Cancer is NOT normal

[Guest guest]

PCS & All,

I think the information put out by this " Prostate Cancer Information

Link " is in danger of being classified as 'junk science'. Whoever owns

the site should really clean up their act so the useful material is

not tainted with the same stigma as the rubbish. I refer to this, for

example which suggests a medical observer from the 1930's is saying

that " cancer is normal " :-

http://prostatecancerinfolink.net/risk-prevention/cancer-is-normal/

Which is actually a misrepresentation of what the author was trying to

say about latent occult PC - NOT the deadly malignant variety that

characterises a significant proportion of the prostate cancers

diagnosed in the 21st century :-

" .. the writer has been impressed by the frequency of the small

carcinomas that have been found in the prostate in the routine autopsy

material of this department. "

Rich AR. Classics in oncology. On the frequency of occurrence of

occult carcinoma of the prostate: Arnold Rice Rich, M.D., Journal of

Urology 33:3, 1935. CA Cancer J Clin. 1979 Mar-Apr;29(2):115-9. PubMed

PMID: 108001.

If you go back to the archetypal medical observer - Grey from the

1850's - you will find no occurrences of prostate cancer in the

general population. Grey's Anatomy of 1850 devotes some time to

describing the pathologies the prostate is likely to encounter, but

nowhere does it suggest prostatic malignancy is a common feature of

prostate disease.

But we need not stop there. If prostatic malignancy existed in any

human population from Ancient Eqypt to China*, the tell-tale evidence

of raised PSA would be found in tissue samples from the grave.

Moreover, evidence of changes in androgen receptor cell expression,

and other DNA properties, characteristic of advanced prostate cancer

would also be easily detected IF they existed.

That this evidence has not been found indicates clearly prostate

cancer is a new disease - a disease of modern civilisation.

* Readers may be surprised to learn that in many ancient civilisations

it was not uncommon to live into the fourth score year. The " Ebers

Papyrus " for example relates the lives of men and women in their 80's

some 3500 years ago in Egypt. To suggest as some do that PC is the

price we pay for a longer life in our modern civilisation is not a

valid argument. Other civilisations had octogenarians without the

curse of this disease to contend with.

The bottom line is this: If we are ever going to find a cure for

prostate cancer, then we need to recognise it as abnormal. For as long

as we regard prostate cancer as normal, we will tolerate it, palliate

it, but there will be no attempt to come to grips with its real cause,

and hence a cure will elude us. The so-called " Prostate Cancer

Information Link " does us a great disservice.

--

Sam.

For your delectation and edification:-

http://poetryfromtheprostrateyears.com/