NCI, a key institute of NIH, has put the bulk of its billion dollar budget into promoting highly toxic forms of therapy, or pursuing unproductive areas of basic research. It has put forward unrealistic goals for cancer control, and then refused to acknowledge the failure of its strategy. In the past, NCI often joined in, or initiated, attacks on promising non-toxic alternatives.
In recent years, however, there have been welcome signs of change.... And now NIH has convened this ad hoc committee on "unconventional medical practices."
In general, NIH is not initiating these changes but responding to political pressures. In a more profound sense, however, political leaders respond to the concerns of their constituents. And politicians are realizing that there is a shift in Americas thinking on the cancer issue. Americans in general are disillusioned with the "war on cancer." They have seen many promises, but little substantive progress over the last two decadesãrising incidence rates, but static cure rates.
Alarmed by these trends, the American Cancer Society (ACS) recently published a study of non-toxic treatments (Ca, May-June, 1992). The study found that over nine percent of American cancer patients already are using alternative treatments. But that number rises steadily with income and education, reaching nearly 14 percent in the higher income groups. Thus, many Americans, especially the inuential opinion-makers, are shifting over to the side of alternative medicine.
The ACS authors (themselves deeply hostile to such methods) conclude that "there are many reason to anticipate an ascendant trend" of what they call "questionable" therapy. One reason they give is the "declining trust in the medical profession." But that distrust is mainly directed at the leaders of American medicine, not most practitioners. Astonishingly, the largest number of patients gave as their primary source of information on alternative cancer therapiesãtheir physicians themselves. The "cancer establishment" is thus losing control not just of the most inuential part of its patient base, but of many front-line medical practitioners who see Þrst-hand the futility of conventional treatments in many cases.
NIH is certainly aware of these trends and must eventually face the fact that non-toxic treatments are the wave of the future. If NIH at this time is only reluctantly responding to immediate political pressure, while looking for ways to weaken or destroy the alternative movement, we will have no recourse but to Þght them. If on the other hand NIH is now serious about launching a new era of cooperation, then we will enthusiastically work with them towards our common goal, the conquest of cancer.
###