The Cure for Cancer

Genes

For cancer, and any other chronic or ‘incurable’ diseases for that matter, genes have become the #1 scapegoat. Cancer and other chronic diseases like metabolic disorders and autoimmune diseases have soared during the last 80 years. Age-adjusted cancer mortality rate (number of deaths per 100,000 population) in particular jumped 75 percent for males during 1930s-1990s,¹¹ with the incidence rate increasing much faster. Have the genes of a population changed in the same period? Even if they are changed, the changes would reduce the number of people getting the disease – natural selection as a result of evolution.

If genes were the main driver of cancer, twins sharing the same DNA should have a high concordance rate of getting cancer. But that is not the case at all. After analyzing 44,788 pairs of twins listed in the Swedish, Danish, and Finnish twin registries, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found the rates of cancer concordance in twins were generally below 0.10 and concluded “that the overwhelming contributor to the causation of cancer in the populations of twins that we studied was the environment.”¹³

There is no doubt the changing environment is the culprit. Even for those carrying BRAC1 or BRAC2 mutations, the risk of getting breast cancer was 24 percent before 1940, but now it is nearly 80 percent.¹²

Another popular thesis is the “bad-luck” theory – cancer is mainly caused by random genetic mutations and therefore unpreventable. The theory was created by two articles published by two Johns Hopkins researchers in the journal Science, one of the most prestigious science journals.¹⁴ The thesis is based on the “observation that, in the United States, the lifetime risk of cancer among 25 different tissues were strongly correlated with the total number of divisions of the normal stem cells in those tissues.”¹⁵ Because the number of random errors or mutations in each division is largely constant (about three mutations per stem cell division), the authors inferred that cancer was caused by random errors in DNA replication. Based on statistical correlations, the authors concluded two third of cancers were due to these random errors that are intrinsic and unpreventable.

Despite being thoroughly refuted by other studies,^16-29 the “bad-luck” theory has been propagated to the public by academic journals, mainstream and social media with sensational titles like “The Randomness Of Life: Bad Luck Cancers,” “Cancer’s Random Assault,” and “Bad Luck of Random Mutations Plays Predominant Role in Cancer, Study Shows.”  

Just leave the studies and attention-grabbing headlines aside for a second, commonsense tells us the premise of this bad-luck theory is beyond laughable – of course, cancer is more likely to grow in tissues where cells divide rapidly – cancer does not grow in stones. Logically and statistically, to blame random mutations for cancer is like ascribing an increase in car accidents to more exhaust fumes rather than more traffic or driving. If the number of cell divisions and thus random errors were the culprit, there would be no elephants or blue whales – they have 100 and 2,000 times more cells and thus more random errors respectively than humans and yet rarely get cancer.  

Moreover, emerging evidence indicates random mutations are not really random. A recent study published in the journal Nature by a team of international scientists shows organisms evolve to protect themselves and enhance survival rather than aimlessly drift.³⁰ This finding directly contradicts the ‘bad-luck’ theory.

Do not blame the genes – they are doing the best to protect us but often become the victims of the changing environment.

Aging

Another smokescreen the cancer enterprise puts out is aging – more cancer cases because of the aging population. But why has childhood cancer incidence kept climbing? For example, the childhood cancer incidence rate (number cases per 100,000 population) in Denmark increased 75 percent from the 1930s to the 1990s. In the US, it jumped by 36 percent in 13 years from 1980 to 1993. And why are people diagnosed with cancer getting younger and younger? A recent study published by Harvard researchers have revealed the incidence of early-onset cancers like colorectal and 13 other types of cancer are rising rapidly in many middle- and high-income countries including the US,³¹ a study which has been widely covered by major news networks.  

On the surface, older people are more likely to get cancer, but that does not mean aging itself is the cause of it – old people are at higher risk because, more likely than not, their body has accumulated more insults from environmental toxins and mental challenges (stress) in life, which, unlike aging itself, are modifiable factors. Aging per se might be an anticancer factor – older cells are better trained in what they do and they divide and grow more slowly – “Senescence is generally regarded as a tumor suppressive process, both by preventing cancer cell proliferation and suppressing malignant progression from pre-malignant to malignant disease.”³²

When the members of the cancer establishment cannot find the fix, they find scapegoats – genes, and aging, which are not preventable or avoidable and therefore more money is needed to find cures.

Infections

That certain infectious organisms including viruses, bacteria, and parasites, can cause cancer or increase the risk of cancer is well established. For instance, Infection with HPV (Human Papillomaviruses) can cause cervical cancers, and EBV (Epstein-Barr Virus) can induce or contribute to lymphoma and cancers of the nose and throat. But most people carrying these viruses (e.g., about 90% of the population carry EBV) do not get cancer – the immune system, which is greatly affected by stress, environmental toxins and other factors, plays a critical role.

In addition, emerging evidence shows a different kind of infection called gut dysbiosis (overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria) is linked to cancer too, especially colorectal cancer.^33,34

Although it is a fact that infectious agents can induce cancer, available data indicates they are not a major contributor. In other words, we will not get away from the specter of cancer by focusing on infections.

Environmental Toxins

As concluded by the large study on environmental and heritable factors published in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Inherited genetic factors make a minor contribution to susceptibility to most types of neoplasms. This finding indicates the environment has the principal role in causing sporadic cancer.”¹³

The Food We Eat

Our food, including grains, vegetables, fruit, meat, and dairy, is laden with insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other chemicals which are known to be carcinogenic. Animal products are loaded with antibiotics, growth hormones and other novel chemicals designed to increase production and profit. For example, it only takes about six months to grow pigs from birth to slaughter, and 6-8 weeks to grow chickens. Normal cows can only produce a gallon of milk a day, but the use of chemicals increases the production to six gallons a day.

As if these poisons were not bad enough, over 10,000 chemicals in at least 20 categories are added into our food by manufacturers for different purposes:^35,36

• Anti-caking agents: Stops ingredients from becoming lumpy.
• Antioxidants: Prevents foods from oxidizing or going rancid.
• Artificial sweeteners: Increases the sweetness.
• Bulking agents: Increases the volume of food.
• Colors: Enhances or adds color.
• Emulsifiers: Prevents fats from clotting together.
• Food acids: Maintains the right acid level.
• Flavors: Adds more flavor.
• Flavor enhancers: Enhances flavors.
• Flour treatment: Improves baking quality.
• Foaming agents: Maintains uniform aeration of gases in foods.
• Glazing agent: Improves appearance of the food.
• Gelling agents: Adjusts the texture of foods through gel formation.
• Humectants: Keeps foods moist.
• Mineral salts: Enhances texture.
• Preservatives: Prevents microbes from multiplying and spoiling food.
• Propellants: Helps to push food from a container.
• Raising agents: Increases the volume of food by using gases.
• Stabilizers and firming agents: Maintains even food dispersion.
• Thickeners and vegetable gums: Improves texture and consistency.

Although the majority of these additives are safe, the health effects of many of them are unknown, and many are known to be carcinogenic. For instance, the artificial sweetener saccharin, which has been shown to cause cancer in animals, is still used in food and soft drinks.^37,38 Nitrates and nitrites are two known cancer-causing compounds (mainly through reacting with other chemicals), but are still used to preserve processed meats.^39,40 Potassium bromate is a possible human carcinogen because it has been shown to cause kidney, thyroid, and gastrointestinal cancer in animals. Although potassium bromate has been banned in Europe and many other countries around the world, it is still legally and widely used in many baked goods in the US to strengthen dough and allow it to rise higher, as reported in CBS Evening News on January 20, 2023.

Other similar toxic additives are azodicarbonamide (whitening flour), ractopamine (a popular feed additive for pigs and beef cattle to grow more muscle mass), titanium dioxide (makes food like candy, coffee creamer, baking and cake decorations more visually appealing), BVO (brominated   vegetable oil used to keep citrus flavoring from separating out in sodas and other beverages), olestra (a fat substitute that adds no calories to products), propylparaben (food preservative), and the list goes on.

The unknowns are even more unsettling – the long-term health effect of countless food additives is unknown thanks to the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) loophole in a 65-year-old law (the Food Additive Amendment signed into law in 1958) allowing food manufacturers to circumvent the approval process by FDA. As long as a food company deems an additive GRAS, no report to FDA is required.^35,36

In addition to the chemicals directly added to food, dangerous chemicals in food-packaging materials also leach into food. Take for example, two known carcinogens, vinyl chloride and acrylonitrile, are still used in making food containers.³⁸ And food manufacturers clean their equipment with hazardous chemicals which gets into our food too – this was exposed by the child labor scandal in the meat process industry which was widely reported in the news media early in 2023.

In addition to food, we also swallow tons of prescription drugs such as antidepressants and over the counter pills like ibuprofen – they are chemicals and often do more harm than good. In particular, chemotherapies themselves are in fact cancer makers.

This is not alarmist – the problem is not a single chemical – it is all the chemicals accumulating inside our body not for days or months but for years and decades.

The Air We Breathe

Overall, outdoor air quality in America has been getting better for the last decades. However, indoor air quality has been heading in the other direction – it has increasingly become a threat to our health. Residential houses have become more and more airtight for energy efficiency with very limited mechanical ventilation. Meanwhile, more and more synthetic materials have been getting into our homes, from building materials such as compressed wood boards and fire retardants (in carpets and padding) to household products such as cosmetics and cleaning products. In fact, it is hard to think of anything in our homes which is not synthetic or semisynthetic. All these chemicals and plastics emit toxic gases or particles into the air circulating inside our homes. 

Indoor air can be very deceptive even if it is heavily polluted – colorless, smogless, and often odorless. One of the lurking dangers in our home is VOCs (volatile organic compounds) which are harmful chemicals emitted as gases from synthetic materials. Here is a statement from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency): “Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by a wide array of products numbering in the thousands. Examples include paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials, and furnishings, office equipment such as copiers and printers, correction fluid and carbonless copy paper, graphics and craft materials including glues and adhesives, permanent markers, and photographic solutions.”⁴¹

A 2023 study published in Environmental Science & Technology revealed over 5,000 tons of VOC were emitted from consumer products in 2020 in California alone.⁴² 

It is well-known VOCs cause respiratory disorders such as asthma, bronchitis and allergies. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. The real danger is their invisible actions – they silently, stealthily, and slowly damage every organ and system of our body and contribute to almost every disease. Some of them are known to be carcinogenic. For example, formaldehyde causes cancer,^43-45 which is widely used in countless products such as plywood, particle board, and oriented strand board (OSB, engineered wood similar to particle board) used in building homes (sheathing in walls, flooring, and roof decking) and making furniture. It’s also found in many consumer products like cosmetics, dish soaps, medicines, leather. And it is in the fabric of our clothing to give the permanent-press effect, increase stain resistance, and improve colorfastness.

Ironically, among all the manmade products in our homes, cleaning products including air freshers are supposed to keep us healthy, but their danger is often overlooked. Here is what American Lung Association tells us: “Many cleaning supplies or household products can irritate the eyes or throat, or cause headaches and other health problems, including cancer. Some products release dangerous chemicals, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Other harmful ingredients include ammonia and bleach.”⁴⁶ Worse still, these chemicals released from cleaning supplies can react with other pollutants in the air to form other toxins which trigger illnesses including cancer.^47-51

While manmade chemicals in the air endanger our health, not all natural substances are good either. Asbestos is one of them. Asbestos is a group of six naturally occurring fiber-like minerals which are soft, flexible, and heat-resistant. Because of its desirable properties, asbestos was once widely used in insulation and cement as well as consumer products such as cloth, paper, and plastics. Thanks to research revealing exposure to asbestos causes cancers and other diseases, the use of asbestos has become highly regulated.⁵²

Nevertheless, according to the National Cancer Institute, up to 5,000 consumer products contained asbestos, many of which are still in use. Unlike many other chemicals, asbestos is stable and doesn’t emit into air by itself. But it can easily become airborne if old materials containing asbestos are disturbed. Asbestos is very nasty – once inhaled or ingested the mineral fibers become permanently trapped in the body and cause real damage to the lung and other organs. For anyone living in houses built before 1980s or handling old household items should be mindful about the danger posed by asbestos.

Asbestos has been banned in 55 countries worldwide, but not in the US. Like many other toxic chemicals, manufacturers put up a ferocious fight to stay in business. These companies made enormous profits by selling asbestos as insulation to shipbuilders during World War II and further expanded their business during the postwar building boom. They fought in courts with the help of unscrupulous researchers like J.C. Wagner who first identified the danger of asbestos and then changed his position to defend the asbestos companies in courts. Later it was revealed he was paid by these asbestos manufacturers.⁵³ That is why asbestos was not phased out until 1980s and is still not banned in America.

Poor air quality is not just a problem in homes. It can be bad in office buildings too depending on the materials used in construction and how many synthetic products are placed for use in the buildings.⁵⁴ In particular, thousands of indoor sports fields and playgrounds in schools and gyms around the country are covered with crumb rubber from recycled tires and plastics containing VOCs like toluene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and other dangerous chemicals like phenylmercuric acetate that may be linked to cancer. These rubber floors also contain heavy metals like lead and mercury.  

As the floors age and wear down, they release toxic particles into the air and become health hazards. This lurking danger came to the national spotlight after a 36-year-old PE teacher in New Jersey was diagnosed with rare kidney cancer in 2013.⁵⁵  

Finally, our skin, the largest organ of our body, is ‘breathing’ too. Poisonous chemicals in beauty products and sunscreens do get under our skin – they travel deep into our body and poison every tissue and organ and induce cancer.⁵⁶ “Since 2009, 595 cosmetics manufacturers have reported using 88 toxic chemicals in more than 73,000 products which have been linked to cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm.”⁵⁷

Among the beauty products, hair treatment products are among the worst. Two recent large studies funded by the NIH have found hair straighteners and permanent dye greatly increase the risk of uterine and breast cancer.^58,59

Again, the problem for us is not a particular chemical – it is all the chemicals together and the many years of accumulation in our body.

The Water We Drink

If you think our drinking water is pure and wholesome, think again. First, where do all the runoff fertilizer and pesticides from residential and agricultural use go? Second, where did/do all the chemicals discharged from all the manufacturers go? Third, where do all the chemicals that end up in landfills go? Fourth, where do all prescription and over the counter drugs either discarded or metabolized go? Fifth, what contaminants are tested or not tested at your municipal water plant? Sixth, do you know most of the pipes carrying water from the treatment plant to your home contain lead? Finally, are the chemicals such as chlorine used by water plants for disinfection safe?

As to the first question, here is what USGS (United States Geological Survey), a government agency focusing on biology, geography, geology, and hydrology of the landscape, has to say, “Considerable increases in fertilizer and pesticide use began in the 1960s. In 2010, about 11 billion kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer and 300 million kilograms of pesticides were used annually to enhance crop production or control pests… Fertilizers and pesticides don’t remain stationary on the landscape where they are applied; runoff and infiltration transport these contaminants into local streams, rivers, and groundwater.”⁶⁰

Nobody knows how much or how many synthetic chemicals producers and users have dumped into the environment since the 1940s. Among all the manmade chemicals discharged into the environment, the “forever chemicals” PFASs (per- and polyfluorinated compounds), especially its two family members PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), have been thrust into the spotlight recently due to numerous incidents of widespread contamination and mounting evidence of toxicity.   

PFAS, a class of over 4,000 different manmade chemicals including PFOA and PFOS, is truly ubiquitous – you can find them in hundreds of common household items such as furniture and carpet, water-repellent clothes, cosmetics, cleaning products, fast food wrappers, nonstick pans, paints, firefighting foams – they are detectable in the blood of 98 percent of us.

Of course, they are in our drinking water. In a recent report, EWG (Environment Working Group) stated, “Based on our tests and new academic research that found PFAS widespread in rainwater, EWG scientists now believe PFAS is likely detectable in all major water supplies in the U.S., almost certainly in all that use surface water… Of tap water samples from 44 places in 31 states and the District of Columbia, only one location had no detectable PFAS, and only two other locations had PFAS below the level that independent studies show pose risks to human health.”⁶¹

“I think it’s one of the biggest threats in drinking water that people don’t have a complete understanding of, and it’s been around for decades,” says David Andrews, PhD, a senior scientist at the EWG who was involved with the report.

In fact, the number of communities confirmed to be heavily contaminated with PFAS in the US continues to grow at an alarming rate – as of June 2022, 2,858 locations in 50 states and two territories are known to be contaminated.⁶²

One of these locations is close to home – Hoosick Falls, a small town near Albany, New York, where I have lived and worked for 30 years. Despite the danger, nobody knew about the contamination for decades until Hoosick Fall’s resident Michael Hickey launched his own investigation into the town’s water supply since he was concerned about the high rate of cancer in the community. His father, John Hickey, died of kidney cancer in 2013. His father worked for decades at the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant using PFOA, a member of PFAS, to make Teflon used for non-stick cooking ware.

In 2014, after searching the connection between PFOA and cancer he took samples from the town water and sent them to a lab for testing on his own dime. The results showed high levels of PFOA and caught the attention of the New York State Department of Health which ran further tests revealing PFOA levels as high as 600 ppt (parts per trillion) in sharp contrast to the EPA health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS at 70 ppt, the individual or combined level.⁶³ And the tests also revealed the PFOA contamination reached 18,000 ppt in the groundwater near Saint Gobain plant and 21,000 ppt at a nearby dump site.

At long last, EPA has started to realize the gravity of the PFAS problem which extends far beyond the heavily contaminated sites. On March 14, 2023, for the first time, EPA announced the proposed National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (NPDWR) for six PFAS including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA, commonly known as GenX Chemicals), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS). In the proposal, the limit set for PFOA and PFOS is 4 ppt, which is dramatically lower compared to the EPA health advisories recommended level of 70 ppt in 2016. Other four PFAS (PFBS, PFNA, PFHxS, and GenX) will be regulated as a mixture using a “hazard index.”

The proposed rule is now open to a period of public comments. EPA will take those comments into consideration for the final decision on the rule. “We anticipate that when fully implemented, this rule will prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS related illnesses,” stated EPA Administrator Michael Regan at a news conference announcing the proposal on March 14, 2023 in Wilmington, North Carolina. This sounds great – finally EPA is taking action. On the other hand, EPA just told us these chemicals had been killing thousands and sickening more but did nothing for decades. 

Why did EPA drag its feet for so long while people are getting sick and dying? It is never too late, but it is still too little.

In addition to the chemicals for industrial use, chemicals used in homes are a problem too. Let alone the poisonous pesticides and cleaning products we use every day, the ingredients of all the common medications can also be detected in drinking water, which means the chemicals in the landfill (pills thrown away) and sewage systems (pills taken and metabolized) end up in the drinking water system.

The worst part is we don’t know what we don’t know. Municipal drinking water plants don’t test for these chemicals because they don’t know what to test for.

Municipal drinking water treatment plants indeed test for some of the heavy metals such as arsenic and lead. But the lead levels at homes could be very different from the levels at the water treatment plants because lead in the aged water pipes underground can leach out. That was the cause of the Flint water crisis in Michigan. Lead contamination isn’t unique to Flint – before lead pipes bringing water into homes were banned in 1986 nationwide, most water pipes underground were made of lead or at least contained lead. Lead pipes were used because they are stable, flexible, and rarely leak – they can reshape and adapt as the ground moves.

Finally, the lead problem will likely be gone thanks to the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. But other problems remain.

An even more insidious problem is the collateral damage from water disinfection using chlorine. The implementation of drinking water disinfection and filtration is considered as one of the most important public health advances of the last century, which has effectively eliminated waterborne infectious diseases and poisoning. “But the use of chlorine has a dark side: In addition to inactivating waterborne pathogens, chlorine reacts with natural organic matter to produce a variety of toxic disinfection by-products (DBPs),” reported in the prestigious journal Science.⁶⁴ Studies found an increased risk of bladder cancer after life-long ingestion of chlorinated drinking water.^65-68 Even EPA accepted exposure to DBPs increased 2-17% of the bladder cancer cases.⁶⁹

In addition to cancer, DBPs are also linked to other health problems such as birth defects.^70-72 The health hazards of DBPs have since been well recognized worldwide. Unfortunately, the full scope of health problems caused by DBPs is yet to be uncovered. Scientists don’t even know how many DBPs are in treated water – at least half of the DBPs are unknown because chlorine is chemically so reactive it reacts with almost everything.⁶⁸ Among over 600 DBPs that has been identified and reported,⁶⁷ currently EPA only regulates chlorite, bromate, THMs, and HAAs (haloacetic acids).

Are we drinking a chemical soup? The answer is as obvious as 2 + 2 = 4.

                                                                   *                                  *                                   *

The greatest manmade tragedy is the establishment refuses to accept two plus two equals four. They assert that the associations between chemicals and diseases are statistical correlations, not causations, which have not been proven by randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the only gold standard evidence the establishment can accept. But RCTs will never be done because we cannot deliberately expose thousands of people to toxic chemicals. And therefore, there will never be sufficient evidence to convict toxic chemicals of the crime. It is a perfect catch-22.

Another smokescreen the establishment loves to put out is “the study findings are inconsistent.” Of course, they are inconsistent – the studies are designed to produce inconsistent results. The prevailing analytical methodology is to ascertain the relationship between one chemical (e.g., Glyphosate or Roundup) and one disease (e.g., cancer). The problem is that the relationships between causes and diseases are multidimensional – one disorder is typically the result of multiple triggers working together (most often, it is the total toxic burden that matters), and one trigger can directly or indirectly contribute to different diseases (e.g., a chemical hurting the immune system could open the door for all kinds of maladies to infest). As a result, studies trying to pin down the relationship between a specific chemical and a disease will always reach inconsistent results depending on what other chemicals as well as other factors the study populations are exposed to.

To understand the root causes of the worldwide health crisis, we must collectively get out of the reductionist mentality – for the last 80 years, all kinds of chronic diseases including cancer have soared, but nothing else has changed much except for the environment – more and more chemical toxins. Not much of anything else to blame – we cut down fat intake, we reduced sugar consumption, and we exercise more…

Enough is enough. No more studies are needed to tell us environmental toxins are sickening and killing us. We don’t need RCTs to tell us we need to wear a seatbelt. And we do not need meteorologists to tell us it is raining outside. If you are still in doubt, just look at the pictures below, which are only 4 out of 21 pictures having the same trends with other diseases in the study published in 2014.⁷³ And keep in mind, this is just one chemical!