Whole (32 page)

This is how a system like ours—in which the goal of ever-increasing profits for the few is pursued at the expense of our health—can continue, even though that goal is not shared by the vast majority of people within it. Thanks to the rewards and punishments subtle power uses, people behave in ways they otherwise would not—ways that maintain the current system. The more industry profits increase, the more money is available to reward even more of the desired behavior. In other words, the money that is spent on subtle power achieves a return on investment that makes even more money available for the next round of subtle power. What we have is a vicious cycle that concentrates power more and more exclusively in the hands of those who already wield it.

If power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then we should expect to see a lot of “legal” corruption in our health-care system. In the next chapter, we’ll pull back the curtain on some of that corruption and see how it keeps us from moving toward true and lasting health.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.

—
THOMAS JEFFERSON

T
he wealthy and powerful industries that make up our health system have replaced its original goal—human health—with the pursuit of ever-increasing profits. Their money distorts research agendas, media reports on health issues, and government policies. And thanks to their skillful wielding of subtle power, they do so without leaving obvious evidence. My goal in this chapter is to make their fingerprints as visible as possible, especially when it comes to one of the main victims of industry control over how information is produced, distributed, and used: wholistic nutrition.

The medical, pharmaceutical, and supplement industries figured out long ago that a nation of healthy eaters would be disastrous to their profits.
They make much more money ignoring and discrediting the evidence for WFPB than by embracing it. So let’s take a look at these three industries and how they maximize profits at the expense of human health.

The purpose of the medical establishment is to treat illness. Doctors go through many years of training to learn the best ways science knows to treat diseases. When we visit them as patients, we hope they will show us the best road to wellness. We trust them to know things we do not, and to hold only our best interests at heart. And so, when we are confronted with a life-threatening diagnosis, most of us take our doctor’s recommendations for things like aggressive surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, even if we sometimes wonder if another path is possible.

The medical establishment has all but cornered the market on legitimacy. And in my experience and to my knowledge, the vast majority of doctors are accomplished professionals who sincerely seek the best for their patients and pursue that goal as best they can, based on their medical training and ongoing education. But as we’ve seen, that training is limited by the reductionist way we do science. And like any group that “knows best,” doctors can be blind to other options that might be more viable than their own skills and tools. Some of them, out of twin desires to cure and to remain blameless, use their power advantage to bully and silence skeptics who might want to explore wholistic methods of healing. As a result, even the bravest and most open-minded patients usually feel that drugs and surgery are their best bet.

Cancer and heart disease tend to reduce us to powerlessness in our relationship with the medical establishment. And too many doctors exploit the power difference to scare their patients into unblinking compliance while simultaneously and sincerely believing that they are serving their best interests. It’s been said more than once that doctors are the clergy for a secular age, holding the keys to life and death in their hands and brooking no heresy. Like traditional clergy, they use symbolism and ritual to represent and reinforce their power (think of the waiting room, the receptionist behind the glass divider, the endless paperwork you fill out while you glance at the aging magazines). Far from maddening us, these
and other rituals serve to comfort vulnerable patients who deeply desire to trust their doctors’ opinions. At such moments the doctor-patient relationship is imbalanced, however unintentional this may be: one side desperate to save their life, the other perceived as capable of doing so. When the diagnosis is cancer, a doctor’s unintended exploitation of this emotional vulnerability can lead to poignant, even tragic results. And not coincidentally, the treatment pathways they insist upon are those that deliver the greatest profits to the medical industry and its partner, the pharmaceutical industry.

When people find out that I have spent my career searching for ways to prevent and possibly cure cancer, they naturally ask my opinion about particular diagnoses: family members, friends, even themselves. Of course, I emphasize that I’m not a licensed physician and can’t offer specific advice; their doctor has years of specialized education and training that I do not. But when faced with a diagnosis of cancer, many people persist. They ask, “What would you do if you or a family member were to receive a diagnosis of ‘the Big C’?” At best, I can only share my interpretation of the scientific evidence, often advising them to get a second opinion while simultaneously trying to help them respect the advice of their personal physician. In 2005, my very best friend, after scratching a mole on her thigh and leaving a small scab, decided to have it checked and removed if necessary, because cancer was not infrequent in her family.

When test results were completed in a few days, her doctor phoned her to come for a visit. Being somewhat apprehensive, she asked me to join her. When the doctor entered the examining room, his demeanor was serious. The diagnosis? Stage III advanced melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer. He advised quick attention and referred her to a team of a surgeon and oncologist. Devastated, she experienced the usual emotions that every cancer patient knows so well: an all-encompassing fear and dizzying disorientation.

After getting two second opinions on the tissue specimens to confirm the diagnosis, she then scheduled her surgery. The cancerous tissue was removed from her thigh, along with a biopsied sample of the sentinel node of a nearby lymph gland to see if it had metastasized. The sentinel node is the part of a lymph gland to which cancer is most likely to spread first; if the sentinel node shows evidence of cancer, it is generally assumed that cancer has spread into the larger lymph gland
“basin.” Think of the sentinel node as the doorway to a room—in this case, the larger lymph gland basin. If melanoma cancer cells migrated to the sentinel gland, it is assumed they are also in the lymph gland basin, thus requiring its removal—a tactic akin to destroying a village in order to save it.

At about this same time, my friend met with her newly assigned oncologist to talk about her treatment options, depending on whether her new tests indicated lymph gland involvement. I did not accompany her on this visit, as she brought along her adult sons, but she told me afterword that the doctor told her of the treatment options patients generally consider, including chemo and radiation. She informed him that she did not want to undergo any of these treatments regardless what the biopsy results might indicate, and he seemed okay with this. She was to return in another few days after learning the biopsy results of the sentinel lymph gland. It was about this time that she learned that the results were positive: the sentinel node showed that the cancer had spread to the lymphatic system. Three pathologists confirmed the diagnosis.

Before we returned to the oncologist, I decided to inform myself more deeply about melanoma and its treatment. Among other things, this included a visit to a very open-minded and welcoming pathologist to see for myself the histologically diagnosed tissue (I had received training in histology and had done quite a lot of microscopic work in my laboratory research group).

I already had some familiarity with melanoma. About twelve years before, I had used a summary report of melanoma cases published in 1995
¹
as recommended reading for my Cornell class on plant-based nutrition, because the summary showed a remarkable dietary effect on the rate of survival. This paper was significant not only because it was a relatively rare peer-reviewed report of a favorable effect of diet on a serious cancer, but also because the lead author had been a member of a distinguished science panel recommending how research results from alternative clinical databases should be interpreted and published. The report provided detailed evidence that a plant-based diet had considerable potential to inhibit the progression of melanoma, but it also mentioned a similar effect on other cancers. The patient cases in this study were provided with a diet of mostly whole, plant-based foods prescribed by the famous (or, if you prefer, infamous
²
) Gerson Institute in Tijuana, Mexico.
Survival was remarkably increased, even for cancers initially diagnosed as stage III and IV.

I also familiarized myself with the not very pretty consequences of lymph gland removal. The literature suggested that removing a major lymph gland in the groin often resulted in loss of use of the leg for about a year or so, with lots of side effects and discomfort, to say nothing of the serious compromise of the body’s immune system. Indeed, the woman’s doctor had told her that she should plan on being “out of commission” for a year.

I also learned that, to compensate for the lost immune system activity when lymph glands are removed, doctors often prescribe interferon, a powerful immunotherapy medication. I therefore sought and found a very recent review on interferon and related treatments for melanoma stage II and III patients.
³
It concluded that “at present there is no single therapy [including interferon] that prolongs overall survival in stage II and III melanoma.” Research on this topic is exceptionally complex, involving different interferon types, drug dosages and protocols, and stages of melanoma, as well as lots of discussion of response details. Let’s put it this way: it’s definitely not bedtime reading. I don’t see how someone without adequate background and experience—which includes most melanoma patients—could make sense of the research, let alone use it to advocate with an oncologist for a different treatment.

Probably one of the most interesting observations that came to our attention was found by my friend’s oldest son, who is neither a doctor nor a medical researcher. He located a peer-reviewed publication by a group of researchers in London who summarized the case histories of 146 melanoma patients. In case you think any of the science in
this
book is a bit advanced, here’s the title of that peer-reviewed article: “The Microanatomic Location of Metastatic Melanoma in Sentinel Lymph Nodes Predicts Nonsentinel Lymph Node Involvement.”
⁴
Quite a mouthful!

Here’s what the article reported: All 146 patients in the study, as with my friend, showed metastasis to the sentinel lymph node, a finding that is conventionally used to justify surgical removal of the neighboring lymph gland basin. Because all 146 patients in this study had melanoma cells in their sentinel nodes, their full lymph gland basins were surgically removed. But retrospective reexamination of their lymph gland specimens
showed that only 20 percent actually had melanoma cells in the larger basin,
⁵
suggesting that 80 percent of these patients did not have to suffer removal of their lymph glands. For 38 individuals in that 80 percent, metastasis was limited to only a single region of the sentinel node, the subcapsular region.

These study results were startling. I called the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Martin Cook, in London, and he emphatically affirmed the article’s report. You can imagine how excited we were about this powerful and esoteric finding, as my friend’s biopsy also showed that her metastasis also was limited to the subcapsular region. I gave copies of this publication to my friend’s surgeon and pathologist, neither of whom knew of this information, while saving a copy for the upcoming visit with the oncologist.

With this information in hand and having examined the tissue specimens myself, I accompanied my friend on her return visit to the oncologist when he expected her to tell him which treatment option she preferred and when she could start treatment—even though she had previously said she did not want to undergo the recommended treatments. Her decision was, of course, hers to make, although I also believed that treatment was ill-advised in her case. Removing the lymph gland made no sense and would only lead to serious side effects. In clinical trials, interferon had been shown to be ineffective and laden with side effects. Furthermore, the presence of melanoma cells only in the subcapsular region of her sentinel node indicated a good prognosis, especially if she adhered to a WFPB diet.