Tag: cancer

Georgia Governor Signs Bill Granting Immunity for Harms Caused by Pesticides and Fertilizers

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed SB144 into law, which has also been referred to as an immunity bill for agrochemical businesses that sell pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. The bill states, “a manufacturer cannot be held liable for failing to warn consumers of health risks above those required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.” The Georgia legislature passed the bill and was awaiting Kemp’s signature, which he finalized on Monday.

Georgia became the second state in the nation to provide manufacturer immunity for harm caused by pesticides after North Dakota signed a similar bill into law last month. Bayer has been handling tens of thousands of lawsuits related to cancer allegedly caused by Roundup, a product that Bayer owns after the agrochemical corporation purchased Monsanto in 2018. In April, The HighWire reported about Bayer’s recent court loss in which the company is required to pay over $2 billion for causing a man’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but the high payout amount is expected to be appealed. This case was conducted in a Georgia courtroom.

The EPA is still awaiting a court decision regarding its most recent evaluation of glyphosate’s effect on human health. The EPA currently states, “No risks of concern to human health from current uses of glyphosate.” The EPA website also states, “No evidence that glyphosate causes cancer in humans.”

Meanwhile, the passage of SB144 in Georgia means a farmer cannot sue Bayer for harms allegedly caused by Roundup because the product contains the label required by the EPA. The label states, “Keep Out of Reach of Children CAUTION See [back/ side] [panel/ booklet/ label] for [additional] first aid and precautionary statements. Alternative Text: [See container label for [complete] use directions, first aid and precautionary statements.]”

Bayer issued a statement applauding the Governor for signing the legislation. The statement said, “The signing of SB 144 by Governor Kemp demonstrates that Georgia stands with its farmers, who work tirelessly to produce safe and affordable food for communities throughout the state. We thank Governor Kemp and the legislators, farmers and ag groups that supported this important piece of legislation.”

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CT Scans May Account for 5 Percent of US Cancers—Doctors Say the Story Is More Complex

CT scans are essential to modern medicine, quickly diagnosing conditions from strokes to cancer. However, new research suggests that the very tool used to save lives could, in some cases, contribute to future cancer cases.

A University of California–San Francisco study estimates that CT scans performed in 2023 could lead to more than 100,000 future cancer cases—about 5 percent of annual U.S. diagnoses. That level of risk is comparable with other known factors such as alcohol and obesity.

Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the study concludes that while CT scans remain essential, they should be used more cautiously, especially for children and patients who undergo repeated imaging.

“CT can save lives, but its potential harms are often overlooked,” Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, lead author of the study and UC–San Francisco radiologist, said in a statement. “Reducing the number of scans and reducing doses per scan would save lives.”

Some experts worry that the message lacks balance and may scare patients from necessary care by emphasizing long-term cancer risks without proper context.

“It is frightening to see these numbers,” Dr. Donald Frush, pediatric radiologist at Duke University, told The Epoch Times. “But without putting them in the context of how valuable CT can be, we risk eroding public trust in a tool that saves lives every day.”

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Effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure on cancer in laboratory animal studies, a systematic review

More than ten years ago, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published a monograph concluding there was limited evidence in experimental animals for carcinogenicity of Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Field (RF EMF).

Objective

The objective of this review was to systematically evaluate the effects of RF EMF exposure on cancer in experimental animals.

Methods

Eligibility criteria: Based on pre-established Populations, Exposures, Comparators, Outcomes, and Study Type (PECOS) criteria, studies in experimental animals of the following study types were included: chronic cancer bioassays, initiation-(co–)promotion studies, and studies with tumor-prone animals.

Information sources: MEDLINE (PubMed), Science Citation Index Expanded and Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science), and the EMF Portal.

Data abstraction and synthesis: Data are publicly available online as interactive visuals with downloadable metadata. We adapted the risk-of-bias (RoB) tool developed by Office of Health Assessment and Translation (OHAT) to include considerations pertinent to the evaluation of RF EMF exposure and cancer bioassays. Study sensitivity was assessed with a tool adopted from the Report on Carcinogens (RoC). We synthesized studies using a narrative approach. Effect size was calculated as the 1% Bayesian Average benchmark dose (BMD) of a respective study when dose–response or a trend was identified (see BMDAnalysisSupplementaryMaterial) (Supplement 1).

Evidence Assessment: Certainty of the evidence (CoE) was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Developing and Evaluations (GRADE) approach, as refined by OHAT. Evidence from chronic cancer bioassays was considered the most directly applicable to evaluation of carcinogenicity.

Results

We included 52 studies with 20 chronic bioassays No studies were excluded based on risk of bias concerns. Studies were not considered suitable for meta-analysis due to heterogeneity in study design, species, strain, sex, exposure characteristics, and cancer outcome. No or minimal evidence of RF EMF exposure-related cancer outcomes was found in most systems or organs in any study (these included gastrointestinal/digestive, kidney, mammary gland, urinary, endocrine, musculoskeletal, reproductive, and auditory).

For lymphoma (18 studies), with 6 chronic bioassays (1,120 mice, 1,780 rats) inconsistency between two chronic bioassays was not plausibly explainable, and the CoE for lymphoma was rated ‘moderate’.

For brain tumors (20 studies), including 5 chronic bioassays (1,902 mice, 6,011 rats), an increase in glial cell-derived neoplasms was reported in two chronic bioassays in male rats. The CoE for an increased risk in glioma was judged as high. The BMD analysis was statistically significant for only one study and the BMD was 4.25 (95% CI 2.70, 10.24).

For neoplasms of the heart (4 chronic bioassays with 6 experiments), 3 studies were performed in rats (∼2,165 animals), and 1 in mice (∼720 animals). Based on 2 bioassays, statistically significant increases in malignant schwannomas was judged as high CoE for an increase in heart schwannomas in male rats. The BMDs from the two positive studies were 1.92 (95 %CI 0.71, 4.15) and 0.177 (95 %CI 0.125, 0.241), respectively.

Twelve studies reported neoplasms in the adrenal gland (5 chronic bioassays). The CoE for an increased risk in pheochromocytoma was judged as moderate. None of these findings were dose-dependent when compared to the sham controls.

Sixteen studies investigated tumors of the liver with 5 of these being chronic bioassays. The CoE was evaluated as moderate for hepatoblastomas.

For neoplasms of the lung (3 chronic bioassays), 8 studies were conducted in rats (∼1,296 animals) and 23 studies in mice (∼2,800 animals). In one chronic bioassay, a statistically significant positive trend was reported for bronchoalveolar adenoma or carcinoma (combined), which was rated as moderate CoE for an increase in lung neoplasms with some evidence from 2 initiation-(co–)promotion studies.

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HHS to reexamine massive $89 billion contract awarded to California nonprofit: Report

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reportedly reconsidering a massive contract the National Cancer Institute awarded to a California nonprofit in January to operate a cancer research lab in Maryland.

The $89 billion award was given to the Alliance for Advancing Biomedical Research on January 17, just three days before former President Joe Biden left office. The nonprofit is also considered untested because it has not received or spent a penny since its inception in 2022, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.

The HHS notified the Government Accountability Office earlier this month that it is reevaluating all the original bids for the contract, which means it could give the money to another company.

The organization is also tied to the University of California system, which Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has accused of using 40% of its federal funding for administrative purposes, and criticized for allegedly being vulnerable to China.

“It’s outrageous Biden’s NIH shoved a nearly $90 billion contract out the door just days before President Trump returned to office,” Grassley told the Free Beacon. “Even worse, the money would have flowed to an organization that can’t clearly protect itself from adversaries like China. 

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Medical cannabis shows potential to fight cancer, largest-ever study finds

The largest ever study investigating medical cannabis as a treatment for cancer, published this week in Frontiers in Oncology, found overwhelming scientific support for cannabis’s potential to treat cancer symptoms and potentially fight the course of the disease itself.

The intention of the analysis was to solidify agreement on cannabis’s potential as a cancer treatment, said Ryan Castle, research director at the Whole Health Oncology Institute and lead author of the study. Castle noted that it has been historically difficult to do so because marijuana is still federally considered an illegal Schedule I narcotic.

“Our goal was to determine the scientific consensus on the topic of medical cannabis, a field that has long been dominated by a war between cherrypicked studies,” Castle said.

The study was funded by Cancer Playbook, which works with the Whole House Oncology Institute to collect, analyze and share data on patient-reported outcomes.

While research restrictions on Schedule I substances severely hamper clinical research on cannabis in humans, there is a large body of observational studies on medical cannabis and cancer – as well as lab research – that looks at cannabis’s effect on tumors in test tubes and in animals. The analysis included as many of those studies as possible.

“In order to move beyond bias – conscious or not – it was essential to use a large-scale, radically inclusive methodology based on mathematical reasoning,” Castle said, adding: “We wanted to analyze not just a handful, but nearly every major medical cannabis study to find the actual points of scientific agreement.”

Castle’s study looked at more than 10,000 studies on cannabis and cancer, which he said is “10 times the sample size of the next largest study, which we believe helps make it a more conclusive review of the scientific consensus”.

To analyze the massive quantity of studies, Castle and his team used AI – specifically, the natural language processing technique known as “sentiment analysis”. This technique allowed the researchers to see how many studies had positive, neutral or negative views on cannabis’s ability to treat cancer and its symptoms by, for example, increasing appetite, decreasing inflammation or accelerating “apoptosis”, or the death of cancer cells.

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Largest-Ever Analysis Of Medical Marijuana To Treat Cancer Symptoms Shows ‘Overwhelming Scientific Consensus’ On Benefits

Researchers this week published what they described as the “largest meta-analysis ever conducted on medical cannabis and its effects on cancer-related symptoms”, finding “overwhelming scientific consensus” on marijuana’s therapeutic effects.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Oncology, analyzed data from 10,641 peer-reviewed studies—what authors say is more than ten times the number in the next-largest review on the topic. Results “indicate a strong and growing consensus within the scientific community regarding the therapeutic benefits of cannabis,” it says, “particularly in the context of cancer.”

Given what the report calls a “scattered and heterogenous” state of research into the therapeutic potential of marijuana, authors aimed to “systematically assess the existing literature on medical cannabis, focusing on its therapeutic potential, safety profiles, and role in cancer treatment.”

“We expected controversy. What we found was overwhelming scientific consensus,” lead author Ryan Castle, head of research at Whole Health Oncology Institute, said in a statement. “This is one of the clearest, most dramatic validations of medical cannabis in cancer care that the scientific community has ever seen.”

The meta-analysis “showed that for every one study that showed cannabis was ineffective, there were three that showed it worked,” the Whole Health Oncology Institute said in press release. “That 3:1 ratio—especially in a field as rigorous as biomedical research—isn’t just unusual, it’s extraordinary.”

The institute added that the “level of consensus found here rivals or exceeds that for many [Food and Drug Administration]-approved medications.”

“The strong consensus supporting the therapeutic use of cannabis, particularly in the context of cancer, suggests that there is a substantial scientific basis for re-evaluating cannabis’ legal status and its classification as a Schedule I substance,” researchers said in the paper.

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Startling Truths about Chemotherapy (Part One)

Over the years, I have repeatedly found that all medical recommendations are best treated with a large dose of scepticism.  Nowhere is this more true than in the treatment of cancer.

Patients who are diagnosed with cancer find themselves in a state of shock. And yet, while in a state of shock, they find themselves needing to make a number of vital decisions very quickly.

One of the big questions is often this one: “Should I have chemotherapy?”

Chemotherapy (or “systemic anticancer treatment”) might improve a patient’s chances of survival by three to five per cent, though that modest figure is usually over generous. For example, the evidence suggests that chemotherapy offers breast cancer patients an uplift in survival of little more than 2.5%.

When you consider that chemotherapy can kill and does terrible damage to healthy cells, and to the immune system, it is difficult to see the value of taking chemotherapy.

I don’t think it is any exaggeration to suggest that much of the hype around chemotherapy has taken the treatment into the area of fraud – far more fraudulent indeed than treatments which are dismissed as irrelevant or harmful by the establishment.

Chemotherapy is a cull, designed by the conspirators and the medical establishment to cut the cost of caring for cancer patients.

The chances are that the doctors looking after you – especially the specialist oncologists in hospital – will recommend chemotherapy. They may push hard to accept their recommendation. They may even be cross or dismissive or assume you are ignorant or afraid if you decide you don’t want it. Cancer charities often shout excitedly about chemotherapy. But they are also often closely linked to the drug companies which make money out of chemotherapy – which, in my view, makes them part of the large and thriving “cancer industry.” It is important to remember that drug companies exist to make money and they will do whatever is necessary to further this aim. They lie and they cheat with scary regularity and they have no interest in helping patients or saving lives. Remember that: the sole purpose of drug companies is to make money, whatever the human cost might be. They will happily suppress potentially life-saving information if doing so increases their profits. It is my belief that by allying themselves with drug companies, cancer charities have become corrupt.

Little or no advice is given to patients about how they themselves might reduce the risk of their cancer returning. The implication is that it’s chemotherapy or nothing. So, for example, doctors are unlikely to tell breast cancer patients that they should avoid dairy foods, though the evidence that they should is very strong.

The one certainty is that it is extremely unlikely that anyone you see will tell you all the truths about chemotherapy. The sad truth is that the statistics about chemotherapy are, of course, fiddled to boost the drug company sales and, therefore, drug company profits. And the deaths caused by chemotherapy are often misreported or underestimated. So, for example, if a patient who has been taking chemotherapy dies of a sudden heart attack, their death will probably be put down as a heart attack – rather than as a result of the cancer or the chemotherapy. There may be some mealy-mouthed suggestion that the death was treatment related but the drug will probably not be named and shamed. Neither the chemotherapy nor the cancer will be deemed responsible. What this means in practice is that the survival statistics for chemotherapy are considerably worse than the figures which are made available – considerably worse, indeed, than whatever positive effect might be provided by a harmless placebo.

Here’s another thing: patients who have chemotherapy and survive five years are counted as having been cured by chemotherapy. And patients who have chemotherapy and then die five and a bit years after their diagnosis don’t count as cancer-related deaths. And they certainly don’t count as chemotherapy deaths.

A 2016 academic study looked at five-year survival rates and concluded that in 90% of patients (including the commonest breast cancer tumours), chemotherapy increased five-year survival by less than 2.5%. Only a very small number of cancers (such as testicular cancer and Hodgkin’s disease) were treated effectively by chemotherapy.

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mRNA Vaccines Linked to Genetic Changes That Can Cause Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders

A new peer-reviewed study links the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to long-term changes in genetic structures that can provoke an inflammatory response, and lead to the onset of cancer and autoimmune disorders.

The study by 19 German scientists was published last week in Molecular Systems Biology. The researchers said their findings may account for “post vaccination inflammatory diseases which occur in a small number of vaccinated individuals.”

Journalist Alex Berenson said the study shows that mRNA vaccines can alter human chromosomes in ways linked to leukemia and brain tumors. This occurs when the mRNA vaccines “train” immune cells to sustain a pro-inflammatory immune response.

According to epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher, “This study adds to the large body of evidence describing potent immune dysregulating effects of mRNA injections.”

Hulscher said the study raises “serious concerns about long-term immune homeostasis and the potential for chronic inflammatory disease, autoimmune sequelae, and even oncogenic processes.”

Immunologist and biochemist Jessica Rose, Ph.D., said the study confirms what is already known about the risks of mRNA vaccines. She said:

“Repeat injection leads to a boatload of immunological modifications. This is not new information. We know that these kinds of changes can occur. It is not surprising to me that they found this.

“If the systemic reach goes far enough, such as to stem cells, then repeated injection could potentially induce epigenetic changes in these cells, especially since hematopoietic stem cells are known to develop innate immune memory in response to certain stimuli like infections or other vaccines.”

Epigenetics refers to how human behavior and the environment can cause changes that affect how genes work. According to Berenson, the changes caused by the mRNA COVID-19 shots are epigenetic, as “they occur around DNA’s core and activate genes in ways that can promote tumor growth.”

“The risk here is, of course, prolonged and excessive inflammation, which might contribute to tissue damage or chronic inflammatory conditions in some contexts, which we do see in pharmacovigilance data,” Rose said.

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Trump’s New White House Drug Czar Called Medical Marijuana A ‘Fantastic’ Treatment For Cancer Patients

President Donald Trump’s choice to serve as the next White House drug czar has called medical marijuana a “fantastic” treatment option for seriously ill patients and said she doesn’t have a “problem” with legalization, even if she might not personally agree with the policy.

Trump picked Sara Carter, a journalist known for her coverage of drug cartels, to serve as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

The president said Carter has “been on the front lines of this International Fight for decades” and ” will lead the charge to protect our Nation.”

Given the role of ONDCP director in setting and carrying out the administrative agenda on drug policy issues, the fact that Carter has gone on the record enthusiastically endorsing medical cannabis will likely be welcome news for advocates amid the Senate confirmations of officials with a mixed bag of marijuana records.

Under longstanding federal statute, the drug czar is prohibited from endorsing the legalization of Schedule I drugs in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), including marijuana.

“The Director…shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 812 of this title and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that— (A) is listed in schedule I of section 812 of this title; and (B) has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Trump himself has previously expressed support for medical cannabis, as well as rescheduling of marijuana under federal law.

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Nurses at Massachusetts hospital concerned about growing number of cancer cases among staff

Nurses at Newton-Wellesley Hospital say they’re concerned about growing numbers of cancer cases among longtime nurses who have been working on a fifth-floor maternal care ward. “You’re going into work every day with that feeling in your gut, and it’s a lousy feeling,” a nurse who doesn’t want to be identified tells WBZ-TV. 

She’s speaking out after being diagnosed with a brain tumor and says she’s not alone among her nursing colleagues. “It’s getting to the point where the number just increases, and you start saying am I crazy thinking this,” she said. “This can’t just be a coincidence.” 

Nurses diagnosed with brain tumors

She claims as many as ten nurses who work on the floor have been diagnosed with different brain tumors over the last few years, some cancerous and some not. She says three have had surgery and believes the hospital has not been supportive enough. 

“We want reassurance because this has not been a reassuring past few months for a lot of the staff members,” she said. “We want to feel safe, the same way we want to make our patients feel safe.” 

The hospital confirms it has been investigating since December and has interviewed ten nurses, six of whom it says have differing brain tumors. 

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