They Say That Vitamin Can Increase the Risk of Cancer - Oh yes? And who's 'they'?

[Guest guest]

http://www.mercola.com/2001/jul/11/vitamin_c_cancer.htm

They Say That Vitamin Can Increase the Risk of Cancer

Oh yes? And who's 'they'?

Ransom

" Vitamin C Cancer Fear. High doses of Vitamin C could

increase the risk of cancer, scientists warn today.. "

So begins the 15th June 2001 UK Daily Mail front-page

report, outlining the work of Dr Ian Blair, resident

researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Pharmacology

Unit. The Mail headline appears to be in direct conflict

with Dr Blair's own statement:

" Absolutely, for God's sake, don't say Vitamin C causes

cancer. " ( News, Thursday June 14th, 2001) But of

course, The Mail and others have shamelessly done exactly

that. To the less discerning reader, the story raises

worrisome questions as to the wisdom of high-level Vitamin C

supplementation. If these worldwide headlines have served

any useful purpose at all, it has been to confirm the

moral/intellectual void currently reigning in today's mass

media 'news' departments.

At a more fundamental level, why is Dr Blair conducting

tests on the efficacy of Vitamin C at all? We are about to

discover that certain parties have a very definite interest

in casting aspersions upon Vitamin C. Yet again, we are

being taught what to think about a certain subject, but not

how. To our knowledge, the information you are about to read

has not been included in any of the latest, and now

worldwide 'Vitamin C Cancer Scare' headlines generated by Dr

Blair's findings.

A Golden Rule

Dr Blair postulates that high consumption of Vitamin C (a

most beneficial adjunct in non-toxic cancer recovery

treatment) might actually cause human tissue degeneration,

which in turn could lead to a heightened risk of contracting

cancer.

And it is here that we arrive at our first golden rule: when

it comes to assessing the veracity of any scientific claim,

we must always read between the lines - we must search for

what the report does not say. We must especially be on the

look-out for that hoary old chestnut, otherwise known as

vested interests. A University of Manchester research

methodology handbook contains the following valuable advice:

" Science and research must be studied in the context of all

the interested parties involved. The questions centre on

determining the relative weight of the various allies in the

'fact-creating' process - e.g. funding bodies, businesses,

departments of state, professions and other scientists.

In analysing scientific debates, one should always ask what

social, institutional, political and philosophical interests

lie behind often apparently 'neutral' and 'technical'

knowledge claims. " (University of Manchester Institute of

Science & Technology (UMIST) research methodology course

handout, 1994) (emphasis mine)

On the matter of the 'fact creation' process, renowned

author Le Carre recently stated:

" Big Pharma [the industry in general] is engaged in the

deliberate seduction of the medical profession, country by

country, worldwide. It is spending a fortune on influencing,

hiring and purchasing academic judgment to a point where, in

a few years' time, if Big Pharma continues unchecked on its

present happy path, unbought medical opinion will be hard to

find. " (The Nation, New York, Interview with Le Carre,

9th April 2001)

Bought?

With the above in mind, lets put Dr Blair's University of

Pennsylvania under the spotlight and see what encouragement

Dr Blair might have had in taking his extraordinary position

and apparently misquoted position against Vitamin C.

We must ask the following questions: what Big Pharma

influences might there be supporting the University of

Pennsylvania Cancer Center (UPCC) and its mother ship, the

University of Pennsylvania Health Service? What is the

relative weight of the funding bodies? If industry

sponsorship is taking place, are UPHS personnel free to

exercise unbiased critical thinking? Or are there grounds to

suspect that UPHS been 'bought' - that somewhere along the

line, vested interests have 'purchased academic judgment'?

Before tackling the Vitamin C issue itself, the following

UPHS general statistics are very revealing.

Certain Alliances

In May 2000, Dr Ian Blair's employers at UPCC received a $26

million, five year Core Grant from the National Cancer

Institute (NCI) - the largest and most influential

conventional cancer treatment institution in the world. In

fact, UPCC has been continuously funded by the NCI Core

Grant mechanism since the grant was created by the National

Cancer Act in the early 1970's.

Currently, UPCC is awash with more than $100 million in

cancer research funding:

$37 million is from the National Cancer Institute; $43

million from closely affiliated organisations, such as the

National Institutes of Health, the organisation which

actually funded Dr Blair's Vitamin C research; another $12

million from foundational support such as the American

Cancer Society and the Leukaemia Society; and between $8 and

$10 million from various pharmaceutical companies. Earlier,

in June of 1999, UPCC received a $4.5 million gift from the

H. Gates Foundation to research conventional

treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Aside from the Bill and Melinda Gates connection, OncoLink,

the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center, [28] is

sponsored very generously by the following corporations:

Amgen, the world's largest independent biotechnology

company; Aventis, Ortho Biotech, Inc., Varian, Inc., Janssen

Pharmaceutica, AstraZeneca, Pharmacia Upjohn and Pfizer.

These corporations are very big indeed, and their names

represent no mean sponsorship committee.

More Alliances

In March 2001, UPHS announced a strategic alliance with

Siemens Medical Systems, Inc. Under the terms of the

purchasing agreement, UPHS will make an initial discounted

purchase of cardiology, radiology and radiation oncology

equipment from Siemens, who will also service and maintain

the biomedical equipment already in place at designated UPHS

sites over the life of the agreement.

In the year 2000, Siemens Medical Solutions, based in

Iselin, New Jersey, reported new orders of $5.65 billion,

sales of $5.44 billion and employs 27,000 worldwide. " This

is the kind of alliance that will be critical in our

continuing financial recovery and to assure our position as

a leading national health system, " said D. ,

Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of UPHS.

A good relationship with Siemens may well be critical to

UPHS' financial recovery, but does this kind of dependent

alliance foster the aforementioned necessary climate for

critical thinking? What if there are privately held UPHS

reservations over the Siemens equipment, methodology or

ethos? Who will break rank first? Will anyone? What kind of

commercially gagged framework are the UPHS staff now locked

into with Siemens?

Yet More Corporate Alliances

On April 26, 2001, UPCC announced a business partnership

with Integral PET Associates, the nation's leading operator

of fixed-site Positron Emission Tomography (PET) cancer

scanners. A patient receiving a PET scan today is injected

with a radiopharmaceutical, such as flurodeoxyglucose (FDG),

about 45 minutes before the scan, which takes about two

hours.

The radiopharmaceutical tracer emits signals which are then

picked up by the PET scanner. A computer reassembles the

signals into recognisable images to determine if a cancer

has spread, if a particular treatment is effective, or if a

patient is disease-free. IPA will now be seeking to supply

major hospitals throughout Pennsylvania with this very

expensive equipment. Installing and operating a PET scanner

typically costs around $1,600,000 in up-front capital costs,

plus an additional $800,000 in yearly staff and operational

costs.

A short visit to the UPHS website at

www.med.upenn.edu will not only confirm all of the above

information, but will also confirm that these alliances

represent only a small percentage of the long-standing

conventional 'friendships' UPHS has fostered with Big Pharma

over the years. Given the strictly conventional source of

sponsorship monies received at UPHS, what chance will the

following statements have of being 'allowed' to feature on

the UPHS cancer information page?

" If I contracted cancer, I would never go to a standard

cancer treatment centre. Cancer victims who live far from

such centres have a chance. " Professor Mathe, French

cancer specialist

" ...as a chemist trained to interpret data, it is

incomprehensible to me that physicians can ignore the clear

evidence that chemotherapy does much, much more harm than

good. " - Alan C Nixon, PhD, former president of the American

Chemical Society

" Doctors are too busy to dig into the statistics of cancer

treatments, they assume that what they are taught at school

or what is demonstrated in the pages of briefing journals is

the best treatment. They cannot afford to suspect that these

treatments are only the best for the pharmaceutical

companies that influence their 'institutions of higher

learning'. " Winter, The Cancell Home Page.

" To the cancer establishment, a cancer patient is a profit

center. The actual clinical and scientific evidence does not

support the claims of the cancer industry. Conventional

cancer treatments are in place as the law of the land

because they pay, not heal, the best. Decades of the

politics-of-cancer-as-usual have kept you from knowing this,

and will continue to do so unless you wake up to this

reality. " - Lee Cowden MD

" Almost every patient treated with IL2 (a current

conventional cancer treatment) suffered fever, malaise,

nausea or vomiting, diarrhoea, sharp drops in blood

pressure, skin rashes, breathing difficulties, liver

abnormalities and irregularities in blood chemistry.

Rosenberg himself details a number of horrifying case

histories, and one in particular where the administration of

IL2 had precipitated amongst other things, vomiting, swollen

joints, lung fluid and 'vascular leak syndrome' where blood

would ooze through the vessel walls and collect under the

skin. " Rosenberg, The Transformed Cell, 1992. (IL2 is

still used today.)

" Dr Linus ing, often known as the 'Father of Vitamin C'

and twice awarded the Nobel Prize, declared that large

intakes of up to 10g of the vitamin each day aids

anti-cancer activity within the body. ing was largely

derided for making these declarations, but today, large

doses of Vitamin C are used by many practitioners for cancer

patients in nutritional therapy, who believe ing was

right and that the popular nutrient is indispensable to the

body in its fight to regain health from cancer. "

Day, Cancer, Why We're Still Dying to Know The Truth,

Credence Publications, 2001.

" Do not let either the medical authorities or the

politicians mislead you. Find out what the facts are, and

make your own decisions about how to live a happy life and

how to work for a better world. " Linus ing

http://www.cforyourself.com

The above remarks are representative of a vast library of

well-sourced contrary information which sensibly questions

the validity and efficacy of conventional cancer treatments

based on a huge amount of clinical research and data.

Naturally, with all these expensive and patented treatments

available to fight cancer, the cancer rates should be going

down. They are not. They are increasing.

Staggering Amounts

UPHS is totally locked into the conventional cancer

framework - a framework which today, rightly stands accused

of achieving no measurable success at all in its approach to

the treatment of cancer, immense success in causing

widespread, unnecessary death through its application of

lethal and highly toxic pharma-radiation treatments, and

even greater success in rewarding itself absolutely

staggering amounts of money in the whole grisly process.

That these cancer corporations have become incredibly

wealthy through their 'chemo 'til we drop' approach is a

fact which Messrs Siemens, Zeneca, Upjohn, Glaxo, Rhone

Poulenc cannot deny.

Common Sense

ing was right. We have been seriously misled. Taking the

Siemens $multi-million technology as an example, it may well

detect certain forms of cancer, but upon detecting it, what

then happens? Quite simply, a bewildered, obedient, grateful

and unsuspecting cancer sufferer is immediately directed

towards the door marked 'iatrogenic (doctor-induced) illness

and probable death.'

Closer examination of today's orthodox cancer treatments

clearly reveals that the conventional path is fraught with

toxic danger. But the CEO of UPHS has made it quite clear

that 'the Siemens alliance [one of so many] is critical to

the financial security of UPHS'.

This is why we will hear no publicly dissenting voices from

UPHS as to the horrific realities associated with 20th and

21st Century conventional cancer treatments. The corporate

big boys' riches must continue to flow.. and a handsome

proportion of it into the coffers of the very dependent

UPHS, of course, 'to assist in their financial recovery'.

So Why the Slur on Vitamin C?

As has already been stated, conventional cancer treatment

represents a $multi-billion a year industry. These vast

profits are fiercely protected by the industry giants. But

their treatments in no way address the underlying causes of

cancer. Cancer is a nutritional/toxic/environmental

condition, which, in a great number of instances, can be

successfully reversed through the application of a sound

nutritional approach and common-sense lifestyle changes.

Linus ing, dubbed the father of Vitamin C, sensibly

promoted the benefits of consuming high doses Vitamin C in

the prevention of and battle against cancer.

Half-Truths and Lies

So why aren't we hearing about these natural treatment

successes? Why aren't they being heralded across the world?

The answer is money. Despite the multitudinous successes in

cancer regression through nutrition, and through extensive

application of vital elements such as Vitamin C, Vitamin

B17, pancreatic enzymes and other co-factors, Big Pharma is

doing all it can to silence these success stories. To have

it become widely known that cancer can be successfully

treated without toxic and profitable pharmaceuticals would

be catastrophic for its business.

Who would continue to purchase these products? What would

the Siemens, Glaxo and Upjohn shareholders have to say about

that? To their shame, vested interests are keeping

well-proven, non-toxic cancer treatments from the public

domain. This is why, under 'cancer treatments' the UPHS

website says this of vitamin B17:

http://cancer.med.upenn.edu/pdq_html/6/engl/600093.html

" Several patients displayed symptoms of cyanide poisoning,

including muscle weakness and impaired reflexes, or had

life-threatening levels of cyanide in their blood. (Laetrile

can release cyanide, which is a highly toxic chemical.) The

researchers concluded that Laetrile is not effective as a

cancer treatment and is harmful in some cases. "

But now read this contrary extract from a radio talk show,

featured in Day's Cancer, Why We Are Still Dying To

Know The Truth:

Radio host Laurie Lee: " So this is verified, that laetrile

[b17] can have this positive effect? "

Dr Ralph Moss: " We were finding this and yet, we in Public

Affairs were told to issue statements to the exact opposite

of what we were finding scientifically. "

At the time, Ralph Moss was former Assistant Director of

Public Relations at Memorial Sloan Kettering, NY, a leading

American conventional cancer research facility.

Of course Laetrile, or Vitamin B17, is not approved by the

FDA, but not because it isn't beneficial - it is, as the

links provided at the bottom of this report will

demonstrate. No, Vitamin B17 has not been approved by the

FDA simply because the FDA have been leaned on. That's the

way it goes in the self-preserving, self-serving,

conventional cancer business.

To put it bluntly, biddable FDA officials are only a phone

call and a golfing lunch away from the NCI and the NIH. A

classic example of these conflicts of interests and double

standards can be appreciated when one learns that sodium

fluoride is also not approved by the FDA due to its

toxicity, and yet drug giant Proctor and Gamble and others

can market the stuff in their toothpastes with complete

impunity.

The UPHS statement on Laetrile is a fabrication. Such is the

wealth of evidence overturning the conventional stance on

Laetrile and Vitamin C, that one can only assume the UPHS

statement falls into the following category:

False Scientific Research 'Endangering the Public',

Independent

News, 13.12. 2000 Doctors are fabricating research results

to win grants and advance their careers, but the medical

establishment is failing to protect the public from the

menace of these scientific frauds, a committee of medical

editors said yesterday. Eighty cases of fraudulent research

have been detected in the past four years, and 30 have been

investigated in the past year. In some cases, institutions

have covered up wrongdoing to protect reputations..

The Nub of It

In an effort to subvert this mass-awakening to the horrors

of conventional cancer treatments, a devious attack on all

genuinely beneficial, natural (and therefore un-patentable)

anti-cancer products is now being waged by a rather worried

conventional cancer establishment The ever-so-gentle slur on

our most vital of vitamins, namely Vitamin C, will soon be

extended to a wide range of essential minerals and vitamins.

This is just the beginning of the subtle, but concerted

attack. The latest conventional legislation surrounding the

codifying and banning of efficacious natural treatments is

being instituted, purely because there is no money in these

natural treatments for Big Pharma. It is profit before human

health, but couched in respectable-looking, 'sciency'

reports. And this veneer of respectability is fooling the

unsuspecting minions lower down the UPHS research chain it

seems.

Naive

The two UPHS officials I spoke to regarding Dr Blair's

Vitamin C report were extremely pleasant, open and helpful

and displayed no intention to supply misleading information.

But both persons were entirely locked into their superiors'

way of thinking. Media Relations officer Olivia Fermano was

curious as to my interest into who funded the Vitamin C

report. When I pointed out that if Dr Blair's funding could

be traced to a pharmaceutical company producing conventional

cancer treatments, then the results would have to be very

seriously questioned, Ms Fermano was genuinely supportive.

" My goodness! That is a good question. I will be right back

to you. " Her word-for-word courteous reply, some two minutes

later was as follows: " You had me genuinely worried for a

few minutes there, sir. But I am pleased to tell you that

our funding came directly from the National Institutes for

Health itself. I am so relieved. " Ho Hum.

Similarly, Dr Garret Fitzgerald, chair of UPHS Centre for

Cancer Pharmacy Department stated: " The evidence supporting

Vitamin C as a useful adjunct in cancer treatment ranges

from scant to non-existent. Linus ing's work was framed

around a tenuous hypothesis only. "

Whilst the courtesy displayed by Ms Fermano and Dr

Fitzgerald is commendable, their naivety is the result of

them both working in a commercially cocooned workplace,

purposefully insulated from the many success stories

attributed to non-toxic, metabolic cancer treatments, and

from the amazing health benefits accrued from consuming a

lot more Vitamin C than the FDA's recommended daily intake

of a miserable 60 mg - barely enough to keep one out of rags

and scurvy.

Long live Vitamin C and let's have even more of it! For a

more in-depth study of the conventional cancer industry, and

of the very good news concerning alternative cancer

treatments, readers are encouraged to visit www.credence.org

and take the cancer tour.

Ransom www.whatareweswallowing.com

and from July 2001 Campaign for Truth in Medicine at

www.campaignfortruth.com