Cancer and Medical Politics

by Reagan Houston, MS, PE

One-third of cancer patients die in five years.¹ Some patients die in pain. Every day, we read that new therapies are coming soon, gene therapy is the answer, radiation and chemotherapies are improving rapidly, stem cells show promise, so send more money.

Unfortunately, much of this hype is hypocrisy. This review article aims to change hype into honest hope for you and relief from your cancer. We don’t need a fabulous, new discovery that’s just around the corner. We need to use the tested therapies already available and described here. Cancer patients can almost certainly live longer if they know that:

• vitamin C can kill most types of cancers;

• doctors who prescribe vitamin C for cancer therapy risk punishment from their state medical boards;

• patients can take vitamin C safely and legally.

When my aggressive prostate cancer appeared 14 years ago, I chose short-term hormone therapy plus vitamins and diet to fight the cancer. I am happily in remission with no surgery … no radiation … no chemotherapy … no pain … . no fear … and no hospitalization!

You too, can choose vitamins regardless of your cancer type or stage or your present therapy. If aggressive therapies become necessary, your body has been strengthened and all regular therapies are still available. High-dose vitamin C plus other vitamins and supplements may control your cancer so that you may never need aggressive therapy. Our bodies have been fighting cancer for thousands of years. Many therapies can control cancer,² but vitamins have demonstrated that they can:

• strengthen the immune system

• kill cancer directly

• help regular therapies kill cancer

• cut pain

• avoid long-term side effects

Vitamin Therapies

Clinical trials by Ewan Cameron, MB, ChB, and coworkers have shown that hospitalized, terminal patients with many types of cancer lived about twice as long as matched controls if they took high-dose vitamin C. ^3–5 The references give therapy details, and safety and scientific background information.

Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD, FRCP (C), improved Cameron’s regimen by combining oral vitamin C with other vitamins and minerals.^6–8 He recommended that patients continue working with their oncologists. He prescribed a diet low in sugars. With experience, he varied his regimen (Table 1).

* optional

Most of his patients had failed prior surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy as prescribed by their oncologists. Those who refused vitamins lived a mean of only 2.6 months. The 101 who accepted vitamins lived 45 months after seeing Hoffer (Table 2). After years of experience, both Cameron and Hoffer found that vitamin C did not lose its effectiveness with time, as does chemotherapy.

Hoffer reported: “I have no doubt that the megavitamin program has improved the quality of their life. It has given them more energy, has improved depression and anxiety, has created a sense of well being, has eased pain and has often eliminated pain entirely.”⁷

Successful

Patients

Bill S. had non-small cell lung cancer, stage IIIB, and a prognosis of 8 months, or 11 months if he took chemotherapy.² He told his oncologist that he planned to use vitamins, and the doctor agreed to cooperate. Bill chose Hoffer’s regimen, other supplements, and limited chemotherapy. He did not choose a low-sugar diet. Even so, he lived 24 months instead of 11 months.

Joe K.’s prostate cancer was first treated by surgery and radiation.⁹ A few years later, and after a second surgery, his cancer returned to his pelvic bone and his doctor estimated 1 year of life. Joe chose Cameron’s therapy: a low-sugar diet and high-dose vitamin C. When cancer appeared in his lung, he increased his vitamin C to 80,000 mg/day or even more during extra stress. He reportedly lived 24 years instead of the expected 1 year.

Cameron had a truck-driver in his 40s hospitalized with swollen neck glands, fever, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer in his chest as shown by X-ray and lymph node sample.¹⁰ He was started on 10,000 mg/day of IV sodium ascorbate. In 14 days, the swollen glands in his neck disappeared; the enlarged lymph glands, liver, and spleen all became impalpable; and the X-ray showed much less cancer. In 22 days, his lungs were clear, and he returned home and shortly went to work. He stopped the vitamin C after a few months but the cancer returned quickly. A second course of vitamin C was successful, and he continued on 12.5 mg/day of oral vitamin C for 10 years. Then, against his doctors’ wishes, he stopped the vitamin C. Three years after stopping, he was still well and healthy.

If a hospitalized cancer patient can respond this quickly to vitamin C and be in remission for over 13 years, perhaps most patients should try a week or month of vitamin C before going to aggressive treatment.

For many patients, Hoffer’s multivitamin therapy might well be the initial therapy for all types and stages of cancer for the first week or month. For some patients, Hoffer’s multivitamins may be the only therapy needed.

Politics

After seeing Cameron’s good results, the big drug companies screamed that vitamin C was too simple to control cancer. And cancer drugs must have randomized, double-blind tests. Eventually Edward Creagan, MD, et al. at Mayo Clinic were persuaded to repeat Cameron’s regimen.¹¹ Creagan in 1979 reported no advantage or disadvantage for high-dose vitamin C. Pauling objected that most of Creagan’s patients had prior chemotherapy that had weakened their immune systems excessively. Creagan also did not actually follow Cameron’s regimen, and did not administer IV vitamin C as Cameron had done. Vitamin C by IV is much more effective than oral vitamin C, since it goes directly into the blood rather than through the digestive system.

Under pressure, Charles Moertel, MD, et al. ran a second test using randomized colon cancer patients who had not been given chemotherapy.¹² Like Creagan, Moertel did not follow Cameron’s regimen, and did not give any vitamin C by IV. Worse, he fed vitamin C for only a mean of 2.5 months out of a 14-month test.

When he stopped the oral vitamin C, he did it suddenly, which caused a rebound effect – the patient temporarily suffers low vitamin C (scurvy), and probably a spurt in cancer growth. Still worse, Moertel started giving 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy to over half of the patients, a therapy that probably shortened the life of vitamin-taking patients. Moertel reported that vitamin C is of no help in treating advanced cancer, but his data do not support this false claim, especially since he did not administer vitamin C for the duration of the test. One or two negative trials cannot be generalized to say all regimens are useless.

The tests by Cameron were actually randomized properly. Edmund A. Gehan, PhD, and Emil J. Feireich, MD, at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, Texas) recommended various methods of randomization.¹³ If the control patients are obtained by carefully matching individual test patients on appropriate, specific parameters, then both groups are guaranteed to be compatible. They approved randomization by 1 to 1 post matching of test to control patients and also by the standard, double-blind test. Both can give proper randomization, and none of these tests is completely free of bias.

Cameron and Pauling obtained an acceptable, matched control group by using blinded observers to match 10 control patients to each test patient. Thus, Pauling’s results are just as acceptable as those from regular randomized, double-blind control groups.¹³ Moertel’s claim that randomized double-blind groups are the only acceptable way to test a therapy is unfounded.

Cameron and Campbell also ran a test randomized by therapy assignment based on consecutive date of hospital admission.³ Gehan also approved consecutive randomization. Again, the big drug companies refused to accept Cameron’s tests.

Based on false information, the publicity of Mayo Clinic and the health community has successfully indoctrinated most of the doctors and the public to believe that vitamin C is of no use or is even harmful.

The effectiveness of vitamin C is a political judgment, because there are no impartial experts.¹⁴ At this point, the cancer community is winning the struggle based on the power of publicity over good science. Drug companies have chosen to put profit ahead of patient life. At this time, the cancer community sees no need to run a test that might show vitamin C acceptable for cancer therapy.

Yet the basic science of Benade at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the clinical work of Cameron and Hoffer are correct.^7,15,16 Patients especially are unsatisfied with the cost, pain, and poor survival with current therapies. They may not have the big money, but they have their own money to spend wisely.

Cancer is highly profitable to drug companies and doctors. The decision to use or not use vitamin C for cancer therapy puts doctors under financial and ethical pressure. Vitamin C is technically proven but not politically accepted. The drug companies have persuaded our state medical boards to penalize doctors who use vitamin C for cancer treatment. They have persuaded the public that quacks use vitamin C. State medical boards (all states have them) prosecute only a few doctors, but they put fear into many doctors who treat cancer with nutritional, unapproved, untested, or even off-label materials.¹⁹ “Unapproved” is an arbitrary decision by the state medical boards, often based on maintaining high profits for drug companies.^17,18,20

Doctors being prosecuted by state medical boards have been accused of using therapies that are “not necessary or medically indicated.”²¹ One doctor was accused of “IV vitamin infusion” and “inappropriate treatment” and “failure to treat patient according to generally accepted standard of care.” ²² Judgment was based on “Rule 190 et. seq., [which] provides the Board with sole and exclusive authority to determine the charges on the merits, to impose sanctions for violation of the Act or a Board rule, and to issue a Final Order.”²² When Warren Levin, MD, was charged by the board, Linus Pauling, PhD, presented expert testimony but it was rejected as “not germane.”²³

Vitamin C is not approved for cancer therapy. Doctors who treat patients with vitamin C know that they might be called quacks and be disciplined by state medical boards. A patient should not ask a doctor if he approves of vitamin C for cancer therapy. If the doctor answers yes, he may lose income and stature. Patients may ask about strengthening themselves with vitamins. Patients can safely and legally use vitamin C as cancer therapy since they are not bound by the restrictions on doctors. Determined cancer patients can gain a longer life with less pain and less money.

How to Talk to Your Doctor

1. When the subject of vitamins first comes up, the patient can say that he understands that doctors who prescribe vitamin C for cancer therapy risk punishment from their state medical boards, but patients are allowed to choose vitamin C.

2. If a patient asks about vitamin C, his medical question often gets a political answer from the doctor.

3. A patient can tell her doctor that she plans to strengthen her body with vitamins and diet, and ask if the doctor has any specific objections. The doctor expects such questions and will typically give a pat answer such as, “Wait until after the chemotherapy.” The patient can also have a pat answer ready. “But doctor, during chemotherapy is when I’m weakest. That’s when permanent side effects are generated. Why should I wait?”^7,16

4. Before choosing a doctor, a patient can say that he plans to take vitamins to strengthen his body, and will the doctor work with him? One of the author’s friends with lung cancer did this. He lived 24 months instead of 11.

5. A patient may choose another doctor or health plan. She may hire a suitable dietician or other health professional, but she should keep her doctors up to date on what she is doing.

6. Patients can take vitamin C without telling their doctor and without proper medical supervision. This is not safe, not recommended, and not the best way to control cancer.

Summary

The vitamin C therapies of Cameron and especially Hoffer are safe, tested, and effective, and can be used now without further tests. Vitamin C has been tested on many types and stages of cancer and may be effective for all of them if the proper regimen is used and maintained.^24,25 Vitamin C kills cancers as explained by Benade at the NCI.

The drug companies do not want competition from cheap vitamin C. They rejected the proven effectiveness of vitamin C and ran false tests aiming to show that vitamin C was not helpful. They put profit over patient healing. Although doctors are restricted in using vitamin C to treat cancer, patients are not restricted.

Conclusion

The drug companies have restrictions on doctors treating patients with vitamin C. Patients can safely and legally use vitamin C therapy to control their cancer.

For many cancers, Hoffer’s multivitamin therapy might well be the initial therapy for all types and stages of cancer for the first week or month. For some patients, multivitamins may be the only therapy needed.

Reagan Houston, MS, PE (Professional Chemical Engineer)

600 Carolina Village #165

Hendersonville, NC 28792

Phone: 828-692-3722

h@cancertherapies.org

www.cancertherapies.org

The author, a research chemical engineer, was diagnosed 14 years ago with prostate cancer. His PSA, a measure of the cancer, had doubled in six months – a sign of aggressive cancer. He chose triple hormone therapy and Hoffer-type vitamins. After one year, he stopped two hormones but continued the Proscar and vitamins continuously. He is in excellent remission with essentially no side effects and a PSA of 0.32. (A PSA of 4 or less is normal.) He never had surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or pain.

Notes

1. American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2005. Available at: www.cancer.org.

2. Houston R. Vitamins Can Kill Cancer. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing; 2006.

3. Cameron E, Campbell A. The orthopedic treatment of cancer. Clinical trial of high-dose ascorbic acid supplements in advanced human cancer. Chem Biol Interact. 1974;9:285–315. (50 patients)

4. Cameron E, Pauling L. Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1976;73(10):3685–3689.

5. Cameron E & Pauling L. Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: reevaluation of prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer. 1978; Proc Natl Acad Sci, USA; 1976(9):4538–4542.

6. Hoffer A and Pauling L. Hardin Jones biostatistical analysis of mortality data for a second set of cohorts of cancer patients with a large fraction surviving at the termination of the study and a comparison of survival times of cancer patients not receiving these doses. J of Orthomolecular Medicine. 1993;8:1547–167.

7. Hoffer A. Vitamin C and Cancer, Discovery, Recovery, Controversy. 2000, Kingston, Ontario: Quarry Press.

8. Houston R. Cancer and vitamin C therapy for patients. Townsend Letter. 2007;289/290: 92–94.

9. Stone I. Letter to A. Szent-Györgyi. August 30, 1982.

10. Campbell A, Jack T, Cameron E. Reticulum cell sarcoma: two complete “spontaneous” regressions, in response to high-dose ascorbic acid therapy. Oncology. 1991;48:495–497; truck driver 13 years later.

11. Creagan ET, Moertel CG, O’Fallon JR et al. Failure of high-dose vitamin C (ascorbic acid) therapy to benefit patients with advanced cancer. N Engl J Med. 1979;301:687–690.

12. Moertel CG, Fleming TR, Creagan ET, Rubin J, O’Connell MJ, Ames MM. High-dose vitamin C versus placebo in the treatment of patients with advanced cancer who have had no prior chemotherapy. N Engl J Med. 1985;312:137–41.

13. Gehan EA, Freireich EJ. Non-randomized controls in cancer clinical trials. N Engl J Med. 1974, Jan. 24; 290(4):198–203.

14. Richards, E. The politics of therapeutic evaluation: the vitamin C controversy. Soc Stud Sci. 1988;18(4)653–701. Available at: www.jstor.org.

15. Benade L, Howard T, Burke D. National Cancer Institute. Synergistic killings of Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells by ascorbate and 3 amino-1, 2, 4-triazole. Oncology. 1969;23:33–43.

16. Cameron E, Pauling L. Cancer and Vitamin C. 1993; Philadelphia, PA: Camino Books.

17. Carter JP. Racketeering in Medicine – The Suppression of Alternatives. Hampton Roads; 1993. “The American public has no idea how politics secretly control the practice of medicine. If a doctor dares to introduce a natural, less costly method, no matter how safe or effective, Organized American Medicine can target this doctor for license revocation using fear tactics and legal maneuverings.”

18. Epstein SS. American Cancer Society: the world’s wealthiest “nonprofit” institution [online article]. Cancer Prevention Coalition. http://www.preventcancer.com/losing/acs/wealthiest_links.htm. Accessed November 22, 2010.

19. Cathcart RF. Vitamin C titrating to bowel tolerance, anascorbia, and acute scurvy. Med Hypotheses. 1981;7:1359–1366. “I have avoided the treatment of cancer patients for legal reasons; however I have given nutritional consults to a number of cancer patients …”

20. Cohen MA. Cancer chemotherapy: curtailing its use politically. Townsend Lett. July 2010:107–111.

21. Barrett S. A critical look at Lendon Smith, M.D. [online article]. Quackwatch. March 7, 2009. http://www.quackwatch.com/04ConsumerEducation/lendonsmith.html. Accessed Oct. 10, 2010.

22. Barrett S. More disciplinary action against Jesus Caquias, M.D. [online article]. Casewatch. http://www.casewatch.org/board/med/caquias/2010_complaint.shtml. Accessed Oct. 10, 2010.

23. Levin W. MD loses license in New York for administering vitamins [online audio file]. Vitamin C Foundation. Accessed Oct. 10, 2010. http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/voice/#WL.

24. Lamson DW, Brignall MS. Antioxidants and cancer therapy II: quick reference guide. Altern Med Rev. 2000;5(2):152–163.

25. Stoute JA. The use of vitamin C with chemotherapy in cancer treatment: an annotated bibliography. J Orthomol Med. 2004;19(4):198–245.