Top doctors: Chemotherapy one of dozens of procedures shown to 'give no benefit'

Thursday, October 27, 2016 by: Vicki Batts
Tags: cancer, chemotherapy, ineffective medicine

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(NaturalNews) Chemotherapy is arguably one of the medical industry's biggest frauds. Perhaps that's why it recently landed on a list of ineffectual treatments drawn up by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC).

The list was created by 11 top specialists, who were each asked to think of five treatments they felt provided little to no patient benefits. And surprise, surprise – chemotherapy was one of them. Doctors from the AMRC said that chemotherapy cannot cure terminal cancer, and may bring unneeded distress in the final months of life. The Guardian reported:

"The treatment is 'by its very nature toxic', the college said. "Therefore, the combination of failing to achieve a response and causing toxicity can 'do more harm than good.'"

Do more harm than good? You don't say.

Research has shown that in some hospitals, up to 50 percent of cancer patients are dying, not from their disease, but from chemotherapy drugs. For the first time ever, researchers actually looked at the numbers of patients who were dying within 30 days of chemotherapy administration, which could indicate that the treatment was the cause of death rather than the cancer. What they found was horrifying.

The study, which was conducted by Public Health England and Cancer Research UK, found that the average 30-day mortality rate across England was about 8.4 percent for lung cancer and 2.5 percent for breast cancer. But, in some hospitals, those numbers were much higher. For example, at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, the 30 day mortality rate for palliative chemotherapy for lung cancer was 28 percent. In Milton Keynes, the death rate for lung cancer treatment soared up to 50.9 percent.

The research revealed that the death rate for lung cancer patients was higher than average in several areas, including Blackpool, Coventry, Derby, South Tyneside, Surrey and Sussex.

The data also revealed that about 1-in-5 people who underwent palliative care for breast cancer at Cambridge University Hospitals died because of chemotherapy treatment.

Of course, the industry was quick to defend their practices, with doctors suggesting that these occurrences could simply be the outcome of data problems, noting that even a few deaths could skew statistics.

However, no one really argued with the fact that chemotherapy is indeed a toxin. It doesn't discriminate; it kills cancerous cells and healthy cells – and therein lies the rub. It may kill the cancer, but not without increasing your risks of getting cancer again in the future.

A 2004 study also found that cytotoxic chemotherapy does very little towards enhancing cancer survivors' 5-year survival rates. The research, which was led by scientists from the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Northern Sydney Cancer Centre of the Royal North Shore Hospital, located in Sydney, Australia, raised serious questions about the actual efficacy of curative and adjuvant chemotherapies.

What they found was that in Australia chemo only contributed 2.3 percent to the 5-year survival rate in adults, and in the U.S., that number dropped to 2.1 percent. These findings suggest that overall, chemotherapy truly provides very little benefit to any patient's survival. In their conclusion, the study authors wrote, "As the 5-year relative survival rate for cancer in Australia is now over 60%, it is clear that cytotoxic chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival. To justify the continued funding and availability of drugs used in cytotoxic chemotherapy, a rigorous evaluation of the cost-effectiveness and impact on quality of life is urgently required."

The AMRC urges doctors and patients to question whether or not particular treatments are necessary. After all, unwarranted and harmful treatments are truly anything but medicine.

Sources:

BBC.com

TheGuardian.com

Telegraph.co.uk

Cancer.org^[PDF]

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov