Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site unc.unc.UUCP 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.