The Iodine-Thyroid Fix and breast cancer

[Guest guest]

The

Iodine-Thyroid fix

 

 

MEDICINE

 

 

by Candis McLean

 

 

A B. C. doctor's new treatment for breast cancer is being promoted in a

Web

 

site that was opened in February. The organization behind the Web site,

 

www.bites-medical.org

is the Breast Iodine Thyroid

 

Effectiveness Society, incorporated in October to promote research and

 

debate on the little-known connection between breast cancer, iodine and

 

thyroid.

 

 

The group is made up primarily of patients of Victoria, B. C.,

physician

 

David Derry, 63, author of the 2001 book, Breast Cancer and Iodine

 

[Trafford Publishing 1-888-232-4444 or sales]

In it, he points

 

out that breast-cancer mortality rates are unchanged since records were

 

first kept in the 1920s; today, one in eight Canadian women can expect

to

 

develop breast cancer during her lifetime.

 

 

Dr. Derry's radical new thesis suggests a specific dose of the

old-fashioned

 

antiseptic, iodine, prevents many diseases, including

 

breast, prostate, ovarian and colon cancer.

 

 

"I propose that... iodine and thyroid hormone act as a team to provide

a

 

constant surveillance against abnormal cell development, chemicals that

are

 

carcinogenic, and the spread of cancer cells within the body," writes

Dr.

 

Derry, who, in addition to holding an M. D., has a PhD in

neurochemistry and

 

is a former University of Toronto Medical Research Council Scholar.

"Cancer

 

grows so slowly when using iodine and

 

thyroid hormone therapy that the cancer will not affect the lives of

the

 

patients who have it. The treatment is non-invasive, inexpensive and

 

safe."

 

 

Dr. Derry also credits iodine with several other roles in the body:

 

 

It protects against abnormal growth of bacteria in the stomach. It

 

detoxifies chemicals, food poisoning, snake venom, etc.

 

It coats incoming allergic proteins to make them non-allergic, and

probably

 

defuses autoimmune disease mechanisms in the same way.

 

 

 

The problem, according to Dr. Derry, is the low dietary intake of

iodine in

 

the Canadian diet, particularly with iodized salt intake

 

being generally reduced since the 1950s, depriving people of "the most

 

important element in the human diet." What little iodine is consumed,

is

 

captured first by the "master gland," the thyroid, to produce thyroid

 

hormone, leaving little or none for other functions such as fighting

cancer.

 

 

"I believe that if the iodine intake of the nations were raised to

levels

 

above the saturation point of the thyroid," Dr. Derry writes, "there

would

 

be a precipitous drop in the cancer rate of the nation to levels

similar to

 

those of Japan. There, rates of breast, prostate and thyroid cancer are

 

among the lowest in the world, and iodine intake is the highest due to

 

consumption of seaweed."

 

 

"These levels of five to 10 mg. of iodine daily can be easily

 

reached with Lugol's [iodine] solution," he explains, "one drop per

day."

 

Dr. Derry recommends the drop of iodine each day be taken in a glass of

 

juice to cover the mild taste.

 

 

One who champions the treatment is 62-year-old RN Frankie Staples of

 

Victoria. Diagnosed with breast cancer six years ago, she had a

 

lump surgically removed, followed by radiation therapy. Dr. Derry then

 

placed her on natural thyroid hormone plus iodine: 10 drops per day. "I

used

 

to have cystic lumps of the worst kind, known to turn to cancer at over

10

 

times the normal rate; now I have no lumps at all. None.

 

I'm very healthy and have known many others who have had good results

with

 

the iodine treatment."

 

 

Dr. Derry argues that his practice is not revolutionary; he is merely

 

returning to the traditional practice used between 1892 and 1973,

before

 

a "hoax" hit. A huge shipment of the natural desiccated thyroid made

from

 

pigs' thyroids was found to be mysteriously lacking in thyroid. As a

result

 

of this scandal, patients got sick, and the use of dessicated thyroid

was

 

largely discontinued in favour of the new, man-made chemical,

Synthroid.

 

 

Suspicions about Synthroid have been growing ever since its arrival.

Last

 

week its manufacturer privately settled a class action lawsuit

 

in the Ontario Superior Court, reportedly offering the litigants $2.25

 

million. They had claimed the manufacturer suppressed a negative study

to

 

maintain control of the thyroid market in Canada.

 

 

At the same time Synthroid was introduced, Dr. Derry says, "for no

reason at

 

all," dosages were dropped to one-third their previous

 

levels, and, rather than listening to patients' descriptions of their

 

symptoms, doctors were taught to rely instead on a lab test. As a

result, he

 

says, the approximately 10% of the population who require

 

thyroid according to lab tests are being under-treated, while the many

more

 

who should be started on thyroid medication are not.

 

 

"This was all done with no scrap of evidence and no comparison studies

being

 

done--one of the biggest changes in the history of medicine, and it was

 

never checked, causing the biggest disaster medically of all

 

time," storms Dr. Derry. "The numbers are staggering, the diseases and

 

deficiencies they have caused--including an epidemic of low IQs,

learning

 

disabilities and dyslexia among their children--are unbelievable, and

 

the arrogance in their opinions and teaching has led to many

unnecessary

 

deaths."

 

 

Dr. Derry associates these dramatic medical changes in the mid-1970s

with

 

the number of new diseases that were either first noticed

 

or that suddenly increased in the 1980s, including AIDS, chronic

fatigue

 

syndrome, fibromyalgia, autism, ADHD, sleep apnea, hepatitis C and

 

Alzheimer's disease. He has found all of these ailments respond to

thyroid

 

treatment, including Alzheimer's caught in the early stages: "Brains

sharpen

 

within two weeks, although if Alzheimer's gets

 

beyond me I can usually slow it, but can't reverse it," he says. After

 

conducting his own successful informal study on AIDS and thyroid, he

 

attempted to do a large-scale double-blind study, but found AIDS

 

organizations uninterested.

 

 

"There's a great deal of ignorance about the fact that natural

dessicated

 

thyroid --a natural hormone-- is the safest drug discovered in the last

two

 

centuries," he states.