An opinion piece in the orthodox Journal of the American Medical Association captured my attention. The heart wrenching experience of a nursing home physician gives a shocking commentary on American cancer management.
Paul Rousseau, MD is a palliative care physician in Phoenix. That means hes interested in your comfort and dignity in the face of chronic disease. He described his meeting with 64-year-old Mr. Jones with advanced colon cancer at a nursing home. This man was relatively stable, despite his disease, until shortly before they met. That is when he received his first dose of chemotherapy.
When they did meet, shortly after the first chemo treatment, Mr. Jones could not even answer the doctors greeting. His words were unintelligible, his mouth cracked and bled, and his breath was stale. His oral cavity looked like the scene of a chemical crime, said Dr. Rousseau. His white blood count was a scary 200 (normal is at least 4,000). Dr. Rousseau continued describing a horror worse than a concentration camp survivor. Just the next morning, Mr. Jones was dead. And it was not the cancer that killed him. He was poisoned by the chemo!
Dr. Rousseau did a lot of soul searching. He could not help but wonder why this man did not go on with life to live as long as possible without the poisons. The quick death troubled the doctor. He asked himself why Jones chose chemo. Perhaps he demanded the poisonous bludgeon, the smell of the chemical aphrodisiac overwhelming his senses. Or perhaps his physician was afraid to tell it like it is for fear that the confrontation of Mr. Jones mortality would remind him of his own. Or maybe it was an offer of chemotherapy or ‘nothing.
Dr. Rousseau confessed that we often choose quantity over quality and he cant understand why. He asked if the desire to remain alive is built into our genes coercing us to make unsound decisions.
He continues, It seems that far too often, we physicians are vendors of suffering, infusing toxic chemicals when we know its not only futile, but in the realm of ethics, wrong. Have we forgotten the ethical principle … do no harm?
I am astonished that this poignant, most revealing and important piece was published in the AMAs own journal, which is loaded with Big Pharma advertising. I do not think that I could add more to Rousseau’s heart-wrenching words.
I have felt the same since I witnessed the horrors of cancer treatment in medical school. In fact, I almost dropped out in my third year for the same reason. I felt medicine did little more than poison people. Dr. Rousseau, humbly, openly, in virtual confession for the medical profession, and in words far kinder than my own in these pages, exposed the depth of depravity of American cancer treatment.
My patients have always known that I believe in quality over quantity. I strongly adhere to my oath Above all, do no harm. Sadly that is been lost in the stampede for evidence based medicine. The evidence is that the poisons might extend your life. Since that is the measurement of success, that is whats offered. But at what cost to the quality of your remaining days? Or to the payers pocketbook? And, at the same time, natural alternatives that can ease pain and suffering are snuffed out.
I believe that most conventional cancer treatment is a sham for the same reasons as the penetrating words of Dr. Rousseau. Please ponder them when you have to make serious decisions about your health. And take this report to your doctor when confronting end-stage disease.
By the way, I contacted Dr. Rosseau about JAMA publishing his article. Aside from telling me he was well familiar with Second Opinion since his nurse practitioner subscribes, he admitted that he, too, is baffled that JAMA published this revealing piece. I hope it does some good.
Ref: JAMA, August 8, 2007.