Positive Health Online

In this Positive Health PH Online Issue 234  is published The Banerji Protocols - Cases and Evidence of Cancer Remission documenting imaged evidence from X-Rays, MRIs and Stereotacic Biopsy regarding remission from brain tumour, lung cancer, osteosarcoma and bladder carcinoma cases from the Dr Prasanta Banerji Homeopathic Research Foundation (PBHRF):

“which was set up in 1993 with the aim to include Homeopathy as a scientific and effective mode of Alternative Medicine. This Foundation offers comprehensive health care as well as scientific establishment to bring Homeopathy to its rightful position as the medicine of the masses.

“In the research foundation the main research activity consists of data recording of the treatment of all cases of various types of cancer and other life threatening diseases such as renal failures, multiple sclerosis etc. treated at the clinics of the research foundation using The Banerji ProtocolsTM of treatment utilizing homeopathic medicines.”

In Positive Health PH Online Issue 217 October 2014 was published a Research Proposal: Cancer Patients’ Survival: Comparing Integrated Alternative Therapies and Chemotherapy / Radiotherapy Treatment[1] with extensive references to the published literature regarding:

“…The toxic, sometimes fatal side effects and lack of efficacy regarding long-term survival outcomes for many chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments are published and well-known in the medical and research literature. Clinically, between 10%-25% of cancer patients may die as a result of undergoing these highly toxic treatments.[2-6] which may be factors in multi-drug resistance, cancer stem cell formation, mutated p53 and other cancer gene mutations which may explain short term remission, subsequent recurrence, metastases and secondary cancers years later following conventional cancer treatment…”

It was argued that:

“I have therefore been persuaded of the need to attempt to establish and compare cancer patient survival without toxic chemotherapy / radiotherapy treatments but with a robust integrated / alternative protocol and attach a brief proposal as a starting point for this research.”[1]

The page 8 article in The Sunday Times 23 October 2016 by Tim Shipman Political Editor carried the lurid headline “Up to 46,000 die each year as NHS lags behind world’s best”.[7]

“As many as 46,000 people die each year because NHS treatments for a range of conditions, including cancer, trail behind the best in the world, a new report has found.

“The UK ranks near the bottom of a list of developed nations in terms of survival rates for common cancers such as breast, lung, prostate and bowel cancers.

“More than 9,000 people who die each year in the UK from lung cancer would survive if they lived in Japan, which has the best survival rate for the disease among the 32 countries studied. The UK ranks 30th.”

On Sept 2016 The Lancet published Vol 17 the study 30-day mortality after systemic anticancer treatment for breast and lung cancer in England: a population-based, observational study [8] by researchers Michael Wallington et al from Public Health England, Cancer Research UK, Dept of Oncolofy, Royal Free Hospital London, Ninewells Hospital Medical School, Dundee UK, Dept of Oncology, University of Oxford, University of Leicester, Dept of Respiratory Medicine, Leeds Institute of Cancer Research and Pathology, Oncology Centre, Addenbrooke's NHS Trust, Cambridge.

“Background: 30-day mortality might be a useful indicator of avoidable harm to patients from systemic anticancer treatments, but data for this indicator are limited. The Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) dataset collated by Public Health England allows the assessment of factors affecting 30-day mortality in a national patient population. The aim of this first study based on the SACT dataset was to establish national 30-day mortality benchmarks for breast and lung cancer patients receiving SACT in England, and to start to identify where patient care could be improved…

“Patients dying within 30 days after beginning treatment with SACT are unlikely to have gained the survival or palliative benefits of the treatment, and in view of the side-effects sometimes caused by SACT, are more likely to have suffered harm. In particular, the risk of neutropenic sepsis (infection resulting from low blood neutrophil count, probably the most important cause of SACT-related death) is highest in the 30 days after SACT, peaking at around 11–15 days after treatment.5 SACT cycles are typically 21 or, less commonly, 28 days long, so death from neutropenic sepsis from the previous treatment is captured within the 30-day mortality metric. Simply reducing doses of or avoiding SACT altogether would reduce or eliminate instances of treatment-related early mortality, but at the cost of some patients being denied effective SACT and hence the survival and palliation benefits…

“The finding that 30-day mortality increased with worsening performance status for patients with breast cancer or NSCLC treated with palliative intent could be because patients with poorer general health are less able to tolerate the negative side-effects of SACT compared with healthier individuals, to an extent where the toxic effects outweigh the beneficial effects. These findings suggest great care is required when advising chemotherapy in this patient group.”[8]

The current UK medical model of cancer care which legally mandates only surgery, chemotherapy -Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) - and radiotherapy, and by definition excludes all other treatment modalities - nutrition, immune modulation / enhancement, herbal, homeopathic -  is evidently producing poor outcomes. The Sunday Times article restricts its analysis in improvements to cancer survival solely upon improving earlier diagnosis and therefore ignoring that cancer survival may be accomplished by treatment options which are not entirely focussed upon eradicating cancer from the body. A properly functioning immune system will endeavour to eliminate cancer cells if provided the correct metabolic conditions and treatments as elucidated in recently reviewed Tripping Over the Truth: The Return of the Metabolic Theory of Cancer by Travis Christofferson.

I would posit that an integrated, inclusive model of health care which makes available the totality of treatment approaches, rather than confining options to conventional medical practice focussed upon surgery and drugs, would build a healthier population, as well as do away with unnecessary, needless and expensive procedures, as recently outlined in such a list by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.

Other evidence-based editorial features published in Issue 234 include Defeating Teenage Depression by Dr Roslyn Law Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Chair of IPTUK, Honorary Senior Lecture at UCL, and National Lead for IPT in IAPT, PTSD, Shock and Trauma - The Role of Flower Essences by Clare Harvey and Beneficial Use of Seaweed in Special Diets by Simon Ranger.

For all of our health, it is vital to stay abreast of medical and research findings from the entire spectrum of conditions and treatment approaches as evidenced in the 3000+ articles and 3000+ research abstracts and the Letters to the Editor including those in Issue 234.

Please remember that there is never only one treatment approach.

References

1. Goodman S. Research Proposal: Cancer Patients’ Survival: Comparing Integrated Alternative Therapies and Chemotherapy / Radiotherapy Treatment. Positive Health PH Online Issue 217. October 2014.

2. Br J Cancer. Dec 18, 2006; 95(12): 1632–1636.

Published online Dec 12, 2006. doi:  10.1038/sj.bjc.6603498

PMCID: PMC2360753

M E R O'Brien,^1,*A Borthwick,¹A Rigg,¹A Leary,¹L Assersohn,¹K Last,¹S Tan,¹S Milan,¹D Tait,¹ and I E Smith¹ Mortality within 30 days of chemotherapy: a clinical governance benchmarking issue for oncology patients

3. Ohe Y. Treatment-related death from chemotherapy and thoracic radiotherapy for advanced cancer.  Panminerva Med. ;44(3): 205-12. Sept 2002. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12094134

4. DEATH By Chemotherapy. Life Extension Magazine. January 1998

www.lef.org/magazine/mag98/jan-feature98.htm

5. Steven Ransom. Fraught With Risks and Side-Effects. June 09, 2013. www.cancertutor.com/category/chemotherapy/ 

6. PharmaTimes Online

Chemotherapy causes death in more than 25% of cancer patients

UK News / World News | November 13, 2008

Katrina Megget

Read more at: www.pharmatimes.com/Article/08-11-13/Chemotherapy_causes_death_in_more_than_25_of_cancer_patients.aspx#ixzz33DzAOLIW

7. Shipman T. Up to 46,000 die each year as NHS lags behind world’s best. The Sunday Times 23 Oct 2016.

8. Wallington et al. 30-day mortality after systemic anticancer treatment for breast and lung cancer in England: a population-based, observational study. Lancet Oncol 17: 1203–16. 2016.