Complementary Therapy Still the Cull Chicken of Cancer Research
When I was a youngster, my family raised chickens for a supplement to our income. The poultry industry was prominent in our part of the country, and I grew up well versed in the ways of chickens. In a “house” of several thousand chickens, there would always be a few dozen “culls” that would eventually die prematurely or be ”culled” out and destroyed because they couldn’t survive in the chicken mainstream. These culls were usually small, late developing, and not able to compete for position and time around the feed troughs and water sources. Had the other chickens accommodated the cull, it would have thrived and perhaps become the top chicken of the bunch. When I see the inability of complementary cancer therapy to compete for research grants and places at the mainstream medical science table, I am always reminded of my chicken raising days and the plight of the cull chicken.
The enormous amount of money that has been infused into cancer research over the recent decades is mind-numbing. I have highighted this in recent posts. Granted, some of the money has funded prevention projects that have helped to reduce the number of cancer victims. Some has been earmarked for modernization of equipment, facilities, and analytical systems. Some has gone for scholastic research. But, most of the funds have the ultimate objective of pursuing a cure for cancer with chemicals, radiation, and surgery. Of course, good has come out of efforts to advance conventional medicine, and we should be grateful for any advancement. Insight into genetic technology, highly improved screening systems, deeper understanding of the malignant cell, less intrusive surgery, radiation accuracy, and better chemical compatibility and synergy are just a few of the major advances from conventional research. However, the issue is that these breakthroughs have not produced anything close to a cure or even an appreciable decrease in the mortality rate. Yet, every year, increasingly more money is collected from taxes and donations to be poured into seemingly bottomless pockets of those on a seemingly endless search. And hardly any of it is being directed to potential opportunities outside the venues of conventional medicine.
Complementary therapy research is seen as not being on the leading edge of medical science and has a less appealing rate of return on the sponsoring organization’s time and investment. We need more influence and incentives from the funding agencies to encourage institutes in complementary-related research. However, little change is likely until there is a groundswell of demand from the grass roots for this research. We who care about complementary cancer therapy and integrative oncology have to help the cull chicken acquire the resources to grow.