THE MOSS REPORTS

In the thirty years I have been researching and reporting on the treatment of cancer in the US and abroad, I have repeatedly been struck by the widely varying positions taken by physicians in different countries on the correct treatment for a particular kind of cancer. What is considered standard in Germany may be considered totally outlandish in the US, while some of the accepted norms of American oncology would raise eyebrows in Europe. Despite the fact that the medical profession likes to see itself as totally science-based and objective, the truth is that medicine is arguably as much an art as a science, and as such is strongly culturally influenced.

The trips I make to other countries enable me to amass information on both the new and the established treatments that are being offered elsewhere. During my long career in this field I have developed a comprehensive library of detailed reports on the best conventional and alternative treatments for more than two hundred thirty different kinds of cancer.

For cancer patients there can be few more useful guides and decision-making tools than a Moss Report .

To order a Moss Report please visit our website, www.cancerdecisions.com, or call Diane at 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 from outside the US).

We look forward to helping you.

RECENT TRIP TO GERMANY

I recently returned from a trip to Germany, where I visited CAM clinics and spoke at an important regional meeting on cancer treatment alternatives. The meeting was called the Seventh Annual Pfälzer Days for Integrative Cancer Therapy. The subtitle was Cancer Therapy in Transition— Innovative Concepts and Integrative Medicine. The October 1-2 event was sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Complementary Tumor Therapy, an affiliate of the BioMed Hospital, a 100-bed CAM facility located in Bad Bergzabern, Germany.

Pictured above: BioMed Hospital http://www.cancerdecisions.com/images/biomed1.jpg

The adjective "Pfälzer" refers to the Pfalz, another name for the district known in English as the Rhineland-Palatinate. This is a lovely area in western Germany, adjoining the French border, most famous for being a stop on the "Wine Road" (Die Deutsche Weinstrasse) that ambles through many picturesque towns.

Since I was the only English-language speaker at the two-day conference, sitting through the other lectures turned out to be a crash course for my limited German language skills! In addition to learning a great deal from the presentations, I was able to interview other participants and thus fill out the fascinating picture of new developments in German oncology. I came away more convinced than ever that the Germans have a 20-year lead on the US in the CAM field. With the current attitudes towards CAM that prevail at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we may in fact never catch up. The event was held in the hometown of the BioMed Hospital, at Bad Bergzabern's beautiful conference center adjoining its spa-like "cure park."

Pictured above: Participants doing Tai Chi on a break http://www.cancerdecisions.com/images/taichi1.jpg

Welcoming comments were presented by the town's mayor, Harald Bratz. This was followed by opening remarks from E. Dieter Hager, MD, PhD, medical director of the BioMed Hospital, who was the driving force behind the meeting. Dr. Hager is president of the annual Medicine Week in Baden-Baden, the premier CAM event in Germany. He is also secretary-treasurer and board member of the International Clinical Hyperthermia Society, which held its annual meeting in Shenzhen, China (Sept. 9-12, 2004).

For over 20 years Dr. Hager has led the movement in Germany for an integrative approach to cancer treatment. He has a medical degree and also a doctorate in physics. Not surprisingly, therefore, he takes a scientific stand towards all treatments, including both conventional and CAM approaches.

Although academically rigorous, the presentations at the meeting were anything but dry. There were talks on such fascinating topics as chemosensitivity testing, mistletoe extracts, dendritic cell therapy, breast cancer prevention, plastic surgery, new developments in radiotherapy (including radioimmunotherapy), molecular biology, hyperthermia, combined radiation and hyperthermia, nanotechnology, heat therapy using high-frequency needle-electrodes, the psychosocial aspects of malignancy, mammographic screening, health promotion, and electro-magnetic field therapy.

These talks were all at a very high level, yet they held the attention of several hundred participants, almost two-thirds of whom were not scientists, but patients. These patients are serious students of the disease and the new approaches being developed to treat it.

A photo of the audience http://www.cancerdecisions.com/images/badberg1.jpg

Combining Heat with Light

Many of the presenters were people of considerable academic and scientific achievement. Prof. Peter Vaupel, for example, is Professor and Chairman of the Institute of Physiology and Pathophysiology at the University of Mainz. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature of Mainz and Chairman of the Commission for Medical Research of that Academy. He has been a full professor of radiation biology and physiology at Harvard Medical School, Boston. Dr. Vaupel is the author of 259 PubMed articles, 46 of which relate to hyperthermia (therapeutic heat).

Lately, his research has focused on the effects of combining hyperthermia (therapeutic heat) with photodynamic therapy (PDT). He told the audience that his experiments on mice had shown that tumors can be eradicated using hyperthermia in 15 percent of cases. He obtained similar results in experiments using photodynamic therapy, in which certain frequencies of light are administered after the injection of a sensitizer derived from chlorophyll. However, when he combined the two modalities, experimentally, he achieved 65 percent remissions! There is a powerful synergy between heat and light.

The treatment induces what he calls "vascular collapse" within the tumors, thereby making them unable to survive (Kelleher 2003). True, these results were obtained in laboratory animals, not human beings, but his work could have dramatic benefits for human cancer patients in the future. The great thing about going to excellent regional conferences like this is that one learns about new treatments before they start making headlines.

Scientists from other prominent institutions such as the State Clinic in Karlsruhe, the Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf, the Universities of Berlin (Free University), Cologne, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Hamburg, Jena, Gottingen, Witten-Herdecke, and the Charité Hospital in Berlin were also among the speakers. In Germany, scientists of this stature feel comfortable associating—professionally and socially—with doctors who actually practice hyperthermia and other ‘alternative' treatments in private hospitals. The closest we in the States have come to that situation was when the Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) was sponsoring its annual conferences (2000-2003). Nowadays, in America, academic cancer researchers and CAM practitioners are once again going their separate ways, to the detriment of both.

One could argue that there are historical reasons for the fact that the integration of CAM with orthodox medicine has proceeded so well in Germany yet so poorly in the US. With the broad-scale attack on Native American culture from the time of Columbus onwards, truly indigenous herbalism was almost completely destroyed. In addition, most immigrants were locked in their own life-and-death struggle for survival and found their own native traditions denigrated by their adoptive culture. Most quickly lost contact with the healing traditions of their countries of origin.

By contrast, in Germany, herbalism has maintained a continuous and vital presence for hundreds of years. One might compare it to the traditions of viniculture—the Pfalzers have been cultivating grapes and making wine since the time of the Romans. German herbalism was given official legal status early in the 20th century. The German people are more likely to reach for natural St. John's Wort than for the synthetic antidepressant, Zoloft (sertraline). A standard German pharmacy looks more like a health food store than a typical American discount drugstore.

Even so, Germany is not paradise for CAM practitioners or patients, and some clinics are suffering from the health cutbacks that are afflicting most of the world these days. But the basic attitude of both the public and the medical profession towards alternative medicine seems reasonable and balanced. It is a far cry from what we have in the "land of the free," where the FDA and its ‘quackbusting' allies pursue alternative practitioners with the blind fury of Captain Ahab.

References:

Kelleher DK, Thews O, Scherz A, Salomon Y, Vaupel P. Combined hyperthermia and chlorophyll-based photodynamic therapy: tumour growth and metabolic microenvironment. Br J Cancer. 200389:2333-39.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

The news and other items in this newsletter are intended for informational purposes only. Nothing in this newsletter is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice.

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