Government Controlled Cancer Treatment?
At town hall meetings across the country and on every talk show in the nation, critics of the health care reform plan are sounding off with unbridled passion. The liberals call them an organized mob, and the conservatives claim they are just every day Joes and Janes who are angry. I have to be counted among those opposed to the plan. I have not been a screamer at at politician’s meeting, but I am protesting by letter, phone, and this blog. I am communicating with my Congressional representatives like never before.
Since my health issue is with cancer, I fear what will happen to cancer treatment under the plan. Actually, we shouldn’t call it a plan, since it is more rhetoric than a plan at this point. As one who is totally convinced that conventional cancer therapy practiced exclusively is only going to realize selective success, I don’t want treatment turned completely over to a government that embraces it. I have written previously about the pharmaceutical lobbyists who have more influence in Washington than any other industrial category of government influence. Washington is absolutely predisposed to chemo and radiation as the treatment of choice for cancer. They have little regard for complementary enhancements of any kind. If the decisions of oncologist selection, treatment center selection, and therapy availability fall into the hands of the government agencies rather than the patients, conventional treatment will be the only game in town. Any momentum we now have in the acknowledgement of complementary treatment will cease under the proposed plan. Public activism is presently what is keeping integrative oncology alive. Once treatment is controlled by the government, we will lose years of progress.
I don’t advocate yelling and taunting at town hall meetings, but I do urge you to write and call your people in Washington weekly if not daily. Tell them to support a health care reform plan that reduces the cost of care and ensures the freedom to choose your treatment including the choice of doctors. We are losing our freedoms at every turn like never before in the history of our nation. Let’s be heard!
August 14th, 2009 at 05:08
Hello,
I am a cancer patient who has been to Bethesda, MD the headquarters of the National Institute of Health. It is also the home of the NCI and several other government medical departments.
The world class Oncologists there are working on Immunotherapy as the best technique to attack cancer. There are several clinical trials addressing that area. NIH funds many clinical trials around the country. Their 2008 budget was $28.7 billion. their site mentions that they developed 50% of the current chemotherapy in use today.
They are the WORLDS LARGEST clinical trials hospital. Go to my site and you will see a list of site and much more info on prostate cancer.
HHS has a web site grading alternative cancer care.
Good Luck in your journey.