Fwd: THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (04/11/04)

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11 Apr 2004 20:45:07 -0000

" Cancer Decisions "

THE MOSS REPORTS Newsletter (04/11/04)

 

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Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com

Newsletter #128 04/11/04

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THE MOSS REPORTS

 

 

In the words of the immortal Mark Twain, there are three kinds of lies - lies,

damned lies and statistics.

 

Once a set of data has been statistically analyzed and the results expressed

numerically, we tend to think of these numbers as being bedrock truths. However,

this is very far from the case. Two statisticians could take the same set of

data and come to startlingly different conclusions as to what the data show.

Statistics, in short, do not tell the full story. And when we are told – as we

repeatedly are – that progress is being made in the treatment of cancer and that

fewer people are dying from cancer than they were ten, twenty or thirty years

ago, we need to look at these figures critically, and analyze very carefully how

they were arrived at and what they really mean.

 

In this week's newsletter, Dr. Moss reviews a recent article on progress in the

cancer wars and casts a critical eye on the now-familiar mantra of soothing

reassurances that form the basis of most journalistic reports on the subject.

 

For the past thirty years, Dr. Moss has monitored the field of cancer treatment

and research, a field replete with opportunities for statistical obfuscation and

linguistic double-talk. His observations on the current status of both

conventional and alternative medicine have been carefully distilled into the

Moss Reports – a series of 200-plus detailed reports on different kinds of

cancer. If you or a loved one have been given a cancer diagnosis, a Moss Report

on that particular kind of cancer can prove to be a valuable guide and friend

through the long and sometimes difficult journey ahead.

 

To order a Moss Report, or to schedule a phone consultation with Dr. Ralph Moss,

please call Diane at 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 when calling from outside the

US). You can also order reports through our website,

http://www.cancerdecisions.com

 

 

CANCER MONTH

 

 

Despite an unexpected snowstorm here in the Northeast, spring has definitely

arrived. And with spring comes the return of robins to the lawn, the first

chartreuse shoots of the daffodils -- and the inevitable " Cancer Month " stories

on TV and newsstands.

 

In April, in the United States, we traditionally endure a barrage of propaganda

on behalf of the cancer establishment. A long-ago President (I think it was FDR)

originally named April " Cancer Month " because that hopeful time was when the

giant American Cancer Society (ACS) concentrated its annual fund-raising

efforts. Canada followed suit.

 

Since then many patient interest groups have lobbied for their own causes, and

succeeding Presidents have proclaimed " Awareness Months " for colorectal (March),

ovarian (September), childhood (October), and prostate (November) cancers.

Historically, the major media have always " done the right thing " during the

month of April by expanding their favorable coverage of the war on cancer. It

has been seen as almost a patriotic duty. (The ACS, said one editor, is no more

political than God.)

 

In the past, this usually meant obligatory stories about the great progress

being made through the standard treatments, especially chemotherapy. And this

kind of story is still a journalistic mainstay. But clearly times are changing.

This year, two major news magazines featured cancer treatment on their front

covers, but gave little aid and comfort to cancer fundraisers. I dealt with

Fortune's blistering critique of the war on cancer in last week's newsletter.

But equally surprising is US News & World Report's cover story on " Cancer: The

New Survivors " (April 5, 2004).

 

Ostensibly, this article is a paean to modern treatment. The subheading reads,

" True stories of men and women who beat the odds—and how they did it. " The main

article is entitled " Beating A Killer, " with the tagline: " Cancer was once the

end of the line. Today, it can be managed and defeated. " Anticipating undiluted

optimism, I plunked down my $3.99 for this issue somewhat reluctantly. I figured

I was in for another dose of eyewash on the miracles of Erbitux, oxaliplatin and

Avastin.

 

And, as expected, the issue does contain standard bows towards America's

long-running war on cancer. " The field of cancer medicine is nothing short of

breathtaking, " enthused Bernadine Healy, MD, a former National Institutes of

Health (NIH) director, who now writes the " On Health " column for the magazine.

The caption of a photograph accompanying her column tells us that " investment in

basic cancer research has helped create a generation of survivors. " But simply

repeating this, no matter how often, nor how passionately, does not make it

so…as last month's Fortune cover story revealed so trenchantly.

 

The US News article further claims that " nearly 10 million Americans…are living

with cancer. Most were diagnosed five or more years ago; many who would have

died just 15 or 20 years ago are alive today…. " This is highly misleading. As

the Fortune article showed, it is METASTATIC cancer that kills the great

majority of those who die, and for the most common forms of the disease (such as

cancers of the breast, colon, lung, and prostate) metastasis is still the

relentless killer it always was. There has been virtually NO change in the

survival from metastatic cancer over the last 50 years. The apparent improvement

in the survival figures has mainly been due to the earlier detection of illness:

people appear to be living longer, whereas in fact what has often happened is

that they have received a diagnosis earlier, and have been officially on record

for longer before metastasis overtakes them. In other words, many of them are

the beneficiaries of a statistical artifact.

 

Sophisticated screening and early detection tests have also succeeded in finding

many patients who have conditions that are not life-threatening (for example,

some very early precancerous or encapsulated lesions of the breast or prostate).

These people are often labeled as cancer patients, thereby weighting the

statistics to make it appear that people with cancer are living longer overall.

But many if not most of these people would not have died of cancer even if their

tumors had not been detected. Of course, none of these statistical

irregularities is a secret to the biostatisticians who are the gatekeepers of

data analysis in the cancer field. But these are not the sort of facts that it

is considered wise to share with the general public, upon whose generosity vast

enterprises such as the American Cancer Society depend.

 

" Beating a Killer " repeats other familiar shibboleths of the cancer

establishment. For instance, it defines five-year survival as " the marker of a

successful cure. " This endlessly-repeated fallacy has been exposed often. For

example, here is what I wrote in my 1980 book, The Cancer Industry: " [A] person

who is treated for cancer and survives five years is entered into the record

books as a ‘cure.' What happens, however, if he has a recurrence of this cancer

sometime later? What happens if he dies? He will then be in the paradoxical

situation of having been officially cured of cancer, and dying of it at the same

time " (p. 26).

 

Even the American Cancer Society, which once vigorously promulgated this

five-year benchmark, has quietly modified its position. " While five-year

relative survival rates are useful in monitoring progress in the early detection

and treatment of cancer, " it now writes, " they do not represent the proportion

of people who are cured permanently since cancer can affect survival beyond five

years after diagnosis " (ACS 2003)

 

Alas, the word on five-year survival has still not reached some of those who

write about cancer in the mass media. There was, and is, no magic that occurs at

the five-year survival point. In fact, reliance on such an arbitrary benchmark

may engender an unwarranted sense of complacency among patients, who need to

remain vigilant against a recurrence of cancer for the rest of their lives.

 

 

Rarely Spoken Truths

 

 

But don't get me wrong. Overall, this is an excellent article. The magazine's

statutory knee-bends to orthodoxy are offset by the main article's refreshing

outspokenness. For instance, the authors write, cancer and its treatment " often

leave in their wake debilitating physical and emotional scars. " The " very

therapies that cured [patients, ed.] can also create a whole new set of

problems—some, many years later. "

 

" One major source of later problems, " the authors state, " is radiation. " As

early as 1981, they write, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania learned

that pediatric leukemia patients whose treatment included head irradiation (as

it usually did) later suffered significant drops in their IQ. (The practice of

routinely irradiating the brains of such patients went on for years, but has now

largely been abandoned. So, in that sense at least, progress is being made.)

 

The article also reveals that children who were diagnosed with the form of

lymphoma known as Hodgkins' disease are now known to have an 18 times greater

risk of developing other cancers, mainly of the breast or thyroid, than healthy

people. " Again, " the article unambiguously states, " radiation was the culprit. "

Now there's a point of view rarely heard in mainstream publications!

 

There are also a few exposés of the long-term effects of chemotherapy. " It was

once thought that healthy tissue surrounding the tumor would survive…a chemical

assault, and in some parts of the body that's true. But it turns out the

delicate white matter of the brain is not so resilient. " It was frequently

stated that the " blood-brain barrier, " a layer of cells that keep larger

molecules from entering the brain, would protect against most such damage. But

" this protective barrier, " write the authors, " isn't foolproof; it can be broken

down by, among other things, radiation and inflammation that many of the

chemotherapies cause. " So here was another major miscalculation on the part of

oncologists. The result, say many observers, is the widespread occurrence of

so-called " chemo-brain, " which is a highly distressing loss of memory and other

cognitive functions often experienced by patients undergoing chemotherapy.

 

It was a condition that was discovered—and named—by the patients themselves.

Conventional doctors are only now beginning to acknowledge and address the

psychological needs of such patients. Psychiatrists at Sloan-Kettering

Institute, for instance, have found that cancer and its aggressive treatment

cause serious depression in 15 to 25 percent of cancer patients. " The depression

itself can often be worse than the disease…. " they say.

 

The US News article offers no solutions. But it deserves kudos for highlighting

important aspects of the cancer problem that are rarely dealt with in the fluff

pieces that usually fill the newsstands during America's original " Cancer

Awareness Month. "

 

 

--Ralph W. Moss, PhD

 

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References

 

American Cancer Society, Cancer Facts & Figures 2003. Retrieved April 4, 2004

from: http://health./health/centers/cancer/7

 

Healy, Bernadine. Yes, I am still here! (On Health column), US News and World

Report, April 5, 2004, p. 68.

 

Szegedy-Maszak, Marianne and Hobson, Katherine. Beating a killer. US News and

World Report, April 5, 2004, pp. 56-67. Retrieved April 5, 2004 from:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040405/health/5cancer.htm

 

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

 

The news and other items in this newsletter are intended for informational

purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter is intended to be a substitute for

professional medical advice.

 

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