And another thing…

Firstly a big thank you to all those of you who have contacted me in the last week to offer support and reassurance in the face of the rather bizarre and false suggestion that I never had secondary cancer (The Age 31 12 11).

The personal messages, the letters to the Editor (see the comments section this week), and the many comments on last week’s blog (that make for inspiring reading if you have not checked them out yet) have all been very heartwarming.

There seems to have been a concerted challenge going on for the last few years that has centred on attacking the validity of my medical history, with the implication that somehow that undermines the work I have been involved with.

Much of this I have chosen to ignore, but maybe there is value at this time in clarifying the key points.

Firstly, it should be obvious that my work is not my medical history. It is true that this work grew directly out of my personal history of recovering from widespread, advanced bone cancer. But then from that initial starting point, some elements have been confirmed while others have evolved based on the next 30 years of continual research and formal study, the many workshops and conferences attended, as well as the input of the many great colleagues I have been fortunate to work with. But even more important in the development of what I have to offer, has been the vast amount of knowledge and experience gained from the thousands and thousands of people I have worked with over those 30 years.

Now that work has two elements. Firstly it offers hope, and secondly it has the lifestyle based self help techniques I and others teach.

The hope began with my own recovery and many people continue to take heart from the fact I am still alive. However, 30 years later there is even more hope available based on the recorded experiences of so many people who have used the techniques I have advocated.

Regarding the techniques, there is nothing “alternative” about what I teach. I have always been committed to an Integrative Medicine approach.

Integrative Medicine (IM) combines the best of what conventional medicine has to offer with the best of Complimentary Medicine and the best of what a person can do to help themselves. IM attends to the body, emotions, mind and spirit. IM practitioners function within a multidisciplinary context, working collaboratively towards the best health outcomes.

So within that IM context, my actual work focuses on what people can do for themselves. The work is about empowering people, and focuses on improving quality of life and extending survival times for those affected by cancer and MS particularly, as well as preventing illness and generating long-term happiness and wellbeing for anyone who is interested!

My cancer work was first documented in “You Can Conquer Cancer” way back in 1984. So anyone who was or is confused about what I may or may not recommend could easily check. If you want to know what I have to say about a vegan diet, why question what I actually did during my own recovery, consult the book and be clear about what I actually recommend in current time.

This is why I did not take the earlier challenges in the Medical Journal of Australia about my own recovery too seriously. For a start they came from my ex wife. Then Prof George Jelinek and my current wife Ruth responded in the MJA directly, and so at the time, no comment from me seemed the best response. Now it seems some more clarity may be useful.

Much of that earlier criticism revolved around mistaken timelines. It has to be noted that my medical history is complex. Despite my best efforts, the media nearly always tells it with some errors. Even Dr Ainslie Meares got some bits out of sequence when he first recorded my case in the MJA in 1978. I did not make anything of this at the time because it seemed of little consequence. It seemed like arguing over whether a woman was 3 months pregnant or 6 months pregnant at a particular point in time. She is still pregnant, she will still have a baby and by the time the child is 30, who cares?

Sure accuracy is important and that is why I agreed to my biography (The Dragon’s Blessing) being written by Guy Allenby, a respected journalist who was encouraged and authorised to speak with all my doctors, family, colleagues etc, and to get the facts right. If you do want the facts, check the biography.

But really, it is the work and the outcomes recorded by many other people that warrant the most attention.

However, now the personal attacks have gone deeper. Haines and Lowenthal have questioned whether I even had secondary cancer in the first place. This confusion arises because I did contract TB as a complication of my secondary bone cancer and TB can occasionally lead to calcification within the body. The esteemed doctors speculate that the boney lumps that were confirmed at the time to be metastatic osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) were in fact just TB and I did not have cancer secondaries.

To summarise what I wrote in last week’s blog, this is not correct because the authors, amongst other errors, failed to take adequate account of three crucial pieces of evidence.

i) The clinical experience and the medical records of the treating physicians

The authors did not consult the treating doctors: Mr John Doyle (surgeon in Melbourne), Dr. Ivon Burns (Oncologist in Melbourne), Dr. Alistair Robertson (Oncologist in Adelaide) and Dr. John Piesse (GP in Melbourne). They did not access their medical records, including their clinical histories and the extensive diagnostic investigations that were carried out.

An example of what might have helped them to draw a more accurate conclusion comes from the radiologist’s report from the initial diagnosis of the secondaries in December 1975:
“ Mottled calcified areas of varying size from 1.5 to 3 cms in diameter are demonstrated overlying the right sacroiliac region, the appearances of which are those of glandular metastases”.

If Haines and Lowenthal had spoken to my doctors, they would have clarified the basis for their initial diagnosis and how, years later they stand firmly by it.

ii) The available histology

The authors say that I did not have a biopsy at the time of the first diagnosis of my secondary cancer, but then discount the fact that histology was performed on a large boney mass removed from my left lung following pneumonectomy in 2004. That report cited:
“foci of coarse sclerotic and heavily calcified bone which are devoid of viable osteocytes. The latter appearance in particular is recognised as a change which may occur in osteosarcoma after chemotherapy”.

 iii) The effects of cancer related chemotherapy on active TB

The authors have overlooked the significance of me having received chemotherapy in 1976 with Adriamycin, Vincristine, Cyclophosphamide and D.T.I.C. (Dacarbazine). This treatment was administered because my condition at the time was actively advancing. It is well known this combination of chemotherapy is powerfully immunosuppressive. To give strong chemotherapy to a patient with widespread, active TB would almost certainly result in miliary TB and a rapid death. By contrast, I experienced no significant side effects.

Finally, having decided to speak up, there is one more matter. The Age quotes Haines: ''I've seen beautiful young girls with their whole lives ahead of them and they go into these holistic therapies and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and then in the end we have to look after them. They all eventually get to us''.

Last weeks blog comments contain great responses to the “beautiful young girls” and the costs and “they all eventually get back to us”. But just to be clear, “You Can Conquer Cancer” costs $27.95, my day workshops are usually around $100, the 12 week non-residential program that I set up in 1981 and continues to be presented by the Gawler Foundation staff and other people I have trained around Australia and in New Zealand, costs $450 at the Foundation, while those with a Health Care Card can attend for $120. The 10 day residential program at the Foundation’s Yarra Valley Living Centre – fully inclusive of meals and accommodation, costs from $2990 to $3490(all inc of GST).  Subsidies are available for those in real need and have been made possible by the Foundation’s fundraising efforts and big support base.

So what to do? 

It does concern me a great deal that some vulnerable and needy people may be misled by Haines and Lowenthal’s article and that the subsequent newspaper coverage may well prevent some people affected by cancer from realizing they can do a lot to help themselves. Therefore, in my opinion, what the two have done is dangerous.

How can you help?

It seems incredible that after 30 years there is still a need to get the self help message out there and to assist people with cancer to realize that they can help themselves significantly by attending to their lifestyle.

If you know of people who are confused by all that has been going on, please do refer them to my blogs of these last two weeks.

Letters to the papers, to doctors, hospitals, even politicians will be helpful; maybe you have something you would like to say to Assoc Prof Ian Haines at Cabrini Hospital, Malvern or to Prof Ray Lowenthal at the University of Tasmania; maybe add a comment on the blog.

And thanks for reading a long blog!

Next week, my workshop, Conference and retreat plans for 2012.

Ruth and I will be leading one meditation retreat in 2012, “Meditation in the Forest”, pre Easter (March 30 –April 5) at the Gawler Foundation.

Related Blogs

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Recovery from cancer is possible


It only has to be done once

Link to The Age article

          to Monty Python and the Spanish Inquisition

Resources

My biography which documents my case: The Dragon's Blessing by Guy Allenby

You Can Conquer Cancer which documents my cancer work

The Gawler Cancer Program: the CD that presents the paradigm I work with

Mindbody Mastery: online meditation program