Terry Thompson’s Blog

Today’s post is dedicated to the memory of Farrah Fawcett and to her influence in furthering a new strategy for the war on cancer.  It is a brief review of her cancer battle.

In 2006, Farrah was diagnosed with anal cancer, a rare type of the disease that is not usually detected through screening.  Declared in remission in 2007, she was tested three months later, and the results confirmed the problem had returned.  If caught in time, the survival rate for this type of cancer is quite good.  If it spreads, or metastasizes, to other parts of the body, it becomes category four cancer which is usually terminal.  Hers metastasized to various internal organs. 

After disappointing results with conventional treatment, Fawcett traveled to a few other popular clinics and visited oncologists outside the United States.  Her personal research led her to a clinic in Germany where she received surgery  that no doctor in the U.S. would do and subsequent treatments that were not available in the U.S.  Close coordination between her German oncologist and her American conventional therapy oncologist provided the best of both worlds in traditional treatment enhanced by complementary treatment.  Ms. Fawcett credited her treatments in Germany with allowing her to live even as long as she did.  Many proven therapy complements not allowed in our country are routinely practiced in Europe, Latin America, and the Far East.  Among her last public statements was, “Why can’t America accept and approve the alternative (cancer treatment) method that have been proven successful in other countries?”

Farrah’s hour-long NBC television special documented her agonizing battle with the disease.  It was often graphic and somewhat repulsive, as it needed to be in order to reveal to many for the first time just how ugly and devastating cancer is.  She wanted to make a strong statement that would hopefully alter the traditional thinking in the cancer treatment realm.  That traditional thinking is gradually eroding, although at a painfully slow rate.  For Farrah’s sake and the sakes of the 565,000 cancer victims who will die of the disease this year, please help speed up the implementing of a new strategy for the war on cancer that has integrative oncology as its center piece.

Farrah Fawcett’s family and friends will ceremoniously celebrate her life and lay her to rest tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.  For many, her passing will symbolize the hopelessness of cancer.  They will be reminded that the most popular celebrity icons are no different from the anonymous common victims who are among over 1500 dying daily from the disease.  For others, though, her death is a symbol of hope.  Because her life and death touched so many, millions more are thinking about cancer.  Regardless of where those thoughts take us, they prohibit us from ignoring the problem.  People throughout this nation and around the world have their minds tuned to the subject of cancer a little more than before due to Farrah Fawcett.  That is a positive, not a negative.

If we have paid attention to her message, we understand better what cancer victims experience.  We see more clearly the frustration of exclusive conventional treatment when it it not doing the job.  We can identify more closely with the inconvenience and unaffordability of obtaining complementary treatment to enhance what is commonly available.  We empathize with her confusion due to insufficient and often conflicting information on valid and proven therapies that are available but not in the mainstream of conventional medicine.  We are encouraged by the complementary treatment she received in Germany that was closely coordinated with her doctors in the U.S., but perplexed by why it wasn’t available here.

The hope that Farrah gave us that few other cancer victims could has to do with awareness.  The more we know about complementary therapy practiced by experienced and dedicated integrative oncologists, the closer we come to a new strategy for the war on cancer.  Her suffering and death raises our cognizance level and give us another reason to keep up the fight.  I urge you to let the life and death of Farrah Fawcett represent the lives and deaths of millions of others and pledge now to get involved in the support of a new paradigm in cancer treatment.  A place to begin is at http://cancerchoices.org.  Then launch your personal strategy from there.

It goes against the grain of my nature to suggest increased government intervention into any area of business environment.  Generally, less government involvement in commerce results in a healthier economy.  However, if the cartel attributes of big pharma are not contained, integrative treatment options will never have a chance to be seriously considered.  This containment would not unduly restrict big pharma’s access to government, but rather it would restore government’s freedom from the undue influence of big pharma.  Only in the reduction of the hundreds of millions of dollars in drug industry influence will the government be inclined to give appropriate attention to integrative medicine.  Even if this monopolistic influence buying is reduced considerably, integrative treatment proponents must ratchet up their government influence activities if they want a place at the table.  A certain amount of lobbying effort is necessary to keep the government informed and updated. It will be a cost of doing business if integrative treatment is to mature.  Congress and medical agencies should police themselves with the aid of all treatment proponents to maintain a balanced view of cancer treatment options.

This change in government’s role will only happen through a grass roots effort by the public.  Congressmen and medical agency executives will have to be convinced that their constituents and stakeholders are more important to them than lobbyists and lucrative profit margins.  It’s time to act.

Every year, complementary cancer treatment prospects with great potential of success never get to the laboratory because of political opposition from government and industry or because the small return on investment generates too little incentive.  Too much money is available to fund the status quo and too little money is available to make alternative options profitable.  In either case, the solution is to somehow, some way, change the money equation.  Law must be passed to legislate the ethical high road, and money must be generated for testing of treatment alternatives.  Both must happen.

There could and should be a best of both worlds.  in fact, there should be just one world of cancer treatment products and practice with room for all options.  That world ought to be characterized as inviting to the full spectrum of ideas and strategies employable against the disease.  Laws should place reasonable controls on the levels of contributions and other influences that the pharmaceutical industry lavishes on Congress and applicable government agencies.  The government should restrict only the use of products and practices that have proven to be harmful rather than approving only those that meet often arbitrary standards. Let the doctor and patient decide what is effective.  Physicians need to be trained in all aspects of treatment, not just conventional, and have the freedom to prescribe, within reason, what they think is best.  Medical schools and medical centers should receive government incentive and private assistance to research and test complementary treatment products and practices.

All of this may seem like a fantasy wish list.  But, the fantasy is a prerequisite for winning the war on cancer.  It will not happen overnight, and it will not happen at all unless and until we get so fed up with the status quo of cancer treatment that we personally resolve to do something about it.  Begin now to fight the fight.  Write your Congressmen, write the pharmaceutical companies, and write your nearest cancer centers.  Seek out integrative oncologists that you will use or recommend.  Support the charities and foundations that fund complementary therapies exclusively. 

A major political paradigm shift is critical to winning the cancer war.  Congress, the FDA, the NIH/NCI, the ACS, as well as prominent cancer centers and medical schools must accept the viability of natural, non-toxic, complementary treatment options.  They must be convinced that these options are a necessary and integral part of the overall war strategy.  They need to take a hard, honest look at the lack of progress in our ability to overcome the disease over the past several decades.  Such a shift would begin with the medical establishment acknowledging the failures of the last half-century and that headway could be made by looking beyond the exclusive traditional, conventional treatment options.  They have to realize the public relations benefit of less emphasis on profit and corporate survival and more priority on healing and a potential cure.  Even though research and development of most complementary therapy proposals would not result in a product market priced to generate the lucrative return on investment that they are accustomed to, certified laboratories should conduct the testing anyway for the greater good.  The testing would have to be absolutely unbiased under the strictest of controls.  Some of the unnecessary restriction on the clinical trials would have to be relaxed to accept a certain level of risk.

Sound like a pipe dream?  Maybe.  But so did a lunar landing in the early 60s and victory in World War II in the early 40s.  Yet, the ingenuity of America and the shifting of focus from prosperity to necessity made it happen.  It can happen again.  We must have the resolve to put our minds and hearts to it both at the corporate level, the government level, and the grass roots level.  It will take a wholesale change of attitude and action for us as a society to move from the traditional to the unconventional in order to defeat this disease that is thus far winning the war.   

I have written a lot recently about the pharmaceutical industry’s monopolistic grip on what medicines are and are not available to us.  I have discussed how the industry influences government health policy and how the government responds to that influence.  All of this begs the question: just what should be the role of government in determining our access to medicines and medical care?

Without question, the government should protect its citizens from harmful drugs and unqualified medical practitioners.  In assuming this role, however, the government has extended its authority far beyond protecting to the point of denying public access to reasonably safe and often scientifically proven unconventional products and practices.  By reasonably safe, I refer to products and practices that have not been proven adverse to us, have proven to be effective against various health problems, and often have passed rigid clinical trials with great success.  Frequently, such products and practices are legally restricted due to potential, but unobserved, side effects or aspects that have been determined risky in other protocols or applications.  The same ultra-conservative criteria doesn’t seem to be applied to conventional drugs that have proven to be adverse to human use and even deadly in many cases.  Consider, for instance, the prescription drug ads in the print media that require more space for side effect warnings than for the product’s description.  How many one-minute drug ads on television have you seen that promote the drug for 20 seconds and warn you about its down sides for 40 seconds.  Yet, if we discover any natural, non-toxic alternative to these drugs, government regulatory agencies usually suppress it if it shows any minor side effects or has any question about its efficacy. 

The regulatory bias that allows energetic research and testing of conventional proposals while alternative proposals sit on the sidelines is largely due to the political nature of the entire medial community.   The momentum of conventional medicine is fueled by big pharma’s dominance of the medical system, the legislature and the government agencies influenced by the largest lobbying effort in the country, and the American health culture of acquiescence to the medial establishment.  We will continue to experience rejection by the medical community of promising complementary medicines and therapies as long as the government and other regulatory agencies ensure an non-level playing field in the medical market.  The government’s role in pharmaceutical oversight should be to protect its citizens from harmful medicines and bogus practitioners, but without bias as to the philosophical categories in which they belong.  It is our obligation to educate our political leaders about integrative medicine and demand that they regulate on fact rather than on political influence.

As this series on big pharma continues, let me reiterate that I am not opposed to the pharmaceutical industry.  Would any of us like to see the huge pharmaceutical corporations fade away?  I think not.  The massive amount of capital in the industry ensures that we benefit from the most progressive research and development in the world.  Our society can afford the finest health facilities and the most professional brain trust of medical experts available on the planet.  Each of us benefits, probably daily, from the utmost in drugs, materials, and equipment.  These “necessities” would not be there for us without the development, production, and distribution advantages of the monolith pharmaceutical industry.  We have paid dearly for such advantages.  America’s health culture relies on continuous and aggressive pursuit of new and better products and services for our infirmities.  Although we complain about the prices, we are apparently willing to pay them.  Big pharma depends on our demand, and we depend on big pharma’s supply.

The problem is that this power and energy needs to be channeled in a somewhat different direction.  Relatively little effort is being made toward potential medical breakthroughs outside the realm of traditional, conventional medicine.  Exploration of natural, non-chemical, non-toxic, non-intrusive approaches to healing is suppressed by political maneuvering from the industry and the government.  The existence of big pharma is not the issue.  The issue is that very promising alternatives, or complements, to conventional medicine are not allowed a place at the health care table.  There is room for evidenced-based, clinically tested complementary medicines and therapies to co-exist with conventional medicines and therapies.  That would be the best of all worlds.  But, generally, they are not invited to the party.  Why not let both develop, collaborate, and compete in the free market.  What a novel idea!  It almost seems like the principle the American economy was founded on.

Such a free market concept within the pharmaceutical industry is a major piece of the new strategy for the war on cancer.  There must be freedom of access, freedom to practice, and freedom to choose in the doctor-patient interface.  I invite your comments. 

My last posts about the recent media frenzy over alternative medicine issues has distracted me from my series of posts on big pharma.  So, let’s get back to the series with another post on the subject.

The massive lobbying and contribution effort by the pharmaceutical industry certainly bears fruit for them.  The U.S. government contributes more money to the development of new drugs in the form of tax breaks and subsidies than any other national government.  The industry’s two trade groups, PhRMA and the Biotechnology Industry Organization  disclosed lobbying Congress on more than 1,600 bills over  a recent six-year period.  By the way, these two lobbyist groups are headed by two influential former members of Congress.  Both of the former Congressmen were on committees that regulated drug companies, and they each sponsored several bills related to the industry.  The top pharmaceutical corporations maintain a perpetual good ole boy network that makes sure they will thrive in the highly profitable prescription drug market for decades to come. This is critically important to their survival.  A market becoming more open to alternative products and less protective of price levels would probably be the beginning of the end of the big pharma era as we know it.

The free market economy in which big pharma thrives should ensure a level playing field for all health care enterprises.  However, that free market is skewed if Congress and principal medical agencies establish policies that favor the pharmaceutical industry and restrict market entry by enterprises outside the industry mainstream.  The new strategy of integrative oncology depends on access to and support of complementary products and practices not necessarily available through conventional pharmaceutical corporations.  Now is the time to begin urging your Congressional delegation to oppose the big pharma resistence to cancer therapy options that don’t fit their mold.  Insist that your representatives and senators study the evidence-based complements to conventional therapies and fund more research into integrative cancer treatments.     

For over a week, I have been trying to generate awareness concerning the effects of big pharma on cancer therapy.  But, the current media frenzy over alternative medicine keeps distracting me from the pharmaceutical institutional issues.  Of course, both issues are interrelated.  I’m assuming all the print and electronic media hype about alternative medicine stems from the Farrah Fawcett trips to Germany and the Daniel Houser flight to Mexico with his mother.  Both of these stories were magnets for journalists from every news room.  So, I’ll, once again, take a detour from big pharma to address the latest alternative medicine topic.

Yesterday’s news featured new warnings about nutritional supplements and natural treatments, especially chelation.  Stories highlighted, yet again, the fact that natural, alternative medical products and practices are not regulated by the government and are insufficiently tested.  Examples were given of how certain uses of unconventional medicines could interfere with “bona fide” conventional treatments.  Without consultation with a physician, natural, non-prescription remedies can be overdosed or dangerously mixed with prescription drugs.  Some news releases suggested that the results of over $2.5 billion spent over several years of testing showed no appreciable benefits from alternative medicines with the possible exception of acupuncture.  The federal government’s $30 million study of chelation, a popular detoxification process, has been halted over a concern that study participants may not have been fully informed of the risks involved.  It seems that June is the media’s month to highlight the evils of anything in the alternative medicine category. 

Of course, it wouldn’t take much of a research project to prove that conventional medicines have had a plethora of failures in development, some of which have caused loss of lives.  The amount spent on conventional drug development is hundreds of billions of dollars more than that for alternative medicines.  And the failures, warnings, injuries, and deaths are comparatively greater for conventional medicines than alternative medicines.  However, my point is not to support or defend alternative medicine.  I acknowledge the ”quackery” aspect of some of the alternative products and practices.  But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. 

The whole issue of conventional versus alternative medicine is further justification for integrative medicine.  As it applies to cancer treatment, let’s agree that opting for alternative therapies exclusively can be very risky.  However, many alternative products and practices can be of extraordinary advantage when tested for use as a complement to conventional therapy and applied under the care of an experienced integrative oncologist.  Integrative oncology enhances the effectiveness of conventional therapy while reducing the suffering and shortening the duration of the process.  Why can’t we have a media frenzy over the positives of integrative oncology?  It is the answer to winning the cancer war!  Perhaps it is just not newsworthy. 

Yesterday’s post highlighted the political lobbying efforts of the pharmaceutical industry.  In addition to being the biggest single lobbying entity in Washington, big pharma is contributing to the political campaigns of unprecedented numbers of federal and state politicians.  According to a recent survey by the Center of  Responsive Politics, employees and political action committees within the industry gave $133 million over a six-year period to the campaigns of candidates running for federal and state offices.  Most of these contributions flowed through the “soft money” gray areas between federal and state campaign finance laws.  Most recipients were Congressional members who sit on committees that decide on pharmaceutical issues. 

Lobbying  and campaign contributions are not the only ways the pharmaceutical industry influences congressional actions.  The Center for Public Integrity reports that, during a 5 1/2-year period from early 2000 to 2005, lawmakers and staffers accepted at least 325 free trips valued at over $600,000 from pharmaceutical companies for trade groups. This perk for congressional offices seems to be on the rise.  In 2000, the drug industry spent $53,000 on these trips.  That figure increased each year peaking at $181,000 at the end of the Center’s report period.  Typically, the number of these trips surges just prior to votes on significant legislation that has a major impact on the industry.

Physicians, biologists, naturopaths, and others are introducing new natural cancer treatment medicines and methods with increasing frequency.  Many of these new discoveries have been approved after scientific testing while others are in the clinical trial process.  But how does any cost effective, natural therapy modality compete in the politically charged pharmaceutical market?  When politicians and political agencies influence the funding streams for medical schools, major medical laboratories, and medical centers, it is difficult for complementary therapy options to find a seat at the big pharma table.  When politicians and political agencies influence the policies of medical institutes, medical education, and insurance agencies, it is difficult for integrative practitioners to be heard above the voices of big pharma.  Unconventional cancer therapy advocates outside of the medical community must augment the integrative medicine professionals to form a tidal wave of influence that will capture the attention of government officials and pharmaceutical executives.  I will provide specific suggestions on how to do this in a later post.  In the meantime, learn all you can about integrative oncology and support its research and programs.  The cancer war CAN be won.