Heart damage from adverse effects of cancer drugs goes under-reported

The under-reporting of the possible side effects of heart damage from cancer drugs puts patients at an increased risk for heart failure, according to two researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Read article at medicalxpress.com

Drug-pushing: irresponsible suggestion that tamoxifen and raloxifene be prescribed to prevent breast cancer

BBC News reports "an international panel of cancer experts" recommending that women at high risk of developing breast cancer should be prescribed tamoxifen and raloxifene, despite the risk of serious adverse side-effects from such drugs. 'Cancer experts' who recommend toxic cancer drugs for people who do not have cancer would, I guess, be 'experts' who have cosy relationships with the drug manufacturers and that their foolish recommendation stems from conflict of interest. I say that because I feel that anyone truly concerned about women at high risk of breast cancer would be seeking to protect them from running any unnecessary risks from taking toxic drugs, and would be advising them to safeguard their health by eating good, natural food free of additives, high in nutrition, low in salt/sodium and low in sugar - something like a paleo diet. There is a well-founded opinion that cancers feed on sugar, so it would clearly be best to avoid sugar as far as possible. (Note : it is often the taking of prescribed drugs that predisposes some women to weight gain and breast disease in the first place, i.e. prescribed steroids and HRT, tricyclic antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and many more.)

FDA fails to take action on useless pharmaceutical drugs

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration has allowed drugs for cancer and other diseases to stay on the market even when follow-up studies showed they didn't extend patients' lives, say congressional investigators. A report from the Government Accountability Office also shows that the FDA has never pulled a drug off the market due to a lack of required follow-up about its actual benefits - even when such information is more than a decade overdue.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)

Chemotherapy contributes to a quarter of cancer deaths: study

The following post along with the Comment that accompanies it is copied and pasted from the Dr Rath Foundation's newsletter:

A new study has raised serious questions about the use of chemotherapy for late-stage cancer patients. The review of 600 cancer patients in Britain who died within 30 days of treatment has found that one in four of the deaths was either caused or hastened by the chemotherapy.
Read article on the ABC News website (Australia)
Comment: The use of toxic chemotherapy and other dangerous approaches to the treatment of cancer primarily serves one goal: to use the cancer epidemic as a global market for the pharmaceutical investment business with patented drugs. Unbeknownst to many of the patients who undergo these treatments, their most frequent side-effects include the causing of additional cancers - thus turning the cancer disease into a financial goldmine for the pharmaceutical industry. To learn about Dr. Rath’s discovery in cancer, and discover how the natural amino acid lysine and vitamin C can safely and effectively control cancer metastasis without the horrific side-effects suffered by chemotherapy patients, click here.

Britain's drinking water supplies will be tested for safety amid fears that rivers are contaminated with prescription drugs.

British drinking water 'may be tainted with prescription drugs'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Cancer drugs are of particular concern because they dissolve easily in water.

The "cytotoxic" drugs, which are used in chemotherapy, are potentially dangerous because they are hard to break down through traditional water purification methods and remain potent in low concentrations.

About 50 of these drugs are prescribed to patients in Britain and researchers are concerned they could be very dangerous if one or more of the drugs mixed together in the water supplies. The drugs make their way into the water system when people prescribed the treatments use the toilet.

Although drinking water in the UK is monitored, none of the cytotoxic drugs are included in the list of contaminants."

Gary Foster was about to get married but he has died in a government-funded medical trial after receiving seven overdoses of drugs.

Man dies in government cancer drug trial
Article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extracts:

"Gary Foster, 27, was repeatedly given twice the amount of chemotherapy drugs he should have been prescribed.

He was due to be married this month.

Reports have said his death was caused by an error in the setting up of the trial on the computer system at University College London Hospital (UCLH).

A second patient was affected by the same mistake, but survived.

When the MRC suspected patients had been given overdoses, instead of calling the hospital immediately it wrote a letter - which a nurse at UCLH failed to open until two days after Mr Foster had died."

"UCLH has been forced to suspend the trial, called TE23, which tests whether a combination of five drugs is better at treating testicular cancer than the standard treatment of three drugs.

It has, however, being continued at other UK hospitals.

Mr Foster, a graphic designer, had just been diagnosed with testicular cancer.

He was told he had a 60 per cent chance of survival."

"Mr Foster received the drugs during visits to UCLH between June and September 2007. On seven occasions, he received 30,000 units of bleomycin - of one of the five drugs - instead of 15,000.

A third patient died at a different hospital after receiving an overdose of the same drug due to an error by a nurse or doctor. However the Medical Research Council (MRC), the government body which ran the trial, said the drug was not the direct cause of his death.

An inquest heard Mr Foster began to show signs of deterioration after taking the drugs.

Eventually he developed a dry cough, a symptom of damage to his lungs that had been caused by the overdose of bleomycin. The lung damage was eventually fatal.

The inquest heard the cough should have been recognised by doctors and nurses as a warning sign. However, he was given a final dose."

Obviously there's a degree of medical negligence here that caused avoidable suffering and the sad death of Gary Foster. It was not just bad luck or mistakes. - But I'd be very surprised if any sanctions are taken against the negligent personnel responsible. - And therein lies the most common cause of medical negligence...

Dr Matthew Rath compares/contrasts the pharmaceutical approach to cancer with the more natural micronutrient/vitamin therapies he advocates...

Read here the
Response by Dr. Rath to the Invitation
to Become a Reviewer of
the International Journal of Cancer

Dr Rath is an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical approach to cancer and a scientific pioneer for new and natural approaches to cancer like vitamin supplementation. (My apologies for spelling Dr Rath's name incorrectly in the title of this post. His first name is Matthias, not Matthew.)

I largely go along with Dr Rath's philosophy on health, but my personal hobby horse is the damage that SALT intake causes in so many people - people who are sensitive/vulnerable to salt - especially children and especially people who have taken certain prescription drugs, including steroids like prednisone and prednisolone and HRT, and tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline, which many doctors prescribe inappropriately, often in recklessly high doses and for ill-advisedly long periods. - It is best for most people's health to avoid prescription drugs unless they are strictly necessary, and if they take them at all, to take in the lowest effective dose and for the shortest time necessary. - Remember also that many prescription drugs deplete the body of essential nutrients, so you may like to consider taking nutritional supplements if you are taking prescribed medication/s, e.g. steroids deplete the body of calcium, potassium, magnesium and possibly zinc, and certain diuretics - like bendrofluazide - deplete the body of potassium and magnesium, and some antibiotics deplete the body of other nutrients.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

advice for pregnant mothers

Cancer patients are to be denied drugs which could keep them alive after the NHS rationing watchdog ruled that they are too expensive.

Kidney patients denied 'too expensive' life-extending drugs
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Patient groups said the decision, announced today by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), would condemn many sufferers of kidney cancer to an "early death".

The four prohibited medicines include Sutent, which can prolong life in kidney cancer patients by up to two years. The draft guidance also rejects Avastin, Nexavar and Torisel.

Nice said the drugs were too expensive, at about £24,000 a year per patient, for the benefits they offered and would mean the health service was less able to afford more cost-effective drugs for other illnesses. However, the decision reignites the debate around how the NHS prioritises which drugs are approved for use."

Prevention is obviously better and cheaper than cure. - Two of the contributory factors that increase the likelihood of developing kidney cancer are obesity and high blood pressure. (They are contributory factors in the development of many other illnesses too.) Both of these factors are significantly reduced by eating less salt and salty food, so eating less salt and salty food will lower your chance of getting kidney cancer and all the suffering and difficulties entailed in having that disease.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

Risk of brain damage from anti-cancer chemotherapy drug

'Brain damage risk' with chemotherapy drug

Extract from the Telegraph:

"A chemotherapy drug used to treat thousands of cancer patients could cause serious brain damage with effects that are felt for years, research suggests today.

The drug, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), which is one of the most commonly prescribed anti-cancer medicines, is used for tumours of the breast, ovary, colon, stomach, skin, pancreas and bladder.

However, tests showed that it destroys brain cells and could be responsible for side effects known as "chemo brain", which include memory loss, poor concentration, and in more extreme cases, seizures, impaired vision and dementia. Most chemotherapy drugs are toxic to some degree, often noticeable because of hair loss and nausea. They can affect healthy as well as cancerous cells.

Doctors have urged patients not to abandon the drug as it is an effective weapon against cancer.

The findings, reported today in the Journal of Biology, could explain some of the neurological side effects associated with chemotherapy.

Eight out of 10 breast cancer patients reported some form of mental impairment after chemotherapy. Studies have found that up to a fifth had problems that lasted for years. The research, from the University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York state, showed that 5-FU attacks the cells in the brain that play a crucial role in the central nervous system.

They produce myelin, the fatty material that enables signals between cells to be transmitted rapidly and efficiently.

However, myelin deteriorates quickly and has to be constantly replenished.

Without a healthy population of these cells to renew it, normal communication between brain cells is disrupted. Scans of cancer patients with mental difficulties have shown evidence of loss of myelin leading to the loss of nerve fibres making up the "white matter" in the brain.

The researchers treated mice with doses of 5-FU comparable with those given to cancer patients and also exposed brain cells in dishes to the drug.

Months after exposure, the key cells both in the cell cultures and the brains of mice were undergoing extensive damage.

The disruption was so severe that after six months the cells had virtually disappeared from the mice.

Dr Mark Noble, of the medical centre, said: "It is clear that, in some patients, chemotherapy appears to trigger a degenerative condition in the central nervous system."

You can lower your risk of developing most cancers by avoiding salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

vulnerable groups

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

See FAT RETENTION

Children and Obesity

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

Cancer drug trials are 'being stopped too soon' - for commercial reasons.

Cancer drug trials 'being stopped too soon'

Extract from the Telegraph:

"The usefulness of some cancer drugs is being exaggerated because manufacturers are stopping trials the moment they find a benefit, experts will warn today.

Researchers have discovered a sharp increase in the number of studies that are terminated early and they argue that drugs companies are halting the trials whenever benefits are discovered. They use the premature results as the basis for licence applications.

As a result, the researchers claim, drugs that are hailed as breakthroughs could be of less benefit or even cause more harm.

A team from the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, in Milan, found that of 14 drugs trials stopped early between 2005 and 2007, 11 were used to support a licence application.

Writing in the online journal Annals of Oncology, Dr Giovanni Apolone, of the research team, said: "This suggests a commercial component in stopping trials prematurely.

"We are aware that trials stopped early because they are showing benefit may result in the identification of promising new treatments for patients.

"However, findings obtained in this way require subsequent confirmation. Without such evidence, unsafe and ineffective drugs could be marketed and patients' health could well be jeopardised."

Trials on well-known drugs regarded as breakthroughs, are among those which stopped early. They include Herceptin and Tyverb for breast cancer and Avastin for bowel and renal cancer."

The cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, has been linked to many cases of serious adverse reactions, including several deaths.

Cervical cancer drug Gardasil linked to deaths

Extract from Telegraph article:

"Fears have been raised over the safety of a cervical cancer vaccine which health officials plan to give all 12-year-old girls, after it was revealed that the drug has been linked to several deaths.

Three young women are reported to have died days after the drug Gardasil was administered, while the jab is also suspected of triggering "adverse reactions" in 1,700 patients. The figures were uncovered by campaigners who made a freedom of information request in the US, where the vaccine was approved for use a year ago.

Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, which extracted the data, said: "Reports on the vaccine read like a catalogue of horrors."

The women – aged 12, 19 and 22 – suffered heart attacks or blood clots after being injected with Gardasil, which protects against the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus which causes most cases of cervical cancer. Hundreds of others reported suffering what could be adverse reactions, including paralysis, seizures and miscarriages.

The news comes just days after the announcement that the drug would be added to the childhood immunisation programme."

It is claimed in a report funded by Roche, the drug company, that Britain is falling down in its provision of drugs for cancer.

Britain is sick man of Europe for providing cancer drugs - Independent

Extract:

"British patients are being denied access to life-saving cancer drugs that are widely available in the rest of Europe and the developed world, according to a report.

The NHS's "penny-pinching" attitude to new treatments and "excessive bureaucracy" surrounding their assessment is condemning cancer sufferers in Britain to an early death, it says.

A review of the availability of 67 new cancer drugs in 25 countries has found that Britain languishes close to the bottom of the league. along with Poland, the Czech Republic, South Africa and New Zealand.

The authors, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, say research in the US, which has the highest use of new cancer drugs, has shown that new treatments have significantly increased the chances of surviving cancer.

A separate study of 20 countries showed that nearly a third of the improvement in cancer survival between 1995 and 2003 could be attributed to new drugs.

In Europe, the UK has the lowest survival rates and the lowest use of new drugs compared with the major Western countries of France, Spain, Germany and Italy. In all four countries, more than half of cancer patients were being treated with drugs launched since 1985, but in the UK only 40 per cent were.

The report, funded by the Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Roche, is an update of an earlier review published two years ago. Although Roche had no control of the report or its findings, the conclusions will help the drugs industry highlight inequalities in access to cancer drugs and so widen its market.

Paying for the new drugs, which cost up to £100,000 a year per patient, is putting pressure on health budgets in all countries. "

I consider it significant that the report was funded by a drug company...)o:

A non-drug way to reduce your risk of getting cancer is to minimise your intake of salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Further extract:

"Cancer drugs

Herceptin (trastuzumab)
Breast cancer - approved by Nice in 2006 for use on the NHS.

Mabthera (rituximab)
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma - approved in 2004.

Glivec (imatinib)
Chronic myeloid leukaemia - approved in 2003.

Erbitux (cetuximab)
Bowel cancer - refused approval in January 2007. Awaiting appraisal for head and neck cancer (expected June 2007).

Avastin (bevacizumab)
Bowel cancer - refused approval January 2007. Awaiting appraisal for lung cancer (expected January 2008), advanced breast cancer and advanced kidney cancer.

Tarceva (erlotinib)
Lung cancer - awaiting appraisal.

Sutent (sunitinib)
Kidney cancer - not referred for appraisal by Department of Health.

Nexavar (sorafenib)
Kidney cancer - awaiting referral by Department of Health for appraisal.

Velcade (bortezomib)
Multiple myeloma - awaiting appraisal. "

Reduce obesity, protruding stomach, red face, high blood pressure, pain, headache, fatigue, swollen feet and many other health problems by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)