A god, given thirty years starting when President Nixon declared an all-out war on cancer, would have cured it by now. This is not to put down all those sincere scientists diligently working for a cure but to make the case that secular humanism, or what Bill O'Reilly calls the secular-progressive movement, exalts and celebrates man but does not acknowledge his limitations (and also by extension his propensity for evil). This is brought to mind by the recent news that the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has a return of her breast cancer and now White House spokesman Tony Snow also has a return of the very cancer he had thought he beat a few years ago.
It's time to turn the page on the chemo and the radiation. I've known a few people who've had cancer and passed away and it seems that once they go for the conventional "treatment" it's pretty much a death sentence, the pattern is always the same, they have hope of improvement but in a few weeks time at best they are gone. Now a more conspiratorial-minded person might see this all as a subtle form of euthanasia but as for myself I open up the question - in such cases does the original cancer kill the patient or is it the "therapy"? This is why I don't give any money to the various cancer societies, I feel that one day chemo/radiation will be seen in the same light that electro-shock therapy is today, an attempt to do good because we really don't have all the answers and are desperate but barbaric nonetheless.
We now know that we all have genes in our bodies that can cause cancer to develop, such genes are called proto-oncogenes. Science is looking for the triggers but one theory goes that once a person wants to die the body breaks down. It's like the brain is a computer and sends out a program for everything to self-destruct. Perhaps this is a more holistic and philosophical approach but it doesn't bode well for the secular-progressives that the last dread disease we were really able to do something about was polio.
Man is a wonder in many ways but I'm with the Rev. Pat Robertson on this one, I can't worship such a creature and the movement based on it. We need something outside of ourselves and that something is usually called God. Man has an apparently limitless supply of opportunities for letting you down.
While I agree with your basic message that says man is not a god because if he were we'd be able to beat things like cancer. But I cannot agree with your assessment of chemo and radiation treatments. I know cancer survivors, and there are many. I work closely with a fund raiser sponsored by the American Cancer Society which celebrates survivorship as well as raises money for research and awareness programs. It is a worthwhile thing to keep researching, because I believe even though man is not god, God our Father in heaven did create man in his own image and also he gives gifts to each of us, one gift can be the gift of healing which manifest itself through our doctors and scientists who work to solve medical problems.
ReplyDeleteFurthmore, I do not agree with your saying that the cancer gene within us is unleashed when someone doesn't want to live anymore. Far too many young children have cancer, I worked with a guy whose 18 month old had cancer (ended up dying sadly). How could an 18 month old have a wish to be dead? In a neighboring community to mine, there is a 7 year old girl with an inoperable brain tumor. She is a happy-go-lucky little girl, doesn't know she is dying but how could she have unleashed the cancer in her body? That just isn't the way it works.
Of course one of the aspects of the secular progressives is that they are pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, and so they definitely are playing god in the role of deciding whose life is worth living and whose isn't. This is giving the fallible man way too much power, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIn an ideal world the American Cancer Society and Memorial Sloan-Kettering would be investigated by Congress. Many critics of the cancer establishment call Memorial Sloan-Kettering the killing center. We're always reminded that radiation is bad for you so how come it's good in this case? On the other night's "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" it was acknowledged that at most people survive the chemo about 50% of the time. How is it good medicine Beth to advocate drugs that destroy healthy tissue like bone marrow? One day history will judge our medical "progress" rather sharply.
ReplyDeleteRe what triggers cancer the theory that negative emotions trigger metastasis, of course it doesn't apply to children and adults who smoke heavily but it may be a cause in many others. A couple of people I knew who succumbed to cancer were very negative people. How much do we really know of the mind/body connection? It's like when I started a thread at Hannity's that maybe, just maybe much modern-day depression is caused by secret guilt over sin, people got on my case including many conservatives there which really surprised me. I didn't overgeneralize in that case the same way I'm not overgeneralizing here but have we really even considered these things?
Consider too the enormous profits the pharmaceutical companies are making in this country off of cancer drugs the same way the psychiatric industry is making out like bandits when it comes to antidepressants. Mind you when I criticize the cancer establishment I am not criticizing those very sincere research scientists, the oncologists, who make it their life's work to find a cure. It's the bosses of the various cancer societies that are the problem and if a scientist comes up with promising work that doesn't fit their agenda they try to stymie and smear them.
ReplyDeleteBeth, you honestly in your heart of hearts believe drugs that wreak havoc on the body and may be too hard for some people to take is beneficial? Why not pursue another more humane path like immunotherapy or work with genes?
All I know is that a 10 year old friend of my daughter who has cancer is expected to be cancer free by summer, which is less than a year after she was diagnosed. She does chemo and radiation, and although she has needed a few visits to the hospital after treatments, she also went with her family skiing for a weekend last month.
ReplyDeleteI will agree with you that the patient's outlook does make a difference in one's survival rate, a positive outlook is better than a negative one indeed, the latter can lead to death rather than survival. The 7 year old I mentioned, she doesn't even know her prognosis, she is suppose to be dead already. It's the mindset of the 7 year old who is just taking life as it comes to her, enjoying the simple things, that I think have made her outlive expectations. I do believe her parents gave up on treatment when there was nothing else to do, but "go home and enjoy your daughter for the next few months" as the doctors said. Is she a miracle, were the docs wrong, or is it just the simple fact that she has no expectations or ideas of being disappointed that has sustained her this long? We may never know, but I still say that God made us all, and he can make the scientist who can find cures, and who can overcome any obstacle to bring it to fruition.
ReplyDeleteHave faith my friend, do not automatically expect the worse out of people, or business for that matter. There is evil I am sure, in business just as in people, but there is more goodness. This I believe in the heart of my heart.
This is just one of those rare cases Beth where we'll just have to agree to disagree. Chemo/radiation will eventually go the way of electro-shock and lobotomies. Medicine always seems to have some primeval streak, it sometimes is a perversion of the original Hippocratic Oath, and there we leave it.
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