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Medical marijuana: Can't smoke it, but FDA approved scientifically regulated ...
Medical marijuana already exists. It's called Marinol.
The FDA has not approved smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes, but has approved the active ingredient-THC-in the form of scientifically regulated Marinol.
A pharmaceutical product, Marinol, is widely available through prescription. It comes in the form of a pill and is also being studied by researchers for suitability via other delivery methods, such as an inhaler or patch. The active ingredient of Marinol is synthetic THC, which has been found to relieve the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy for cancer patients and to assist with loss of appetite with AIDS patients.
Unlike smoked marijuana--which contains more than 400 different chemicals, including most of the hazardous chemicals found in tobacco smoke-Marinol has been studied and approved by the medical community and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the nation's watchdog over unsafe and harmful food and drug products. Since the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, any drug that is marketed in the United States must undergo rigorous scientific testing. The approval process mandated by this act ensures that claims of safety and therapeutic value are supported by clinical evidence and keeps unsafe, ineffective and dangerous drugs off the market.
There are no FDA-approved medications that are smoked. For one thing, smoking is generally a poor way to deliver medicine. It is difficult to administer safe, regulated dosages of medicines in smoked form. Secondly, the harmful chemicals and carcinogens that are byproducts of smoking create entirely new health problems. There are four times the level of tar in a marijuana cigarette, for example, than in a tobacco cigarette
The DEA recognizes the importance of listening to science. That's why the DEA has registered seven research initiatives to continue researching the effects of smoked marijuana as medicine. For example, under one program established by the State of California, researchers are studying the potential use of marijuana and its ingredients on conditions such as multiple sclerosis and pain. At this time, however, neither the medical community nor the scientific community has found sufficient data to conclude that smoked marijuana is the best approach to dealing with these important medical issues.
The most comprehensive, scientifically rigorous review of studies of smoked marijuana was conducted by the Institute of Medicine, an organization chartered by the National Academy of Sciences. In a report released in 1999, the Institute did not recommend the use of smoked marijuana, but did conclude that active ingredients in marijuana could be isolated and developed into a variety of pharmaceuticals, such as Marinol.
In the meantime, the DEA is working with pain management groups, such as Last Acts, to make sure that those who need access to safe, effective pain medication can get the best medication available. Medical marijuana already exists. It's called Marinol. ... more -
New Chemotherapy Combo Holds Promise for Lung Cancer
Preliminary research has produced promising findings regarding a possible alternative treatment for people with a common type of lung cancer.
The new combination of chemotherapy drugs could eventually become another option for people with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, which is very difficult to treat, the Japanese researchers suggest.
Even if it works, however, the treatment isn't likely to add many months to the lives of patients. And the study only represents the second in three necessary stages of research.
"We really don't know if it's better than current therapy," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer with the American Lung Association. Still, he added, "more study is warranted."
At issue are patients with advanced cases of non-small cell lung cancer, which makes up about 85 percent to 90 percent of lung cancer cases, according to the American Cancer Society.
Treatment with chemotherapy drugs is difficult, because the medications can cause side effects and may not add more than a few months to a patient's life, said lead investigator Dr. Isamu Okamoto, an associate professor in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Kinki University School of Medicine in Osaka.
But new treatments are needed, Okamoto said, even if they don't greatly extend life spans. "The main purpose of chemotherapy for metastatic advanced non-small cell lung cancer is to improve quality of life, since the patient populations are never cured," he said.
The new study looks at 56 patients with advanced lung cancer who were treated with chemotherapy drugs called S-1 and irinotecan.
Chemotherapy drugs are designed to kill cancer cells while causing as little harm as possible to healthy cells. Irinotecan is already in use in the United States; S-1 is approved in Korea and Japan, but not yet in the United States.
The findings are published in the Aug. 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
About 28 percent of patients responded to the treatment. They lived for an average of 15 months and made it an average of 4.9 months without getting worse.
The researchers reported that the patients suffered less severe side effects than would be expected if they'd taken the usual platinum-based chemotherapy.
According to the researchers, studies of the existing platinum treatment suggest that patients who take it live for an average of seven to 14 months.
The next step would be to directly compare the new chemotherapy regimen to the existing platinum treatment by randomly assigning patients to one or the other. Preliminary research has produced promising findings regarding a possible alternative treatment for people with a common type of lung ... more -
Oregon Health Plan ethics soiled: assisted suicide offered over treatment for term...
Keep in mind that this is a Fox news article....
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Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a "chilling" corruption of medical ethics.
Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon's state-run health plan for help.
Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup's request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup's pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.
"It dropped my chin to the floor," Stroup told FOX News. "[How could they] not pay for medication that would help my life, and yet offer to pay to end my life?"
The letter, which has been sent to other terminal patients throughout Oregon, follows guidelines established by the state legislature.
Oregon doesn't cover life-prolonging treatment unless there is better than a 5 percent chance it will help the patients live for five more years — but it covers doctor-assisted suicide, defining it as a means of providing comfort, no different from hospice care or pain medication.
"It's chilling when you think about it," said Dr. William Toffler, a professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. "It absolutely conveys to the patient that continued living isn't worthwhile."
In issuing their latest Prioritized List of Health Services, state officials reported a new emphasis on preventive care and cost effectiveness. Dr. John Sattenspiel, LIPA's senior medical director, defended the measures.
"I have had patients who would consider knowing that this is part of that range of comfort care or palliative care services that are still available to them, they would be comforted by that," Sattenspiel said. "It really depends on the individual patient."
Toffler called it a callous practice that went against medical convention. "It corrupts the consistent medical ethic that has been in place for 2,000 years," he said. "It's absolutely breathtaking."
Oregon is the only state to legalize doctor-assisted suicide, which came into effect in 1997. Since that time, there have been 341 reported cases where doctors provided lethal doses of medicine to patients to end their lives.
Oregon voters have upheld the "Death with Dignity" law three times, and Sattenspiel says it is the state's duty to inform patients of all their legal options.
For Stroup, however, suicide was never an option. He fought back, and the Oregon Health Plan eventually reversed its decision and is now paying for his chemotherapy, giving him hope he'll be around a little longer for his 80-year-old mother and five grandchildren. Keep in mind that this is a Fox news article.... ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ... more -
Oregon Health Plan won't pay for cancer treatment, but it will pay for assist...
The Oregon Health plan made a controversial decision to not cover a cancer treatment for a patient that would cost $4000. They instead sent a letter telling the patient that they would pay for the medications for her to commit suicide.
What do you think about this?
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Excerpt.....
SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- Barbara Wagner has one wish - for more time.
"I'm not ready, I'm not ready to die," the Springfield woman said. "I've got things I'd still like to do."
Her doctor offered hope in the new chemotherapy drug Tarceva, but the Oregon Health Plan sent her a letter telling her the cancer treatment was not approved.
Instead, the letter said, the plan would pay for comfort care, including "physician aid in dying," better known as assisted suicide.
"I told them, I said, 'Who do you guys think you are?' You know, to say that you'll pay for my dying, but you won't pay to help me possibly live longer?' " Wagner said.
An unfortunate interpretation?
Dr. Som Saha, chairman of the commission that sets policy for the Oregon Health Plan, said Wagner is making an "unfortunate interpretation" of the letter and that no one is telling her the health plan will only pay for her to die.
One critic of assisted suicide calls the message disturbing nonetheless.
"People deserve relief of their suffering, not giving them an overdose," said Dr. William Toffler.
He said the state has a financial incentive to offer death instead of life: Chemotherapy drugs such as Tarceva cost $4,000 a month while drugs for assisted suicide cost less than $100. The Oregon Health plan made a controversial decision to not cover a cancer treatment for a patient that would cost $4000. They instead... more -
Cancer patients wrongly given all clear, miss months of treatment
Cancer patients wrongly given the all-clear by a hospital have been told they do have the disease after all after missing months or even years of potentially life saving treatment, reports the Telegraph.
The 17 men and women were told tests carried out at Hereford County Hospital had come back negative, but following a review, have been told their initial diagnosis was wrong and they will now begin treatment.
The delay in some cases could have been over two years.
Fourteen other patients who were told they did have cancer and had begun treatment, including radiotherapy, have been informed that they do not have the disease.
A consultant has been suspended and is currently facing disciplinary action, while legal experts said that the hospital could be sued by patients.
A spokesman for the hospital said that while it was a "serious issue", all the patients had spoken to their consultants and are now receiving the correct treatment.
No-one has died as a result of a wrong diagnosis or lack of treatment.
Are you shocked by this hospital error or unsurprised that the NHS has buggered things up again? What would you do if something like this happened to you or a loved one? Should those involved be entitled to some kind of compensation? Cancer patients wrongly given the all-clear by a hospital have been told they do have the disease after all after missing months or ev... more -
Cancer is not a disease - chemotherapy is a hoax
Former White House press secretary Tony Snow died in July 2008 at the age of 53, following a series of chemotherapy treatments for colon cancer. In 2005, Snow had his colon removed and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer. Two years later (2007), Snow underwent surgery to remove a growth in his abdominal area, near the site of the original cancer. "This is a very treatable condition," said Dr. Allyson Ocean, a gastrointestinal oncologist at Weill Cornell Medical College. "Many patients, because of the therapies we have, are able to work and live full lives with quality while they're being treated. Anyone who looks at this as a death sentence is wrong." But of course we now know, Dr. Ocean was dead wrong.
The media headlines proclaimed Snow died from colon cancer, although they knew he didn't have a colon anymore. Apparently, the malignant cancer had "returned" (from where?) and "spread" to the liver and elsewhere in his body. In actual fact, the colon surgery severely restricted his normal eliminative functions, thereby overburdening the liver and tissue fluids with toxic waste. The previous series of chemo-treatments inflamed and irreversibly damaged a large number of cells in his body, and also impaired his immune system -- a perfect recipe for growing new cancers. Now unable to heal the causes of the original cancer (in addition to the newly created ones), Snow's body developed new cancers in the liver and other parts of the body.
The mainstream media, of course, still insist Snow died from colon cancer, thus perpetuating the myth that it is only the cancer that kills people, not the treatment. Nobody seems to raise the important point that it is extremely difficult for a cancer patient to actually heal from this condition while being subjected to the systemic poisons of chemotherapy and deadly radiation. If you are bitten by a poisonous snake and don't get an antidote for it, isn't it likely that your body becomes overwhelmed by the poison and, therefore, cannot function anymore?
Before Tony Snow began his chemo-treatments for his second colon cancer, he still looked healthy and strong. But after a few weeks into his treatment, he started to develop a coarse voice, looked frail, turned gray and lost his hair. Did the cancer do all this to him? Certainly not. Cancer doesn't do such a thing, but chemical poisoning does. He actually looked more ill than someone who has been bitten by a poisonous snake.
Does the mainstream media ever report about the overwhelming scientific evidence that shows chemotherapy has zero benefits in the five-year survival rate of colon cancer patients? Or how many oncologists stand up for their cancer patients and protect them against chemotherapy treatment which they very well know can cause them to die far more quickly than if they received no treatment at all? Can you trustingly place your life into their hands when you know that most of them would not even consider chemotherapy for themselves if they were diagnosed with cancer? What do they know that you don't? The news is spreading fast that in the United States physician-caused fatalities now exceed 750,000 each year. Perhaps, many doctors no longer trust in what they practice, for good reasons. Former White House press secretary Tony Snow died in July 2008 at the age of 53, following a series of chemotherapy treatments for col... more -
Family love and medical greed can be a deadly combination
For many generations now, we, our families and our doctors have been taught to forget mankind's 6000 year history of preventing and treating illness naturally and to believe that the only real medicine comes in a brown bottle and that the only real healing comes from the medications of big pharma and treatments of mainstream germ theory doctors.
Over the past several decades we have seen how synthetic medicines created in the labs of the trillion dollar world pharma empire cure essentially nothing and merely manage symptoms while their many side effects lead to other conditions and even more medications. Despite the fact that such a system had failed to cure hardly anything in the last half century and lost the so-called war on cancer, we have nevertheless largely bought into the myth of mainstream medicine that has been hammered home by billions of dollars of propaganda, drug company reps and doctored studies -- and we refuse to be shaken from it. After all, "just ask your doctor."
Those of us who have researched and embraced natural medicine know a far different reality -- the reality that we can see with our own eyes and feel with our own bodies that tells us that clearly nature is by far the best choice, as it always has been, when it comes to preventing and treating illness. We have seen and learned firsthand that in most instances, nature is safer, more effective and far less expensive than anything mainstream medicine has to offer, even though it is largely ignored and suppressed. But we are still a small minority when it comes to the population at large, despite ample proof that nature is best. The mainstream campaign of lies, deceit and suppression of natural competition has been hugely successful. Profits win and healing takes a distant second.
As a result, those of us who know better sometimes are pressured into doubting our own knowledge from well intentioned friends and family who do not know any better and doctors who should know better but whose profits depend upon mainstream drugs and treatments. Far too often, the love of family and friends and the evil greed of mainstream medicine conspire to make a deadly combination.
The tragic combination of well meaning but brainwashed loved ones and oncologists who limit their treatments to the barbaric methods of trying to cut out, burn out or poison out the symptoms of cancer is a deadly combination.
I can understand the actions of friends and family who know no better and mean well. I have a much larger problem with oncologists who likely know better, but stick to what is most profitable -- choosing profits and greed over true healing which is supposed to be their call. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it is hard to ignore the obvious truth. First of all, oncologists cannot help but see the dismal success rates they have in treating most cancers. And secondly, we have this report:
"In 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that in the previous year, the average oncologist had made $253,000 of which 75% was profit on chemotherapy drugs administered in his/her office. Yet, surveys of oncologists by the Los Angeles Times and the McGill Cancer Center in Montreal show that from 75% to 91% of oncologists would refuse chemotherapy as a treatment for themselves or their families. Why? Too toxic and not effective. Yet, 75% of cancer patients are urged to take chemo by their oncologists." For many generations now, we, our families and our doctors have been taught to forget mankind's 6000 year history of preventing a... more -
Nanotech may cure cancer
This report demonstrates the potential for molecule-sized "cellular robots" to perform the work of rebuilding cancerous cells on a massive scale. Whereas operating on cancer cells would require a physically impossible amount of work for humans, autonomous 'smart missles', deployed in massive numbers, could do the work for us.
The idea of such technology has been around for some time, but for the first time,
"By using tumor-targeting nanoparticles filled with chemotherapy drugs, scientists kept kidney and pancreas cancers from spreading through the bodies of mice."
Conclusively halting metastasis, these microscopic agents provide tangible evidence that such technology is moving beyond the purely theoretical realm. This report demonstrates the potential for molecule-sized "cellular robots" to perform the work of rebuilding cancerous cell... more -
Medicinal marijuana can cause range of adverse effects, say researchers
The use of medical marijuana to relieve pain and other disease symptoms can cause a huge range of adverse effects, says an analysis of safety studies co-authored by University of B.C. and McGill University researchers. The use of medical marijuana to relieve pain and other disease symptoms can cause a huge range of adverse effects, says an analysis of... more
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Marijuana Hotbed Retreats on Medicinal Use
UKIAH, Calif. — There is probably no marijuana-friendlier place in the country than here in Mendocino County, where plants can grow more than 15 feet high, medical marijuana clubs adopt stretches of highway, and the sticky, sweet aroma of cannabis fills this city’s streets during the autumn harvest.
Lately, however, residents of Mendocino County, like those in other parts of California, are wondering if the state’s embrace of marijuana for medicinal purposes has gone too far.
With video and slide show. UKIAH, Calif. — There is probably no marijuana-friendlier place in the country than here in Mendocino County, where plants can grow mo... more -
Senator Ted Kennedy Having Surgery for Tumor
Kennedy Having Surgery for Tumor
By PAM BELLUCK - NY Times
BOSTON, June 2 — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was to have surgery for his malignant brain tumor on Monday morning at Duke University Medical Center, his office said.
Mr. Kennedy, 76, who was diagnosed two weeks ago with a malignant glioma in the upper left portion of his brain, was to undergo an operation that was to begin at around 9 a.m. and last roughly six hours. He was to be operated on by Dr. Allan Friedman, chief of the division of neurosurgery in the surgical department at Duke in Durham, N.C.
Mr. Kennedy’s office issued a statement at around 6:30 a.m. on Monday saying that he expects to remain in the hospital at Duke for about a week and then return to Massachusetts, where he will undergo chemotherapy and radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital, where his tumor was diagnosed after he suffered a seizure at his home on Cape Cod.
Mr. Kennedy said in the statement that he and his wife Vicki, “along with my outstanding team of doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, have consulted with experts from around the country and have decided that the best course of action for my brain tumor is targeted surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation.”
He said that, “after completing treatment, I look forward to returning to the United States Senate and to doing everything I can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president.”
It was not clear from the statement how long his course of chemotherapy and radiation treatment would take. Kennedy Having Surgery for Tumor By PAM BELLUCK - NY Times ... more -
Senator Kennedy to battle brain tumour
Kennedy has a glioma and will require chemotherapy and radiation therapy, neurologist Dr. Lee Schwamm of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Larry Ronan, a primary physician there, said in a statement. Kennedy has a glioma and will require chemotherapy and radiation therapy, neurologist Dr. Lee Schwamm of Massachusetts General Hospita... more
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'The Truth About Cancer'
Portentously named documentary follows the lives of cancer patients, doctors and researchers involved in 'conventional' medicine. Portentously named documentary follows the lives of cancer patients, doctors and researchers involved in 'conventional' medi... more
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