BUYER BEWARE: Cancer screening is ‘diagnosing cancer that isn’t cancer’



Around the country, Americans have begun waking up to the possibility that the health care system is more interested in your wallet than it is in your cure.

Which is why extra caution should be taken when it comes to earth-shattering diagnoses like cancer.

“The ridiculous cancer screening programs that are designed to bring in customers to medical centers are diagnosing cancer that isn’t cancer,” Dr. Pam Popper, an internationally recognized expert on nutrition, medicine, and health and the founder and executive director of Wellness Forum Health tells Liz Wheeler of the “The Liz Wheeler Show.”

“In other words, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is not cancer, it’s a risk factor for breast cancer,” she continues. “A lot of people are being treated for cancer because they have risk factors, which is great for the industry, not so great for the patient.”

A major factor in preventing and/or curing cancer is diet, which conventional cancer doctors often don’t focus on.

“When you think about it, an average adult puts a ton of food through their body every year,” Popper says. “How could you say that doesn’t have an effect?”

“You’re blowing my mind here,” Wheeler responds, adding, “this idea that there are people who are told by their doctors after testing that they have cancer and you say, ‘Well no, actually, that’s a risk factor for cancer but not actually cancer.’”

“How do these patients tell? I mean, we’re not trained as doctors, we don’t know what tests are run,” she adds.

Popper believes that receiving a cancer diagnosis should be treated like any service, in that you should always investigate and get a second opinion.

“Don’t do anything until you have a chance to calm down, think about it, and start investigating,” Popper explains. “The consumer has to take responsibility. I’m all about consumer empowerment and consumer responsibility.”

“Everybody thinks, 'Well, the government has to change. Somebody has to go fix this for me.' You have to start by fixing it for yourself. Then you start by helping other people around you,” she continues, noting that her philosophy on health has served her well.

“I’m 68 years old. I weigh what I weighed when I graduated from high school,” Popper says. “I don’t take any drugs. There’s nothing wrong with me.”


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'I don't want to die': Doctor facing certain death from brain cancer tries experimental treatment developed by his friend – which shows promise



A leading skin cancer doctor is hopeful that an experimental treatment will bring a miracle and cure his nearly uncurbable brain cancer.

Richard Scolyer is a professor at Sydney University in Australia and a surgical pathologist. Professor Scolyer is also suffering from one of the deadliest forms of cancer – a glioblastoma.

The Mayo Clinic defines a glioblastoma as:

A type of cancer that starts as a growth of cells in the brain or spinal cord. It grows quickly and can invade and destroy healthy tissue. Glioblastoma forms from cells called astrocytes that support nerve cells. Glioblastoma can happen at any age. But it tends to occur more often in older adults and more often in men. Glioblastoma symptoms include headaches that keep getting worse, nausea and vomiting, blurred or double vision, and seizures.

According to Healthline, "The median survival time for adults with glioblastoma is 15 months."

Just 3% to 5% of patients survive more than three years.

Scolyer – a 57-year-old married father with three children – was diagnosed with brain cancer last June.

For a treatment strategy, Scolyer turned to Georgina Long – his friend and co-director of the Melanoma Institute Australia.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "Both have been at the forefront of groundbreaking advances in melanoma treatment and saved thousands of lives with their immunotherapy approach."

"We've taken everything, absolutely every bit of knowledge … that we've pioneered in melanoma and we've thrown it at Richard's tumor," Long told the outlet.

Knowing the extraordinary odds and that timing is critical, Long proposed a radical plan to try to cure the nearly incurable brain cancer. However, there were significant risks.

Professor Scolyer was the first in the world to delay brain surgery to remove the tumor and start with pre-surgery combination immunotherapy.

"Combination immunotherapy counters several immunosuppressive elements in the tumor microenvironment and activates multiple steps of the cancer-immunity cycle," according to the National Library of Medicine.

The professor is also the first person to receive a personalized vaccine to combat the tumor.

"Brain cancer doctors were so worried this would kill me quicker or result in terrible side effects," Scolyer explained.

Scolyer joked that the treatment plan was a "no-brainer."

"It's not a hard decision to make when you're faced with certain death. I'm more than happy to be the guinea pig to do this," Scolyer said.

Scolyer, his family, and the treatment team were extremely nervous when it came time for his recent brain scan at the end of January.

Long said her friend's brain is "normalizing"

A "thrilled" Scoyler said there's "no recurrence of my supposedly incurable glioblastoma!"

Scolyer said the chance that he is cured of his aggressive cancer is "miniscule," but he's optimistic that "a miracle could happen."

Scolyer proclaimed, "I'm confident, to be honest, that it's going to make a difference for future brain cancer patients."

He cautioned, "I'm just one patient though. We won't really know [it works] until we do clinical trials."

Scolyer told the BBC that he wants to live long enough to see his kids "become truly independent."

The doctor said that he is "extraordinarily resilient," but "it's tough."

"I love my family. I love my wife… I like my work," he declared with a grimace.

"I'm pissed off. I'm devastated," he said. "I don't want to die."

His only comfort is that the data from his experimental treatment is "changing the field, and if I die tomorrow with that, I'm very proud."

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An experimental treatment against 'certain death' | Professor Richard Scolyer | Australian Story www.youtube.com

Scientists say mutant wolves near Chernobyl nuclear disaster site could hold key to curing cancer



Mutant wolves roaming the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have developed cancer-resilient genomes that could hold the key to developing a cure for cancer in humans.

High radiation levels have plagued the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone since the nuclear reactor exploded in 1986. Humans have abandoned the 1,000-square-mile Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, allowing wildlife to reclaim the area in the 38 years since the worst nuclear disaster in history.

Despite exposure to the cancer-causing radiation, the irradiated wolves appear to have developed protective mutations that make them resilient to cancer.

Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist with Shane Campbell-Staton’s lab at Princeton University, has been studying the mutant wolves of the CEZ for a decade.

In 2014, Love and her colleagues took blood samples of the wolves in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to understand how the animals reacted to the cancer-causing radiation. The scientists also fitted the wolves with radio collars to track their locations and their radiation exposure.

"We get real-time measurements of where they are and how much [radiation] they are exposed to,” Love said in a press release.

The research showed that wolves in the CEZ are exposed to upward of 11.28 millirem of radiation every single day for their entire lives — over six times the legal limit for human workers.

The researchers discovered that the mutant wolves have altered immune systems — similar to cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment.

Genetic analysis suggests that parts of the wolves’ genome have developed some resilience to cancer. Furthermore, there was a "promising" discovery that specific regions of the wolf genome appear to be resilient to increased cancer risk.

"Most human research has found mutations increasing cancer risk (like BRCA does with breast cancer), but Love's work hopes to identify protective mutations that increase the odds of surviving cancer," the news release said.

The New York Post reported, "The findings are especially valuable as scientists have learned that canines fight off cancer more similarly to the way humans do than lab rats."

Love's research has been severely hampered, and her team hasn't returned to the CEZ because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Love's research was presented last month at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology’s Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington.

The radiation from the nuclear blast may have also altered the DNA of dogs in the CEZ.

Last year, scientists from the University of South Carolina and the National Human Genome Research Institute examined the DNA of 302 feral dogs. The study said the feral dogs living near the Chernobyl power plant showed distinct genetic differences from dogs living 10 miles away from the disaster site.

A 2011 study found that birds in the CEZ had smaller brains.

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Researchers discover 'kill switch' that causes cancer cells to self-destruct in possible medical breakthrough



In a possible medical breakthrough, researchers say they have discovered a kill switch that triggers the death of cancer cells.

Researchers at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center believe they have identified a protein on a receptor that can "program" cancer cells to die.

The press release from UC Davis states: "CD95 receptors, also known as Fas, are called death receptors. These protein receptors reside on cell membranes. When activated, they release a signal that causes the cells to self-destruct."

The Daily Mail reported that CAR T-cell therapy "involves collecting and making changes to a cancer patient's T cells, which are responsible for fighting off infection and disease but can struggle to spot cancer cells."

The modified cells are administered to patients' bloodstream through a drip.

"We have found the most critical epitope for cytotoxic Fas signaling, as well as CAR T-cell bystander anti-tumor function,” said Jogender Tushir-Singh – an associate professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and senior author of the study published in the Nature journal Cell Death & Differentiation last month.

At the moment, the treatment has only shown efficacy against leukemia and other blood cancers. The engineered T cells have not delivered results for those suffering from solid tumors such as breast, lung, and bowel cancer.

"Despite being decently successful in liquid tumors, such as leukemia spectrum cancers, long-term remission remains the biggest challenge for CAR T-cell therapies," Tushir-Singh told Fox News.

However, researchers believe the potential breakthrough medical treatment could eventually destroy solid tumors.

"Modulating Fas may also extend the benefits of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy to solid tumors like ovarian cancer," the statement reads.

“Previous efforts to target this receptor have been unsuccessful. But now that we’ve identified this epitope, there could be a therapeutic path forward to target Fas in tumors,” Tushir-Singh added.

However, no CD95-boosting drugs have made it into clinical trials as of yet.

Another major hurdle is price – the treatment reportedly costs $500,000 or more.

Tushir-Singh added, "The next breakthrough is just one experiment away."

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Shocking cancer study shows new treatment leaves every patient disease-free



A new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine has shown that all 18 rectal cancer patients participating in an experimental drug trial went into remission following a six-month treatment.

The study, the Journal reported, was spearheaded by doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline also backed the research.

What are the details?

According to the study, 18 cancer patients who were given the experimental immunotherapy drug dostarlimab every three weeks for six months ended up in remission by the end of the trial.

A portion of the study read, “We initiated a prospective phase 2 study in which single-agent dostarlimab, an anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody, was administered every 3 weeks for 6 months in patients with mismatch repair-deficient stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma. This treatment was to be followed by standard chemoradiotherapy and surgery.”

The stunning study found that all 18 patients saw a "clinical response, with no evidence of tumor on magnetic resonance imaging" following the six-month regimen.

"At the time of this report, no patients had received chemotherapy or undergone surgery, and no cases of progression or recurrence had been reported during follow-up," the study added in its findings. "No adverse events of Grade 3 or higher have been reported."

Study author Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. told The New York Times that he believes the results are the "first time this has happened in the history of cancer." Study author Dr. Andrea Cercek added that the findings resulted in a "lot of happy tears." Dr. Kimmie Ng with Harvard Medical School lauded the results, calling them "unprecedented" and "remarkable," and Dr. Alan P. Venook — who was not involved in the study — added that such a finding was "unheard of."

According to the Times' report, the medication cost approximately $11,000 per dose.