The Editor, Sir:

Gleaner Columnist Dennie Quill bemoans the loss of his friends to cancer (October 9). He might also have referred to the epidemic proportions in other degenerative diseases, such as heart disease, arthritis, Alzhei-mer's, diabetes, etc. This poses a most important and interesting question: why are there so many deaths when so much money and effort have gone into developing treatments and cures? How come?

Quill offers hope by providing a couple of optimistic quotations from medical orthodoxy. First, according to Prof Valerie Beral: "(cancer) death rates have been slashed by new drugs and earlier diagnosis"; second, Dr Jame Cope claims that "research into breast cancer causes has been a great success story". So, why are people still dropping like flies?

Mortality rates

While the figures I have seen do suggest recent, small declines in mortality rates, 'slashed' is certainly not accurate; and these declines may be due more to greater awareness of health issues (smoking, diet, etc) than to new drugs or screening procedures.

Moreover, the general failure of the 'War on Cancer', since President Nixon's initiative in 1971, is well-documented on the Internet. I'll give you a couple of quotations which contrast with those above:

Professor Charles Mathe (cancer specialist): "If I contracted cancer, I would never go to a standard cancer treatment centre. Cancer victims who live far from such centres have a chance."

The cancer war

Cancer Prevention Coalition: "Winning the war on cancer means preventing cancer. Yet cancer is a multibillion dollar business. Isn't preventing cancer bad for business?"

Newsweek, September 15, 2008: "We Fought Cancer And Cancer Won. After billions spent on research and decades of hit-or-miss treatments, it's time to rethink the war on cancer."

And, if space permitted, I would give a stack of references that cast severe doubt on the efficacies of standard techniques, such as mammography, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, needle biopsy, etc, in cancer cases.

Let's get real here: the facts of high death rates and patients' experiences with cancer treatments just do not square with optimistic medical establishment views. What are the surgeons thinking when they advocate radiation or chemo-therapy? Are more patients being killed or cured, one wonders?

Quill suspects that ingestion may be a factor in the development of cancer. I have no doubt about this. Inhalation of pollutants must be another major factor. One lady in England was diagnosed with leukaemia and given six months to live. She moved with her family to an African country and adopted the local vegetarian diet. Eleven years later, she is in good health! How many such anecdotes would it require to form a scientific conclusion? Of course, the drug companies do not fund research on diet.

In brief, I offer these conclusions from my reading:

1. Mutation of cells occurs commonly, even in healthy people, and the immune system is capable of ensuring destruction of any cancerous cells.

2. The modern diet and lifestyle has seriously compromised the immune system and its ability to maintain health. The consequences include cancer and other dege-nerative diseases.

3. Cancer is preventable. Moreover, there are very many documented non-medical cures and many thousands of persons have recovered fully. Most treatments require (among other things) an increased consumption of fruits and vegetables and a reduction/elimination of processed food-stuff. A diet of white rice, lots of fried meat and dumplings, along with sugary drinks, etc, is probably deadly.

4. Medical researchers (following the money) continue to focus on finding new drugs to attack cancer cells rather than to develop strategies for prevention. Similarly, physicians are preoccupied with treating localised symptoms with drugs rather than applying holistic solutions.

Quill anxiously awaits a cancer 'cure'. I suggest that he takes hope from the many anecdotal accounts of cures rather than from the claims of conventional medicine to be winning the war on cancer, and even to have slashed mortality rates.

I am, etc.,

KEITH BINGHAM

keith.bingham@uwimona.edu.jm