Doctors make mistakes all the time. They’re human, after all. But when an entire medical profession and pharmaceutical establishment labels a simple condition as cancer, causing untold emotional, physical and financial harm, we have to look at the motivation.
All the way back in 2012, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the once impeccable Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) were forced to admit they were wrong about the most common form of breast cancer and several other types of cancer: They’re not really cancer at all.
Of course, that major mea culpa was done quietly with no media fanfare at all. And even more disturbing is the fact that the new classifications of these former cancers have had little or no effect on the way mainstream medicine chooses to treat these conditions.
We probably wouldn’t even know about it weren’t for our friends at GreenMedInfo.com, whose April 15 article documented the travesty: These cancers, including DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ—the most common form of what-they-used-to-call-early-stage-breast cancer) aren’t really cancer at all. They’re likely harmless “indolent of benign growths of epithelial origin.”
Tell that to 1.3 million American women who have heard those dreaded words, “You have cancer,” in the last 30 years. Now the NCI and JAMA admit they were “overdiagnosed and overtreated.”
Tell that to the women who have lain awake at night wondering if they would die soon.
Tell that to the women who wept and vomited and lost their hair because of the incredible toxicity of chemotherapy drugs.
Tell that to the families who faced the possibility they would lose a loved mother, wife, sister or friend.
Tell that to the women who struggle every day with the toxic aftereffects of chemotherapy and radiation.
DCIS is most likely not cancer and needs no treatment. That’s what the medical profession, in all of its wisdom, has now concluded.
So who gains from the pain of these women and these families? As I always say, “Follow the money.” The best research I can find indicates that a course of chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer runs about $120,000.
So who gains? The drug companies, hospitals and doctors, not the patients.
The patients end up with long-term side effects that can include lymphedema (permanent arm swelling that requires them to wear elastic sleeves for the rest of their lives), heart damage, neuropathy (numbness in fingers and toes), chemo brain (brain fog that can last for months, even years), gastrointestinal distress and more.
When my dear cousin, more like a sister to me, was diagnosed with DCIS 16 years ago, we wept together. I held her and accompanied her to appointments with her oncologist. I held her hand through chemotherapy, ceremonially shaved her head when her hair fell out in huge clumps, intervened with her insurance company when they balked at the huge cost of the anti-nausea drugs and threw a silly hat party to make her laugh. Nothing could assuage her pain and fear.
She was stalwart through the entire process. It broke my heart to see her steadfastly driving an hour each way to work every single day of her treatment. It broke my heart to see her struggle with exhaustion and a demanding boss who thought her head scarf was “not businesslike” and, adding insult to injury, insisted she wear a hot scratchy wig.
Forgive me if I am becoming a bit cynical. The NCI/JAMA admission that DCIS is “probably” not cancer extends to several other conditions that were once considered lethal: prostate, thyroid and lung growths that were never malignant.
Please, my friends, if you are diagnosed with early stage breast, prostate, thyroid or lung cancer, ask for a second, third and fourth opinion on the treatment plan. Do the same for anyone you love.
If your doctor recommends chemotherapy and/or radiation, explore all other options before you agree to it.
A good question for your doctor is this: If someone in your family had the same diagnosis, what would you do?
Please don’t take the first program offered by a doctor who may not know about the NCI/JAMA admission.
There are many options. I’ll be writing about them in the coming weeks.
DCIS is not generally treated with chemotherapy now. Most DCIS is treated with surgery only, or surgery and radiation, which can be denied by the patient. This is because not enough research has been done to determine which DCIS will turn into invasive cancer and which will never turn into cancer, so the common practice is to take it out. I agree that more should be done in the way if observation instead of jumping right to surgery.
DCIS is not generally treated with chemotherapy now. Most DCIS is treated with surgery only, or surgery and radiation, which can be denied by the patient. This is because not enough research has been done to determine which DCIS will turn into invasive cancer and which will never turn into cancer, so the common practice is to take it out. I agree that more should be done in the way if observation instead of jumping right to surgery.