Chemotherapy - Chemotherapy was developed after scientists realised that the deadly Mustard gas used in the Second World War to kill people - Cyclophosphamide - could kill rapidly dividing cells such as those of cancer. Chemotherapy will kill all rapidly dividing cells (Our T and B cells responsible for our immune system would also be targeted as they divide rapidly).

Let's see what reputable scientists are saying about this drug:

* Late Dr Hardin Jones, professor at the University of California in Berkeley concluded in 1975 after analysing cancer survival statistics for several decades that "patients are as well, or better off, untreated".

* Dr Charles Moertel of the Mayo clinic in Baltimore said that the major chemotherapeutic drug, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) only produces an objective response in 15 to 20% of patients. Even then, improvements were only partial and temporary. This very poor result is offset by the toxicity of the drug and the disastrous emotional upsets caused by the side effects.

* A German epidemiologist Dr Ulrich Abel studied most of the published reports on chemotherapy and wrote to a further 350 cancer centres and experts and stated that "the success of most chemotherapy is appalling. There is no evidence for its ability to extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancer". He also commented that: "when a tumour mass partially or temporarily disappears, those tumour cells which remain can sometimes grow much faster afterwards. Often, patients who do not respond to chemotherapy survive longer than those who do".

Dr Abel also published details of survival rates for cancer patients treated with chemotherapy as follows:

* Bladder - No statistics available

* Breast - No evidence of an increase in life expectancy

* Cervical/Uterine - No evidence of an increase in life expectancy

* Colorectal - No increase in life expectancy

* Gastric cancer - No evidence of improvement

* Head & neck - No improvement in life expectancy (tumours may shrink)

* Ovarian - No evidence of an increase in life expectancy

* Pancreatic - More negative than patients who were not treated

Depending on which specific chemotherapy drug is used, side effects include nausea, vomiting, hair loss, potential damage to nerves and kidneys, hearing loss, seizures, bone marrow suppression, anaemia, blindness, irreversible loss of motor function, thrombosis, mucositis, heart problems, destruction of bile ducts, bone tissue death, restricted growth, infertility, lower white and red cell count, increased risk of leukaemia (specially for women who received chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer), ovarian failure, early menopause, lactose malabsorption etc..

Chemotherapy also often destroys the patient's liver and kidneys with its harmful effects and negatively assaults their immune system.

Mechlorethamine, one of the drugs used is so toxic that medical staff handling it are advised to use gloves and avoid inhaling it.

A reference for medical personnel handling chemotherapy advises:

The potential risks involved in handling cytotoxic agents have become a concern for health care workers. The literature reports various symptoms such as eye, membrane, and skin irritation, as well as dizziness, nausea and headaches experienced by health care workers not using safe handling precautions.

In addition, increased concerns regarding mutagenesis and teratogenesis [deformed babies] continue to be investigated. Many chemotherapy agents, the alkylating agents in particular, are known to be carcinogenic [cancer causing] in therapeutic doses.

Medical personnel handling these drugs are advised to wear double latex gloves, mask, goggles and protective gown. Amazingly, needles used for injecting the lethal drug is classified as "hazardous waste" ! Incredible when we are told that this drug will cure our Cancer.

The medical journal (Lancet 1998) stated that Irinotecan, a new chemotherapy drug only extends survival by about 3 months but with many side effects.

Chemotherapy is also useless at helping with metastases in the liver (Arch Med Res, 1998). It has however been shown to increase the life of patients suffering from ovarian cancers by a few years and that of lung cancer patients by a few months.

Treatment of Hodgkin's disease with chemotherapy has also shown positive results. However, girls treated this way also have a 35% chance of developing breast cancer in later life. All children treated this way also are 18 times more likely to develop secondary tumours.

As Chemotherapy has been found to be (1) carcinogenic (2) immunosuppressant (3) toxic (4) futile, why is it then that doctors keep prescribing it?

The answer is extremely simple: they do not know what else to do and wish to keep in line with what other doctors do. Although most know that chemotherapy only has a very small chance of success, they feel that unless they prescribe something, the patient will go elsewhere and, in most cases (for allopathic medicine), be prescribed chemotherapy. We have to understand that this is their training.

In a survey of 79 cancer doctors conducted by McGill University in the United States, 58 doctors stated that they would not be part of trials on Chemotherapy drugs. Why? Because of the ineffectiveness of Chemotherapy and its toxicity.