Oncology group claims obese people aren't getting enough chemotherapy - Higher poison guidelines being adopted

Saturday, October 05, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: oncology doctors, obese people, chemotherapy

(NaturalNews) American waistlines are apparently becoming too large for conventional cancer therapy, which means poison doses need to increase in order to achieve the same treatment outcomes. This is according to a new study recently published in the American Society of Clinical Oncology's (ASCO) Journal of Clinical Oncology, which recommends that the guidelines for treating obese adult cancer patients be expanded to allow for the administration of higher doses of toxic chemotherapy.

As reported by USA Today, researchers from the country's largest organization of doctors who treat cancer are adamantly pushing for more chemotherapy to treat those whom they claim are "under-treated," mainly larger individuals who do not meet the standard dosage criteria for chemotherapy. According to their assessment, the survival rate among obese cancer patients is lower than it is among the standard weight population, a direct result of not receiving enough chemotherapy, they claim.

You can think of it kind of like the late McDonald's "Supersize" ordering option, except instead of a Double Quarter Pounder with fries and a drink, a cancer patient gets an extra large order of cytotoxic drugs. Existing guidelines prevent oncologists from administering more than the set amount of chemotherapy -- many are also looking out for their patients' health, as chemotherapy is devastatingly toxic -- but these could soon change.

Gary Lyman, an oncologist at Duke University in North Carolina, and others who headed the advisory panel that recently issued these new guidelines insist that higher chemotherapy doses will benefit the obese population with cancer. Everything from breast, colon and lung cancers to blood diseases like leukemia can be better treated with higher doses of chemotherapy, they claim, even though the size of patients' bodily organs is still roughly the same.

More chemotherapy means more profits for the cancer industry

Such injurious and reckless advice is hardly surprising, as ASCO is heavily vested in modalities like chemotherapy that are the bread and butter of the conventional cancer industry. Even so, the group says many obese patients receive less than 85 percent of what has been deemed an appropriate dose of chemotherapy for their respective weight and that doctors need to be allowed to recommend a full weight-based dose.

What this all means, of course, is even higher profits for the cancer industry, which already rakes in more than $200 billion annually according to the most recent estimates. Considering that about 60 percent of Americans are now considered to be overweight, and 30 percent obese, this translates into a revenue boost of considerable measure, especially due to the fact that cancer cells flock to fat tissue.

"It's like a playground, an amusement park, for cancer cells when you're fat," said Robin McRath, a floral designer from Michigan who had previously been diagnosed with breast cancer, to the Associated Press. McRath, who weighs about 240 pounds, reportedly underwent full-dose chemotherapy for her weight and still survived.

Sources for this article include:

http://usatoday.com

http://natmonitor.com

http://washingtonpost.com

http://science.naturalnews.com