Allergic to Alternative Medicine?

Back in May 2013, my father underwent a surgical operation to remove a mass in his stomach. Anon, the mass had been found out to be a signet ring adenocarcinoma—stomach cancer, stage 2. Upon diagnosis, he was referred by his attending surgeon to an oncologist so he could undergo the suited treatment for his type of cancer. Which, by the way, was chemotherapy.

However, my father opt not to take his chemo for the following reasons: (1) my aunt’s advice (2) high cost of chemo (3) uncertainty that he’ll be cure through chemo (4) availability of alternative medicine (alt-med) that offers better quality of life

Why think twice?

Chemotherapy, is, perhaps, the most common treatment accessible or known to many. But these treatments, though offering cancer cure doesn’t offer 100% survival assurance. For it’s always dependent on how the patient’s cancer responds and how well his or her body could endure the treatment. It’s always a hit-and-miss situation. While targeted cancer cells are being killed, healthy cells are dying, too.

My aunt’s been a nurse for years, and she’s seen several people die receiving chemo. She recalls how they’ve been weakened, and how cruel the drugs’ side effects were. For some, they die not of their terminal illness, which was, supposedly, cancer, but of secondary illnesses that arise from receiving treatment.

How could this possibly be?

While many of us may not know anything about chemotherapy, it is necessary that we at least understand a bit of how it works-in most cases, it ‘interferes with the cancer cell’s ability to grow or reproduce.’ Depending on the cancer type, it ‘can be used alone or with other treatment types such as radiation or surgery.’ My father’s combination of treatment should have been surgery and chemo.

It’s also important to recognize the fact that treatment are in themselves carcinogenic, and that they are biohazards to the normal person. Some of the most used chemo drugs have lethal side-effects.

While we may not be familiar of what it’s like undergoing treatment. I assure you, undergoing through chemo and radiation therapy is quite a tough endeavour. I have known people who’ve been through this kind of medical care. For one, her cancer was responding well to cobalt therapy, yet tests showed that she had developed renal cancer.

What if her kidney cancer once cured would lead to another cancer somewhere else? What would be the point of taking all medication? Will her everyday travel from Cavite to PGH’s Cancer Institute be all worthless?

Aside from lack of certainty, for most Filipinos, the treatments available for cancer are inaccessible mainly because of their costs. On an average, according to a blog, chemo treatment averages at PhP 50,000.00. Quite a huge sum for the common Filipino. And based upon experience, I doubt that this quote would include all other expenses as diagnostic tests and consultation fees. Not to mention the additional burden of transporting from far-flung areas.

Chemo drugs are expensive to the common people, especially the branded pharmaceuticals that don’t have generic equivalent available in the country. In countries, as the Philippines whose healthcare system is ailing and is threatened to privatization, ‘ever-greening’ or patent-extending of Big Pharma companies’ monopolize the cancer industry and offset policies that aim at lowering the cost of drugs in their host country. Some Big Pharma even pay generic manufacturers huge amounts of money for a strategy called pay-for-delay settlements. In an article I’ve read in nytimes.com, instead of Big Pharma defending its large selling, patented drug from a generic drug manufacturer that had already developed a chemical counterpart, they offer settlements to delay generic drug from entering the market. Making generic drugs off-the market for a time period, and denying many of the savings they could get.

Currently, my father isn’t taking his chemo. He turned to nature for natural cure—Guyabano or Soursop, and has changed his old diet towards a more cleansing one. Consuming more fruits and vegetables, and less meat. He’s currently scheduled to undergo CT-scan to detect any possible growth. He’s been examined via ultrasound and so far, so good, no metastasis.

He already told his attending surgeon that he’ll not take chemotherapy. He said he’s already taking alternatives. Somehow, my mom (who was then with him), felt that the doctor wasn’t that pleased with this decision. Apparently, the doctor encourages my father to choose from different modes of chemo just as much as he’s discouraging him away from alt-med.  He’s being sceptical on the alternatives my father was referring to.

Why not alt-med?

Personally, I really find nothing wrong about the doctor’s sentiments with regards to use and consumption of alt-meds. Especially that alt-meds are not just taking the form of natural herbs, fruits, and vegetables but is actually taking shape in the form of supplements that take advantage of the failure of the pharmaceutical industry to innovate better cures for cancer. A lot of multivitamins, and newly discovered compounds are joining the bandwagon claiming cure but are yet to be proven by science.

Meanwhile, setting the expensive “alt-med” supplements aside, I cannot help but also think about some of the earliest traditional or indigenous ways of healing.

In a country heavily influenced by western medicine, more specifically, by the rich countries, eastern alternatives are of no match. Asian approaches as Ayurvedic healing, or Chinese Traditional Medicine are less being heard of. Even our own ways of fighting cancer are in themselves trivial.

With our health system being curative more than preventive in approach, pharmaceuticals that offer cure are better put into light than newly discovered drugs or natural remedies available that prevent the illness in the first place.

For every type of cancer, there is a corresponding unique, chemotherapy drug, a unique treatment. Although I am not that sure of how great is the presence of Big Pharma companies in the medical school, I am quite sure that doctors are more familiar with branded, patented drugs more than they’re familiar with preventive concoction of herbs. Being medicine-based and hospital based, nature of cures are becoming more targetive than holistic. Our doctors may not be that good at ethnobotany, naturopathy, and the likes, more than they are experts at thousands of synthesized drugs.

What if we long found the cure?

According to some claims, there are already many cures against cancer. Some even claiming being able to bring back normal cells from a cancer growth.

Are we even aware of anti-cancer vaccines being developed by Cuba? Clinical trials for new alternative treatments that have also been found to offer higher percentages of cancer survival than current methods? These are all backed with scientific evidences, and yet, we continue being limited to cures that have already failed the many in the first world, and the third world, even more.

The reason for not knowing? The Cancer-Industrial Complex.

For conspiracy theorists, the war on cancer has been already over because it’s been won through simple measures that they, the Big Pharma can’t get millions of profits from. Through the years, there has been some kind of conspiracy over cancer patients’ welfare. The main reason why certain cures are forbidden and only few doctors that admit the power of nature and newly discovered drugs.

It’s even more frustrating how our incredulity from shifting our mind set away from the current paradigm are making us gullible to Big Pharma’s profit maximizing tactics. Take for example, Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer, a common type of lung cancer, is being seen in the third world as a new business venture. South American countries as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico are being seen as a market that “will grow at six percent annually through 2018.”

My father was fortunate enough to have had access to consultation. Many in the Global South who may have the same illness may not have met any doctor till his or her death. No access to either alt-med or traditional medicine. Cancer types that can only be found in the third world are also being neglected. Having only a few cases to cure, Big Pharma will in no way spend $12B. Patients of these kinds of cancers will eventually become part of the cancer death statistics.

As of now, my father has completely recovered from surgery. He did not gain much weight but at least, he doesn’t look sickly anymore. He can still do some of his old work (his limitations being his quarter stomach left).

With all these being said, be the one to judge.