Doctors milk dying cancer patients for every last dollar Doctors milk dying cancer patients for every last dollar
Doctors milk dying cancer patients f... 
Dquixote1217
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Doctors milk dying cancer patients for every last dollar
by Tony Isaacs
In what many might consider to be greed and patient abuse, terminal cancer patients are frequently given harsh chemotherapy drugs and radiation treatments months after they have been diagnosed as hopeless. In many instances such treatments continue up until the moment of death. In effect, mainstream doctors hang onto cancer patients and cause needless added suffering until there is no money left and little hope or time for alternative treatments.
A study published last September in the journal Cancer found that radiation treatments were given to 91 percent of dying cancer patients. Half of those patients spent more than 60 percent of their remaining lifespan undergoing radiation treatments and most were unable to complete their treatments because they died. The study also found that the treatments usually did not reduce pain and usually actually increased pain.
The figures for chemotherapy drugs are equally alarming. About one in five dying cancer patients are given chemotherapy within 14 day of their deaths. One-third of terminal cancer patients are not sent to a hospice until they have less than three days left to live. In all, 25% of Medicare expenses for terminal cancer patients are spent in the last month of their lives.
Perhaps those figures help explain some other disconcerting figures about cancer treatment in the United States. One example is the fact the United States spends twice as much per person for cancer care, yet has no better survival rates than other countries that spend less. Another is the fact that oncologist salaries have increased 86% in the past 10 years even though the number of patient visits has increased by only 12%. Notably, the large majority of most oncologists’ income is derived from markups on chemo drugs.
Far too often there may be an even darker side to doctors hanging on to cancer patients they had given up on besides the needless suffering and expense: preventing the chance of a cure outside mainstream treatments. Though not recognized by mainstream medicine, natural and alternative cancer treatments are often successful when mainstream medicine has admitted defeat. However, the longer a person is kept on mainstream treatments the less chance they have of finding success with alternative treatments.
Radiation destroys the immune system, especially the bone marrow that lies at the very heart of the immune system. It is the immune system which heals cancer and keeps it at bay - not radiation or chemotherapy drugs which merely treat the symptoms (tumors) of cancer. Radiation and chemo alike often inflict major damage on healthy cells and organs, further weakening the body and in many instances causing damage so severe that it ends up killing the patient. It is a sad fact that in many forms of cancer, more patients die of liver and heart failure than are saved by chemo or radiation.
Part of the problem lies in the fact that oncologists are reluctant to admit to patients that they have been diagnosed as terminal. Instead, the patients hear optimistic reports about “response rates” and “tumor reductions” without being told that initial responses and tumor reductions are common, whereas actual cures are not.
Another problem is the willingness of the insurance and Medicare systems to pay for hopeless treatments long after the doctors have given up hope. The biggest problem, however, is doctors and the cancer industry failing to look at cancer patients as human beings who need and deserve to be cared for properly and told the truth instead of being looked at as profit centers they can milk to line their pockets.
Sources included:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123345971/abstract?CRETRY=1&SR...
http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/cgi/reprint/15/suppl_1/65
http://www.naturalnews.com/028764_cancer_patients_radiation.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/023286_cancer_cancers_health.html
Tony, that's true to a certain extent. What isn't included in that article is the fact that all a patient has to do is to refuse treatment. It's that simple. The main proponents of continuing "hopeless" treatments - are family members and relatives. They are the ones who refuse to let go of the terminally ill patient. I've seen it several times. I have a living will and it is very specific about not continuing treatment if in a doctor's opinion it would do not good. (I do not want to be on life support. Period. My kids and grandkids know that yet I'm not convinced I can get them to keep their noses out of it.)
For all the diatribe in your posted article they do not mention those whose lives are saved through chemo as it is applied to "hopeless" cases. One case in point is that of Greg Anderson who as a smoker got cancer in one lung and had it removed (total lung, not just a lobe), didn't quit smoking (talk about a death wish) and got cancer in the other lung too. He was given 30 days to live and opted for chemotherapy. That was in about 1988 and last I heard he was still alive and very healthy - he even quit smoking. He has written several books on cancer survival. If doctors quit throwing chemotherapy at hopeless cases, many people like Anderson would not be alive today.
One other thing is that - death isn't a big deal. It's merely a transition. If you fear it, you will be drawn to it one way or another. The guy at the site below mentions Freud but Karl Menninger in "Man Against Himself" said that we all have a death wish. It's something that nobody wants to look at when they are very ill because they "think" that they want to live, yet many are deliberately killing themselves.
http://www.selfhealthsystems.com/archiveletter.php?id=1
YOUTHFUL AGING: SECRET OF THE FOUNTAIN©
HOW LONG DO YOU WANT TO LIVE?
One of Sigmund Freud's most accurate and startling discoveries about the human
psyche was the pervasiveness of the ''death wish.'' Eric Berne took this idea
further with his concept that we set the age and cause of death at an early age.
For over 10 years before his death, he told colleagues that his life contract
called for him to die at age of 60 of a heart attack. And he did just that!
Elvis Pressley apparently believed that he would die at age 42, the age at which
his mother died. And he fulfilled his expectation.
In working with over 30,000 chronically ill patients, I
observed depression and poor self-esteem at the root of most problems. I
was shocked, in 2002, to hear from ordinary audiences ''Oh, no'' when I began
discussing my concept of living healthily to age 140.
Clinically, we know that at least 40% of Americans are depressed enough to
need therapy; I now suspect that another 40% are at lest depressed enough that
Freud's idea of a ''death wish'' is alive and well.
While these concepts may not appeal to those with few emotional reserves, or to
those who have set a life contract to die early, I believe that significant
numbers of energetic, enthusiastic individuals are ready to redefine old age,
providing a new concept of longevity. These may live healthily to a minimum of
100 years, some to 120. And if they embrace the essential activities encouraged
by my research, they may live healthily 120 to 160 years, just by adding a few
simple activities. These individuals may truly set the stage for Homo Noeticus,
as defined by Caroline Myss. They will not consider themselves elderly until at
lest 120 years of age.
There are on the internet several ''games'' and tests of longevity, some by
insurance companies. According to one of these, my life expectancy is 100, while
another gives me 116 years. At least that one is approaching my belief!
Consider the current life expectancy in the U.S. of an average of 76.9 years.
Re: Doctors milk dying cancer patien... #107689
14 y
8,989
"Wow
- where to start? I'd love to see verified stories of people living long healthy
lives because of chemo. It would be mostly anecdotal since recent studies show
that Chemo has statistically zero (1-2%) positive effect on short term cancer
outcomes with 80% of those in the profession saying they wouldn't use it on
themselves.
Common sense alone is all you need to know what effect continued poisoning with
toxic chemicals has on long term health outcomes. Every bit as fatal to your
health as to your family savings - 2% (statistically insignificant) short term
boost notwithstanding."
Let's see your research that supports your statements. If just 1% of "short term cancer outcomes" (how do you define that?) are effective, then do you want to throw all chemo away? Are you willing to kill Greg Anderson and other people just like him who more than twenty years ago was given less than 30 days to live? Help yourself. Also, what percent of all cancers are diagnosed in the "short term?"
Here's a table of cancer survival rates in the USA - all of which are better than what most alternative med people are led to believe.
What does NOT show up on that table, is the normal survival rates for people who have not had cancer so it has a built in negative bias. You can also bet your bottom dollar that a large quantity in that table have been treated with chemo. I'm not advocating chemo by any stretch, but look at the 65% 20 year survival rate for breast cancer for example, and you know that 90% of them have had chemotherapy treatment. Yet you say "Common sense alone is all you need to know what effect continued poisoning with toxic chemicals has on long term health outcomes." It think that 65% survival is pretty good especially when you know that the rest of the population who did not have cancer or chemo does NOT have 100% survival for 20 years.
"And when you talk about 40% of Americans "needing therapy" for depression - what kind of therapy are you talking about? The psychiatric profession long ago decided that the prescription pad was far and away more effective than counseling. And now recent studies show that those effective anti-depressant drugs are no more effective than placebo. So again, what exactly is this therapy that 100 million plus Americans need? If counseling and drugs don't work..is it back to electric shock therapy?"
I didn't talk about 40% of the people needing therapy for depression, Dr. Norm Shealy who has worked with 30,000 chronically ill patients did - and I suspect that he is more qualified to make that statement than either you or I. Therapy can be everything from meditation, to fish oil, to vitamin D, to losing weight to getting off your butt and doing something, and is not limited to talking doctors or medications.
Here's your proof Dquixote1217
14 y
9,041
Patients can always refuse treatment? How weak is that? Patients and their families do what their doctors tell them, as they have been indoctrinated to do for generations now. Just ask your doctor, right?
OK, you want proof of just how ineffective chemo is, after all the billions of dollars and almost 40 years of the mostly failed war on cancer.
Here are the figures from the meta-analysis "The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies" as published in the journal Clinical Oncology. The average increase in survival time for all cancers combined was a mere 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the United States.
Keep in mind when you look at the dismal rates for the large majority of cancers that this study merely compared survival of those who opted for chemo over those who didn't. One can only imaginge what a comparison might look like if chemo were compared with those who opted for a healthy diet and lifestyle coupled with key immune boosting and cancer fighting supplements or other alternative treatments for cancer.
No its not #107689
14 y
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"Have you ever seen anything from the mainstream media that you didn't uphold as gospel?"
Please disprove the following table for survival rates in the United States because you can't:
"Patients can always refuse treatment? How weak is that? Patients and their families do what their doctors tell them, as they have been indoctrinated to do for generations now. Just ask your doctor, right?"
Weak???? You have zero understanding of how the medical profession works. Patients with cancer the vast majority of the time are given extensive statistics regarding survival of all the options including doing nothing and the type of treatment is left up to them. The patient still holds control of their treatment. My doctor didn't tell me what to do in relation to my cancer, I took my options as all patients do.
"OK, you want proof of just how ineffective chemo is, after all the billions of dollars and almost 40 years of the mostly failed war on cancer.
Here are the figures from the meta-analysis "The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies" as published in the journal Clinical Oncology. The average increase in survival time for all cancers combined was a mere 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the United States."
Your deceitful and highly manipulated report has been exposed for the lie that it is:
http://anaximperator.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/only-3-percent-survive-chemothe...
The researchers stated as the aim of their study:
a literature search for randomised clinical trials reporting a 5-year survival benefit attributable solely to cytotoxic chemotherapy in adult malignancies.
So they wanted to know what the contribution was of chemotherapy to 5-year survival. They did not want to know how many patients survived chemotherapy.
Of all 154,971 patients whose files were examined, in 3306 of these, 5-year survival could be attributed solely to chemotherapy. In 98% of the patients, 5-year survival was due to a combination of factors, of which chemotherapy sometimes also was a factor and sometimes was not.
The researchers then extrapolated this number to all cancers. The average 5-year cancer survival in Australia at the time of the study was 60%. On the basis of the extrapolation of the outcome of their study, the researchers estimated that the average contribution of chemotherapy to 5-year survival would be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA.
Nowhere in the study does it say that only 3306 patients survived their chemotherapy and that consequently 151,665 patients died because of it.
Leave out a few words and you get a completely different message."
So, the report said that 3306 cancer patients survival was do to chemotherapy alone. The other 151,665 cancer patients who survive, did so for other reasons including that fact that chemotherapy was a positive factor in survival. Enough said.
"Keep in mind when you look at the dismal rates for the large majority of cancers that this study merely compared survival of those who opted for chemo over those who didn't. One can only imaginge what a comparison might look like if chemo were compared with those who opted for a healthy diet and lifestyle coupled with key immune boosting and cancer fighting supplements or other alternative treatments for cancer."
That's already been proven to be a horrendous lie.
Who said I was disputing the figures you posted, abysmal as they are for oral, oesophagus, liver, lung, brain, pancreas, lyphoma, ovary, multiple myeloma and leukemia? The tables I posted was in a study published in Clinical Oncology. It has not been withdrawn and neither has it been disputed. Who said that 151,665 patients died due to chemotherapy? Later you used the same figure as the number of people who survived. Your numbers, and your skewed logic, are all over the place and not at all relevant to what I posted. The study I referred to, as was clearly stated in my post, demonstrated that chemotherapy alone only contributed between 2.1 percent and 2.3 percent to 5 year cancer survival rates.
Whatever the case may or may not have been with your own cancer, it is a fallacy to say that the vast majority of cancer patients are given extensive charts and information. You can no more use your own reputed experience as a standard than you can use the story of the guy who was down to one lung and a month to live as an example of how successful chemo is. I host a group of around 1800 people on Yahoo centered around beating cancer and I have corresponded with many, many more in person, via email and here in these forums. Many of them had prior mainstream treatments and the vast majority were NOT given nearly such a full picture as the one you would have us believe.
Anaximperator is a notoriaus mainstream apologist whose opinions here are about as highly regarded as those of quackwatch. Typical of Anax's distorted posts is the way he began the post with the title "2% survive chemo", when the study had nothing to do with surviving chemo, but rather with how much chemo contributed to survival. It appears from your posts here that you are following right along in Anaximperator's footsteps when it comes to cancer. Good luck selling that viewpoint here.
Now, you have stated your case, such as it is, and I have rebutted. This is not a debate forum. If you wish to debate mainstream cancer and alternatives, take it to the Cancer Debate forum.
"Who said I was disputing the figures you posted, abysmal as they are for oral, oesophagus, liver, lung, brain, pancreas, lyphoma, ovary, multiple myeloma and leukemia? The tables I posted was in a study published in Clinical Oncology. It has not been withdrawn and neither has it been disputed. Who said that 151,665 patients died due to chemotherapy?"
As "abysmal" as they are, they're much better than the 2 - 3% purported by you. (A 65% survival rate at 20 years for breast cancer patients is abysmal? If you take similar aged women and garner their 20 year survival rate, I think it would be an interesting comparison.)
"The study, as was clearly stated in my post, demonstrated that chemotherapy alone only contributed between 2.1 percent and 2.3 percent to 5 year cancer survival rates."
You are simply twisting and distorting the facts and didn't read the analysis of the study that you presented. The chemotherapy survival rate is NOT 2 - 3% as you imply.
If you go to this site:
http://anaximperator.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/only-3-percent-survive-chemothe...
You will see that your study is blown out of the water. From the site:
"The researchers then extrapolated this number to all cancers. The average 5-year cancer survival in Australia at the time of the study was 60%. On the basis of the extrapolation of the outcome of their study, the researchers estimated that the average contribution of chemotherapy to 5-year survival would be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA. Nowhere in the study does it say that only 3306 patients survived their chemotherapy and that consequently 151,665 patients died because of it."
That refers to those to whom chemo was attributed to be the sole (as in only) factor in their five year survival. As you well know, chemo is used as a supplement in other treatments including surgery and that the total survival rate for Australia. You are still trying to say that only 2 - 3% of cancer patients survive chemotherapy and that is simply not true.
"Anaximperator is a notoriaus mainstream apologist whose opinions here are about as highly regarded as those of quackwatch. It appears from your posts that you are following right along in Anaximperator's footsteps. Good luck selling that viewpoint here."
Once again, you kill the messenger and not the message.
"Now, you have stated your case, such as it is, and I have rebutted. This is not a debate forum. If you wish to debate mainstream cancer and alternatives, take it to the Cancer Debate forum."
Yes, you've rebutted - but all of your rebuttal is biased and unsupported by facts.
Like I've posted elsewhere, would you rather that doctors establish death panels and throw people like Greg Anderson in there without any support seeing as he had only 30 days to live, or would you rather support continuing to give all cancer patients some glimmer of hope as he had, and he survived. That's the bottom line Tony.
If you wish to take it to the debate forum - then that's where your original post belongs.
As "abysmal" as they are, they're much better than the 2 - 3% purported by you. (A 65% survival rate at 20 years for breast cancer patients is abysmal? If you take similar aged women and garner their 20 year survival rate, I think it would be an interesting comparison.)
"The study, as was clearly stated in my post, demonstrated that chemotherapy alone only contributed between 2.1 percent and 2.3 percent to 5 year cancer survival rates." You are simply twisting and distorting the facts and didn't read the analysis of the study that you presented. The chemotherapy survival rate is NOT 2 - 3% as you imply. Again your list was survival rates for cancer in general. Not survival rates for chemotherapy. If I took a hundred cases of breast cancer and 99 of them required a lumpectomy and only one was metastasized resulting in death I could still show a 99% success rate for cancer, but the 0% survival rate for chemotherapy. This is how easy it is to manipulate these statistics, which is done all the time. The survival rate for chemotherapy on breast cancer is 2-3%, which doe not factor in placebo effect, changes in diet, the use of other alternatives, etc. The statistic also do not factor in secondary cancers caused by the therapy or the advancement or lack of advancement of the cancers. Again they can easily manipulate the statistics. If they really want to mislead people they could base the survival rates on those of countries openly using what we refer to as alternatives to actually address the cause of the cancer and thereby achieving much higher survival rates than in the US.
">-
The researchers then extrapolated this number to all cancers
Extrapolation is another phrase for "stretching the truth"."
That's the entire point of my link! It is from that "extrapolation" that someone promoted the myth that only 2 - 3% of cancer patients survive chemotherapy.
Thank you very much.
I posted the original article I wrote based on two recognized peer reviewed studies. One was in the journal Cancer and the other was in The Oncologist.
Why do you insist on making false statements and referring to sites that misstated the study which demonstrated that chemo itself only contributed 2.1 to 2.3 percent to cancer survival? Exactly where did I state that only 2-3% survive chemotherapy, as you continue to falsely maintain? Once again, the study was a peer reviewed study published in Clinical Oncology and it has neither been withdrawn nor has any other study rebutted it. Neither your opinions nor misdirections, nor those of Anaxiperator on his dubious blog invalidate the study. Actually, they don't even address the study.
By the way, you say you know statistics. Do you know what the breast cancer survival rates are when you deduct the figures for DCIS, which is about 99% curable and was not even considered to be a cancer nor was it included in the statistics until a few years ago. When you deduct DCIS, the survival rates are actually considerably less than 50%. Maybe that is good in your estimation but it isn't in mine.
You are quite right when you say that figures lie and liars figure - and nowhere do we see more figurers than in mainstream cancer statistics.
You may now waffle on and try to misdirect as you will. As I said earlier, this is not a debate forum, and you are showing no ability to debate the subject at any rate. Before you do, I suggest you do your homework, because it is obvious that you know very little about the cancer industry and how they mislead and misrepresent cancer treatments to us.
What an piece of work you are - and a rude one at that!
Nice hatchet job of attacking the messenger and avoiding addressing the mistakes and misrepresentations in your other posts that I pointed out. The blog site in question's entire premise was false - trying to paint the study as saying that only 2-3% of cancer patients survive chemo when the study actually showed that chemo only raised cancer survival by 2.1 to 2.3 percent. As I said, apples and oranges and an obvious attempt to discredit a study that that the mainstream wag didn't like by misrepresenting it, the same as you are doing here with your posts.
Luella was hospitalized because the smog in California triggered an asthma attack when she visited her children. She only got well when she got out of the hospital, threw away her inhalers and prescriptions and nebulized with colloidal silver and lobelia extract as well as took a Chinese herbal formula for her lungs.
My back injury was due to physical trauma and was successfully treated by a chiropracter and supplementation.
If you are going to take such an interest in myself and Luella, perhaps you should pay closer attention.
I must say you are certainly winning lots of points by quoting from a mainstream naysayer blogger who dispagages CureZone. You claim to have passed courses in statistics. Did you perchance take any courses in debate? You obviously missed the ones on civility.
"What an piece of work you are - and a rude one at that!"
You tell me that I don't know anything about cancer and I point out that you don't either - and that's being rude?
"Nice hatchet job of attacking the messenger and avoiding addressing the mistakes and misrepresentations in your other posts that I pointed out. The blog site in question's entire premise was false - trying to paint the study as saying that only 2-3% of cancer patients survive chemo when the study actually showed that chemo only raised cancer survival by 2.1 to 2.3 percent. As I said, apples and oranges and an obvious attempt to discredit a study that that the mainstream wag didn't like by misrepresenting it, the same as you are doing here with your posts."
You're the one who did the hatchet job and you haven't listed one erroneous statement from that link.
"If you are going to take such an interest in myself and Luella, perhaps you should pay closer attention."
That was a genuine error on my part Tony. I didn't intend to post that part, only the part that said you are rather deficient in your knowledge of cancer. That other part only caught my eye after I posted it and I should have edited it out. I am truly sorry about that.
"I must say you are certainly winning lots of points by quoting from a mainstream naysayer blogger who dispagages CureZone. You claim to have passed courses in statistics. Did you perchance take any courses in debate? You obviously missed the ones on civility."
I will continue to find and quote truthful sources, which is what I did. I'm no less civil than you are.
Your original post belongs in the debate section because it certainly isn't news. It's a highly edited and opinionated story by one Tony Isaacs, and nothing more.
Maybe you should go back and review the history of your posts here. You came on and labeled my article a diatribe in your initial post and then proceeded to label what I wrote as a lie, ultimately sinking into the tired old refrain about me being interested in peddling supplements and then posted personal slams against both myself and Luella.
Perhaps I could have been more diplomatic in some of my responses, but what I posted does not come close to the poor form you have exhibited here. No amount of justifying and obfuscation can change that. Apparently no amount of research or studies can change your mind either.
Inosofar as my article belonging in a debate forum, I would point out that it was based in large part on two studies and that many readers would find the dismal figures of how patients are treated needlessly and in many instances have their suffering increased up until their final days to be not only news, but eye-opening news at that. Part of what I wrote could be labeled as opinionated, but I would propose that my opinions are solidly based in fact and personal experience.
Due to the limitations of what doctors have been taught, and apparent greed, they continue to treat patients long after they have determined that they are beyond saving. While you may be able to find a tiny number of exceptions, chemo is almost never successful with late stage cancers. Neither is it successful with cancers which have metasticized beyond their primary location. The same is true for radiation. What those of us who do know a bit about nature and alternative treatments know is that there are alternatives that frequently are successful in such instances - often after mainstream medicine has failed.
Sadly, too many times I have seen people who desperately want to live turn to alternative treatments in their final days after their doctors hung on to them to the point that their immune systems have been virtually destroyed, their major organs and entire body damaged, and suffering from wasting disease - due in great part to their treatments and not their cancers. Many of them could have been saved if the doctors had not hung on to them for so long and continued to treat them in a way that only inflicted further damage and suffering.
Because of that, yes I am opinionated on the subject of cancer and I think I have very good reasons for being so.
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