KNOCKOUT Part 1 Review

 by Yeong Sek Yee & Khadijah Shaari

Interviews with doctors who are curing cancer by Suzanne Somers. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Suzanne Somers was a singer and actress who acted in the popular TV sitcom “Three’s Company” in the 1980’s. She admitted that it was her hectic lifestyle as a singer/actress (lots of fat/junk foods, inadequate exercise, rests, stress, etc) that led to her breast cancer diagnosis in 1990. She underwent surgery, did radiotherapy (which she later regretted) but she did not opt for chemotherapy as advised by her oncologist. Instead she opted for Iscador, a German alternative treatment. As a cancer survivor, cancer is a topic close to Somers’ heart.

KNOCKOUT – HOW IT STARTED: Somers relates the harrowing story of her gross misdiagnosis that occurred in November 2008. She woke up one morning covered in hives and was rushed to a prominent hospital. After a series of tests, she was later told of the diagnosis as follows:

              i.      Radiologist – “You have a mass in your lung; it looks like the cancer has metastasized to your liver. We don’t know what is wrong with your liver, but it is so enlarged that it is filling your entire abdomen. You have so many tumours in your chest we can’t count them and they all have masses in them... (page 6)

             ii.      Oncologist ---“You’ve got cancer....and it’s everywhere....your lungs, your liver, tumours around your heart... I’ve never seen so much cancer” (page 7)

           iii.      Lung cancer specialist --“I just looked at your CT Scan, and you have lung cancer that has metastasized” (page 8)

Later the oncologist came back and asked Somers... “What do you want to do? We would prescribe full-body chemo” (page 9). When Somers responded that, “I would rather die; I would never take any of your treatments” (page 9), the oncologist just shrugged and left the room. Somers did further tests plus a biopsy (as suggested by the lung cancer specialist and another surgeon) which later proved that she did not have cancer at all. Later the oncologist stomped in and said angrily, “Well, you should have told me you were on steroids!” (Actually, Somers was on cortisol replacement as part of her menopausal experience). Why would steroids have anything to do with being misdiagnosed with full-body cancer? (page 13). Later, 4 infectious disease doctors marched into her room and told her that, “Now that we’ve ruled out cancer, we all think you have a serious infectious disease” (Page 13)!!!!!

If this horrible misdiagnosis could happen to Somers, a known health advocate, etc–then what is happening to the rest of the people in the country (USA)? (page 17) What if Somers had taken the full-body chemotherapy as suggested? (page 17) And the hospital is definitely a reputable hospital.

The hellishness of the experience prompted this book. In KNOCKOUT, Somers interviewed doctors who are successfully using the most innovative cancer treatments – treatments that build up the body rather than tear it down. These doctors provide advice on nutrition, lifestyle, dietary supplementation and the effects/effectiveness of conventional treatments especially chemotherapy.

1) DR RUSSELL BLAYLOCK, MD, an oncologist, brain surgeon, and neuroscientist who completed his internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina and later was Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi. His comments on the effectiveness of chemotherapy are very frank and brutal:

(a) ... chemo drugs are not selective at all. They damage every kind of cell, normal cells and cancer cells. There’s no selectivity (page 153).

(b) Chemotherapy targets one or two enzymes in the cancer cells or a process in the cancer cells. The cancer adapts quickly and by-passes that blockage and goes on growing... (page 157).

(c) Multidrug resistance--this is one of the big secrets in oncology. MDR happens when you give chemotherapeutic agents to a patient and a great number of the cancer cells will become resistant to the chemotherapy, meaning it won’t work even the least bit. And once it develops their multidrug resistance, it resists every chemotherapeutic agent from then on. This means the cancer not only is not sensitive to the agent, but also it grows much faster because these chemotherapeutic agents produce enormous inflammation and free radical generation in the entire body, which is what stimulates the growth of cancer. It makes the cancer invade a lot more and metastasize, and shortens the patient’s life span (page 157).

(d) For cancers that have already metastasized, which includes a great number of cancer cases, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy is ineffective and there is growing evidence that it may actually reduce survival times; that is, it is killing the patients earlier... because the chemo damages their immune system as well as body resistance to cellular and organ stress... suppression of immunity speeds the growth and invasion of all cancers... (page 159).

(e) ... chemo causes the tumours to shrink temporarily by killing the low-grade malignant cells and has no effect on the cells generating the cancer-the cancer stem cells (page 159).

(f) ... chemotherapy produces brain damage in a substantial number of people undergoing it...the chemo damages the DNA in all cells of their bodies, especially those cells that divide the fastest – such as bone marrow cells, cells lining the gut, and liver cells. (page 158)

(g) What most oncologists never want to talk about is that people taking chemo and/or radiation treatments are at an increased risk of a second malignancy not related to the first one. (page 158)

Dr Blaylock further commented that “the current approach to cancer is an absolute failure and that we were lying to patients. We were telling them that when they have metastatic cancer, their only chance of survival is a combination of chemotherapy and radiation....but we know that once cancer metastasizes, conventional treatment won’t do anything....Doctors secretly talk among themselves about palliation, meaning to treat partially but not be able to cure, and patients don’t know what that means (page 148)

Finally, Dr Blaylock’s last words: “evidence-based medicine ... is the biggest con job in the history of the world.” That is a term used to imply that traditional medical practices use evidence-based medicine and everything outside does not. Evidence-based medicine makes it impossible to recommend anything alternative, as though alternative medicine has no evidence (pages 161/162).

2) Dr JAMES FORSYTHE, MD, a board-certified oncologist, who practises both Western and alternative medicines i.e. an integrative oncologist (like Dr Keith Block, MD author of LIFE OVER CANCER). His very frank views are:

(a) In the 2004 Journal of Oncology, a large retrospective study showed that any patient entering into a five-year chemotherapy program in the United States has a 2.1% chance of surviving after that five-year period. In Australia, results are similar. So if you are entering chemo today (2009), in 2014, only 2 out of 100 patients would be alive. That’s nothing to brag about (pages 123/124).

(b) ... it’s much easier to be a conventional oncologist ... we give them their dose schedule and we don’t deviate. As an oncologist doing it this way, you’ll never get into trouble even if the patient dies from your treatment....(page 124).

Dr Forsythe’s final advice to cancer patients ... “cancer can be managed without taking the life force out of you”... the alternative therapies do not have all the toxicities of the unholy triad of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy... you must preserve your immune system and build it up... the body is self-healing (page 129).

3) DR STANISLAW BURZYNSKI, MD, an internationally recognized physician and scientist, and who operates the Burzynskic Cancer clinic in Houston, Texas, which the FDA has attempted several times to close down. His views on chemotherapy are:

(a) ... there are currently 24 FDA approved gene-targeted drugs, and most of them work on a single gene. That is why these drugs have very little chance to really cure patients, because in the average cancer, you have typically more than 2000 genes which are involved. So how can you really bring this under control if you work on a single gene? One of the best selling cancer drugs, AVASTIN, works on a single gene, so really it has very little chance to bring the process under complete control, although it can decrease tumours ... (page 65).

(b) ... but when “the tumour has shrunk”... it doesn’t mean “cure” and it most often comes back, and when it does it ravages the body ... shrinking a tumour is temporary... (page 65/66).

(c) ... for pancreatic cancer, chemotherapy is doing practically nothing...in the best-case scenario it can extend life for one month ... (page 71)...chemotherapy will speed up the progress of liver cancer.

(d) If the patient has had chemotherapy, they are at risk to develop another form of cancer (page 75).

When asked why oncologists still prescribe chemotherapy despite the dismal results, Dr Burzynski commented that ...”they are brainwashed ... they have been successfully brainwashed in medical schools and their residency programs.....also chemotherapy is a big huge business... to the tune of US $200 billion a year” (pages 60,70,71).

4) DR NICHOLAS GONZALEZ, MD, a graduate at Columbia University and Cornell Medical College and later specialized in internal medicine and research in cancer immunology. Dr. Gonzalez’s views on chemotherapy are as follows:

  (a) ... for most cancers chemotherapy does nothing (page 85). He cites the monograph by a German professor, Dr. Ulrich Abel who in 1992 (and updated in 2001), reviewed the world’s literature on chemotherapy used against solid tumours like metastatic breast, colon, lungs and pancreas and he found there was absolutely no benefit to any of it... (Page 95)

(b) Chemotherapy can shrink tumours; what it generally doesn’t do is prolong life for most cancers... (Page 97).

(c) A lot of oncologists use the word “response” ... it means you have tumour regression that lasts four weeks...that’s the official definition of “response” at the National Cancer Institute for decades... “A 50% decrease in tumour size that lasts four weeks” (page 97).

5) DR MICHAEL GALITZER, MD, is a Western-trained integrative anti-aging doctor who teaches patients how to balance hormones, how to strengthen the weakest glands and organs, how to strengthen the body to prepare it for fighting cancer or tolerating conventional therapies. His main views on chemotherapy are:-

(a) One of the problems with chemotherapy is that it doesn’t kill the cancer stem cells, and that is something everybody is missing, both conventional medicine and integrative medicine (page 214).

(b) ... there is no way the present protocol of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation is going to result in a healthy body (page 215).

(c) ... a flaw in the medical system... the flaw is in not presenting the alternative way as an option or a choice. Currently, the medical system is a study of disease. We are taught to treat diseases only (page 216).

Outstanding quotations from DR RALPH MOSS, Ph.D.

• Yes, the economics are: Let’s keep the assembly line running and push through as many patients as possible, so we can maximize our profits … It is a matter of pushing through a million patients a year. At least six hundred thousand a year are getting chemo … But as I say, the push relative to the level of profitability os toward mass production … they are focused on how many patients they can see today.
• Avastin, which will cost the average person about US$100,000 a year, it may, when given with chemo, increase survival for four or five months. On the other hand, for breast cancer it has not been proven to extend survival.
• Gemzar (gemcitabine) was originally approved by the FDA based on a very small quality-of-life improvement in pancreatic cancer patients … (This) is a mid form of chemotherapy … given as a kind of placebo, meaning when they have nothing else to give and they don’t want to burden the patient with a lot of side effects, they give this drug and everybody is happy. The patients feel that something is being done for them, and the doctor gets paid for administering or prescribing something. Then the patients expire and the families feel that at least they tried.
• The doctor, the oncologist, in private practice can make money three ways off the drug, may be four ways.. First … they get paid by the patient or his or her insurance for the office visit. Second, they have they have the chemotherapy concession, which means … they get to sell the drug at retail – buy it at wholesale and sell it retail. The third way they get money … is getting kickbacks from particular drug companies for volume prescribing … (example) this month a special premium for drug X is being given, the doctor would benefit financially by prescribing that drug.  The fourth way is to become a so-called marque professor, where you get to promote the drug in question and they pay you an honorarium or a fee.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

KNOCKOUT is certainly a book which your doctor/ oncologist will not advise you to read which means all the more you must read it. It is currently available in most bookshops in KL (ISBN NO. 978-0-307-58746-6).

Other books/publications which your doctors will advise you not to read would be: -

1) NATURAL STRATEGIES FOR CANCER PATIENTS (ISBN 0-7582-0221-0) by Dr Russell Blaylock, MD. Chapter 3 is entitled Chemotherapy: Poisoning Cancer (and You).

2) CANCER: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW (about Surgery, Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy, Pharmaceutical Drugs and the Politics of Cancer by Dr Chris Teo)

3) GETTING IT RIGHT (a book of quotations from established medical journals and    renowned medical experts by Dr Chris Teo).

4)  SELECTED NEWSLETTERS FROM WEBSITE:  WWW.CACARE.COM

a) Letter No 37: Why the Americans lost the War on Cancer

b) Letter No 47: Uncovering the Truth about Chemotherapy

c) Letter No 54: Cancer War: Bad Strategy, Smart Enemy-A Crashed Dream

d) Letter No 59a: A Hot Year for Oncology

e) Letter No 60: Cancer Wars and Their Disastrous Outcomes.

f) Letter No 61: What Makes Chemotherapy so costly?

g) Letter No 66a: Are Cancer Patients Over Treated and Over Medicated?

5) WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CANCER by Dr. Robert Buckman in collaboration with specialists at The MD Anderson Cancer Centre, Texas. (read Chapter 9 – With So Many Breakthroughs, Why is There No Progress?)

6) AUSTRALIAN ONCOLOGISTS CRITICIZE CHEMOTHERAPY by Associate Professor Graeme Morgan, a Radiation Oncologist and Professor Robyn Ward, a Medical Oncologist in Australia and Dr Michael Barton, MD, a radiation oncologist. (all three oncologists did a research study on “THE CONTRIBUTION OF CYTOTOXIC CHEMOTHERAPY TO 5-YEAR SURVIVAL IN ADULT MALIGNANCIES” which was published in the journal CLINICAL ONCOLOGY  in 2004) ...(COPIES AVAILABLE FOR READING)

7) ARTICLE: WHY 75% OF DOCTORS WOULD REFUSE CHEMOTHERAPY (just go to the Internet – Google or Yahoo and type in the above title and you will find a lot to read which your oncologist will never tell you).

8) ARTICLE: HOW MODERN MEDICINE KILLED MY BROTHER by Dr Russell Blaylock, MD, author of Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients. Just Google the title or Dr Russell Blaylock to read the article.

9) WHAT DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU by Dr Lynne McTaggart (read about the truth of the dangers of modern medicine. Chemotherapy is cited in pages 223 to 229).

10) DVD: CANCER TALK by Dr Alfonso Wong, an oncologist from Hong Kong…..in the DVD, Dr Wong clearly explained that if after the first 4-6 cycles of chemotherapy there is no progress, then further chemotherapy will be futile…

11) DVD: DRUGS NEVER CURE DISEASE by Dr Lorraine Day, MD, a trauma surgeon and a breast cancer survivor. She had surgery to remove the big lump in her chest but refused any radiotherapy or chemotherapy… read more about Dr Day in her website … www.drday.com

OTHER RELATED REFERENCES

1) THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DRUG COMPANIES by Dr Marcia Angell, MD, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (read How they deceive us and what to do about it).

2) DEATH BY PRESCRIPTION by Dr Ray Strand, MD, (the shocking truth behind an overmedicated nation).

3) THE POLITICS OF CANCER REVISITED by Dr Samuel S. Epstein, MD (in this book, Dr Epstein indicts the NCI, US and the American Cancer Society for responsibility in losing the cancer war).

4) THE CANCER INDUSTRY by Dr Ralph Moss, PhD (The classic expose of the Cancer Establishment –read chapter 5 CHEMOTHERAPY).

5) CANCER AND NATURAL MEDICINE by Dr John Boik, PhD (read Chapter 9 – The Treatment of Cancer by Conventional Medicine).

6) THE HEALING OF CANCER – The cures and the cover-ups by Barry Lynes.

7) QUESTIONING CHEMOTHERAPY by Dr Ralph Moss, PhD....Dr Moss was formerly a director in the prestigious Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, USA. He was sacked after he published a scientific study (conducted by researchers in the Cancer centre itself) that an alternative treatment method is effective).

8) WWW.CANCERDECISIONS.COM … operated by Dr Ralph Moss. On the home page, just type in the name of the drug (for example Avastin ) and you will be led to Newsletters containing news on Avastin … news which your good Doctor/Oncologist will never tell you.

9 WWW.NATURALNEWS.COM … operated by Mike Adams. Just type in the name of the drug or type in chemotherapy effectiveness/side effects ... lots to read.

10) WWW.MERCOLA.COM ... operated by Dr. Joseph Mercola, MD. Just type in the name of the drugs or chemotherapy effectiveness, etc....also lots to read...