Here is a letter to the editor from my hometown paper, The Chronicle Journal, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada (http://www.chroniclejournal.com/includes/datafiles/print.php?id=256703&title=Why%20I%20don%E2%80%98t%20support%20the%20cancer%20industry) from Tuesday, April 13th, 2010. It goes as follows:
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From www.chroniclejournal.com
Letters to the Editor
Why I don‘t support the cancer industry
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Summer is just around the corner and so is the Walk for Cancer and the Run for Cancer and a multitude of requests for donations to help the cancer industry find a cure for cancer.
This multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry has been operating for so long that employees have been retiring after comfortably working their entire lives in it.
So, please leave me off your request list because I refuse to support the search for a cure.
There is no cure for cancer!
After spending billions of dollars a year for more than 60 years, if there were a cure for cancer, don‘t you think they would have found it by now?
How many decades must we search before we finally admit there is no cure and there are better areas to research?
We need to spend less time and money looking for a non-existent cure and put more emphasis on earlier detection, education, prevention and treatment.
Look at our archaic treatment methods – surgery, chemo and radiation. These treatments haven‘t changed for more than half a century.
The objective of these primitive treatments is to poison the body almost to the point of death so that the weaker cancer cells are destroyed and hopefully the body recovers. Sometimes, it doesn‘t and even when it does the results can be extremely debilitating and painful. Is this the best we can do after more than half a century?
For decades we‘ve known that cigarette smoking kills half of all smokers and yet we still allow the sale of cigarettes. That‘s insanity! We need to help smokers stop smoking.
We know that exercise, weight control, better diet and screening can reduce cancer by more than 50 per cent so why are we wasting time and money looking for a non-existent cure?
Cancer has always been with us – it‘s found in Egyptian mummies and dinosaur bones. It cannot be eradicated but it can be drastically reduced.
Cancer industry spokesmen tell us that we are making great strides and that cancer patients are living longer. Yes, they are living longer not because they found a cure but because of better education, prevention and earlier detection. That‘s where we need to spend our money. And, we need to develop better than primitive treatments.
You might think I‘ll change my mind if I get cancer. Wrong! It‘s not a matter of if I get cancer; it‘s a matter of when. You see, three of my grandparents died of cancer (we aren‘t sure about the fourth), both of my parents had it and my father died of it. If nothing else kills me, my chances of dying of cancer are 100 per cent. That‘s why I won‘t contribute a cent to searching for a non-existent cure. I‘ll start contributing when the majority of research is directed toward education, prevention, earlier detection and better treatment. After all, my life depends on it and so might yours.
Gerold Becker
Thunder Bay
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Well, Dr. Gerold...and I PRESUME that you are a Doctor, seeing as you seem to know it all, you frickin' know it all. Where do I even START! Well, let's start here. As someone who has had cancer, and has been cancer free for many years now, all I can say is...SHOVE IT UP YOUR FRICKIN' BUTT! That is exactly what happens to me every year or so. I had colon cancer. I get regular colonoscopies. They have been saving my life. When my grandfather got colon cancer...HE DIED. There were no other options. Obviously the billions Dr. Becker speaks of has gone to SOMETHING. For example, genetic testing, to see WHERE the cancer comes from and what can be done about it and how the future might be different for later generations of my family, and others. I've been involved in that ever since I was diagnosed with colon cancer. After surgery, I did have chemotherapy and am DAMN GLAD I did! Why? Because it saved my life. Sure, it wasn't fun, but, gosh darn it, neither is dying, you bone head! And, thanks to research, they have been figuring out how to best administer chemotherapy to do the most good for the least discomfort...DR. BECKER! So, that money is just being thrown out the window making lives like mine BETTER. When I was having my chemo, I was part of a trial drug program, to test if a new medication could FURTHER help folks like me. But, apparently, nothing has changed in over 50 years, according to DR. FRICKIN' BECKER! Apparently he feels that more money has to be spent on education and prevention. No kidding, Doc! You don't say? Hey, have you not looked around to see that this is happening!??? Maybe he hasn't noticed all of the breast screening programs that have sprung up as just ONE example? Maybe he hasn't watched, sayyyy, a television in his lifetime. You will find plenty of information on that thing, DR. BECKER. I presume the guy doesn't have the internet. No, couldn't. If he did, he could possibly look this shit up and actually know what the heck is talking about. Perhaps his head is stuck so far into a pit of vomit that he doesn't realize the efforts that are being made by many cancer charities in doing EXACTLY what he blabbered on about (you know, the education thing, and the prevention thing) WHILE giving cash to those trying to figure out how to find a cure. Sorry Mr. pessimist Dr. BECKER! You are SO right. We should abandon all hope, especially now when there IS progress being made, because you can't be bothered to actually research and find out that, yes, indeed, there IS progress being made. More and more people ARE surviving, and living longer lives cancer free. Sounds pretty good to me. Would this have been possible without research? Mmmmmmmmmm. According to DR. FRICKIN' BECKER, no! I beg to differ. I HAVE been on the receiving end of the progress that is being made. Thank GOODNESS for the donations that have gone towards cancer charities and such. What I think DR. FRICKIN' BECKER should do is read a book or something, and maybe learn about what is going on around him! It is clear he hasn't done this. What kind of Doctor IS this guy, anyway??
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