that
there are a few situations where a substance functions clinically, but not in vitro or
in vivo. We must therefore distinguish clinical or human results from in vivo or
animal tests. That is, what may work for mice, for instance, most likely will not
work for humans, and vice versa, as cancer researchers have found out.)
In this regard it has been repeatedly suggested that cancer clinical research
centers (CCRCs) or their equivalent be established to investigate and apply such
alternative therapies as described, or still other therapies, initially to cases of
advanced (or terminal) cancer, and presumably later to any case. Preferably on an
outpatient basis, there would be close supervision by M.D.s and D.O.s, backed up
by pharmacologists, biochemists, microbiologists, or molecular biologists, and bot-
anists or ethnobotanists, as well as herbalists, homeopaths, naturopaths, and other
support personnel. Different biochemical therapies could be tried, with the patients
closely monitored for vital signs and side effects. (Even home test kits could be
supplied for checking out different substances against, say, the enzyme lactate
dehydrogenase.) Most helpful would be a near-instantaneous noninvasive test to
determine whether the cancer is receding or not. And if something does not work,
another route could be tried.
(It may be mentioned that almost any city of any substantial size now has some
sort of cancer clinic, or several, but which utilize the orthodox cancer treatments.
To be treated by alternative therapies, a patient has to leave the country, say, to
Germany or Mexico, an avenue open only to the wealthy. The word is that
our overseas neighbors are surpassing the United States in the arena of research,
indicating that the ultimate breakthrough in cancer therapy may come from these
directions.)
However, by establishing CCRCs or their equivalent in this country, the option
should be open to everyone, rich and poor alike. (As Anatole France once wrote,
the law in its majesty forbids the rich as well as the poor to steal a loaf of bread.)
Moreover, by including the word “Research” in the descriptor, there is the inference
that funding in total or in part would be borne by the federal government — part of
the War on Cancer.
Beyond these considerations, there is another matter to be addressed. By using
orthodox treatments, a physician is legally protected by his peers, that is, by the
system or establishment, which is already in place. Therefore, legal means around
this dilemma must be provided, which remains a touchy subject, even though the
patient signs consent forms.
Plants or herbs are always considered a therapeutic possibility, although it should
be mentioned that substitutions can occur, and that plant or herbal activity varies
with geographic location, the season, even sometimes the time of day (storage time

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386 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

is another variable). Herbal identification and standardization are therefore problems,

though Germany, for instance, has taken positive steps in this direction.
Substances that are mostly benign are preferred, especially those that do not
adversely affect the liver and kidneys, nor respiration and the heart. For this reason,
foods or foodstuffs are of primary consideration, having passed the test of time, and
it may be noted that common garden vegetables and fruits contain an astounding
array of bioactive compounds, including alkaloids, but usually in low or very low
concentrations. It may be added that native peoples who live on vegetarian diets,
such as the previously mentioned Hunzas, are found to be remarkably free from
cancer.
Finally, there is both information and misinformation floating around about the
curative powers of plants and herbs, and still other substances. No one can tell
whether we are dealing with facts or with speculations. The National Institutes of
Health is belatedly trying to sort it out, and is sponsoring a survey to accumulate
information about unorthodox cancer cures or remissions that have been substanti-
ated and documented by M.D.s or their equivalent. This is sound policy, given the
fact that you do not know whom to believe, and people are liable to say anything.
This brings up the point that an absolute cure that is both definitive and decisive is
the objective.
(The NIH survey was being conducted by The Kushi Institute, a macrobiotics
center at Beckett, Massachusetts, 413-623-5741, and by the University of Minnesota
School of Public Health. The objective is to determine recoveries traceable to
macrobiotics, that is, to a macrobiotic or vegetarian kind of diet. It may again be
mentioned as well that the Institute for Noetic Sciences at Sausalito, California, has
long kept records on the spontaneous remission of cancer. Mentioned earlier, there
has been another investigation underway called the Cornell-Oxford-China Study or
“The China Project,” which is directed at linking diet and disease. In a preview, it
is estimated that nearly 90% of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other
degenerative illnesses can be delayed until old age, and in fact the “normal” processes
of aging are not normal at all. A resulting publication by T. Colin Campbell is titled
The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study Ever Conducted and the Startling
Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long Term Health, published in 2005.
Campbell is the project director. The statement is furnished that cancer can be turned
on or off at will using only diet. Earlier, in 1987, T. Colin Campbell and L. Kinlen
had published Diet and Cancer, courtesy of the Imperial Cancer Research Founda-
tion. Another announced chronicler of cancer survival and survivors is The Health
Resource, Conway, AR, 800-949-0090 or 501-329-5272.)
For the preceding reasons, an evaluation demands that theories or mechanisms
be instituted that explain why a given substance works or does not work. In this
connection, the most promising avenue appears to be the role of enzyme inhibitors,
which, after all, have been declared the basis for modern medicine.

CIRCLING THE WAGONS

Returning again to the War on Cancer, if there was a concerted, motivated, mission-
oriented effort like the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb in 4

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Cancer Esoterica 387

or 5 years, a cure would have been found long ago. The goal was clear-cut, the
leadership outstanding, with the research directed by scientific and inspired genius
Robert Oppenheimer, and sustained by down-to-earth Gen. Leslie Groves. As it is,
and based on the dearth of life-saving results, one can wonder whether or not the
medical establishment even wants a cancer cure. The cancer treatment business
continues to do very well, economically at least; so why rock the boat? As for doctors
per se, there is the remark circulated that during the two world wars, when the armed
services had raided the medical profession, the country was in better overall health.
There is the unavoidable fact of business life that profit is the bottom line, and
is necessary for continued existence and growth. And the drug companies cannot
make a sufficient profit off a nonpatentable or nonproprietary substance such as from
a plant. Some sort of chemical transformation of the plant substances will be required
in order to obtain a proprietary position, which may not even be as effective. Hence,
by definition, the drug companies cannot be overly concerned with plant cures, or
plant-derived cures, and must turn to synthetics, as a matter of economic survival.
An added complication is that many of the tropical countries expect to have a
proprietary position on medicinal plants occurring in their particular countries, a
piece of the action, so to speak. (The word is going out, however, that American
drug companies are proceeding to patent, or at least to apply for patents on, plants
whose medicinal usages date back to antiquity. If nothing else, this will hinder the
use of a particular plant by others, most of whom do not have the financial and legal
resources to challenge a large company in the courts.)
At the same time, one would think that the U.S. government should take up the
slack and become more involved in plant remedies, say, via the National Institutes
of Health and the National Cancer Institute. (An Office of Alternative Medicine,
later called the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, was
founded within the National Institutes of Health, but all seems quiet at the front
lines.) Furthermore, as already indicated, musical chairs are being played by gov-
ernment and industry (and academia as well, which depends on research grants).
Call it collusion if you will. It is the downside of capitalism in action. The human
element always will out.
To further illustrate, the American Cancer Society, which generally seems to
have its hand out, collecting about $400 million each year, has been accused of
spending only about 30% of this cash hoard on cancer research, the rest going to
salaries and nonresearch operations. No cures have been forthcoming, yet it main-
tains a blacklist called “Unproven Methods of Cancer Management” (Walters, 1993,
p. 338, 6). The ACS manages to pay fat salaries, however, and has acquired an
impressive investment folio, and in 1988 was said to have a fund balance of $426
million.
An article by Ellen Stark in the November 1996 issue of Money provides a more
favorable appraisal. The spending program of the ACS is listed as 70.2% of its $382
million income. This, however, does not cite research as such. And it may be noted
that the ACS is involved in information dissemination, for example, the publication
of journals and reports. Otherwise, it may be asked just what is to be included in
“programs”? Does this, for instance, include financial investments?

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388 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

Much more about the ACS is furnished in Samuel S. Epstein’s article, “American
Cancer Society: The World’s Wealthiest ‘Nonprofit’ Institution,” published in 1999
in the International Journal of Health Sciences. Thus, an appraisal by James Bennett,
a professor of economics at George Mason University and an authority on charitable
organizations, found that in 1988 the ACS had a fund balance of $400 million plus
another $69 million in land, buildings, and equipment. Of this total, only $90 million
— about 26% — was spent on medical research and programs. Moreover, the board
of the ACS Foundation comprises corporate executives from the pharmaceutical,
investment, banking, and media industries, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy has
mentioned that the ACS is “more interested in accumulating wealth than in saving
lives.” Epstein also lists the breakdown for several states as found by other investi-
gators, including Thomas DiLorenzo, a professor of economics at Loyola College
and veteran investigator of nonprofit organizations. At the time of writing (circa
1999), Epstein listed the current budget of the ACS at $380 million and cash reserves
approaching $1 billion. As for lobbying, a March 30, 1998, Associated Press release
addressed this issue, citing expenditures, the use of its own personal assets, and
donations to political associations. And the national Charities Information Bureau
is quoted as saying that it “does not know of any other charity that makes contri-
butions to political parties.”
(On a more positive note, there is the American Cancer Society’s Complete
Guide to Prostate Cancer, published in 2005.)
In the September 2005 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients,
Ralph W. Moss asks, “Is There a Cancer Conspiracy?” A survey by the ACS finds
that 27% of Americans believe that a cure actually exists, with another 14% suspi-
cious. Moss goes on to say that maybe there is no conspiracy, precisely speaking,
though there has been some foot dragging on alternative treatments for reasons
outlined, with the term Big Pharma interjected. If the question were phrased without
using the term “conspiracy,” the negative survey results may be even more decisive,
with the public saying that there is something terribly wrong in the search for new
cancer treatments.
The contents of Epstein’s paper, cited earlier, are featured in Winfield J. Abbe’s
report titled An Unsuccessful Effort to Deny Use of State of Georgia Facilities for
Fundraising by the American Cancer Society, and is reprinted in full in the appendix
of the report. Abbe, a professor of physics at the University of Georgia, objected to
the ACS using University of Georgia facilities to promote its agenda and to raise
funds, and so wrote university officials and the governor — to no avail. More than
this, Abbe insisted that the university at least provide Samuel S. Epstein with a forum
for rebuttal — also to no avail. Abbe’s report damns the orthodox cancer establish-
ment, with documentation furnished along with details of his wife’s tragic fight
against cancer. Not only is Abbe critical of the ACS, but also of the Race for the
Cure. And he follows this up by citing correspondence with The New England
Journal of Medicine (publication denied). Given the interlocking nature of medical
orthodoxy, pharmaceuticals, finance, government, and the media, one may comment
that public arousal — if any — will be slow. However, the fact that Michael Gearin-
Tosh’s Living Proof: A Medical Mutiny (2002) was published at all gives a degree
of hope.

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Cancer Esoterica 389

In a later communication sent to the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients,
with references, the same Winfield J. Abbe reviewed and challenged a book by
biologist Robert A. Weinberg titled Racing to the Beginnings of the Road: The Search
for the Origin of Cancer, published in 1996. Weinberg was highly critical of Otto
Warburg’s work and conclusions about the metabolic origins of cancer cells as being
anaerobic rather than aerobic. A similar criticism was leveled by Sidney Weinhouse
in an article titled “Respiratory Impairment of Cancer Cells” appearing in Science,
Vol. 124, in 1956. (Otto Heinrich Warburg, M.D., Ph.D., contributed an article titled
“On the Origin of Cancer Cells” that was published in Science, Vol. 123, 1956, pp.
309–314, a translation from Naturwissenschaften, Vol. 42, 1955, p. 401ff. Warburg
died in 1970, but his work on cancer cell metabolism dates back to 1923.) Abbe’s
further comments about the nature of cancer bear repeating. “The cancer industry
believes cancer is hundreds of diseases, one for every type of cancer. It is as if they
took hundreds of combinations for volume, temperature, and pressure but never
discovered the single gas law linking all three together. Dr. Warburg, on the other
hand, along with the thousands of others … proved that cancer is one disease, not
hundreds of diseases, and this proof is certainly not contradicted by anything from
the pen of the biology professor in this book.” Abbe in turn cites the long-recognized
law of parsimony, that “only the simplest explanations, consistent with the experi-
mental facts, are accepted in science.”
A featured article by Fortune executive editor Clifton Leaf titled “Why We’re
Losing the War on Cancer” appeared in the March 2004 issue. This in turn caused
some talk. Thus, in the June 2004 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors &
Patients, Ralph W. Moss reviewed Leaf’s article in his monthly column “The War
on Cancer.” Moss restates some of the facts uncovered by Leaf, namely that no
improvements have occurred in the survival rate, with no dramatic breakthroughs
(such as occurred for Hodgkin’s disease). This, despite spending an estimated $14.4
billion per year on cancer research. In fact, cancer research has become irrelevant
and compartmentalized, and is fundamentally flawed by utilizing animal rather than
human models.
Moss emphasizes Leaf’s findings about cancer regression or remission, whereby
“regression is not likely to improve a person’s chances for survival.” Moreover, the
phenomenon of metastasis remains largely understudied, because this is a difficult
task and is not likely to produce quick, measurable results. Nor do new anticancer
drugs come off unscathed, including Avastin® and Erbitux®, which maybe only
extend lifetimes for a few months. A listing of “Miracle Cures That Weren’t” includes
radiation therapy, interferon, interleuken-2, endostatin, and Gleevec®.
(In his column in the April 2005 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors &
Patients, Moss indicates that on a monthly basis Avastin costs $4,400, Erbitux costs
$17,000, and the newer drug called Zevalin® costs $24,000 — for controlling, not
curing, cancer. Assuming a median cost of $8,500 per month, the annual cost would
be $100,000. Enough to bankrupt many or most patients, and to leave the less wealthy
multitude out in the cold. Presumably, these treatments could go on until the victim
succumbs. The prediction is that further new treatments will be accompanied by
rising, even multiplying, costs. And, despite FDA approval, will the health insurance

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390 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

companies cooperate? In this regard, Moss mentions the much lower costs for
alternative treatments.)
Moss concludes by faulting Leaf for not bringing up complementary and alter-
native medicine (CAM), from which scores of new ideas for cancer treatment have
emerged. One noted in particular is called MTH-68, dating back to 1968, and as
further developed by Eva and Laszlo Csatary, M.D. It is based on the nontoxic
Newcastle disease virus vaccine, and has proved beneficial against some cancers,
notably brain cancer. These and other alternative treatments are systematically
ignored by mainstream medicine and the media.
Clifton Leaf appeared as a panelist on PBS’s The Charlie Rose Show on the
evening of April 29, 2004, along with the respective directors of the Memorial Sloan-
Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), together
with Andrew Gove, CEO of Intel Corporation. By far the most gripping presentation
was from Andrew Gove, who was a real-life suffering victim of cancer and its
treatment. He dared ask the embarrassing questions and make the incisive comments,
without the usual circumventing and backpedaling.
A prominent full-page advertisement appeared in the New York Times on Sunday,
March 9, 2003 (National Edition, p. 5). The ad was placed by Matthias Rath, M.D.,
who had many provocative things to say about health maintenance and the inadequacies
of our present health care system. Steps for turning things around are proffered, based
on the need to take better care of ourselves, by ourselves. In other words, we need to
take more control over our own destiny. Period. This would cut out much of the expense
and wear and tear of eternally going to the doctor and of taking overly prescribed
medications. There is the implication, both overt and covert, that we can avoid illnesses,
notably by the means of better nutrition and, shall we say, by utilizing the unorthodox
outlook and methods of CAM. Dr. Rath, educated in Germany, is an advocate of CAM
for both heart disease and cancer, with books backing this up, and is founder of the
Health Alliance (2901 Bayview Dr., Fremont, CA 94538).
The ACS, the AMA, and the NCI were all blasted by Barry Lynes, a proponent
of the Rife radio frequency treatment, and author of The Cancer Cure That Worked!:
Fifty Years of Suppression (1992) and The Healing of Cancer (1989). In Chapter 17
of his first-mentioned book, Lynes speaks to the suppression of alternative cancer
cures, whereby the AMA guards its pocket book and the pharmaceutical companies
push chemotherapy for profit. He calls the American Cancer Society a big-money
public relations fraud, and characterizes the FDA as being owned by the cancer
monopolies, with the media remaining “silent, silent, silent.” (It is informative to note
that the publisher put in a disclaimer at the end of the first edition of Lynes’ book,
published in 1987, to the effect that, though the American Medical Association may
have misused its power several decades ago, this is not to imply that the AMA would
act this way today.) In his book The Healing of Cancer, Barry Lynes made the following
statement about the National Cancer Institute (1989, p. 61). “NCI created a bureaucratic
haven for scientism, filled with committee procedures, payoffs, collusion with drug
companies, and interminable roadblocks for the truly innovative cancer fighters.”
(Along these lines, Ralph Moss described a somewhat similar electromagnetic
treatment in his monthly column “The War on Cancer,” which was published in the
December 2002 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients. Referred to as

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Cancer Esoterica 391

Cytoluminescent Therapy, or CLT, it is a form of what is called photodynamic therapy,

or PDT. Electromagnetic radiation within the light spectrum is used against cancer
cells that have been sensitized by a certain kind of drug. The therapy evidently works
against different kinds of cancer. Moss provides successful examples variously involv-
ing colon, breast, and prostate cancer. Among the drugs employed is FDA-approved
Photofrin®, but more effective photosensitizers are under development, such as from
ox blood but especially from plants. The general subject of PDT was included in Moss
1992. A comment that can be made is that perhaps sensitizers could be involved, or
should be involved, in the Rife radio frequency treatment.)
Continuing, Linus Pauling had considered the “War on Cancer” a fraud, calling
both the ACS and the NCI derelict in their duties (Walters, 1993, pp. 4, 338). In his
book, Walters adds that the ACS Blacklist of Unproven Methods has been used to
smear promising new therapies. On the other hand, an official at the Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center declared that the blacklist is the source for their best ideas
(Walters, 1993, p. 339). And speaking of the MSKCC, it has been previously
mentioned that Ralph Moss, author of Cancer Therapy and other cancer-related
books, was fired for taking exception to the downgrading of a study which was
favorable to laetrile.
In addition to Linus Pauling’s statements, James Watson, another Nobel Prize-
winner and codiscoverer of the DNA double helix, and who served on the National
Cancer Advisory Board, once described the National Cancer Program as a bunch of
crap, or worse (Walters, 1993, p. 4). This incompetence is in spite of the fact that
the incidences of most common cancers — those of the lung, colon, breast, prostate,
pancreas, and ovary — are either staying at the same level or increasing. Conven-
tional treatments may ultimately fail because even a thumb-sized tumor has about
1 billion cancer cells, and if treatment kills or removes, say, 99.9% of the cells, a
million cells remain.
As for scratching each other’s back, 90% of the members of NCIs peer review
committee get NCI funding for their own research, with 70% of the ACS budget
allocated for research going to individuals or institutions represented by the ACS
board members (Walters, 1993, p. 339).
And as for the interlocking relationships between government, finance, and the
drug or chemical industry, we mention once more a sort of underground exposé in
the form of Clarence E. Mullins’ Death by Injection: The Story of the Medical
Conspiracy Against America (1992). Though the title implies problems with inoc-
ulations, not to mention chemotherapy, the main thrust of the book is on the ties
that bind. Institutional and business names are named, constituting a “who’s who”
of the business world. Further information is provided by James P. Carter, M.D.,
DrPh. (1993), in Racketeering in Medicine, as previously cited.
Another, wider look at the scene is Robert Bell’s Impure Science: Fraud, Com-
promise and Political Influence in Scientific Research (1992). The major part of Bell’s
book is concerned with the falsification or distortion of data and results that had
occurred within the academic biochemical and pharmaceutical community, and were
investigated by Michigan’s Congressman John Dingell and his Subcommittee on
Oversights and Investigations. The most notorious was what became known as the
“David Baltimore case.” The remainder of the book is concerned with government

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392 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

agencies and their grants and contracts. Suffice to say, academics do not take kindly
the challenging of one of their own by an outsider. This reflex action is most obvious
in the realm of medical orthodoxy, where its practitioners do not want any interference
or embarrassments from laypersons nor from alternative medicine proponents.
A more recent exposé, about certain ubiquitous food additives, is by Russell L.
Blaylock, M.D., a neurosurgeon at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Published in 1997 by the Health Press of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Blaylock’s book
is titled Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills. A further subtitle is “How Monosodium
Glutamate, Aspartame (Nutrasweet®) and Similar Substances Can Cause Harm to
the Brain and Nervous System and Their Relationship to Nueurodegenerative Dis-
eases Such as Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) and Others.” For instance,
it has been shown that increased instances of brain tumors are but one side effect.
The degree of collusion between the FDA, the pharmaceutical companies, and the
courts and the court of public opinion has to be read about to be believed. The
thought again is of the Romans and lead cooking vessels.
A popularization of the same subject, the innocuous toxicity of certain food
additives, by Carol Simontacchi, is titled The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry
is Destroying Our Minds and Harming Our Children (2000). Additionally, there is
Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry Is Killing Us by Christopher D.
Cook (2004). Cook takes on the corporate oligarchy that is increasingly controlling
the food industry, from the farm to the consumer. Food-borne bacteria are a part of
the subject, as are the large supermarket chains, the tail that can wag the dog to the
disadvantage of the small and independent food producers.
Further addressing the subject of foods, and crops, there is Michael Pollan’s The
Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World (2001). In this regard, Pollan
contributed an article about corn to the New York Times, published as “When a Crop
Becomes King” on page A21 of the July 19, 2002, issue. What with subsidies and
other encouragements, the crop is almost a monoculture, and is ubiquitous in its
conversion to the sweetener fructose for myriad uses, such as in soft drinks. Whether
this is good or bad over the long term of course remains to be seen, as with another
(artificial) sweetener used in diet drinks, namely the previously mentioned aspar-
tame, which is said to be converted to methanol or methyl alcohol within the body,
this being the scientific name for wood alcohol, long known as a serious poison.
(Not to mention questions about genetically modified corn.) Whether the common
usage of these and other such synthetics will eventually prove detrimental can be
argued back and forth, interminably, and will never be fully resolved, even if most
of the human race goes under, as long as someone shows a profit and can manipulate
the system. That is, for every argument, there is a counterargument, just as Newton
proclaimed about action and reaction.

MORE ON GENETIC MODIFICATION OR

ENGINEERING
A lengthy article appearing in the October 28, 2002, issue of the Nation, by Mark
Shapiro, has the title “Sowing Disaster: How Genetically Engineered Corn has

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Cancer Esoterica 393

Altered the Global Landscape.” Shapiro introduces the article by focusing on Oaxaca,
a state in extreme southern Mexico, in the Sierra Norte Mountains, where corn (i.e.,
maize), in all its genetic diversity, is a principal food crop. Presumably protected by
its remoteness, the corn at the village of Capulalpan has nevertheless been found to
be infiltrated with genetically altered genes — very likely from the planting of seeds
from genetically engineered corn obtained from the local store. Here, the corn
traditionally grows in some sixty different varieties, ranging from shades of blue,
black, purple, and white to the ubiquitous yellow.
This is part of a region ranging from the Sierre Norte down through the south-
ernmost state of Chiapas and on into Guatemala, where the genetic diversity of its
corn is regarded as a hedge against unforeseen environmental changes, and which
can be used to rejuvenate stressed-out domesticated varieties, whatever the cause,
and is therefore a worldwide insurance policy. Thus, Shapiro quotes Mauricio Bellon
of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CCMMYT), the world’s
foremost public research facility for corn: “The diversity of these land races, these
genes, is the basis of our food supply…. We need this diversity to cope with the
unpredictable…. The climate changes, new plant diseases and pests continue to
evolve. Diseases we thought we had controlled come back. We don’t know what’s
going to happen in the future, and so we need to keep our options open.” The likely
contaminate was probably Bt corn, as developed by Monsanto, which contains a
bacterial gene causing the corn to produce its own insecticide against the corn borer.
Another major Monsanto product is Roundup Ready soybean seed, which contains
a bacterial gene making the plant resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. And
so on, illustrating the emerging vastness of the agrichemical industry and its bio-
technology (biotech), or biological engineering (BE). Shapiro supplies the estimates
that, at this writing, some 34% of our corn, 75% of our soy, 70% of our cotton, and
15% of our canola are now genetically engineered, which is compromising the purity
of organic farming. Moreover, many European countries refuse to import genetically
altered crops, which therefore reduces demand, as a result of which there are calls
for subsidies, which subsequently affects the U.S. taxpayer. Also, GE crops are
resulting in resistant diseases and insects, and are not showing any greater yields.
(In this latter connection, the word is that GE salmon interbreed with the native
species, with the resulting hybrids showing a higher mortality rate. The inference is
that GE could cause the extinction of a species.)
The subject merges with that of selective breeding, where the technical adjective
for “breeding-true” is homozygous, with the converse described as heterozygous.
And if selective breeding can produce “favorable” characteristics, it can also produce
“unfavorable” characteristics. Extended to humans, famed biologist and Nobel lau-
reate Peter Medawar declared that the objectives of “positive” eugenics can never
be attained (Medawar, 1990, p. 108). “Human diversity is one of the facts of life,
and the human genetic system does not lend itself to improvement by selective
inbreeding.” May we extend the analogy to crops and other animal life, where it is
noted that the hybrids and the mongrels are the “fittest” ?
Apart from this, there was the previously cited article in the October 12, 2003,
issue of the New York Times by Michael Pollan that traces current concerns about
obesity to the overproduction of grains, notably corn. Corn is abundant and cheap,

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394 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

a staple for use directly as a food or in foods, and its conversion to sweetener adds
myriad uses, carbonated drinks being the obvious example.
Another facet of the arguments about the ubiquity of corn usage has to do with
corn-derived ethanol production and the latter’s use as a supplemental motor fuel.
Thus, syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin addressed ethanol as the other energy
scandal (the oblique reference is to the Enron debacle), in her column on or about
September 4, 2002. Malkin starts off by mentioning that agricultural conglomerate
Archer Daniels Midland owns 41% of U.S. ethanol production capacity, and that
98% of the nation’s ethanol plants are located in the farm belt, with the political
ramifications seemingly obvious.
Features of the 2002 energy bill will require that gasoline refiners triple ethanol
use in motor fuel by 2012 and thereafter, irregardless of the consequences. However,
a little-publicized memo from the Office of Management and Budget noted that the
president’s Council of Economic Advisors and the Federal Trade Commission
viewed the ethanol mandate as “costly to both consumers and the government and
will provide little environmental benefit.” The resulting increase in gasoline costs
for ethanol blends would predictably be at least 3 to 5 cents per gallon, even 7 cents
per gallon in New York, and in California nearly 10 cents per gallon. Not only this,
but Cornell University agricultural researcher David Pimentel, who had chaired a
Department of Energy panel commissioned to investigate energy production, per-
formed a net energy analysis for ethanol production, with the following conclusion.
About 70% more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that is
actually in ethanol. Furthermore, “Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for
an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel is unsustainable,
subsidized food burning.” As for environmental “benefits,” the National Academy
of Sciences also sees otherwise; namely, that there is little improvement in ozone
air quality, and, although ethanol can reduce carbon monoxide emissions, this is
offset by increased emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) plus nitrous
oxide, the usual precursors of smog.
Still another angle is provided by the western corn rootworm beetle, the species
Diabrotica virgifera virgifera of the family Chrysomelidae. Originally attacking
members of the plant family Cucurbitaceae, such as gourds and pumpkins, it has
turned to corn and has become an ubiquitous pest in the Corn Belt of America’s
Midwest, destroying up to 80% of the crop in some places and costing up to an
estimated 1 billion dollars per year in production losses. Moreover, it has been
spreading to Western Europe, being first discovered in Serbia in 1992, with findings
near airports in Italy and Switzerland, and may already be in France’s great grain-
raising area southwest of Paris, near Beauce. The subject has been given play in the
World Press Review, December 2002, which reprinted an article by Hervé Morin
that had appeared in Le Monde, published in Paris, September 26, 2002. Experiments
using biological agents have so far proved ineffective, including the use of phero-
mones and cheromones, with others such as natural predators in the offing. (This is
always a gamble, for the unleashing of natural predators from foreign sources may
have undesirable or fatal consequences for indigenous flora and fauna.) Which gets
around again to GE, or genetic modification (GM), as it is also called. Whether this

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Cancer Esoterica 395

approach will be pursued remains to be seen, given the present European moratorium
on genetically modified organisms.
The foregoing matters bring up the point that the corn crop in the United States
for the most part comprises a monoculture, and increasingly (or pervasively) consists
of genetically modified subspecies. This may conceivably make the corn crop more
receptive to attack by the western corn rootworm beetle, or still other unexpected
pests. In other words, there is the need, or make it a necessity, for diverse species
or subspecies rather than having a uniform monoculture. It is the old saw about not
putting all of one’s eggs in one basket.
Although “science” seemingly assures us that all obstacles can be overcome,
the emerging exceptions continue to confound the experts, one after another. It is
as if Nature remains a contrarian, in the end able to thwart the best-laid plans of
mice and men.
A notable instance is a situation exposed by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The case that has been cited concerns genetic engineering of a common soil bacte-
rium named Klebsiella planticola. Developed by a German biotech company, the
modified bacterium would successfully break down and rot wood chips, corn stalks,
and other wastes from lumbering and agriculture, at the same time producing ethanol,
which could be used as a fuel additive, as in gasohol. The rotted wastes in turn
would serve to enrich soil. However, in tests conducted at Oregon State University,
when the rotted wastes were added to soil, the seeds subsequently planted would
sprout but then die. It turned out that the genetically modified bacterium countered
the mycorrhizal fungi occurring naturally in the soil, which are vital to plant growth.
The apocalyptic concerns were about the genetically modified bacteria persisting in
the soil and eventually eradicating all plant growth. Thus we encounter another
scenario with unexpected consequences. And if the genetically modified bacterium
has this effect on one particular microorganism, what effect might it have on the
millions of other microorganisms? Not to mention what unanticipated effects current
and future genetically modified microorganisms might have on the global entirety
of microorganisms … and all other organisms.

VACCINATION AND CANCER

Problems that occur with vaccinations constitute the principal thrust of books
authored or edited by Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D., as previously noted. The subject
is also covered in Michael L. Culbert’s comprehensive exposé titled Medical Arma-
geddon Update 2000: Behind the Healthcare Calamity of the Whole World and How
to Fix It. (Although Culbert doesn’t get around to health maintenance organizations
[HMOs] as such, he gets around to about everything else, including medical and
health insurance, which he labels “a good idea gone wrong.”) With regard to cancer
cures and the lack thereof, apropos of medical orthodoxy, no punches are pulled in
the pages of commentary furnished in An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to
Cancer.
An update on the more conventional vaccinations requires mention of the vaccine
preservative used — sodium ethyl mercury thiosalicylate, better known as thimero-
sal. The very presence of toxic mercury in routine childhood vaccinations raises a

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396 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

warning flag, and there are indications that this may be related to a marked increase
of autism in children, especially in boys. The subject was explored in considerable
depth, for instance, by Bette Hileman in the February 23, 2004 issue of Chemical
& Engineering News, a weekly publication of the American Chemical Society. The
pros and cons emerge occasionally as issues carried in the major media, although
not very often, being for the most part carried in other sources.
Thus, according to a November 1998 newsletter from Johns Hopkins University
Medical School, in addition to the neurotoxin thimerosal, flu vaccines are found to
contain the preservative formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing agent, and also
aluminum (or its compounds), and can be associated with an increase in Alzheimer’s
disease. In the serious influenza epidemic occurring circa January 2000, a large
percentage of the elderly who had had the flu shots also contracted the disease. For
instance, a nursing home in Toronto reported 32 cases of the flu, out of which 31
had been vaccinated the month before.
And from Jane Russell’s Health Facts (www.jrussellshealth.com), information
is cited as retrieved from Hugh Fudenberg, M.D., described as the world’s leading
immunologist (credited with some 850 papers or articles). Thus, if a person had five
consecutive flu shots between 1970 and 1980 (being the interval studied), the chances
of coming down with Alzheimer’s disease were 10 times greater than for unvacci-
nated persons. This is attributed to a gradual buildup of mercury and aluminum in
the brain.
Further information is furnished in The Sanctity of Human Blood: Vaccination
I$ not Immunization, by Tim O’Shea (2004). It is noted that the flu virus constantly
mutates, even over a single season. The vaccine, derived from a particular mutant
form of the virus at a point in time, will be less effective, or no longer effective, by
the time it is administered. Moreover, the sicker the person and the greater the
number of persons affected, the faster the virus mutates, a phenomenon called gene
amplification. What follows is a guessing game for the vaccine manufacturers, in
trying to predict and match what mutant virus form will emerge for the next flu
season, which is yet months away. In retrospect, there was the swine flu fiasco in
1976, a consequence being the paralysis of 565 infants with Guillain-Barre syn-
drome. A government scientist was fired for blowing the whistle and stating that
there was really no persuasive evidence about a forthcoming swine flu epidemic
and, moreover, that the vaccine had dangerous side effects.
An added note is that flu shots translate to a very big business — so, just follow
the money.
The December 1999 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients contains
articles bridging the connection between vaccinations and cancer. That is to say,
vaccines carry viruses, some intended and some as contaminants. There is a poignant
contribution by Raphaele Moreau-Horwin and Michael Horwin titled “Link between
Increasing Rate of Pediatric Cancers and Childhood Vaccines” which connects
cancer to viruses, and especially as pertains to childhood (mandatory) vaccinations.
This is followed by an article titled “Vaccine Scene 1999: Overview and Update”
by Harold E. Buttram, M.D. In particular, the work of W.J. Martin who is with the
National Cancer Institute is cited, including the role of the African Green Monkey
and the “stealth virus.” Also, a voice from the past, an article containing some of

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Cancer Esoterica 397

George Bernard Shaw’s comments about vaccines, particularly the Pasteur treatment,
which emphasizes that not everyone bitten by a rabid animal contracts rabies.
(Nevertheless, who wants to play the odds? Further, the rabies virus may lie dormant,
with the disease only showing up later, or many years later, as pointed out by Colin
Kaplan et al., 1986, in Rabies: The Facts.)
Having mentioned routine vaccines, a letter by James A. Howenstine, M.D., in
the February/March 2004 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients merits
special note. He cites an astute observation made by Indiana physician Dr. W.B.
Clarke back in the early 1900s: “Cancer was practically unknown until compulsory
vaccination with cowpox vaccine began to be introduced. I have had to deal with
two hundred cases of cancer, and I never saw a case of cancer in an unvaccinated
person.” Dr. Howenstine further mentions viral contamination from the very animals
used to produce the vaccines. Thus, the Salk polio vaccine had some viruses that
could not be eradicated, including the simian SV40 virus, a known cause of malig-
nancies. (The vaccine had already been given to more than 10 million persons before
the discovery of contamination.) Yellow fever vaccine, for instance, had been found
to be contaminated with avian (bird) leukemia virus. More than this, mass immuni-
zation exhausts most of the immature immune cells from the thymus gland, thus
compromising natural immunity.
(For more about viruses, and cancer and viruses, Part VII of Hoffman, 1999
discusses these aspects.)
Lastly, it may be mentioned that there is a treatise-size book published in 1999
by Little, Brown with the title The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and AIDS.
The author Edward Hooper makes a convincing case for the impact of simian viruses
that have invaded such live-virus vaccines as the Sabin vaccine. Massive vaccination
programs of this sort have the potential of infecting everyone with stray viruses, and
may already have, with unknown consequences.
A comprehensive volume about the contamination of polio vaccine by the
monkey virus SV40 and other viruses is by Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumaker,
titled The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers, and
Government Neglect, published in 2004. Some of the highlights of this controversy
are as follows.
Both the Salk and the Sabin vaccines have been, and are, derived from the
ground-up kidneys of monkeys, usually rhesus monkeys but also from African green
monkeys. Both have been found to carry the simian virus 40, SV40, as well as other
viruses, the latter mostly as yet unknown. In the case of the Salk “killed” vaccine,
the addition of formaldehyde or formalin was supposed to kill all viruses, including
SV40, but the immolation proved not to be 100% effective (Bookchin and Schuma-
cher, 2004, p. 86ff). In the case of the Sabin “live” oral vaccine, an antiserum agent
had been developed that was supposed to kill any stray virus, including SV40 but
also another called the vacuolating agent (Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, pp. 76,
86, 87, 113). Sometimes called neutralization, the process was not totally effective
(Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, p. 271).
It may be noted that SV40 is a DNA virus, whereas most viruses contain only
RNA (Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, pp. 111, 116). Moreover, SV40 is also

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398 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

characterized as a polyoma virus, a classification found in other animals, even

humans (Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, p. 148).
More specifically, it may be commented in passing that an enzyme involved in
the formation of cancerous cells via viruses is DNA-dependent RNA polymerase,
also called DNA-directed RNA polymerase (Hoffman, 1999, p. 189). On the other
hand, what are called retroviruses have notably been implicated in cancer and
immunodeficiency diseases. The enzyme involved here is called reverse tran-
scriptase, or RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (or RNA-directed DNA polymerase).
Further complicating the picture is the fact that viruses may have many different
strains (Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, p. 179). Thus, poliovirus has a few disease-
causing strains but dozens more that are harmless, the implication being that SV40
may have different variants. It was found, moreover, that the skin of the SV40 virus
contains three proteins, one of which regulates growth, the other two causing tumors
(Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, p. 205). The latter two proteins are labeled
antigens, the one the larger T-antigen, the other the smaller t-antigen. However, the
body has “brakes” for the activities of these proteins, notably the tumor suppressor
genes called p53 and the Rb genes. However, SV40 can block p53 and Rb genes
and can allow the telomeres to elongate, permitting cells to divide endlessly
(Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, p. 209). The comment has been made that “it is
one of the most potent carcinogens that we know.” Accordingly, there have been
attempts to disable SV40 (Bookchin and Schumacher, 2004, p. 130).
Among the findings are the following: SV40 is a precursor or cause of the deadly
cancers known as mesotheliomas, and still other cancers, even leukemia (Bookchin
and Schumacher, 2004, pp. 140, 187, 192, 227, passim). Mesotheliomas occur in
the lining that surrounds lungs, heart, and abdominal cavity, and are ordinarily
associated with asbestos as the cause.
This cancer-causing action of SV40 was the center of much controversy between
agencies of the U.S. government and the researchers involved, who had the viewpoint
that SV40 occurred from laboratory contamination, and still other researchers who
held the opposite view, that the SV40 was innate, or naturally occurring. The book
goes into great detail about these controversies. Names are supplied, and among the
names of the latter group are Bernice Eddy, Michele Carbone (originally from Italy),
Harvey Pass, Robert Garcia, Janet Butel, and John Lednicky, as well as vocal
opponents Hilary Koprowski and Leonard Haflick.
In Chapter 20, titled “Alexander’s Tumor,” a tragic case study is presented about
a brain tumor in a young child that was linked to SV40, it being found in the tumor.
The traditional chemotherapy treatments were unbearable, and the child died in his
mother’s arms.
In conclusion, the traditional viewpoint is that these polio vaccines were effective
in stopping polio. The side effects are still moot, because epidemiological studies
of only a few years are too short, for cancer can take many, many years to develop.
The final chapter speaks of the conflicts among profits, safety, and best practices,
with further mention of researcher Hilary Koprowski, who is experimenting with
plants as a substrate to eliminate the risk of foreign animal viruses.

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Cancer Esoterica 399

However, there is nevertheless some impressive work going on in the medical

research establishment as per the series on cancer appearing in the aforecited Novem-
ber 7, 1997, issue of Science, as per Chapter 5.
One particular highlight, furnished in the series of news items and articles,
involves the disabling of the tumor suppressor gene designated p53, which prevents
viral DNA replication. Oddly enough, the inactivation is by means of a human
respiratory virus called adenovirus, by removing the viral gene that disables p53.
The reasoning was that the virus would selectively infect only cells in which the
p53 was nonfunctionals, that is, cancer cells. Clinical trials are encouraging, but the
virus has to be injected directly into the tumor; if injected into the bloodstream, the
immune system destroys the virus. The use will therefore be of limited value for
cancers that have metastasization.

TELOMERASE INHIBITORS
In further comment, the fact that the presence of the enzyme telomerase has been
observed to be associated with tumors at least suggests a means for treating cancer,
by utilizing inhibitors for telomerase. (The enzyme telomerase is not routinely available
for experimentation, however, nor has it yet entered the handbooks that list known
enzyme inhibitors.) Similar remarks apply to the enzyme tyrosinase, which is associ-
ated with melanoma, as indicated elsewhere. There is a likelihood, even, that the
inhibition of reverse transcriptase (or RNA-directed DNA polymerase) could act
against cancer, as well as retroviruses such as HIV (the AIDS virus), and the Ebola
and Marburg viruses. (A number of inhibitors are listed in the handbooks of enzyme
inhibitors for RNA-directed DNA polymerase, including such antibiotics as actino-
mycin, some of which are undoubtedly toxic.) These are, of course, speculative.
(In work under way at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Boston
by researcher Matthew Meyerson, a gene called human Ever Shorter Telomeres 2,
or hEST2, has been found responsible for making a component of telomerase. Thus,
it may very well be a key agent that switches on uncontrolled cellular growth.)
Very possibly, however, inhibitors for the previously mentioned enzymes may
exist in the plant world, as distinguished from synthetic chemicals. And among these
plant substances there will perhaps be some that do not have toxic or adverse side
effects.
A significant development underway is by Nobel laureate Tom Cech and coworkers
at the University of Colorado. A protein designated POT1 has been found to attach
itself to the end of chromosomes and thereby keep telomerase away from the tips so
that cancer cannot develop. Observed with mice, it is a long way to clinical confirma-
tion in humans. (In comment, POT1 can be called an inhibitor for telomerase.)

HISTONE DIACETYLASE INHIBITORS

Another recent development is the use of a histone diacetylase inhibitor (designated
FK228), which is said to not add or delete DNA, but rather to normalize the existing
DNA. The work has been carried out at the National Cancer Institute, and is described

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400 Cancer and the Search for Selective Biochemical Inhibitors, Second Edition

in the May 2004 issue of Life Extension in an article by Terri Mitchell. Still another
treatment described in the article is the use of a methylation enzyme inhibitor. (The
particular enzyme is also known as methyltransferase.)
With regard to using a histone dicetylase inhibitor for lymphoma treatment, a
contact at the NCI is Robin Frye, RN, at (302) 402-5958, and is available at many
cancer centers in the United States. A contact for treating thyroid cancer with histone
diacetylase inhibitors has been reported to be Deborah Draper, RN, BSN, at (301)
435-8525.

MARKERS FOR MONITORING CANCER GROWTH

AND REMISSION
A section called “Cancer Markers” was furnished in Chapter 5, which emphasized
the references by David Sidransky and others that appeared in the November 7,
1997, issue of Science. The references cited were more at the DNA level, however,
but here the continuing and vital concern is the use of more prosaic markers to
monitor the initiation, progress, and remission of cancer. Some are in routine use,
such as prostate-specific antigen (PSA) for prostate cancer, and white blood cell
count for leukemia.
Another more down-to-earth angle is that an insulin or glycogen imbalance may
be a marker for cancer. Even such common measurements as blood pressure, pulse,
and body temperature may influence cancer progression or regression, and their
monitoring benefits from developments in modern technology. (Among the very
latest may be skin- or palm-derived measurements for these and other body imbal-
ances, as mentioned elsewhere. Beyond this possibility is work on spit, or saliva,
tests as an indicator for cancer and other diseases, as per the work of Dr. David
Wong, associate dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry.)
A newer angle is presented in an article by Mitch Jacoby in the March 29, 2004,
issue of Chemical and Engineering News, a weekly publication of the American
Chemical Society. Titled “Breath Analysis for Medical Diagnosis,” many volatile
organic chemicals carried in a person’s breath are associated with a particular disease.
These chemicals may be present only in extremely minute or picomolar-level con-
centrations. The challenge is to routinely and accurately analyze and correlate the
breath chemistry to the disease.
It is certainly preferable that the means sought for monitoring the course of
cancer be on a near-instantaneous basis, which translates to a near-continuous basis,
if so needed.

MORAL AND ETHICAL QUANDARIES

Finally, there are the ethical or moral ramifications, for it can be discerned that
cancer is the disease of main concern in the arguments over euthanasia and assisted
suicide. The situation is spelled out by Brian Eads in “A License to Kill,” which
appeared in the September, 1997, issue of the Reader’s Digest. Eads’ article pertains
for the most part to the practice of euthanasia as it currently exists in the Netherlands

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Cancer Esoterica 401

(the naming of this country now seems prescient). Another reference is Wesley J.
Smith’s Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, published in
2000.
Other information was furnished in Seduced by Death: Doctors, Patients, and
the Dutch Cure, by Herbert Hendin, M.D., published in 1998. An update, a collection
of essays edited by Kathleen Foley, M.D. and Herbert Hendin, is The Case Against
Assisted Suicide: For the Right to End-Of-Life Care, published in 2002. The argu-
ments do not address whether killing is wrong, but rather that legalization of assisted
suicide would have an effect opposite to what its supporters claim. In other words,
it would cause more suffering, give the patient less control, corrupt the practice of
medicine, and decrease palliative care. Some of the contributors in particular speak
of the prevalence of depression in the terminally ill, and note that it is eminently
treatable. Treatment would counteract the terrible fear of abandonment, and it is
noted that assisted suicide is “abandonment institutionalized.” In this regard, it was
noted in Hendin’s book that Holland’s legalization has been accompanied by the
worst palliative care facilities in Europe. And in the United States., in Oregon, where
assisted suicide has been legalized, there is now a “culture of silence.”
This foregoing represents the collision between reason, that is, intellectualism,
or ideology, and Biblical authority, that is, morality, or religion.

© 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC