Therefore, a cultural barrier exists between the hands-on medical science community (those who do the research and treat the patients) and institutionalized medicine (regulatory agencies, pharmaceutical corporations, medical centers, and grant organizations).  This conclusion is supported by a survey project presented at the 2005 convention of the Society for Integrative Oncology.  The “Survey of Cancer Researchers and Practitioners Regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine” included 321 respondents from a wide spectrum of oncology labs and clinics.  Of the researchers surveyed, 83% expressed interest in collaborating with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners.  Ninety-six percent of the CAM practitioners were interested in collaborating with cancer researchers.

When asked what the researchers and practitioners saw as the most significant obstacle to CAM research and practice, the single factor most frequently identified was lack of funds.  As I alluded to in earlier posts, the grants to research prospective conventional cancer treatment enhancement are plentiful and measured in billions of dollars.  But, grants for CAM research are extremely scarce.  Indications are that the brightest and most talented of our medical community are finding it very difficult to break through the establishment for support of much of anything outside the parameters of conventional medicine.

This situation is not likely to change until those of us at the grass roots level insist that the cancer research funding organizations we support increase their support of CAM research.  Giving to those few foundations that support CAM research exclusively should also be considered.  Then we need to convince our friends and families to do the same.   

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. 

So, you can image my shock to learn that two recent studies show that patients with certain types of cancer can benefit from longer term use of certain chemotherapy treatments.  These results will be presented to the 2010 annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology.  Many oncologists will no doubt return from that meeting to their practice with the green light to prescribe longer periods of chemotherapy for their patients.  Ralph Moss’s Cancer Decisions report (www.cancerdecisions.com) states that the New York Times raised three concerns about the long-term maintenance therapy.  First, the studies did not reveal any improved rate of survivability.  Second, we can’t determine in advance the extra adverse effects of the prolonged treatment.  And, third, the cost of such virtually unending treatment could be astronomical.

It is amazing that, in spite of all the effort of integrative oncologists to reduce the dependence on chemotherapy, conventional researchers find that the best use of their time and our money is to test the extended use of such harmful and historically unsuccessful treatment.  I believe the defeat of cancer as we know it is impossible until the medical community and the general public become serious about vastly expanding research into complementary therapies.

What do you think?

Real hope must lie in more than the limited successes that conventional treatment has produced. Real hope will come with substantially more resources directed toward Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) research, and that isn’t happening.  The objective of CAM research and practice is not to replace conventional medicine, but to enhance it, reduce its harmful effects, and shorten its duration.   This concept of complementing conventional cancer treatment with natural, non-toxic therapies that strengthen the body and mind is commonly called integrative oncology.

 In 2008, NCI was allotted $5.6 billion from its parent government organization, the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Of that tax-funded amount, only $122 million went to CAM projects.  That was about 3% of NCI tax receipts that went to CAM projects.  Grants and donations to ACS totaled just over a billion dollars in 2008.  Four small CAM research grants sponsored by ACS came to about a million dollars or about one-tenth of one percent of all ACS sponsored grants.  CAM-related research grants provided by the Komen Foundation accounted for about one million dollars of the $60 million allocated for all projects in 2008.  This was less than 2% of all monies raised by Komen going toward any kind of CAM research.  My best estimate is that CAM cancer research receives only about 1% of all cancer research grants in America.  That amount will not change the course of cancer treatment.

Unless and until we become seriously committed as a nation to exploring possibilities outside of the conventional areas of chemicals and radiation, we will just be extending the unsuccessful strategy of the cancer war indefinitely.  The new strategy for the war on cancer must be funded at a much greater level. 

Cataract surgery goes back as far as the 6th century BC.  The first references to the procedure in the Western World are found in the Latin document De Medicinae in 29 AD.  Through the centuries, rather bizarre methods were used to remove the blinding condition.  By the 18th century, European doctors were successfully extracting cataracts, but not until the 1940s was the concept introduced to replace the lens with an artificial, intraocular lens.  By the late 20th century, the state-of-the-art was to use a single stitch to close the incision used to replace the lens.  Dr. McFarland, however, was frustrated as a relatively new surgeon that the single stitch was causing more problems for patients than any other part of the surgery.  He came up with a beveled incision technique where the pressure of the eye itself would keep fluid from leaking and allow the cornea to heal.  He performed the first no-stitch surgery in 1990. 

The initial reaction from the ophthalomologist world was that the procedure was ridiculous.  One leading doctor in the field told Mike that he was going to leave a trail of blindness from one border to the other.  Dr. McFarland invited many of his colleagues to observe him perform the new technique in his own clinic.  Soon those in the profession began to accept the procedure and trained to use it in their practice.  Today, the no-stitch technique is the standard practice all over the world.  It permits cataract surgery patients to recover faster with less pain and fewer complications. 

I know it’s not a perfect analogy, but this breakthrough in cataract surgery is the kind of breakthrough we desperately need in the cancer war.  I believe that the integrative oncology movement among a dedicated handful of doctors is the testing ground for a future breakthrough in the quest for victory over cancer.  The shift by conventional oncologists toward acceptance of certain complementary cancer therapies is still accompanied by skepticism.  Some fringe ideas are quickly ridiculed by those respected in the field just as was the no-stitch procedure.  I long for the day that a Dr. Mike McFarland of the practice of oncology will surface with a breakthrough therapy for cancer.  Such a doctor will have to have thick skin for the initial waves of criticism, but may ultimately set the standard for cancer treatment. 

I invite your comments.   

Cancer fund raising has become a national pastime. It is integrated into our very culture.  Seemingly, almost every occasion for social outlet has a “proceeds to benefit cancer research” attached to it.  And, who has not made an impulse purchase because it had a pink ribbon associated with it?  Some methods are as bland as contributing profits from premium priced postage stamps.  Others are as bizarre as peddling calendars featuring nude men or women baring it all in the name of cancer research.  Whether we are running shoulder to shoulder with a thousand others in a 10K or dropping our loose change in a can at a fast food restaurant, we are touched almost every day by the constant beckoning to donate a part of ourselves to fight the war on cancer.

The pervasive public and private effort to fund this war is presented as a backdrop for the premise of my book, A New Strategy for the War on Cancer.  The magnitude of the “cancer economy” should be considered with every point addressed in the chapters.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am in no way critical of the institutional fund raising.  If we are to ever raise the flag of victory over this diabolical disease, it will take even more than the present level of national and international fiscal willpower.  The issue is not the money we are raising.  The issue is how we are spending it.

My next post will reveal just how much–actually how little–these funding organizations are providing for anything other than what supports conventional treatment.  The pittance of funding received for complementary therapy research will shock you.

” I will ask for an appropriation of an extra $100 million to launch an intensive campaign to find a cure for cancer, and I will ask later for whatever additional funds can effectively be used.  The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease.  Let us make a total national commitment to achieve this goal.  America has long been the wealthiest nation in the world.  Now it is time we became the healthiest nation in the world.”

On that evening, our great nation became officially committed to the annihilation of this enemy.  The president’s declaration was later described as the beginning of the “war on cancer.”  It was to be pursued with the same national determination that led us into the nuclear age and that put a man on the moon.  Virtually unlimited resources were pledged. 

On December 23, 1971, fueled by the aggressive support of the president and numerous other political leaders, the National Cancer Act was signed into law. This government action infused unprecedented dollars and authority into the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to oversee a National Cancer Program of research and education. The NCI budget would bypass the traditional scrutiny of its parent organization, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and would be submitted directly to the president. The Act funded new research centers and contracted with prominent existing centers in an all-out national crusade to conquer cancer.

This bold venture was not without precedents.  The president had alluded to what the ingenuity and power of America had proven capable of producing.  We had models of what national determination with enough funds could do.  

 Nuclear fission/fusion was just being studied by the United States when the Second World War began in 1939.  Fearful that Nazi Germany was developing a nuclear weapon, our nation assembled our best scientists complemented by some international experts displaced from Europe.  This team, supported by every material and financial resource they needed, crafted and tested a device inconceivable in the minds of previous war strategists.  Six years after a a concept discussion among a few scientists, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  The war against Japan was over. 

Sixteen years later, we embarked on another journey of seemingly impossible proportions.   Responding to the Soviet’s launching of Youri Gagarin into space orbit on April 2, 1961, President Kennedy boldly challenged Congress and the nation, on May 25, 1961, to land a man on the moon by the decade’s end.  Space became the battle ground of the cold war.  On July 20, 1969, just eight years later, the world watched Neil Armstrong make his “giant leap for mankind” to the surface of the moon further preserving our freedom through the aerospace realm.  Both of these historical feats combined cost this nation less than what we are currently spending EACH YEAR on cancer research and education.  In the nuclear and space races, the enemy’s objectives were thwarted in relatively short order.  In the cancer race, we are in a seemingly endless marathon, and the enemy is winning.

The paragraphs above are extracted from my book, A New Strategy for the War on Cancer.  Please continue to watch this blog for further extracts.  I welcome your comments.

Well meaning, benevolent people are sacrificially funding cancer research at the rate of hundreds of millions of dollars every year.  If not directly from our pockets, we are each contributing to it through our taxes.  This money is going almost exclusively toward the development of pharmaceutical chemicals, equipment, programs, and facilities to enhance conventional treatment that is not getting the results needed.  Grants and contributions, as well as tax dollars, must be shared proportionally with the integrative oncology movement.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am not categorically opposed to conventional medical research.   Most integrative oncologists have devoted the first years of their professional lives to conventional medicine with countless successes.  Granted, much progress has been made and is being made in early detection, quality of life for cancer patients, and even survivability rates.  However, I view the trend toward complementary therapies by integrative oncologists as key to a shift in the overall cancer fighting strategy which can finally bring victory to the protracted war.  This trend at least acknowledges the potential of complementary options, proven through the crucible of clinical trials, and put into practice in concert with conventional options.  The problem is the the disease is gaining in frequency and strength faster than we can attack it. A cancer treatment transformation of astonishing magnitude must happen, and soon, in order to claim victory over this enemy.

Our current strategy is too institutionalized and narrow to meet the challenge.  We must look beyond our present scope and expedite our progress beyond our present rate.   We must establish undeniable credence to the prospects of integrative oncology.  Our research must extend to include unconventional possibilities.  We must make it easier for patients to obtain and afford treatments outside the mainstream.  We must generate additional funds to underwrite genuine scientific research in areas supplemental to conventional medicine.  To these ends, this book is written.