tagged w/ Cancer microbe
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By Alan Cantwell, M.D.
10-26-11
What causes a human cell to turn cancerous? How do cancer cells become deadly killing machines? Could infectious agents, like bacteria, be involved in the process?
According to new revolutionary research by Peter Duesberg, Professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California in Berkeley, cancer tumors are parasitic organisms which represent a newly evolved parasitic species. He says cancer cells are like parasites. They feed on us and they don't need our healthy cells to survive. And they ultimately develop chromosomes that differ from our own cells.
The prevailing view is that the cancer cell is caused by a handful of genetic mutations. But Duesberg argues that the cancer cell is initiated by a disruption of the entire chromosome, which leads to duplicates, deletions, breaks and omissions, and other chromosomal damages that alter the balance of tens of thousands of genes. The result is a cancer cell with totally new traits and a chromosomal number that differs from our normal healthy human cells, which contain a total of 46 chromosomes.
Since the 1980s Duesberg has gained notoriety for his persistent and outspoken belief that HIV does not cause AIDS. However, he hopes his new view of a cancer parasite, however disturbing, will allow medical researchers to develop more effective treatments for cancer than they have been able to thus far. For more details, see the UC Berkeley Press Release online, "Are cancers newly evolved species?" by Robert Sanders, July 26, 2011.
UNICELLULAR CANCRI: THE PARASITE OF CANCER (1911)
Surprisingly, Duesberg's idea is not new. The idea that cancer cells were parasites was popular a century ago when microbiology was in its infancy.
On Dec 2, 1911, Sir Henry Britlin's paper entitled "Unicellula cancri: The parasite of cancer" appeared in the British Medical Journal. He declared, "There is one, and only one, explanation of the conduct of the cancer cellit has become an independent creature, a new creation of a living thing."
He continued: "If the cancer cell be, in truth, a new creature, to what class of creature does it belong? It is nearest to the protozoa-so near, indeed, that it is difficult to keep it out of the protozoa." (Protozoa are the smallest one cell "animal" organisms having a distinct nucleus.) Butlin named the cancer cell "Unicellula cancri," and wrote: "I am perfectly conscious of the far-reaching consequences of admitting that unicellular bodies, derived from such a source, are a new species of created beings, but there is no alternative. The facts are plain, and cannot, I believe, be otherwise interpreted." Butlin's century-old paper is available online.
WILHELM REICH AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CANCER CELLS INTO PROTOZOA (1948)
In "The Cancer Microbe" (1990), I wrote about Wilhelm Reich, the unfairly maligned and persecuted psychiatrist and cancer researcher who was sentenced to Federal prison where he died in 1957. After much experimentation he concluded that bacteria, which he called "T-bacilli," were the key to unlocking the origin of cancer.
When cells were transformed, either through injury or aging, they underwent a death process that Reich termed "bionous degeneration." As a result, deadly T-bacilli began to form within the cells. He could demonstrate these bacteria microscopically in living (and unstained) cancer cells.
Injection of these microbes into animals caused inflammation and eventual death from cancer. In artificially-produced tumors, Reich observed the animal's cancer cells transform into monster cells that resembled one-celled protozoa. He believed that overwhelming infection with T-bacilli and massive breakdown of cancer tissue caused most deaths from cancer.
Reich discovered T-bacilli not only in cancer tumors, but also in the blood, body fluids, and the excreta of cancer patients. He originally thought the T-bacillus was the specific infectious agent of cancer, but he eventually found the bacteria in persons with other diseases and also observed T-bacilli in the blood and excreta of normal healthy people.
The blood of cancer patients produced T-bacilli easily and quickly. In contrast, blood from healthy people produced the bacilli slowly. Reich concluded "the disposition to cancer is therefore determined by the biological resistance of the blood and the tissues to putrefaction." Reich's two revolutionary books, "The Bion Experiments on the Origin of Life" (1938) and "The Cancer Biopathy" (1948) contain details of his highly controversial biologic experiments and scientific theories, as well as fascinating insights into the origin of the cancer cell and "T" bacteria.
Reich's monster cancer cells that morphed into protozoa-like cells may have their counterpart in the HeLa cell, which was grown in tissue cell culture from cervical cancer in 1951. These cells have been used extensively in cancer and cancer virus research since that time. Due to their ability to replicate indefinitely and their abnormal number of non-human chromosomes, some geneticists now consider HeLa to be a contemporary creation of a new amoeba-like protozoal species called Helacyton gartleri. For more details on HeLa, consult the Wikipedia.
WILLIAM RUSSELL'S "PARASITE"
AND "THE CHARACTERISTIC ORGANISM OF CANCER" (1890)
On December 3, 1890, William Russell, a pathologist at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, gave an address to the Pathological Society of London outlining his findings of "a characteristic organism of cancer" that he observed microscopically in fuchsine-stained tissue sections from all forms of cancer that he examined, as well as in certain cases of tuberculosis, syphilis and skin infection.
The parasite was seen within the tissue cells (intracellular) and outside the cells (extracellular). The size of Russell's parasite ranged from barely visible, up to "half again as large as a red blood corpuscle." The large size of some of these bodies suggested a fungal or yeast-like parasite. Russell called them "fuchsine bodies" because of their bluish-red staining qualities.
...snip...
Russell's 1899 paper ended his writings on a cancer parasite, but his "fuchsine bodies" became well-known to pathologists as "Russell bodies." These bodies continue to fascinate researchers and physicians (like myself) up to the present time. Russell's 1890 paper can be found online by Googling: brmedj04652-0016.
THE HERESY OF CANCER-CAUSING BACTERIA (1890-2011)
Virologists now believe viruses cause cervical cancer, and cancers like Kaposi's sarcoma. Hepatitis viruses are thought to promote liver cancer; and the AIDS virus (HIV) is considered a cancer-causing virus. But could bacteria infect a cell and transform it into a parasitic cancer cell? Stomach-ulcer causing bacteria have been implicated in gastric cancer; and in October 2011, two independent research teams have found a link between infection with fusobacteria and colon cancer.
By the early part of the twentieth century, the idea of a "cancer parasite" was soundly rejected. The most influential physician to speak against it was James Ewing, an American pathologist. In 1919 Ewing declared that "few competent observers consider it (the parasitic theory) as a possible explanation in cancer." According to Ewing, cancer did not act like an infection. Therefore, microbes could not possibly cause cancer.
As a result, few researchers dared to contradict Ewing's dogma.
Nevertheless, some die-hard physicians remained convinced microbes were at the root cause of cancer and wrote about it convincingly in medical journals. The long history of this research is recorded in my two books, "The Cancer Microbe" (1990) and "Four Women Against Cancer" (2005). A wealth of information on the microbiology of cancer can also be found by Googling "cancer microbe."
Continued at linkBy Alan Cantwell, M.D.
10-26-11
What causes a human cell to turn cancerous? How do... more
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