New leukemia treament exceeds 'wildest expectations'

Doctors have treated only three leukemia patients, but the sensational results from a single shot could be one of the most significant advances in cancer research in decades. And it almost never happened. In the research published Wednesday, doctors at the University of Pennsylvania say the treatment made the most common type of leukemia completely disappear in two of the patients and reduced it by 70 percent in the third. In each of the patients as much as five pounds of cancerous tissue completely melted away in a few weeks, and a year later it is still gone

I was speaking of two distinct types of “cancer” and two distinct things that have a direct effect on them. The generalization is on your part. Note also that one of the medical reports had a pharmaceutical base and one was a nutritional base.

So, indeed I do mean with all intent, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. At no point did I say IGNORE YOUR DOCTOR! I see I am triggering a hot button, and as this conversation grows I can see things like “cancer industry” and “scorn modern medicine” coming out.

Interesting. But not my problem, your offense with others in your past. Just don't paint me with your wide brush.

Both medical studies I was talking about came from “modern medicine”, both were published. It is our great advances in medicine that brought this understanding about. While I understand there is a political undercurrent between Naturopatic and Adamistic branch's of medicine, I have no dog in the race. I go to the doctors I need when I need them.

Indeed I am of the “better to be healthy than doctored” set. But I suspect the wisdom of that is obvious.

My point, with all your personal bent taken out is this; There is far more technology out there than any one branch of medicine can hold. If you take a simply mechanistic viewpoint like this DNA method, you could think that this is the only way. I was pointing out two different ways to accomplish the same thing to the same degree. Once in Adamistic medicine, the other in Naturopathic. I would have included a Holistic method, but I have yet to hear of a successful treatment with this level of success by Holistic methods.

That is why I did not bring up that branch. Funny, that is the branch you tried to put me on so you could chop it off.

Now this technology you support by this one blog post, which uses DNA tinkering has had that level of success, but I personally distrust the level of science we have when it comes to recombinant DNA injections in my own person. I suspect this may in the long run have subtle and very fatal side effects.

So, I post to balance the issue. This article leaned a bit to heavy for me in the “WE CURED CANCER” cheerleading section. Cancer is a very wide based label to lump everything under. It is a word we use when we DO NOT UNDERSTAND what the problem is. Its like AIDS. I dunno = Aids in doctor speak.

So, perhaps you can see, I actually feel a lot like you about cancer, not in a narrow vitamin cure all sense you suspected on my part, but in a “do your homework” the issue is very broad sense.

And if people will think about what I say, and not just fill in the blanks with what they think, perhaps I might just save some lives. But if they insist on having a closed mind, then the cure they want is the cure they get. I can't help people think, I can only point out doors where some think there are no other choices. My Mom was "cured" of cancer, with chemo and radiation. Wasn't much left of her after that. But, hey, she did not die of cancer. Not directly anyway. Good luck with your issue, what ever it was. A little nutritional boost with some organic foods, and less processed foods would not hurt in making sure the last surgery you had is indeed your last. What the heck, it wouldn't hurt and would taste better!

you continue to attribute to me things I do not say or believe, while you ignore your own overly broad statements which triggered this (admittedly too heated) exchange.... below are some of your own comments in the thread above, which are indeed much too general and vague and "broad brush" in cynicism about the potential benefits of chemo or radiation or the "cancer industry" (your phrase not mine -- and it is you who addressed your remarks both to my case, of which you know nothing, and to "cancer" in general, to which I objected as an over-generalization of whatever point you were trying to make):

I suspect the Cancer industry is more of a hindrance than a help. Spending Billions on the known wrong angle is worse than spending nothing.

Now this is the odd question of the day, If chemotherapy drugs are known carcinogen’s, and radiation is a knows carcinogenic, why do they use them both to “cure” cancer? Is it because it costs six figures?

Strange, when pointed to a change in lifestyle that could be linked to cancer you prefer poison, and surgery and want everyone else to go that way too.

very strange...

To me the best way to beat cancer is not to get it, and if I did get it, find out why and what it is. To take the word of a Doctor that says they want to cut you up but don't know what cancer is or what causes it vs finding a Doctor that at least thinks they understand the cause of the issue is difficult to understand.

Did you know that fungus will split the DNA in a cell and glue it to its outside to camouflage it from the immune system? Did you know that triggers the test for malignancy?

No?! Why not? I suggest you do your own homework for a change.

Oh, the quote game! How fun!

“What you are saying is farcical…You have no idea what you are talking about…You speak like the kind of zealot that has killed people…, I suggest you learn to recognize your own vast ignorance…Unlike you I know the subject…I recognize the complexities and difficulties of these matters. You do not…your ignorance is dangerous…

And the point of this all is? “…you know nothing about the kind of cancer I had…”

Might I point out that this is not about you? It is about recombinant DNA. Or did you have recombinant DNA therapy and did not mention that?

I am sorry that you got cancer, sorry that there was no other way than surgery and radiation, a treatment scenario that is barbaric at best. Bravo to you to for sticking with it, that is one tough road to hoe.

But, I was not writing to you, but to others that may not have done their homework like you said you did.

However I for one do not find your abuse enchanting. Had you had breast cancer or leukemia, would you have been happy to find that there is working alternatives according to studies? Or would you have pissed on me for that too? One would think I stepped on your favorite kitten the way you reacted.

No biggie, one nice thing about this world, its not all your way or the highway. Others can have opinions too, no matter how dangerous it all seems to you. Hope your cancer does not come back, I do suggest you look into the fungal link with cancer, you might have missed that point. A little anti-fungal diet change just might “save or create” on less cancer death in the future. ( now don’t get all irritated, if its good enough for the president, I can use it too..)

Goodbye. Have a nice life.

sorry, you're the one who spoke, repeatedly, in wild generalities about "cancer" and "poison" and "carcinogens" of chemo and radiation, and of a doctor who wants to "cut you up".... and you're the one who was using the 2nd person "you" to me as though you had something to say about my experiences with cancer and treatment.

You can pretend now that it was not your slovenly language that gave rise to these misunderstandings, but I suggest you learn to speak/write accurately and with a pretense of precision. If you did not mean to speak of all 200+ types of "cancer" then you should have used some specification of what you were talking about. If you did not mean to speak of what I went through (about which you know nothing) then you should not have repeatedly used the word "you" in speaking so dismissively. There is nothing of value I have learned from you in this exchange, and I did not appreciate your patronizing attitudes and vast over-generalizations. I still don't.

a few examples of your mis-statements from which you now seem to retreat:

What you do with it is up to you. Google is your friend..... Strange, when pointed to a change in lifestyle that could be linked to cancer you prefer poison, and surgery and want everyone else to go that way too. very strange.... To take the word of a Doctor that says they want to cut you up but don't know what cancer is or what causes it vs finding a Doctor that at least thinks they understand the cause of the issue is difficult to understand.

as I've said, none of these words/thoughts of yours have anything to do with me, since they (1) do not apply to my case or experiences, and (2) despite your repetitions of the word "you" they must apply only to some mysterious episode you are imagining somewhere else. I did research my case extensively, took without question the best courses of treatment which have been successful for 9 years, and did not have any possible "lifestyle" issues that had anything to do with my cancer. So it's your careless language which gave rise to these misunderstandings.

Obviously you choose to be offended. Go for it, some people are just that way. I was not speaking to you. Its a blog son. Its bigger than that. And you dont need my opinion, YMMV on anything anyone says.

Science marches on my friend. If Chemo and Surgery is all you believe in thats fine, its your body. But the one thing I do not have to put up with is you being such an ass on your replies. You are down right abusive over some self percieved insult. I frankly do not give a rip what you believe of me, the world is big enough that we will never hopefully run into each other and I am fine with that...

I Prefer nicer people. You are not that. You are however insulting and tiring. So I will solve that problem and press the Plonk button.

—PLONK—

I see what our problem is here: you cannot speak with any degree of precision or accuracy, and you are oblivious to how slovenly your language really is.

You say “you” in posts of reply to me individually, when you don’t mean to say “you” (me) at all.

You say “cancer” as though referring to all of the 200+ illnesses that are regarded as cancerous when you have some very specific limited sub-set in mind.

You say “cancer industry” in a most dismissive context (in a sentence referring to billions of dollars squandered) when you may not mean that after all.

You dismiss “chemo” and “radiation” and “surgery” as though always bad when maybe you don’t really mean that.

You talk of doctors longing to “cut you up” for no good reason... maybe you really do mean that, but I don’t know of any oncological surgeons like that.

As for me, I never would have commented beyond my initial remark had “you” not addressed such detailed commments back to “you” (as me). If you did not mean “you” and had someone else in mind, then don’t post to me specifically (by clicking on the reply button) while saying “you”....

If I have some hot buttons on these issues.... yes I do, people who speak wildly, carelessly, irresponsibly, recklessly in ways that mis-lead others on such important and sensitive subjects.

And you still prove incapable of owning up to your own reckless exaggerations when they are clearly pointed out to you. That is contemptible, and yes I do have a hot button on that kind of behavior when it involves purveying mis-information on matters of life and death.

No I do not for a moment only “believe in” chemo or radiation or surgery, although I know what was a reliable and extensively-tested set of treatments for my very specific case. I never assume that many other cases are similar.... the details of diagnosis, prognosis, and recommended treatments vary enormously.

I would never want anyone to go through what I went through unnecessarily, or at all if any better alternative were feasible.

Among other reasons for my distress at the recklessness of your remarks has been that I have come to know so many patients, families, oncologists and other medical professionals etc. And your glib contempt for so many of them did have much “personal” resonance for me.

My (unsolicited) advice to “you” is to not address comments to “you” if you don’t mean that, and to not make such large generalizations if you do not mean them.

We would have had no issue here had I not seen you speaking in ways that I have known to be extremely harmful to other equally careless minds who do not trouble to get their facts and details straight.

This comment (I hope my last on this thread) is for anyone reading my heated exchanges above with "American in Israel" --- the reasons I was (justifiably) very angry, although I do not like to resort to calling someone "idiot" etc., is because that person continually made gross over-generalizations, inaccurate mis-statements posted and spoken directly to "you" (me) at several places in the thread etc. I do not typically like to get into any flame war, but I detest people who spread careless mis-information about cancer when patients and families are struggling to deal with matters of life-and-death.

For "the record" I want to add one more example of the kinds of gross, careless distortions that characterized these posts of "American in Israel".... because the example below shows once again that AII was either (1) not discussing these matters in honest good faith, or else (2) is totally incompetent at reading comprehension and citation. In AII's post just above, there is this gloss of one of my statments further up the thread. AII quotes me as saying....

"...Unlike you I know the subject..."
as though I were putting myself forward as some perfect expert able to comment categorically on all cases of cancer (which no one in the world is expert enough to do). In other comments AII repeatedly asserts that I "believe in" chemo, radiation, and surgery for all cases of cancer, when in fact I emphatically said the opposite, repeatedly.

Here below, for any honest and fair-minded FReeper who wonders what this was all about, is what I actually said in the sentence which AII so brutally and carelessly truncated to "unlike you I know the subject" (giving the false impression that I say and believe the opposite of many of my actual beliefs and experiences of cancer related matters:

"Unlike you I know the subject is vast and varied, that there are myriad causes and effects involved, and that every patient and case must be looked at closely as a unique instance. There are many reasons someone might not want or need chemo or surgery or radiation or bone marrow transplants etc. All I'm saying is that there are many cases NOT covered by your blanket pronouncements...."

For any "reasonable" reader of the above I think it should be clear that AII is either (1) engaging in conscious sophistical dishonesty, wildly distorting comments into things I never said or believed, or else (2) AII is totally incompetent to engage in reasoned discussions of this kind. Because AII continually ran away from AII's own inaccurate, misleading comments while continually mis-characterizing my own comments.

I believe this is quite evident when seeing how AII totally mis-used my "unlike you I know the subject" expression to mis-represent my own statements. That is indeed the kind of reckless verbal behavior that gets other people angry, and which creates and sustains human misunderstandings.

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