"Cancer matters? History matters!" Naturally Speaking By Christopher C. Barr

A short time ago a television broadcast ‘Stand Up to Cancer’ was simulcast by all of the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) as well as the cable E! Entertainment channel. Hollywood celebrities and industry-execs also joined in the effort.

It was urged that a ‘Manhattan Project’ approach be used to find the cancer answer.

"Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is a well known quote from a not so well known 19th century statesman and philosopher.

Known and not so well known is a relevant contrast when it comes to cancer and history matters.

Déjà vu

The Manhattan Project (MP) gathered scientists to work intently together instead of individually competing to bring about the atomic bomb for World War II. Success was achieved in only a few years.

The MP was cited almost 20 years later as inspiration for the Apollo Project (AP) to place a man on the moon. Success was achieved within that same decade.

Neil Armstrong walked upon the moon in 1969 early in the Nixon Administration. President Nixon then drew upon the excitement generated from this with his declaration of ‘War on Cancer’ at the end of 1971. Comparison to both the MP and the AP were made.

This declaration was made at the cusp of the entrance into the 1972 presidential campaign with the first primary on the horizon so ‘political ploy’ comes to mind.

The stated goal of the War on Cancer was for a cure of cancer to be found in time for the national bicentennial five years later in 1976.

Cancer and cancer deaths increased every year for the five years through the bicentennial with no sign of a cure for cancer in sight by the mainstream, medical establishment.

One historical perspective to the matter

Would the war in Iraq have continued if after five years the deaths of U.S. soldiers increased every year with no solution in sight?

The War on Cancer has been far more costly fiscally and physically than the war in Iraq – and continues that trend.

In the War on Cancer the increase in cancer and cancer deaths continued annually for more than 30 years. Almost 40 years later there is still no cure in sight.

Trillion$ of dollar$ have been spent with no end in sight.

At the time of the completion date five years later that had been initially proposed for the War on Cancer there was only an utter, dismal failure. Those words were not uttered and the program continued unfettered.

Twenty years later there was not one, single, incurable cancer that had become curable after the War on Cancer was declared according to cancer specialist and State University of New York professor Dr. Albert Braverman, M.D.

Parallel historical perspective to the matter

During the initially declared period of the War on Cancer a variety of researchers discovered that selenium levels were an accurate gauge for breast cancer levels.

Those with the highest selenium levels had the lowest breast cancer levels in a listing of 27 industrialized nations of the world. Those with the lowest selenium levels had the highest breast cancer levels.

Just after the initially proposed five year completion date of the War on Cancer it was noted that if every woman in America took a 200 microgram daily supplement of selenium then breast cancer rates would dramatically decline in the space of a few years according to Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer, M.D., cancer specialist and California State University School of Medicine professor of Medical Chemistry. Dr. Schrauzer subsequently chaired two world conferences on selenium and cancer.

Selenium had been noted almost half a century earlier to have effectiveness against breast cancer in the British Medical Journal.

Twenty years later a large, decade long double-blind, clinical study – the gold standard of modern medi$in – cited a greater than 50 per cent reduction in total cancers in those using Schrauzer’s recommended 200 micrograms daily supplement of selenium. However, the researchers did use a much more potent 100 per cent whole food grown variety of selenium that had not yet been available at the time Schrauzer made his initial recommendation.

Medical insanity

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get a different result.

After thirty years of abject failure medical apologists at the highest levels finally backed away from the MP and AP comparisons. The new story line was that all the necessary information was available but just not yet figured out at the time of the MP and AP programs. It was asserted that all the necessary information was not available to cure cancer. Just keep those checks comin’…

Are these medical apologists and their medical cohorts excuse makers or co-conspirators of fraud and even of homicide of at least the negligent variety? Perhaps they can use an insanity defense?

Nutrition solution

It has been almost 100 years since the effectiveness of selenium in the treatment of cancer was first noted.

The necessary knowledge has been available since before the last century in the massive volumes of collected works from Dr. Pierre Jacques Antoine Béchamp, M.D., Ph.D.

It has been almost three quarters of a century since microscopic and clinical documentation of the works of Béchamp regarding cancer by Royal Raymond Rife.

The work of Rife has been medically panned as inaccurate only by those who never examined or tested it. It was verified in every instance by those who examined and tested that work including doctors of the Mayo Clinic, the University of Southern California, and the Scripps clinic.

Reality TV?

The ‘Stand Up to Cancer’ television broadcast hauled the MP comparison back out of the closet and called for more money to be thrown down the medical rats’ holes. A false reality by any truthful measure…

CBS News’ Katie Couric addressed brain tumors.

CoEnzymeQ10 (CoQ10 or ubiquinone) has shown great promise with brain tumors. The body makes its own CoQ10 from selenium – unless you are taking a statin drug (another huge fraud) which prevents selenium from producing CoQ10.

ABC News’ Charles Gibson addressed breast cancer citing a wife who “has gone through a bout of it.”

There is an overwhelming amount of data on the benefit of selenium with regard to breast cancer prevention and treatment though there is an underwhelming amount of coverage – usually none at all.

NBC News’ Brian Williams said, “Given my family history, it’s not a question of will I have cancer, but in what form and when.”

Somebody should tell Williams that there is documentation that just 200 micrograms of 100 per cent whole food selenium daily resulted in more than 50 per cent total cancer incidence and mortality. That means less cancer rather than more with selenium so cancer is not a foregone conclusion due to genetics.

There was a 57 per cent reduction of colon cancer in the selenium study at the very same time that the husband of Couric was dying from colon cancer.

There was a 63 per cent reduction of prostate cancer in the selenium study. The closest any medical option has come is a 25 per cent reduction though that drug study was filled with side effects – including death – while the selenium study was filled only with benefits and absent any side effects.

Picture worth a thousand words?

The photo used to promote the ‘Stand Up to Cancer’ broadcast showed the three news anchors all sitting down (see photo above).

Sitting down on the job? Saying one thing while doing another? Talk about confusion…

All the necessary information available for prevention and treatment of cancer is abundant. It is absent only in the medical realm for there is not – and never will be – a medical solution to a non-medical issue.

History matters when it comes to cancer matters. It is a matter of combined medical and criminal negligence by the unholy trinity of BIG government, BIG pharma and BIG media that acts together as one for its own fiscal interests at the extreme expense of you and your fiscal and physical interests.

Christopher C. Barr writes Naturally Speaking from Arkansas: The Natural State … naturally! You may write him at Post Office Box 1147, Pocahontas, Arkansas 72455 or by e-mail at servantofYHVH@hotmail.com.

"Wedded Bliss, Ignorant Bliss" Christopher C. Barr's 2002 Selenium Counterpunch to "Stand Up To Cancer"

You’ve heard about those who are "married to the job"? This is because of such devotion to the job that it seems to take up all their time.

Researchers can be like this. They can also get caught up in the chase more than in capturing the prize.

Something old

President Richard Nixon issued a directive in 1971 announcing ‘War on Cancer’. This declaration of war was issued to make curing cancer the top priority for America. The stated intent was for such a cancer cure to come about by the bicentennial of America 5 years later.

Cancer specialist Dr. Albert Braverman wrote 20 years later that not one, single, incurable cancer after the ‘War on Cancer’ began had become curable.

Annual cancer diagnoses and deaths now exceed those of 1971 some 30 years after the ‘War on Cancer’ was declared.

Older still, in 1949 Drs. Clayton and Baumann wrote in the journal Cancer Research (vol. 9, pp. 575-582) that the trace mineral element selenium reduced cancer incidence by one-third.

Oldest yet is that selenium was first put forth as a possible preventative against cancer in 1912.

Something new

Federal health officials last month announced "the largest prostate cancer prevention trial that's ever been performed" according to Dr. Leslie Ford of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The NCI is under the National Institutes of Health that is part of the United States government.

This new cancer prevention trial is to be a twelve-year study. The study is to involve more than 30,000 men. Part of the investigation is designed to use selenium.

Something borrowed

On Christmas morning of 1996 a front-page cover story appeared in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers across the country. A large, university study on cancer demonstrated that selenium prevented cancer and also increased survival time for those who came down with this condition.

The study included the finding of a 63% reduction in prostate cancer among those taking a 200 microgram supplement of organic selenium.

The study was conducted by an associate professor at a major university cancer center. The professor’s name was Dr. Larry Clark.

Something blue

The name of Dr. Larry Clark rang a bell with me that early winter morning when this story broke.

I remembered a Larry Clark from Cornell University that had co-authored an article more than a decade earlier in Nutrition Reviews of November 1985. The article was entitled "Can Selenium Modify Cancer Risk?" That article postulated that selenium usage might be helpful against cancer and included 97 scholarly references.

Yet the article on the 1996 study noted that this Larry Clark was surprised at the positive results of the current university selenium study.

Were these two different men or were each of these the very same Larry Clark?

If these two men were in fact the very same man then why was he "surprised" the postulate that selenium usage might be helpful against cancer was confirmed more than a decade later?

Checking through my sources another scientist turned up who is a pioneer in selenium supplementation. It had been many years since last I had spoken with him.

When asked if he knew this Larry Clark of the current study he responded, "Yes, he’s my best friend."

I hit paydirt.

He then affirmed my suspicion that this Larry Clark was also the same scientist as the Cornell co-author of the previous decade.

So why would he express "surprise" at the results of this then just released study on selenium and cancer?

My source told me that when the news media began to bombard the ASU administration with requests to speak with Dr. Larry Clark, the administrators called Dr. Clark in for a meeting. They told him that if any type of endorsement to selenium supplementation was given he would be fired.

At this time I worked for one of the largest newspapers in the world. It was a multiple winner of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.

Excitedly, I brought this scandalous story to a senior news editor with more than 25 years experience at the newspaper. He asked only one question.

"What’s the local angle?"

I told him that cancer was the #2 killer and #1 feared disease of local readers. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

Now here we are five years later with the announcement of this new and redundant selenium study on prostate cancer. It is not due to be completed before 2013. That is more than 100 years after selenium was first put forth as a preventative against cancer.

Am I blue?

I sure am blue!

I am blue that so much suffering has gone on needlessly and will continue to go on needlessly while selenium is kept in the closet.

I am blue in the face that the story of selenium and cancer is still only the smallest of blips on the radar screen of cancer research. This is in spite of the wealth of positive findings that have been unearthed on the subject over many decades.

Epitaph

Dr. Larry Clark died last year. He died from prostate cancer. Is it ironic that he should die from the condition for which his research had shown such promise? Or is it rather ominous that he should die like this after he downplayed the promise of selenium for prostate cancer in spite of his research and personal belief?

Christopher C. Barr writes Naturally Speaking from Arkansas: The Natural State… naturally! You may write him at P. O. Box 1147, Pocahontas, Arkansas 72455 or by e-mail at servantofYHVH@hotmail.com.