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From: tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.cooks,net.consumers
Subject: Re: Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer Prevention (pointer)
Message-ID: <1116@cbdkc1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 08:57:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbdkc1.1116
Posted: Fri Aug 23 08:57:23 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 08:33:24 EDT
References: <1848@aecom.UUCP> <1093@cbdkc1.UUCP> <174@unc.unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: tjs@dkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions)
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
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Xref: burl net.med:2261 net.cooks:1903 net.consumers:3039


>I received no joy in watching my mother suffer from breast cancer when 
>I was a young man.

I also received no pleasure in watching my mother-in-law win her fight against
breast cancer last year without any surgery or drugs.  Such disease's are in
fact hideous and methods to prevent them are far more welcome then methods to
treat them.  Even with natural methods the psycological problems are ugly once
you have the disease, it is better never to get it.

>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. 

As for insensitive you wished a skin cancer upon me in the next paragraph.  As
for self-education I have done a great deal.  As for the use of wheat germ
(using wheat germ as a euphemism for the health industry indicates that you
know little about what we do, correct me if I am wrong) to cure cancer, cancer
can often be cured via natural methods, and more importantly it can usually be
prevented.  Yes, our methods are tested and rational.  And we strive to
understand life and the human body and environment, and a way of living in it
as we were meant to, or (more realisticly) the best way to live in this world
as it exists now.

>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.

Is it not possible that people can die of old age?  Doctors consider death a
disease.  We see it as the last act of life, as natural as eating.  What we
consider unnatural is to die in an unnecessary and often ugly manner.  Or to be
debilitated by arthritis or bypass surgery or other problems.  I might well
live a little longer than you because I hope to die of old age not some problem
you would wish upon me or what you expect for yourself, but more importantly I
expect to enjoy life up until that time.

>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

We are in fact more than willing to act as witnesses for ourselves, and that is
something we do very well.  You say that I slander your motives, yet you
certainly slander mine.  I have said many times that most doctors have good
motives.  Few of our kind dislike doctors for their motives.  When doctors
recognize us for what we are then we can both talk about our mutual problem for
the benefit of all.


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