These are some sample items from one of the Online Updates we provide
to clients of The Moss Reports. Every month, I update your Report by commenting
on late-breaking developments affecting cancer patients. The emphasis
is on news you can use and will give resource information. This online
newsletter complements another new feature, our monthly telephone update,
whose phone number is provided to patients with their report. We also
offer sympathetic follow-up answers to questions, which clients get by
calling my coordinator, Anne Beattie on her private line.
PROSTATE CANCER AND SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS: Scientists at the University
of California at Davis are setting up a clinical trial of a mushroom extract
to treat people with rising PSA levels. This will be the first clinical
trial of a shiitake extract outside of Japan, where such medicines are
very popular. The six month study will utilize 60 men who have been treated
for prostate cancer by conventional means but still have rising levels
of prostate specific antigen (PSA). The participants will be given "activated
hexose-containing compound," an extract of shiitake, a flavorful
mushroom that is commonly eaten for its culinary qualities. Study participants
will take six grams of the fungal extract per 50 kilograms of body weight.
For the average man, that's about 16 to 25 gel caps of "activated
hexose-containing compound" daily with meals.
RESOURCES [provided to clients]
BREAST CANCER AND BETA-CAROTENE: The antioxidant vitamin beta-carotene
has gotten some bad press in recent years. You probably remember a study
from Finland showing that smokers who took beta-carotene supplements had
a somewhat higher rate of lung cancer than did those who didn't take the
supplement. It was hard to know how to interpret those findings. But now
comes a report that may restore some luster to this vitamin (the vegetable
precursor of vitamin A). It shows that a diet rich in sources of beta-carotene
intake is linked to lower breast cancer risk in post-menopausal women.
The study was published in the January, 1999 issue of the journal Epidemiology.
The subjects were Swedish women. Aisha Jumaan of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia and colleagues in the US and
Sweden found that the beneficial effect shows itself after a year and
a half of beta-carotene consumption. And the relationship is strongest
in women whose diets had been rich in sources of beta-carotene for at
least 20 years before diagnosis or screening.
RESOURCES:It would be perfectly logical for women
trying to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer to consume foods that
are high in beta-carotene in their routine diets. Beta-carotene is
mainly found in highly colorful vegetables. Carrots are the major source
in American diets, while yellow-green vegetables in Japan and red palm
oil in West Africa constitute the major dietary source. Other good sources
of beta-carotene include kale, pumpkins, spinach, sweet potatoes, Swiss
chard, apricots, cantaloupes, papayas, and peaches. It is safe to eat
abundant amounts of these vegetables although, as I have said, a cloud
still hangs over mega-doses of beta-carotene supplements, especially as
single synthetic agents used by smokers.
MASPIN--DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP: Some of our clients have been
asking about a new drug called Maspin, which made it into the media in
December. High hopes were raised in some stories of a new "miracle
breakthrough." The facts are these:
Maspin was discovered in 1994. It is a" tumor suppressor gene"
that is found in normal breast tissue. It can inhibit the invasiveness
and metastatic ability of breast cancer cells.Analysis of human breast
cancer specimens showed that the loss of maspin expression occurred most
frequently in advanced cancers. (Without the ability to spread to vital
organs and sites, breast cancer would be little more than a big annoyance.)
Scientists at the University of Iowa have now reported that they have
synthesized a version of maspin by gene splicing technology, so-called
r-maspin. They speculate that maspin alters cancer cells and converts
them into their more benign equivalent cells.
This is all still laboratory work no clinical trials are listed at the
National Cancer Institute site. It will be several years (if ever) before
a drug is approved and released.
SUN SOUP: Some of you are familiar with Sun Soup, a vegetable
mixture many of our clients take...Some weeks ago I received some claims
that the soup was not being produced in an entirely sanitary or ethical
manner. Since the soup is produced in a small plant in Connecticut and
is shipped frozen (on dry ice) I became quite concerned: the last thing
a cancer patient needs is a bacterial or fungal infection!
For that reason, I take all such reports very seriously. I not only called
Dr. Alexander Sun but requested (and got) the complete records of all
health inspections from the Milford, CT Board of Health. They were very
cooperative. From what I could see, Dr. Sun has with few exceptions passed
all his inspections with high marks, and all problems have been corrected.
In fact, because of our call, the Board of Health staged a surprise inspection
of the Sun Soup facility shortly thereafter. I myself went up to Milford,
Connecticut in mid-December to visit the facility and meet with Dr. Sun
and his staff. I am very happy to report that the facility has now passed
both the official and my unofficial inspections with flying colors. The
Health Department gave him a 95 score (out of a possible 100). One very
minor violation was immediately cleared up. I also had the pleasure of
meeting with Ellen Lewis, PhD, the former Yale biologist whom Dr. Sun
has just hired to investigate the scientific properties of the soup. Overall,
as always, I was favorably impressed with Dr. Sun's work. Why, then, the
negative reports? I think that Dr. Sun may have been the victim of a "dirty
tricks" campaign by some disgruntled individuals who will go nameless...
RITA AND LIVER CANCER: RITA stands for "radiofrequency interstitial
tumor ablation." It is a way of killing tumors in the liver and promises
shorter hospital stays and fewer side effects than standard treatments.
It is known that liver cancer patients whose tumors can be surgically
removed have about a 30 percent chance of five-year survival. But, unfortunately,
80 percent of primary liver cancers cannot be removed surgically by the
time they are diagnosed. That's because often they are located close to
major blood vessels. A combination of chemotherapy and cryosurgery (i.e.,
freezing the tumor) has been tried and is occasionally successful. But
this often requires extensive hospitalization and can cause bleeding as
well as kidney complications. Enter RITA. With this new techniques, patients
do not need to undergo general anesthesia and can usually leave the hospital
the same day. Apparently, there are no side effects. A catheter is attached
to four prongs which deliver electrical energy to the tumor. Surgery is
then performed through tiny incisions of less than an inch) and with small
lighted cameras perched at the end of long tubes. When the tissue temperatures
rise above 113 degrees Fahrenheit, the cancer cells are damaged and killed.
RESOURCES [Provided to clients.]
GONZALEZ AND PANCREATIC CANCER: A clinical trial is about to begin
of the Nicholas Gonzalez (or Kelley) method of treating cancer. Some patients
with pancreatic cancer will taught this method and then will be compared
to a group receiving just an FDA-approved form of chemotherapy. The trial
will take place at Columbia University, under the direction of Karen Antman,
MD, past president of the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
A big advantage is that both treatments will be free to participant.s
(The National Cancer Institute, at my request, agreed to finance the clinical
trial.).If you are randomized to the arm you do not want to be in, you
can of course back away from the trial and request treatment outside the
study. But for that you will have to pay your own money.) This is an excellent
opportunity. I just spent about half a day reviewing some of Dr. Gonzalez's
recent cases. I remained convinced that this is an excellent program overall,
especially for pancreatic cancer.
RESOURCES [Provided to clients.]
POLITICAL NOTES:
JAMA EDITOR FIRED!
1/16/99-- I woke up this morning astonished, angered and saddened to
learn that George Lundberg, MD, had been fired as editor of the Journal
of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The ostensible reason was
that he published a research article about college students' sexual attitudes
and moved the article up to coincide with President Clinton's impeachment
trial. But this so-called "oral sex" article was a flimsy pretext
for getting rid of Dr. Lundberg. In the past year, Dr. Lundberg has been
trying to chart a new course in relation to complementary and alternative
medicine. In sharp distinction to his rivals at the New England Journal
of Medicine, he has favored and published good research on these topics.
An AMA spokesperson said the firing came from a culmination of a general
"displeasure in the direction the journal has been taking" recently.
ABC News reported that "To many in mainstream medicine, in fact,
the firing may come as no surprise. Lundberg had recently published a
special issue of JAMA filled with studies on alternative medicine - massage,
chiropractic, herbs, homeopathy and other therapies not widely taught
or used in conventional health care settings. One study found that burning
herbs at acupuncture points on a woman's body worked effectively to flip
a breach baby around. Another article criticized doctors for having moved
away from performing large numbers of autopsies. Lundberg, 65, declined
to discuss the reason or release any other details on the advice of his
attorney, but told The Associated Press: 'This is a really big story,
especially when you find out why.' "
I can't wait to find out why. I hope that Dr. Lundberg will published
a tell-all book about the inner workings of the AMA and its journal. That
would be something well worth reading. However, having myself been fired
from a "prestigious" medical institution for getting too sympathetic
to alternative medicine, my heart goes out to the doctor. He has been
compared to another well known JAMA editor, Morris Fishbein, MD, but the
contrast couldn't be greater. It was Fishbein who set the frantic quackbusting
tone of JAMA for decades. Lundberg tried to correct that and bring the
association gracefully into the new millennium. Like many a pioneer, he
got it in the neck for his efforts.
A note about autopsies: You will notice the glancing reference to a Lundberg-sponsored
article criticizing doctors for "having moved away from performing
large numbers of autopsies..." Huh? Does a journal editor of 17 years
standing get fired for advocating autopsies? What the article actually
said, however, was that much hidden or occult cancer goes undiagnosed
and undetected because doctors have all but stopped doing routine autopsies--down
from about 50 percent to 5 percent in the last two decades. There was
a "44 percent discordance rate" between the actual and the reported
cancer deaths. The implications of this are vast: that the vaunted slight
downturn in cancer deaths is not real, but is an artifact of the decline
in autopsies at American hospitals. The implication is that the war on
cancer is failing across the board, but is being hidden from us (and Congress)
by clever manipulation of the data. While Lundberg never came out and
said this in public it was the clear implication of the research article
he published. This undermines the credibility of the entire cancer establishment.
Check
the abstract out for yourself.
It's a bit frightening that such a highly revered figure as Dr. Lundberg
can be fired in this ignominious way. I remember a conversation I had
with Robert A. Good, MD, PhD about 25 years ago. Dr. Good was president
of Sloan-Kettering Institute, I was his chief science writer. In the course
of dinner at the "21 Club" he said, "You know I'm just
like you...They can fire me at the drop of a hat." (I don't know
what sedition I was preaching at the moment.) A few years later, Dr. Good
and his colleagues fired me because of my statements in the laetrile affair.
And shortly after that, Dr. Good himself was unceremoniously removed from
his post. So there are indeed "powers-that-be" in American medicine,
and they can pull strings. Exit Dr. Lundberg.
Nonetheless, I remain very optimistic about the long-term trend. This
desperate act just shows how powerful complementary and alternative medicine
(CAM) has become. The reactionaries at the AMA and elsewhere can rant
and rail and scheme. But the overall trend is towards a greater openness,
good studies, and the eventually integration of the best of CAM with the
best of conventional medicine.
[Plus see our further comments in the February 1999 Onlne Update, available
to clients.]
