Woman wrongfully prescribed chemo treatment ... cancer doctors are often incompetent or unethical

Friday, September 02, 2016 by: Vicki Batts
Tags: chemotherapy, bad medicine, cancer doctors

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(NaturalNews) Jodi Huggett, a mother of two from North East Lincolnshire, was wrongfully prescribed chemotherapy treatments she did not need. After undergoing four grueling treatments, Mrs. Huggett discovered her doctor hadn't even conducted basic research to determine the best line of treatment for her specific type of cancer.

The 41-year-old was diagnosed with a low-grade cancerous growth in her colon. She underwent surgery to have the tumor removed, and several rounds of chemo were prescribed as follow-up treatment. Mrs. Huggett suffered anaphylactic shock twice while receiving her chemo treatments, but still managed to brave through the therapy week after week. However, when approaching her fifth treatment, Mrs. Huggett decided to do some more research to see if it was all really necessary.

Her research confirmed her worst fears: She had been made to suffer through weeks of arduous chemotherapy treatments for no reason. Basic guidelines suggested that chemotherapy wasn't even necessary for the type of cancer she had. Mrs. Huggett found a specialist center called the Royal Free Hospital, which is located in London, and contacted them to see about getting a second opinion.

Mrs. Huggett told The Daily Mail, "They told me chemotherapy never has and never will be proven to work on a tumour like the one I had and the only way it would have been required was for a palliative care patient, which I wasn't." She told the news outlet that she was both heartbroken and shocked that she had truly been given treatment that was totally unnecessary.

The Royal Free Hospital contacted Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Castle Hill Hospital where Mrs. Huggett was treated, and politely informed them that they were treating their patient incorrectly.

Mrs. Huggett has taken legal action against the Hull and East Trust, and will receive compensation for her suffering. The Trust conceded that: "The oncologist failed to consider accepted UK and European guidelines with regards to the most suitable course of treatment." Hull and East also admitted that the decision to offer chemotherapy violated the hospital's duty of care.

Mrs. Huggett suffered from an array of side effects following her chemotherapy treatments, including coldness of the lips, fingers and toes, fatigue, and tingling sensations. She is absolutely disgusted by what she was forced to endure, and by all of the needless treatment costs. In addition to being an unnecessary burden for Huggett, she notes that it was also a tremendous waste of NHS resources. Fortunately, Mrs. Huggett was declared totally cancer-free by the specialists at Royal Free Hospital, and hopefully won't ever have to deal with such horrible treatment again.

Chemotherapy is widely used but is not effective for many types of cancer. A 2004 study published by the journal Clinical Oncology revealed that of all adult cancers in the USA, chemotherapy's contribution to 5-year-survival rates was only about 2.1 percent. Australians didn't fare much better, with a meager 2.3 percent contribution to their 5-year-survival rate. Australian researchers from the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Northern Sydney Cancer Centre of the Royal North Shore Hospital gathered data on 22 major malignancies from both the US and Australia. They sought to determine chemotherapy's contribution to the five-year-survival rate, and their results were really quite shocking; chemo doesn't seem to provide much benefit at all. In their conclusion, the study authors stated: "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."

The researchers also called for a "rigorous evaluation" of the cost-efficiency of chemotherapy, as well its impact on quality of life. Will science ever dare to suggest that chemotherapy has actually been harming thousands of people for no reason?

Sources:

DailyMail.co.uk

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov