11/6/15 10:15 AM
Claim: Chemotherapy and radiation are not as effective as we have been led to believe. It has been scientifically proven that chemotherapy and radiation cannot destroy the cancer ‘stem cells’ which are where the cancer cells are created. There are hundreds of different therapies currently being used all over the world, from Mexico to Germany to China that have been proven to be more effective, both short- and long-term, and have fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy and radiation. Reason 1) The average malignant tumor takes approximately 5-10 years to develop before discovered. Much of this growth is done within the tissue and is not easily diagnosed. The cells that cause these tumors are what scientists refer to as cancer stem cells. While cancer ‘daughter’ cells (what we think of when we think of cancer cells) can be destroyed by conventional American treatment, these stem cells cannot be, so when people are declared ‘cancer free’ it’s very probable that they still have these stem cells floating around inside them. When you hear that certain cancers have a 5-10 year survival rate, it’s because these stem cells take 5-10 years to develop new daughter cells and form a tumor. So you’re technically not living to 5-10 years cancer free, that’s just the amount of time it takes for another tumor to develop and be discovered. Also, it should be noted that stem cells can travel throughout the body; this is why metastatic cancers are so common in epithelial cancers. Reason 2) Chemotherapy and radiation are not considered to be effective methods of treatment in other developed nations. There are hundreds of other treatments used, and each of these is tailored to meet the patients’ needs and their specific type of cancer. In America, we generally use the same standard treatment to treat every form of cancer, and there is very