Does chemotherapy work?

Excerpt from “The Healing Power of Cancer” paperback by Rob Prior.

Does chemotherapy work?

“Chemotherapy is brutal. The goal is pretty much to kill everything in your body without killing you.”
Rashida Jones (born 1976)
American actress and director

Chemotherapy drugs were developed from mustard gas, a colourless, oily liquid whose vapour is a powerful irritant and blistering agent used in chemical weapons by the Germans in World War I.

In the battle against cancer, chemotherapy is administered as an injection into the bloodstream, an intravenous drip, tablets or capsules. Because it circulates in the bloodstream, it can treat cancer cells almost anywhere in the body. This is known as systemic treatment.

Not only does chemo attempt to kill cancer cells, it damages healthy cells. It can make patients so sick they cannot complete the treatment. I was particularly taken aback by footage of chemotherapy disposal personnel dressed head-to-toe in impermeable hazmat (hazardous materials) suits to protect themselves from lethal levels of cytotoxicity.

Here’s how chemotherapy works. Your body comprises trillions of cells. When cells divide, they split into two identical cells, which in turn split into two, and so on. However, cancer cells keep dividing unrestrained, forming a lump called a tumour.

Because chemo kills dividing cells, the intention is that chemotherapy will kill all cancer cells. Unfortunately, chemo kills both healthy and cancerous dividing cells, thereby causing collateral damage to healthy growing tissues, such as hair, bone marrow, skin and the lining of the digestive system, and can cause cognitive and emotional damage.

According to Cancer Council NSW, “Chemotherapy weakens the immune system by lowering the level of white blood cells, making it harder for your body to fight infections”.

A 1996 study at University of Auckland concludes, “Cytotoxic chemotherapy is routinely used in the treatment of cancer. As well as causing some direct toxic effects, most if not all of these drugs are both mutagenic [causes genetic mutation] and carcinogenic”.

What’s the success rate of chemo? In December 2004, the results of the study, The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year Survival in Adult Malignancies. were published. It stated, “The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA. Chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival. To justify the continued funding and availability of drugs used in cytotoxic chemotherapy, a rigorous evaluation of the cost-effectiveness and impact on quality of life is urgently required”.

According to a study published in Cancer Cell journal in 2003, “Cancer cells exposed to initially fatal levels of chemotherapy eventually activate multiple and overlapping signalling pathways to protect themselves from further harm.”

In other words, not only is chemo harmful, it becomes less effective with each successive treatment.