Ever since Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer in 1971 through the signing of the National Cancer Act,[i] over a hundred billion dollars has been spent by our government on research and drug development in an attempt to eradicate the disease, with trillions more spent by the cancer patients themselves, but with disappointing results. Even after four decades of waging full-scale conventional (surgery and chemo) and nuclear (radiotherapy) war against cancer, close to one in every four Americans will be diagnosed with the disease within their lifetimes. Could this colossal failure reflect how profoundly misunderstood the condition is, and misguided are our attempts to prevent and treat it?
The time has come to shift the conceptual framework away from the idea that cancer is something bad that happens to the body, to something the body does in order to survive vis-à-vis an increasingly toxic and nutrient-deprived environment. Only then we will begin to unravel the mystery behind the colossal failure of the conventional medical system and why the ‘war against cancer’ will only be successful when we embrace our enemy with greater compassion and understanding, instead of blasting it (and ourselves) into oblivion.
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