Cancer Decisions - Free Newsletter

HERE AT THE MOSS REPORTS

Over my long career in the field of cancer I have seen many theories arrive in a blaze of glory only to be discredited and quietly discarded a short time later. By going to primary sources and carefully studying the scientific literature itself, I aim to provide my readers with the best possible synopsis of the current state of knowledge in the world of cancer treatment and prevention. My goal, and that of my organization, Cancer Communications, Inc., is to maintain the sort of consistent, reliably objective analytical standard that will allow my readers to make truly informed decisions.

In the past 30 years I have written and published extensively on the subject of cancer and its treatment, and have compiled a comprehensive series of more than 200 individual reports on different cancer diagnoses – The Moss Reports – each one of which examines both the standard treatment options that are likely to be offered for a particular cancer diagnosis, and the possible alternative and complementary approaches to that disease.

You can order and download a Moss Report directly from our Web site, www.cancerdecisions.com.

The following reports in our Current Topics series are also available from our Web site:

Do Antioxidants and Chemotherapy Conflict?
Mammography, Biopsy and the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer
Herceptin – or Deceptin? (An evaluation of the use of Herceptin in breast cancer)
Avastin – Your Money or Your Life (A clear-eyed look at the 'targeted' drug Avastin)
The Politics of Hope: Andrew von Eschenbach and the Decline of the National Cancer Institute
The Mexican Cancer Clinics in the Era of Evidence-Based Medicine

I also offer phone consultations to clients who have purchased a Moss Report. A phone consultation can be enormously helpful in drawing up an effective treatment strategy and getting one's options clearly prioritized.

A recent phone consultation client wrote:

"I've used the Moss Report on Breast Cancer to direct my successful ten-year battle with the disease, and I've appreciated the thorough research and unbiased opinions that Dr. Moss provides. Since I am once again in a position that I must seek further treatment, I chose to have a phone consultation with Dr. Moss. I had been considering a treatment option that Dr. Moss felt very strongly would not be of benefit to me. Through our conversation I not only gained information that will keep me from wasting $20,000 on a treatment with no merit, but Dr. Moss also gave me some ideas that cause me to remain very hopeful." — J.M.

To schedule an appointment, please call 1-800-980-1234 (814-238-3367 from outside the US) or send an email to Jacquie@cancerdecisions.com.

We look forward to helping you.

NCI DROPS CLAIM OF IMMINENT VICTORY OVER CANCER

Readers of this newsletter may recall that several times over the past two years I have written critically of the policies adopted by the National Cancer Institute under the stewardship of its former director, Andrew von Eschenbach. In particular, I have drawn attention to von Eschenbach's bombastic assertion that the suffering and death due to cancer would be entirely eliminated by the year 2015, a claim that was insistently repeated by von Eschenbach and prominently displayed on the NCI's Web site.

In a report I wrote some months ago, entitled "The Politics of Hope: Andrew von Eschenbach and the Decline of the National Cancer Institute," I ventured a prediction of my own. "Forecasting the future is a notoriously unscientific enterprise," I wrote, "but I will predict that when the Times Square ball descends this New Year's Eve, the number "2015" will have disappeared from the NCI home page."

I began to get a little nervous as the calendar edged into December. But, much to my delight, when I went to the NCI’s Web site this week I found that my prophecy had been fulfilled. The ludicrously implausible claim that cancer would be eliminated by 2015 has disappeared entirely, and in its place we now find an essay on "35 years of progress" in the war on cancer.

Whether or not significant progress has been made in the war on cancer is a debatable issue. I happen to think that very little real progress has been made. However, that is a minor point of disagreement compared to the many more egregious omissions of the NCI under Andrew von Eschenbach's directorship (2002-2006). His tenure was marked by a seemingly willful detachment from the practical realities of the disease and the persistently high cancer mortality figures. The absurd 2015 goal made NCI a laughingstock among serious scientists all over the world.

Adding insult to injury was the fact that while boasting of an imminent victory over cancer, von Eschenbach's NCI studiously avoided almost all mention (and funding) of probably the most hopeful development in basic cancer research in our generation - stem cells. Von Eschenbach somehow managed to ignore this extraordinarily promising work as though it were the proverbial elephant in the room. For example, the NCI's 2006 "Strategic Plan for Leading the Nation to Eliminate the Suffering and Death Due to Cancer" contains but two glancing references to stem cell research among its 81 pages.

It is very encouraging that the new NCI director, John Niederhuber, MD, who at first seemed like the handpicked successor to von Eschenbach, identifies his own personal research interests as cancer stem cells and the tumor microenvironment. I hope this represents the start of a reorientation of NCI research around this crucial topic.

Earlier this year, von Eschenbach resigned his NCI directorship after being nominated to take the even more influential job of commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a position which he has held on an interim basis since 2005. He tried for a while to hold onto both titles, but finally yielded to pressure to choose between the two.

For a while it looked as though his nomination to head the FDA might founder. For nine months, fierce opposition in Congress held up a vote on the nomination. Most recently, Republicans Charles Grassley (Iowa) and David Vitter (Louisiana) mounted a determined attempt to prevent the nomination from coming to a final Senate vote. However, retiring Majority Leader and fellow Republican Bill Frist (Tennessee) this week forced a vote that effectively closed the debate, clearing the way for von Eschenbach to become FDA commissioner.

For reasons I have outlined in my Current Topics report on this subject, there is ample reason to be concerned about the direction von Eschenbach will take as head of FDA.

Click or go to https://webssl.cancerdecisions.com/list/optin.php?form_id=24 to purchase a copy of my Current Topic report "The Politics of Hope: Andrew von Eschenbach and the Decline of the National Cancer Institute."

Nevertheless, looking back at where we were six months ago, I regard von Eschenbach's departure from NCI and the disappearance of the preposterous 2015 target as significant progress. True, we are no further along in terms of the testing of complementary and alternative treatments (CAM) than we were then. But I see interesting parallels between the work on cancer stem cells and certain ideas that are central to the CAM approach to cancer. I hope to write about these connections in a future Current Topics report. Meanwhile, when the ball does drop in Times Square this New Year's Eve, you can breathe a bit more easily. And for those of you who took up my bet, I will let you off lightly with a generous donation to the cancer charity of your choice.

IN THE MAILBAG

We received the following question from the leader of a divorce care recovery group:

"I've heard that there is a connection between the emotional trauma of divorce and the onset of cancer 3-5 years later and I'm looking for something of substance on that. Are you familiar at all with this notion?"

First of all, it should be pointed out that there is no solid evidence of a direct causative link of this sort between stress and the development of cancer. Causation and correlation are two very different things. One's risk of developing any disease can be raised by a number of factors, of which stress is potentially one. This does not mean that stress causes the disease; it merely means that stress may be correlated with an increased risk of developing it.

Divorce is intensely stressful. In fact, the Holmes and Rahe Depression Scale (a measure used by psychologists and psychiatrists to assign relative stress intensity values to various major life events) ranks divorce and marital separation as second only to the death of a spouse as one of the most stressful experiences one can have. Even receiving a jail term or probation ranks lower on the scale than divorce or separation.

To see the full Holmes and Rahe Depression Scale (and an interesting article on work-related stress accompanying it) please click or go to:
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/stress.htm

Whether or not this kind of intensely stressful life event is associated with an increased risk of cancer has been the subject of a great deal of investigation. Several large studies have been conducted over the past ten years in an effort to clarify whether or not stress contributes to cancer risk. Some have confirmed that yes, there is an increased risk, while others have just as firmly pronounced that no, there is not. What are we to make of this?

One great problem with such studies is that since they rely to a large extent on participants' memory of past events, they are inherently undependable. Asking people to look back over their lives and to recollect and rank the stressfulness of past events is intrinsically subjective and impossible to standardize.

Nevertheless, even allowing for the methodological difficulties involved, there does seem to be some data showing that the risk of developing certain cancers can be modestly affected by severely stressful episodes. Breast cancer, in particular, has been extensively studied in this regard, probably because it is clearly established that hormonal influences play a strong role in the development and progression of this disease, and hormone levels are of course very clearly influenced by stress. One large Finnish study involving almost 11,000 women investigated the influence of stressful live events such as divorce/separation, death of a husband or death of a close relative or friend on the risk of breast cancer. The researchers found that these experiences were indeed correlated with an increased risk of breast cancer (Lillberg 2003).

Other investigators have suggested that stress, in and of itself, is not a risk factor for the development of cancer, but that certain behaviors associated with coping with an episode of extreme stress – for example, smoking and drinking – may be responsible for the slight increase in subsequent risk of cancer among those affected (Li 2002).

Although the studies so far seem on the whole to be inconclusive, showing only slight correlations between life stressors and the subsequent risk of developing cancer, the possibility that stress and cancer are inextricably linked continues to intrigue researchers.

--Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

References:

Li J, Johansen C, Hansen D et al. Cancer incidence in parents who lost a child: a nationwide study in Denmark.Cancer. 2002;95(10):2237-42

Lillberg K, Verkasalo PK, Kaprio J, et al. Stressful life events and risk of breast cancer in 10,808 women: a cohort study. Am J Epidemiol. 2003;157(5):415-2

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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.