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From: carter@gatech.UUCP (Carter Bullard)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Re: Unconventional Cancer Therapy  F
Message-ID: <12393@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 14:50:12 EST
Article-I.D.: gatech.12393
Posted: Thu Mar  7 14:50:12 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Mar-85 04:37:26 EST
References: <11971@gatech.UUCP> <8000018@hp-sdd.UUCP>
Organization: School of ICS, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
Lines: 40

> 	Vitamin C is ineffective as a treatment for cancer.  So say
> 	doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who found
> 	that victims of bowel cancer given large doses of vitamin C had
> 	no better survival rate than victims treated with a placebo.
> 	The report contradicts the assertions of two-time Nobel Prize
> 	winner Linus Pauling, a longstanding advocate of the vitamin's
> 	powers to treat some diseases.
> 
> Mmmrmmph!  Don't you love the way they make it sound so final, so
> resolved, so unambiguous?  I think you (LPI) would be doing their
> readers a favor to write a letter to the editor, pointing out some 
> of the experiments you've quoted here.
> 
> Andrea Frankel, Hewlett-Packard (San Diego Division) (619) 487-4100 x4664
> net:  {allegra|ihnp4|decvax|ucbvax}!hplabs!hp-sdd!andrea 
> 
>  ...searchlights casting for faults in the clouds of delusion

I find this attitude very upsetting.  Now look, if you just wanted to know
if Vitamin C was the cure all for bowel cancer then you now know the answer.
It is obviously not.  The study unequivocably showed that given megadoses
of Vitamin C, a patient with bowel cancer will die just as fast as a person
with bowel cancer not given Vitamin C therapy.  Not even 5% showed any
benefit from the therapy at all.  Now, the only way that you could ignore
such a thing is to think that the technician that gave the patients the
tablets messed up and gave them Digel instead.

I get riled when a study shows that 60-70% of the patients were successfully
treated and people squabble over the validity of the study.  I don't get
excited about somebody dismissing Vitamin C as a possible conjunctive
treatment for rectocolonic carcinomas when not even one person shows benefit
from its use. 

Granted, its a very nice romantic idea to think that vitamins will
deliver us to eternity on earth,............ but I don't think so.
-- 
Carter Bullard
ICS, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet:Carter @ Gatech	ARPA:Carter.Gatech @ CSNet-relay.arpa
uucp:...!{akgua,allegra,amd,ihnp4,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!carter