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Path: utzoo!decvax!mcnc!unc!oliver
From: oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.cooks,net.consumers
Subject: Re: Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer Prevention (pointer)
Message-ID: <174@unc.unc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 19:59:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.174
Posted: Mon Aug 19 19:59:42 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 22:51:08 EDT
References: <1848@aecom.UUCP> <1093@cbdkc1.UUCP>
Reply-To: oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver)
Distribution: na
Organization: CS Dept, U. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 68
Xref: pepe net.med:1010 net.cooks:1664 net.consumers:1421
Summary: 

In article <1093@cbdkc1.UUCP> tjs@dkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) writes:
>
>Surely you jest.  Even you must admit that NCI's facts/opinions are biased.  If
>they solved cancer they would lose their funding.  Even with this asside if they
>found out that the natural way worked would they admit it?  This is the
>equivalent of going to a conventional doctor and asking then for nutritional
>advice.
>
>
>{allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs

It is unfortunate that Mr. Stanions is so willing to lay all evil on the
backs of rational medicine.  Perhaps he does not realize that, in fact,
physicians and scientists and their families and loved ones die of cancer
just like everybody else.  

I received no joy in watching my mother suffer from breast cancer when 
I was a young man.  The last words I ever heard her speak were to ask
our pastor if it was a sin to pray for death. I received no joy in
watching other friends, relatives, and mentors pass on, cut down by
diseases for which there are no cures.  

Mr. Stanions is as wrong as he is insensitive.  We who try
to find cures for disease are not in it just for the bucks, and if
he would bother to do some trivial self-education before blasting
away indiscriminately with his vacuous pedantic slander, he would know
that we have made phenomenal strides. Look at Hodgkins disease,
look at germ cell tumors such as choriocarcinoma. You don`t treat
cancer with wheat germ and aloe vera; you use tested and rational
approaches and you keep looking for a better understanding of the
bases of disease to design protocols for prevention and cure. 

I sincerely hope that even Mr. Stanions will see a surgeon when he
gets his skin cancer or prostate cancer should he live that long.
One of the first diagnoses of cancer I ever made was on a man who 
had squamous cell carcinoma of the skin - a disease which is 100%
curable if found in a reasonable amount of time.  This fellow felt
that all doctors were just out for money and didn`t know shit, so
just let the little spot on his hand grow to the size of a baseball.
By the time his family forced him to give up his herbal salves and
dietary trivialities, he had allowed the cancer, probably the most
treatable cancer around, to spread to his brain, lungs, and liver.
He had effectively commited suicide.

I would be just as happy using my talents to find a cure for aging.
Let me tell you, as soon as people find a general cure for cancer
if there is one, they will have no more trouble finding funding 
for the cure of the disease that will replace it as a great 
killer than they had in finding funding for the treatment of
cancer beforehand.  I would just as soon try to find
ways to allow people live to be 200 as to try to figure ways 
of helping them reach 70.

I have done my best to stay out of these discussions about
"natural" medicine, since they reduce so quickly to statements
of faith and magic by those who decry conventional medicine. I am quite
content to let Mr. Stanions and his ilk act as witnesses against
themselves.  I will not, however, let him slander my motives.


Bill Oliver, MD
Assistant Chief Medical Examiner
State of North Carolina


The opinions expressed above are those of the author and should not be
taken as those of any other official, employee, Office, or Agency of the
State of North Carolina.