"A lot of people think we're biologically programmed to die, but the truth is that we're biologically programmed for survival" - Dr. Robert Kane Pappas
So why do we get old and die? Why do some people get cancer and others don't?
I. "Treatment: The Difficulties of Making a Cancer Drug" - Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker Magazine May 17, 2010
II. To Age or not to Age, a documentary by Doctor Robert Kane Pappas to be released on July 16, 2010
III. Dr Stanislaw Burzynski The Movie. Director: Eric Merola. Winner of the "Humanitarian Vision" award at the Newport Beach Festival
Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski the Movie reveals the results of the doctor's treatments administered to paying, hopeful patients and his seemingly endless battles against the FDA. The film might have been called: Dr. Burzynski Has the Answers'
At the heart of the matter as presented in these three popular efforts to communicate with us, the laymen of the world, and the potential or actual financial backers of the endless quest to Know, is the question Why: Why Cancer, Why Age?
For the Drug industry, as discussed in the New Yorker Magazine, the question is answered with an indirect reference to the chemical makeup of the human body. If only we can find the right chemicals, the right cocktail, the problem of Cancer containment, then cure, will be solved. This is a long, expensive, exacting endeavor the fruits of which are a long way from realization. But the scientists are on their way, sort of. And the total cost to date is well beyond our collective imagination.
There are literally millions of known chemicals and many of them are being tested - going through the mandated protocols from phrase I to phase 2, then phase 3. All remedies seem to have failed to pass all three phases but hope has not died, not yet.
The outstanding question is what is the cause of Cancer - without knowing the cause can a solution ever be found? Is it the chemical composition of the body that causes cancer, and if so, isn't the emotional component as much responsible for our chemical composition as the physical mechanisms that cancer infests. Maybe it isn't an injection of the "right chemical" that is needed but someone who addresses our emotional problems with the intent of achieving mental health and stability with subsequent alteration in our chemical makeup. The Psychoanalysts of the world could possibly be in competition with the invasive substance that the scientists want to inject.
Dr. Burzynski has another idea that he has been investigating through injections into live subjects who want desperately to be cured. He thinks and acts upon the belief that the cause of Cancer is in the genes. It is our Genetic makeup that causes cancer and with the right injection of a substance to alter our genes our cancer can be controlled and eliminated or put into remission.
In effect he is refocusing our attention away from the millions of chemicals known to man and onto the chemicals that would alter genes. But....he hasn't gone through the phase 1 or 2, or 3 of the mandated process established by "legitimate" medicine, with the unfortunate result that he is constantly brought to account by the legal profession (and FDA) for his treatment method and administration and his results.
His results are not perfect - far from it - but he claims to have cured enough people with his efforts that the Federal Government (FDA) wants to shut him down for fear that..........well, that is yet to be revealed. Maybe just cutting corners (and costs) is the crime for which he has been harassed.
But what does Cancer have to do with Age and Aging? Dr. Pappas has convincing evidence that aging, that threat and reality of our bodies ever changing, does not have to be. What causes aging, he asks - a question we had hitherto decided was answered by life observed, lived and then ended most commonly before the age of 100. But Dr. Pappas says that we should live on and convinces those who watch his documentary To Age or Not to Age that aging is not normal.
Not normal! What I see and experience every day is not in sync with reality. Wow. How does he get to this conclusion?
Genes: That is the answer. He goes beyond the theory that if we consume fewer calories per day during our life time, our time on earth will be greatly elongated, our healthy life span will be seemingly endless. Beyond food means that the cause of aging is not just what we eat or fail to eat. He says the cause is in the Genes.
My observations (I am a complete layperson), based on my friends and acquaintances, are that the descendants of slaves in the southern United States come from a long-living and healthy lineage. In fact the slaves didn't just live longer than their owners, which is well documented, but the slaves and their descendants who are the parents of those in my age range outlive their children by a significant statistical margin. If Aging was just a matter of genes this could not be the case.
In summary, based on my limited observations:
The first generation were slaves
They lived the longest (discounting those murdered)
The second generation were black share croppers, small farm owners who worked the land and ate food that was unprocessed by corporations. They lived as long or almost as long as their parents.
The third generation were the children who came up North to seek fame and fortune - or just fortune enough to secure food, shelter and clothing without land of their own; they enjoyed a significantly shorter life span than their genetic inheritance would have predicted. Indeed, they often died before their parents.
Conclusion: emotional, physical factors not related solely to genes might be a significant cause of life span.
Genes are not a stand-alone cause for cancer or aging. Then why are we being exposed to gene analysis or given the rudiments of cost and future possible research for cancer at this time? What is going on? Coincidence or...... what is the Cause.
We seem to be bombarded with so much more information about the world, the Universe, the foundations of life in a test tube and the ability to replicate what had once been thought of as God giveth, and God taketh away, that there is an ever widening gap in applicable knowledge. Knowledge that will improve our lives and the lives of those we love and care for. Too much information seems to bread ignorance
This is the dilemma that confronts us every day. What food to eat, what clothes to buy, what cloth to touch our skin, what to drink, which water to avoid, which juice is okay and which is too sugary... is sugar bad or is it corn syrup or should both be avoided. These are some of the easy unanswered questions. Imagine having to think about, to live with, the uncertainty of which treatment to select, which doctor to see, which theory to bring to bear on our desire to continue to live... if living at all cost is what we want. Now there is the potential question of when should I die, should I register for prevention because I have the Gene or don't.
Chemical, emotional, physical, germ, infection, virus, bacterium, genes and more genes and the list goes on and on....
No wonder people choose to die rather than live in terrifying uncertainty.
See the films, read the New Yorker Magazine and feel like you are not alone because.........that's one truth that is indisputable: we are all in this together.
TO AGE OR NOT TO AGE
Opening July 16, 2010
Dr. Burzynski The Movie
available on DVD
No comments:
Post a Comment