Missing the point:

More misdirection and misinformation!

A new BBC article caught my eye that, yet again, promotes misinformation, although this time it’s about ‘cancer treatment’ rather than ‘nasty germs’.

The article, entitled Breast cancer patients denied life-extending drug in cost row, begins with the claim that,

“More than a thousand patients with advanced breast cancer are being denied a drug that can keep them alive for longer. It is already available in 19 countries in Europe - including in Scotland - but not in the rest of the UK.”

Cancer is undeniably one of, if not the most feared condition; it is also the most misunderstood, not only by the medical establishment but also by a significant proportion of the general public; although I acknowledge that there is a large and growing awareness that cancer is not what we’ve been told it is!!

So let’s dive into the topic to discover the misdirection and misinformation.

As is often the case, the BBC article refers to someone experiencing the issue that is the subject of the report. In this instance, the article refers to a woman called Jeannie Ambrose, who is described as ‘warm and funny’, to which is added the comment,

“But beneath the surface, she is raging.”

The article continues,

“She was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2019, when it had already spread to her spine, pelvis, collarbone and ribs.

She was told she had three to five years to live. That was five and a half years ago - now the cancer has spread to her liver.”

The source of her ‘rage’ is that,

“Jeannie is one of about 1,000 people who can’t access a treatment that could extend their lives because it has not been approved for funding on the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The drug, called Enhertu, can give patients with a specific type of incurable breast cancer an extra six months to live on average.”

It’s important to note the use of the word ‘could’ with respect to the drug’s ability to extend life; so it would seem that it’s not even a certainty. I would add that six months does not seem to me to represent a significant extension of life to warrant ‘rage’; although I do recognise and respect the fact that each day of life is extremely precious when one has been told one does not have long to live. I would also challenge the word ‘incurable’ because there are many instances of people who have recovered from conditions that have been deemed ‘incurable’. This label can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as can be shown by the phenomenon known as the ‘nocebo effect’, which is a whole other topic and one I have mentioned in previous articles.

However, the ability of this drug, Enhertu, to actually extend life is debatable, as will be seen shortly.

The reason why these people cannot access the ‘treatment’, according to the article, is because,

“The health assessment body, NICE, is the only organisation around the world so far to say no to the drug for this condition. It says that it is too expensive for the NHS to fund.”

It’s inevitable that this statement would make people want to protest and demand that the drug be made available. But this is a misdirection, because taking this, or any other drug for that matter, is not the best course of action for anyone who has received a diagnosis of ‘cancer’ and wishes to return to the state of full health.

For the sake of transparency, I will state that I underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation after my own diagnosis of cancer in the mid-1990s, so I cannot say that it is not possible to survive and even thrive after such treatment. But my perspective, from the research I have conducted over the past 15 or more years, is that I am still alive and healthy despite the treatment, not because of it.

However, I will emphasise that each person must make their own decision, but people should at least have all the information they require to make an informed decision. Sadly, however, the medical establishment does not provide patients with all of the information they need to do so.

The Mayo Clinic website provides a description of the type of breast cancer referred to as HER2.

BCRF (Breast Cancer Research Foundation) provides more information on HER2-low,

However, leaving aside the issue of what ‘cancer’ actually is for the moment - we’ll return to that shortly - the question that must be asked is: What is the basis for the claim that this drug can prolong people’s lives?

The answer to this question is reported in the BBC article to have been provided by a June 2022 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that can also be found on PubMed under the title Trastuzumab Deruxtecan in Previously Treated HER2-Low Advanced Breast Cancer.

N.B. Trastuzumab Deruxtecan is the name of the pharmaceutical that is sold as the drug, Enhertu.

The abstract of the 2022 study begins,

“Among breast cancers without human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) amplification, overexpression, or both, a large proportion express low levels of HER2 that may be targetable. Currently available HER2-directed therapies have been ineffective in patients with these “HER2-low” cancers.”

What is important to note is that the study only compared different treatments, there were no control groups that received either no treatment or a placebo. I suspect the reason for this may be because it is considered ‘unethical’ not to treat people. But that does leave us with the question of what the outcomes would have been for women who received no treatment or a placebo. Would their lives have been extended even further? Sadly, we don’t know the answer to that question.

Interestingly, within the study, under the heading Trial Oversight, is the statement that,

“Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca funded this trial.”

Furthermore, on the Daiichi Sankyo website, Enhertu is listed as one of their ‘flagship products’.

I’m not suggesting that there is anything suspicious in the fact that Daiichi Sankyo was one of the funders for this study, because funding research is a common practice of pharmaceutical companies! But it’s readily admitted that funding can be, and often is, used to influence various aspects of ‘medical research’; the influence of vested interests in the field of ‘medicine’ is covered in some detail in What Really Makes You Ill? especially in chapter 9.

I would add the suggestion that, as admitted in the study paper, ‘the trial was designed by Daiichi Sankyo’ and, because Enhertu is their ‘flagship’ product, it’s understandable that they would want to design it so that the outcome of the study would favour their product. Maybe that is the reason that the study did not include any placebo control groups? But that would be a reason based on commerce, not science!

I would also make the suggestion, although this may be pure speculation, that the reason the women who received Enhertu experienced a slightly longer survival rate, is because it is slightly less toxic than the chemotherapy drugs used as the alternative treatment against which it was compared in the study.

But what is Enhertu and what is its mechanism of action that they claim can extend lives?

According to Cancer Research UK website, under the heading How does trastuzumab deruxtecan work?

“Some cancers have too much of a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) on the surface of their cells. These are called HER2 positive cancers. HER2 makes the cells grow and divide.

Trastuzumab is a type of targeted drug called a monoclonal antibody. It attaches to the HER2 receptor and can stop the cancer cells from growing. When it attaches to the HER2, it allows the deruxtecan to go into the cancer cell. Inside the cell deruxtecan becomes active and kills the cancer cell.”

This certainly indicates that the drug is toxic if it is designed to ‘kill the cancer cell’.

One of the ‘side effects’ of Enhertu reported in the study is,

“Interstitial lung disease or pneumonitis remains an important risk associated with trastuzumab deruxtecan.”

This means the drug is clearly not without its risks, so the claim of life extension must be tempered by understanding that it is associated with a potential risk of other health conditions.

The CRUK website also has a page about monoclonal antibodies that states,

“Some monoclonal antibodies (MABs) are a type of immunotherapy. They work by triggering the immune system and helping it to attack cancer.”

This statement regarding monoclonal antibodies highlights 2 problems; first, the idea that antibodies trigger the immune system to help it ‘fight’ cancer. And secondly, the idea that the body has a distinct ‘immune system’ that can attack cancer.

The fact that there are no invading entities called ‘germs’ that the body, and specifically the ‘immune system’, need to fight and destroy means that the ‘immune system’ does not exist as described. The body is not a battleground of ‘germs’ and antibodies.

I would add that the ‘tests’ used to determine whether a patient has “HER2-low” cancer involves immunohistochemistry, a process that is based on the detection of ‘antibodies’, which are proteins and, as I’ve previously discussed, are also misunderstood by the medical establishment.

Antibodies are discussed in more detail in my article,

There is a third problem, which is that there is a serious question mark over the existence of ‘cell receptors’, as Dr Harold Hillman states in his article, A Serious Indictment of Modern Cell Biology,

“It is unlikely that receptors, pores, carriers, Ion transporters and antibodies, are located in the cell membranes in living cells, because they are believed to be macromolecules, but cannot be seen by electron microscopy.”

He also wrote the following in his book, Evidence-Based Cell Biology,

One part of the BBC article that I found particularly surprising were these comments,

“Jeannie put us in touch with a group of about 20 women who are all in the same position as her.

They range from their early 30s to mid 50s and all have advanced HER2-low breast cancer.

They're all very keen to stress that they're not slowly fading away, but are living full and busy lives.

They sent snapshots of their lives, showing them dancing with their kids, or on nights out with their friends. Some are surfers, and there's a few cold-water swimmers and a sky diver.”

I’m not suggesting that these women are ‘perfectly well’, but they do not sound like people who are suffering with a terminal disease.

However, the key issue is that, as I suggest in my title, this is all missing the point, which is that there is a gross misunderstanding of what is labelled ‘cancer’, which is not a distinct entity that attacks the body.

In Natural Hygiene: Man’s Pristine Way of Life, Herbert Shelton provides an exquisitely simple explanation of cancer in the statement that,

“Cancer does not attack. Cancer evolves.”

The evidence indicates that what is called ‘cancer’ is often, but not exclusively, the result of a buildup of toxins in the body. Solid tumours are reported to be the way that the body aggregates toxins and places them in a ‘safe place’ within the body away from vital organs, until such times as it can process the toxins and remove them from the body. This is the reason that biopsies are not a good idea, because they pierce the tumour and allow the toxins to be released into the body causing further damage. This does not explain other forms of ‘cancer’, but understanding that the word is merely a label for a significant level of toxicity within the body, which may be emotional and not just physical, the main focus of attention is to be directed to the source of the ‘toxin’ and its removal from the body - or the mind.

Herbert Shelton expands on his comment by adding,

“Cancer does not develop in a normal body. This is to say, a genuinely healthy body will not evolve cancer.”

There are reasons that ‘cancer’ evolves, and these reasons, as stated above, will be related to physical, mental, or emotional stressors, of which there are many, especially physical environmental stressors that include a wide variety of chemicals as well as non-native electromagnetic frequencies (nnEMFs).

I would suggest that ‘fear of cancer’ is almost certainly the most significant mental/emotional stressor.

It is also important to make the point that the body can both evolve and clear ‘cancer’ without our ever knowing about it - unless we are subjected to a ‘test’ of some description. This is not to say that we should ignore signs that our body produces of lowered vitality, but that we need to gain a better understanding of the meaning of those signs.

There is still so much to learn about how our bodies work; but it’s important to realise that we need to undertake our own journey of discovery - and part of that learning involves taking responsibility for our health and understanding the messages our bodies are sharing with us and then taking the appropriate action to enhance our health.

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