“Fake” cancer diagnoses on the rise

We have heard a lot about “fake news” lately. And, sad to say, the problems of fake reporting apply to health and medicine as well.

In fact, one recent headline said that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) admits that much of the $100 billion per year cancer industry is spent on toxic chemotherapy treatments for “fake” cancer diagnoses. In these cases, men and women receive a cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment, but they don’t really have cancer.

Breast cancer, for example, is often not cancer at all but a non-cancerous condition called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Nonetheless, these women — millions of them over the years — have been treated with toxic therapies for a condition that would never have caused them any health problems. Mammography screening has also led to the over-diagnosis of breast cancer, detecting tumors that would not have been clinically significant in the patients’ lifetimes.

My friend and colleague, Dr. George Lundberg — former editor of the Journal of the AMA and founding editor of Medscape —  just this week sent me a new Dutch study showing that women diagnosed with DCIS actually have lower death rates, and live longer, than women who are “cancer-free,” according to the upside-down cancer screening industry.

Men have not escaped false diagnosis either. A prostate tumor called high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN) is a pre-malignant precursor that doctors commonly mistreat as if it were actual malignant cancer.

As I have previously reported, according to an expert panel convened by the NCI itself, tens of millions of cases that have been diagnosed as “cancer” over the years weren’t really cancer at all. But they were treated as cancer anyway.

So — a large part of the $100 billion-per-year cancer treatment industry was not only wasted, but harmful — causing systemic toxicity, damage to the immune system, and “chemo-brain” cognitive side effects (essentially inducing a form of dementia).

And many of these side effects actually increase the risk of developing a future cancer —leading to more second, third and even fourth cancers that are virtually untreatable. (For more information about these subsequent cancers, refer to the January 2016 issue of my Insiders’ Cures newsletter. If you’re a newsletter subscriber, you can access that archived issue on my website, www.drmicozzi.com, with your username and password. If you’re not yet a subscriber, now is the perfect time to get started.)

But it gets even worse than this systemic bias of unnecessary diagnosis and treatment in the cancer oncology industry. There are cases where unscrupulous, dishonest oncologists have intentionally and knowingly misdiagnosed and mislead their unsuspecting patients into getting these dangerous, expensive and wholly unnecessary cancer “treatments,” just to make more money.

The word “cancer” often conjures up the image of an inexorably lethal process and outcome. However, tumor growths that have been labeled as “cancer” are very diverse. Most of them never progress to invasion (deeper into tissues), metastases (traveling to distant sites in the body), or death.

However, the diagnosis of “cancer” today seems to include conditions that are slow-growing and never cause any harm during the patients’ lifetimes.

Mislabeling cancer has grave consequences

This mislabeling is a grave mistake. As Dr. Lundberg often points out, we should not call a condition “cancer” if it never causes any harm, let alone death.

Tragically, many oncologists, and the “pink ribbon” breast cancer industry, prey on this systematic over-diagnosis, calling essentially harmless tumors by the name “cancer.” It scares patients into getting unnecessary treatments. For breast cancer, many women remain convinced that conventional medical screening and treatments “saved their lives.” But the science now shows that their lives were never at risk.

The NCI panel itself warned, “Physicians, patients, and the general public must recognize that over-diagnosis is common and occurs more frequently with cancer screening.”

Consumer health advocate, Mike Adams actually calls it “medical terrorism.”

The government likes to label permanent wars because it scares citizens into yielding them more power and resources — whether the “war on cancer” or the “war on terror.”

Little did we suspect, at least according to Adams, that some of the terrorists are part of the “war on cancer.”

My advice?

Always, always, always get a second opinion. Arrange your care at one of the many federally funded “comprehensive cancer centers” around the country. The National Cancer Institute certifies these facilities. And they must also follow competent, thorough and ethical protocols for diagnosis and treatment. You will still be dealing with the built-in biases of the mainstream cancer industry. But you’ll eliminate the possibility of being a victim of outright unethical fraud.

Source:

  1. “Women treated for precursor of breast cancer can expect to live as long as other women,” European Cancer Congress (http://www.eccocongress.org) 1/28/2017