Cancer Commentary - Caring About Cancer

25 opinions for The Power of the Immune System Against Cancer

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Sep 15, 2007 at 10:27 pm

  A paradox of tumor immunology is that so-called immune surveillance against cancer is a real and important phenomenom. Cancer is much more common in immunosuppressed people. Is the cancer a result of immunosuppression or does the cancer occur as a result of the same thing which caused the immunosuppression? The immune system is obviously very important, and major efforts have been made to harness the immune system in cancer therapy. It is a natural approach to cancer therapy.

  The body’s immune system attacks and eliminates not only bacteria and other foreign substances but also cancer cells. Cancer cells are not foreign to the body but their biological function has been altered in that it doesn’t respond to the body’s normal mechanisms for controlling cell growth and reproduction. The abnormal cells can continue to grow, resulting in cancer. Much of the body’s protection against cancer is carried out directly by cells of the immune system rather than by antibodies circulating in the bloodstream. A malfunctioning immune system can fail to stop the growth of cancer cells.

  Most cancers do not respond well to chemo or radiation. The chance of “curing” it is probably less than 10%, according to clinical investigators at NCI. That is why they refer to “remission” or “clinical response” (tumor shrinkage), and not cure. The response rate to chemo is a favorite of medical oncologists. If a patient’s condition changes even for a week or a month (shrinkage), the patient is listed as having “responded” to chemotherapy. The fact that the tumor comes back stronger soon after treatment is stopped, is not figured into the equation.

  The notion that patients treated by conventional therapies live longer than untreated victims is biased by the methods of defining the groups. If a person in the untreated category dies at any time while he or she is being studied, this is recorded as a death in the control group and registered as a failure of the no treatment approach. However, if patients in the treated category die during the course of treatment (before the course is completed), their cases are rejected from the data since these patients do not then meet the criteria established by definition of the term “treated.” A patient dying on day 89 of a prescribed 90-day course of chemotherapy would be dropped from the list of treated patients.

  By analyzing non-cancer deaths among cancer patients, it becomes clear that orthodox therapies often do more harm than good. For example, cancer treatment can damage the heart and cause deaths from heart failure. This means fewer deaths from cancer. Analysis of the records of 1.2 million cancer cases in the Surveilance, Evaluation and End Results (SEER) database showed that non-cancer deaths accounted for 21 - 37% of all deaths. The authors attributed this effect to the damage caused by cancer treatment (mainly radiotherapy and chemotherapy).

  I believe that any true randomized clinical trial (where it has been shown that a group treated with chemotherapy experienced significantly increased survival when compared with that of an untreated group) would show the SEER figures to be too low. In clinical trials, many patients are excluded because they could not complete the rather arduous treatment. So randomized comparisions are of healthier treated patients against all the controls, rendering a lot of trials invalid.

  Some common chemotherapeutic agents (paclitaxel, doxorubicin, and trastuzumab) can trigger hypertension or problems with the heart, such as arrhythmias, congestive heart failure, or bradycardia. There are some, like 5-FU [fluorouracil] and Xeloda [capecitabine], that can cause chest pains, resulting from spasms of the arteries that go to the heart. Many patients on chemotherapy become anemic, and that can trigger further cardiac complications. Other agents affect the kidneys, sometimes to the point of requiring dialysis. In addition, because many patients on chemotherapy are immunocompromised, pulmonary infections are quite common.

• hchcec
  Sep 27, 2007 at 8:49 pm

  Again, Gregory Pawelski, the internet’s #1 cancer treatment fearmonger, loads his posts with untruths. There are almost too many to address and he won’t, and never does, produce evidence for his over-the-top commentary. Do a google search on Gregory Pawelski and chemotherapy and you will see that he trolls support groups, creating as much fear in the cancer patient as is humanly possible. He has a grudge, felt let-down, and won’t be happy until you are as miserable as he is.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Sep 28, 2007 at 2:18 pm

  Michelle H. (hchcec) is inaccurate in accusing me of fearmongering. Attacks by “powers that be” to my basic theme or message of useable information, good or bad, appears to be too harsh or realistic for them. Some main line medical and health care associations can have their own hidden agenda. Apparently, very detailed, non nonsense appraisal of the reality of cancer medicine does not meet with their vision which is simple diversion from reality and mass denial.

  I am providing information and a point of view. I am not making a decision for anyone. The cancer patient’s oncologist still holds all the cards in steering the cancer patient in the direction the oncologist wishes. People who don’t want this information don’t go on internet blogs looking for it. People who do want this information have their own responsibility to be capable of dealing with the information they receive in this medium.

  I sincerely care about cancer patients and cancer families. I get nothing out of my endeavors except the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve helped to increase the knowledge for informed consent. I get no pay, no lectureships, no junkets, not even any free meals.

• hchcec
  Sep 28, 2007 at 9:50 pm

  “I am providing information and a point of view. I am not making a decision for anyone.”

  No. You are providing misinformation, untruths, and outright falsehoods. You don’t provide evidence and you often say “I believe”, “OFTEN do more harm than good”, etc., with a desire to replicate the anger and fear in the cancer patient that you yourself feel. You are not a patient advocate at all. A patient advocate provides clear, truthful, unbiased information. Your emotional posts, on as many cancer support sites as you can find, is an indication of instability. I have read responses to your posts from cancer patients who express fear because of your untruths.

  An internet search of your thousands upon thousands of posts to cancer support groups is troubling as you have no scientific background and have not spent one day doing work in a cancer laboratory.

  I make nothing from my posts and do not work for a pharma, biomed, oncologist, etc. But, I have seen the damage you do and I will continue to call you out on it.

  Your misinformation campaign with no evidence and no data is being challenged.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Sep 28, 2007 at 10:45 pm

  Many of the comments posted by Michelle H. (hchcec) have used the fine art of selective quotation to make me appear to hold positions which I do not hold. I suggest readers who may be unnecessarily alarmed by these quotations to read my information in its entirety. A scientific communication should be judged on the quality of its content, not by alarmist Quackwatch attitudes she has.

  Michelle is a shill for the pharmaceutical cartels and her bully tactics and unjustified discrediting of leading innovators, scientists and health practitioners should not be tolerated.

  Each and every day cancer patients are becoming more educated about the benefits and pratfalls of conventional cancer medicine. This is obviously something that the medical establishment fears and wants to crush with false propaganda.

  The tide is now turning and patients are no longer accepting that chemotherapy is the only form of cancer treatment and the only way to address health concerns, as Michelle H. (hchcec) would have you believe.

  Michelle H. (hchcec) is a blog groupie. Talk about trolling the internet, visit The Cancer Blog.

  http://www.thecancerblog.com/

  You will see that she tries to attack and ridicule just about everyone’s comment to a posting on that site, that doesn’t meet her quackwatch attitudes. If you go back far enough, sometime around October/November, she tried to hide behind the moniker “Michelle.” Then she started using the symbol (hchcec). However, it was the same tortured syntax of a person who has very low self esteem.

  Major health care issues are discussed on blogs more extensively than they could ever be discussed in academic articles. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is probably the most important part of most blogs. The interactive format allows rapid responses to medical and health care issues which frequently intertwine moral, ethical and legal concerns, and provides valuable feedback and commentary not available through traditional media.

  Blogs are increasing the visibility of laypeople medical experts, who share tips about treatment and care giving from personal experience, and others have relied on them for straight talk about their health issues and bloggers often provide links to other blogs they favor. As always, some cautiousness is needed on them because some bloggers can have a hidden agenda, like some of the main line medical and health care associations can have. But overall, independent thought (not to be confused with lack of evidence) can be cheerished on sites like this.

• hchcec
  Sep 30, 2007 at 3:20 am

  Notice again, as happens every time, the chemotherapy fearmonger who claims chemotherapy does nothing and in fact hastens your death:
  “The notion that patients treated by conventional therapies live longer than untreated victims is biased by the methods of defining the groups.”

  He presents nada, nothing, no data, zero facts. He just wants to make sure that you and as many cancer patients as possible, who go to cancer support groups on the internet, believe the mistruths, so that you can feel bad like he does. He has claimed that chemotherapy killed his loved one and wants you to know that it will kill you, too.

  I’m no shill, but I know of cancer patients who have been needlessly harmed by him.

  Do a “gregory pawelski” search on google and it will blow you away. He spends his entire day posting mistruths to as many cancer sites as possible so you can feel as miserable as he does.

  Just a heads up.

• hchcec
  Sep 30, 2007 at 3:23 am

  oh, and defintely DO go to thecancerblog.com, now defunct, and read my posts. There’s a ton of data refuting him.

  There is none from him.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Sep 30, 2007 at 6:56 am

  I realize that spending anytime rebutting Michelle (hchcec) fuels her obsession with any and all attention. I realize her low self esteem and the need for all the attention she tries to get by hounding numerous people on The Cancer Blog.

  I must be doing something very right. I’ve gotten the resident quacker-watcher in chief all bent out of shape by her diatribe of conspiracy theories and innuendos. It is a common tactic for Quackwatch people to unload a deluge of meaningless references when they cannot cobble together a cohesive and persuasive original argument based upon logic and the issues at hand.

  Educating those who have the ears to listen is not always an easy task. Medicine is often so slow to change, it ends up taking creative and independent individuals to start the real changes. One needs to start somewhere, helping patients conceptualize cancer more accurately, so they could better understand the way to approach their choice of treatment regime.

  The “Unknown Comic” routine has zero credibility with readers. Accusing anyone not in agreement with pharma-dominated medical business is indeed fundamentalism with the guiding principle being pharma-based medicine.

  Over the last twenty-five years, “managed care” has shifted power away from physicians to insurance payers. Managed care required that doctors and medical institutions change their conduct. There arose a new professional, a “manager” whose job it was to “ration” medicine. This manager evaluated, oversaw and controlled medical practice and the conduct of physicians. Evidence-based medicine helped to promote this shift in power and facilitated the work of these managers.

  When relying on evidence-based medicine, clinical choices are not justified based on clinical insight, medical training or personal experience. Instead, they are based on data from journal articles in medicine, epidemiology and economics, which rely on such analytical techniques such as the randomized clinical trial, multiple regression analysis and cost-benefit analysis. It didn’t require a medical education and placed “non” physicians trained in social science, science or public policy analysis on par with physicians.

  In addition, evidence-based medicine enabled insurance payers, purchasers and governmental bureaucrats to use financial clout to alter the practice of medicine. Where physicians defined the “standard of care,” now insurance payers and purchasers can deny payment for medical services that they feel are medically unnecessary. They redefine the “standards of care” for appropriate medical practice.

  Until the controlled, randomized trial approach has delivered curative results with a high success rate, the choice of physicians to integrate promising insights and methods, remains an essential component of cancer treatment advocacy.

  http://www.healthyskepticism.org/news/2007/Jun.php

• hchcec
  Oct 1, 2007 at 2:56 am

  Notice again.

  Absolutely no facts from the internet’s most notorious cancer therapy fearmonger. Since insurance cos. don’t listen to him, the govt. doesn’t listen to him, scientists don’t listen to him, oncologists don’t listen to him, he goes to those who will: the most vulnerable, those with cancer.

  He turns his anger on me because I’ve called him out. Well, then present your data to back up your claims that cancer treatment is worthless and your oncologist cares about money more than patients. You can’t and you won’t because there is none.

  While you troll the internet looking for your next vulnerable cancer victim, I’ll be there to set the record straight.

  Mr. Pawelski wants to make you as miserable as he is. Do a google search on “gregory pawelski and chemotherapy.”

  Then ask, “who’s the obsessed one?”

  (Remember, this man has no science background, no lab experience, has never treated a patient. He merely wants to get back at those he thinks did him wrong. And, for Pawelski, everyone has done him wrong. And, he takes it out on you. Just read the post about his loved one.

  When you’re a hammer everthing looks like a nail.)

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 1, 2007 at 5:22 am

  Emerging data is showing that there is a continuing problem with the Chemotherapy Concession. A system which rewards medical oncologists for being pharmacists. The kaisernetwork.org’s Daily Health Policy Report lists two New York Times articles that indicate this is precisely how chemotherapy drugs are being selected in the real world of cancer medicine.

  Federal laws bar drug companies from paying doctors to prescribe medicines that are given in pill form and purchased by patients from pharmacies. But companies can rebate part of the price that doctors pay for drugs which they dispense in their offices as part of treatment. Doctors receive the rebates after they buy the drugs from the companies. But they also receive reimbursement from Medicare or private insurers for the drugs, often at a markup over the doctors’ purchase price.

  And the revelation about pharmaceutical companies calculating to the penny the profits that doctors could make from their drugs and sales reps from those companies shaing those profit estimates with doctors and their staffs. This information comes from industry documents that have become public in a federal civil lawsuit against the drug makers. This documents show that representatives for the companies actually brought spreadsheets to oncologists’ offices to show doctors how much they could make.

  http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=45527

  An article published by the National Institute of Health concluded that “about one fourth of abstracts at American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meetings have an author with a personal financial interest.” Since many of these abstracts are about the results of clinical studies, this means that the study results are being penned by authors that may have a “personal financial interest” in the outcome.

  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17704409&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

  Attitudes toward research participation and investigator conflicts of interest among advanced cancer patients participating in early phase clinical trials.

  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17687154&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

  A patient and their family must be their own best advocate and get at the heart as to why a specific treatment regimen is being suggested. Don’t be afraid to ask questions to make informed treatment decisions!

  Another New York Times article states that the drugs, given by injection, have been heavily advertised, and there is evidence that they have been overused, in part because oncologists can make money by using more of the drug.

  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C06EEDB1331F933A25750C0A9619C8B63

  According to Dr. John Glaspy, director of UCLA’s Outpatient Oncology Clinic, one complicating factor, experts say, is that oncologists make significant revenue buying cancer drugs from manufacturers and charging patients a higher price for receiving the drugs in their offices. That profit motive could influence some doctors’ decisions.

  In panel discussion that highlighted the 12th annual conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Lee Newcomer, former chief medical officer and currently an executive with Minneapolis-based United Health Group, pointed out that in reviewing records of patients who were prescribed the drug erythropoietin, said that 44% of those patients had blood work-ups that would indicate they were not anemic.

  http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070316-20215500-bc-us-cancercosts-analysis.xml

  In 2006, Medicare officially recognized cancer chemosensitivity tests as a special test category in Federal Regulations (42 CFR 414.510(b)(3), 71 FR 69705, 12/01/2006). Medicare has finally come to realize that selecting treatments on the basis of tumor biology rather than on reimbursement to the treating oncologist is not only good science and good medicine, but that it is also good medical economics.

• hchcec
  Oct 1, 2007 at 8:20 pm

  Medicare hasn’t come to realize anything. Here we are 3 years after that pressured “local” Medicare decision and there STILL is no National Medicare Guideline for the Pawelski test, the $3500 unproved, unapproved by any insurance co., test.

  http://www.weisenthal.org/medicare_lcd_final.pdf

  “However, to NHIC s knowledge there has NEVER been a national organization’s guideline that sensitivity testing is required for chemotherapy decisions, and
  this LCD shall IN NO WAY be construed as making any such suggestion.

  Testing which is not empirically validated in relation to clinical response is NOT covered.

  For example, a novel testing technique is NOT automatically assumed to correlate with clinical performance simply because it measures cell survival or death in vitro.”

  OOPS! Pawelski forgot to tell you this! Or was that his intention. I mean, there is lots of profit in this unproven, unapproved test.

  And those articles you link to? None of them indicate that oncologists give the wrong treatment. None.

  So cancer patients should know that there is an internet blogger who blogs misleading information, who wrongly concludes that cancer chemotherapy is “no better” than doing nothing.

  He has a grudge and won’t be happy until you dislike oncology as much as he does. He wants to you sleep as unsoundly as he does.

  He likes to say that all he does is “inform.”
  Actually, it’s “misinform.”

• Gloria
  Oct 1, 2007 at 8:43 pm

  sorry I cannot help but butt in now.

  in science we have learned not to generalize from any solitary case.

  generally, I believe that chemotherapy and other cancer-killing ingredients and methods can save lives if not at least prolong the mortality of a cancer patient.

  i also do not think that oncologists give the wrong treatment, it’s just that there is a huge possibility that no two patients react from the same treatment in the same way.

  in any case, once your oncologist recommend chemo, it is a difficult decision to take. But I guess it is better to take a chance than not at all.

  in this very cynical world, i still would like to believe that doctors/oncologist put saving the lives of their patients over any profit from their prescription.

  besides, in the face of any serious illness, most especially cancer, we all need the positive vibes, don’t we?

  my two cents anyway, as a cancer blogger.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 1, 2007 at 10:01 pm

  There are absolutely no findings or conclusions in Michelle’s logic which are in any way germane to the vast contemporary literature which strongly supports the clinical use of cell culture assays with cell-death endpoints. Yet you hear nothing from her but vaguely-described induendos and misleading presentations. She’ll cherry-pick whatever she wants, but it doesn’t change her warped attitude about cell culture technology.

  The standard always applied previously to support the use of all medical tests was the acceptable accuracy of the test and clinical utility in the judgement of the physician ordering the test, supported by clinical logic and common sense. This was also the standard applied by the FDA in its consideration of a kit for cell culture testing, and it was the standard applied by Medicare for full coverage.

  All of the work in the past 15 years in the cell culture field has been carried out largely on three dimensional clusters of cells. Work is done exclusively with three dimensional, floating, tumor spheroids. However, the ASCO tech reviews took into consideration older assays that are not relevant to the application of cell culture assays in clinical practice today and are not applicable to the data which exist to justify the use of these assays in clinical practice today.

  The NCI applied cell-death endpoint technology to “cell lines” and concluded that these assays don’t work, rather than more appropriately concluding that passaged “cell lines” don’t work. The purpose of NCI studies never was to determine if “fresh” tumor assays worked. All of the considerable literature which supports the use of cell culture assays in patient management has been based on true “fresh” tumor (non-passaged) cell assays.

  Older technology assay-tests failed because scientists looked to see which drugs inhibited the cancer cells’ growth (cell-growth), not which chemotherapies actively killed the tumor cells (cell-death). Cancer wasn’t growing faster than other cells, it’s just dying slower. The newer assay-test technology connects drugs to patients by what “kills” their cells, not by what “slows” them down.

  The issue is over what is the appropriate standard to judge medical tests. Efficacy (use of tests improves clinical outcomes) or Accuracy (the test accurately measure what they are purported to measure)? In the ASCO (and insurance industry) reviews, all papers dealing with Accuracy were specifically excluded from review. Only papers relating to Efficacy were included.

  If the same criteria were applied to evaluate every single other test as an aid in selecting treatments, none would be available. Efficacy is not being applied to a single test currently under development for use as an aid in selecting treatment. This criterion wasn’t applied by the FDA, which regulates test kits. The FDA applied the same criterion it applies to every single other of the hundreds of test kits that they do approve.

  Gloria, “some” chemotherapy and other cancer-killing ingredients and methods can save lives and prolong the mortality of cancer patients. The “wrong” chemotherapy and ingredients do not. I agree, no two patients react from the same treatment in the same way. What “may” work for the average “population” may not work for the “individual.” Test the tumor first.

  There is some innate goodness of people who go into oncology. At the time when most oncologists practicing today made the decision to become oncologists, there was no chemotherapy “concession.” Most of them probably had a personal life experience which created the calling to do battle against the great crab. At the time people make their most important decisions in life, people are at the most idealistic (and least informed) period of their lives.

  In their environnment, it is mandatory from a purely human standpoint, to take refuge in the smallest of successes. The shrinkage of a tumor lasting four weeks. The temporary relief of pain. Just like a trauma victim will love forever the surgeon who fixed his/her compound fracture, the cancer patient feels genuine, heartfelt gratitude to the oncologist during periods when the cancer crab retreats.

  But the oncologist knows it is just the eye in the hurricane. The eye passes all to quickly, and then the patient is beaten by the back half of the storm, which is more deadly than the front. So the oncologist only rarely gets to share in the celebration of remissions. He/she’s already worried about the day to come, when the really bad news needs to be delivered to the patient and the remission is instantly forgotten.

  But even bettersweet victories are better than no victories at all. So oncoloigsts will still give more chemotherapy than otherwise warranted, even without the financial incentives. I would imagine some are influenced by the whole state of affairs, possibly without even entirely admitting it. There are so many ways for humans to rationalize their behavior. The solution is to change the system. Take physicians out of the retail pharmaceutical business and force them to be doctors again.

• hchcec
  Oct 2, 2007 at 3:05 am

  Notice again, no evidence for his $3500 test.

  Why? Because he wants you to buy it from him. If he showed you evidence he would have a sale. But he doesn’t. So he has to trick you and use long, meaningless posts which make you scared (your cancer returns like the backside of a hurricane).

  His accuracy explanation is flat out wrong.

  Suppose I hear of a great pitching prospect. He rarely throws balls, only strikes. He’s as accurate as the day is long.

  One problem. His ERA is 12. He gives up 12 runs a game. He’s accurate yet ineffective. Do you give him a contract. Of course not.

  Do you give Pawelski and his guys $3500?
  Nope. There’s no evidence of effectiveness and that is why it is not approved by any insurance co. and Medicare National does not cover it.

  He’ll continue to scare you, tell you that you are doomed because your cancer recurrence is inevitable. He has no science background and no patient treatment experience.

  Keep that in mind.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 2, 2007 at 5:14 am

  Michelle (hchcec) tries to paint a picture of heroic oncologists enduring great financial sacrifice to give their patients lifesaving treatments. How do you explain the fact that 85% of academic oncologists prescribe Xeloda for metastatic breast cancer (which keeps patients from clogging up the chemo administration units that they’d rather reserve for patients on clinical trials), while 85% of private practice oncologists prescribe infusion chemotherapy? In the absence of any data that anything is better than anything else, after three decades of fruitless clinical trials? If they are losing so much money, they have a choice. Pick up a pen; write a prescription; send the patient to Walgreen’s.

  But, as I’ve also written several times before, the problem is not lousy oncologists; it’s a lousy system. The best reform to the system is to totally remove the profit margin from chemotherapy administration. Medicare (to its credit) is trying to do this. Of course, it’s going to take some time to get it right. Of course, there will be individual instances where oncologists and/or patients get hurt, in one way or the other. But the previous system inflicted far greater hurt on far more people.

  Michelle (hchcec), has continuously trampled the memory of my dearly beloved spouse. She foams at the mouth with a deluge of meaningless references, trying to debate (that’s a joke!) by attacking the person rather than anything of substance. Telling a cancer patient alarmist quackwatch attitudes that chemotherapy is the only hope of survival, strikes total fear by telling them they would certainly die in a short time without it. You Michelle, are one “sick” little puppy!

• hchcec
  Oct 2, 2007 at 7:14 pm

  this from a man who tells thousands in the internet cancer community that taxol killed his wife in some bizzare way. Then he tells you that you are doomed to a recurrence, the hurricane of cancer will kill you if you take taxol.

  Well, taxol DID NOT kill his wife. Data showed it prolonged her life, not shortened it.

  His disinformation campaign continues…..

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 18, 2007 at 9:03 am

  http://survivor-support.rare-cancer.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=82

• hchcec
  Oct 18, 2007 at 10:35 am

  N FACT, THE DATA INDICATES THE OPPOSITE!

  “The… data suggest that taxanes may not penetrate well into the CNS, and therefore the CNS may represent tumor ’sanctuary’ sites for taxane-containing chemotherapy regimens. A difference in the incidence of CNS relapses between patients with breast cancer and other solid tumors treated with taxanes was observed. This difference in the incidence of CNS relapse between patients with breast cancer and other solid tumors could be EXPLAINED by the higher efficacy of the taxanes in breast cancer which is associated with increased survival in comparison with other solid tumors.”

  http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/543766_4

  SO, TAXOL ACTUALLY HELPS PATIENTS SURVIVE LONGER. Brain metastasis occurs late, an indication that the patient survived longer BECAUSE taxol was administered.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 20, 2007 at 5:13 am

  Michelle, how did you manage to get access to my wife’s medical records in order to make such a so-called ‘factual’ statement? It doesn’t matter what YOU say. I’ve shown other readers that I have evidence of my claims and that your shrewish comments look petty. During the last fifteen years, Taxol has harmed far more patients than it has helped, and the bird is finally coming home to roost.

• hchcec
  Oct 20, 2007 at 8:35 pm

  “During the last fifteen years, Taxol has harmed far more patients than it has helped.”

  Data, Pawelski? C’mon. Not so lazy, please.

  Your diary of your wife’s demise caused by her oncologist is linked to from many support sites.

  Only trouble:

  “in the end, MY WIFE DIED OF the effects of Taxol and Carboplatin, which may have caused the cerebellum tumors”

  is dead wrong. Where’s your data? This creates fear in the cancer patient…and that is wrong.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 21, 2007 at 5:53 pm

  I will defend myself against personal attacks. However, personal attacks should not be tolerated on this blog by the webmaster. If a party thinks they have information on the subject being discussed, they should just post that information and leave personal attacks in their drawers.

  Michelle (hchcec) is a true pariah who constantly tries to attack the messenger without adding anything of substance to the message. Her pointless garbage and bully tactics are infantile and don’t have an ounce of credibility hiding behind a moniker. She doesn’t make any sense at all.

  I am providing information and a point of view. I am not making a decision for anyone, although she thinks I am. She has DATA on the brain but cannot put anything together but fundamentalist positions that fly in the face of logic. Perhaps she should spend some time actually doing some research on the message, instead of shooting the messenger.

• hchcec
  Oct 21, 2007 at 10:51 pm

  Hey, Pawelski. You claim rtaxol and carboplatin killed your wife. You then go to support group after support group to tell cancer patients that chemotherapy is worse than death.

  YOU SAY:

  chemotherapy: “Death by “side effects of treatment”

  “oncologists get away with camouflaging their negliegent mistakes.”

  Chemotherapy: “A slow, arduous, neurological death is not preferable to a cancerous death.”

  I am thoroughly convinced if she did not have the cocktail type chemotherapy, she would never have had the brain tumor.
  “She DID NOT DIE OF CANCER! She died of the TREATMENT of it. She beat it!”

  —–

  Do a google search on pawelski and chemothrapy and you will seen hundreds of these quotes meant to disinform, NOT inform.

  This is totally bogus. Pawelski seems to think I am attacking him personally. No, Pawelski, What I am exposing is your disinformation campaign. You will not stop until you misinform every cancer patient you can.

  You misinform about chemotherapy and there is NO evidence that taxol causes brain METS and resultant death.

  He has a major grudge and he won’t be happy until he misinforms all of you. This must be known.

  And, you will see no evidence of his theory here, because he’s simply an angry man lashing out at the cancer community.

  Be wary of people like this.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 23, 2007 at 10:22 am

  It doesn’t matter much what Michelle thinks or does, her bullying tactics and cowardly ineffectiveness of personal attacks do not detrack from the fact that I presented to other readers evidence of my claims.

  Michelle is unquestionably part of the business of cancer that fears anything other than the established, closed-minded and most profitable route. Telling a cancer patient alarmist Quackwatch attitudes that chemotherapy is the only hope of survival, strikes total fear by telling them they would certainly die in a short time without it.

  Like Quackwatch fundamentalists and others, there are a certain number of “Allrightnicks” who have appointed themselves the arbiters of truth. You just aren’t allowd to play in their sandbox. But Michelle is so impotent that she resorts to shooting the messengers.

• hchcec
  Oct 23, 2007 at 11:33 am

  Notice Pawelski presents no evidence for his ridiculous theories.

  But, he will say this on every cancer support site he can:

  “There’s this multi-billion dollar cottage industry called chemo-radiation therapy just waiting for an excuse to fulfill your cancer treatment needs.”

  “I’ve spent two years with many a sleepless night researching what really happened to my wife and how she was killed. “Yes, I’m bitter and angered.”

  These are Pawelski quotes. He won’t be happy until he scares you with misinformation so you can’t sleep at night either.

  He’s not a scientist, has zero science credentials, has never worked in a lab, has never treated a patient. He has no evidence for his claims.

  He won’t be happy until you are as embittered as he is.

  Watch out for people like this on the internet.

• Gregory D. Pawelski
  Oct 27, 2007 at 12:30 pm

  See what I mean?

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