Questioning Chemotherapy [Paperback]

Ralph W. Moss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 1996

A revealing critique of chemotherapy, this book looks objectively at chemo's successes and failures.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Hi! I'm Ralph Moss, author of Questioning Chemotherapy. I want to tell you how and why I came to write this book.

I started as a believer in chemotherapy. As a science writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, I wrote articles praising the latest advances in chemotherapy. I was impressed by the then-emerging cures for Hodgkin's disease, acute lymphocytic leukemia and some other relatively rare cancers. At the same time, I began to learn how skeptical many good scientists were about chemotherapy's future.

The major objection to "chemo" was that these drugs did not discriminate between normal and cancerous cells, but attacked all rapidly dividing cells . One scientist described this method as "trying to melt a patient's left ear , while leaving the right one alone." It seemed particularly inappropriate in the treatment of solid tumors of adults, which are often slow-growing.

Because chemotherapy drugs were general cellular poisons, they could be terribly toxic. They were also very expensive for patients and for society as a whole. When I learned about the links between the pharmaceutical industry and the cancer establishment (later detailed in my book, The Cance r Industry) I understood the commercial reason that such an inadequate modality was so heavily promoted.

In 1989, a German biostatistician named Ulrich Abel, Ph.D. published a groundbreaking monograph called "Chemotherapy of Advanced Epithelial Cancer. It made few waves in the U.S. and soon went out of print. In this excellent work, however, Dr. Abel rigorously demonstrated that chemotherapy had never been scientifically proven to extend life through randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in the vast majority of "epithelial cancers." These are the common types of carcinoma that affect most cancer patients in the Western world.

Some years later, in response to many requests, I decided to write a critical book about chemotherapy (a sort of companion piece to Cancer Therapy). I took Abel's out-of-print work as my starting point, but also consulted the work of many other students of chemotherapy. In this book, I update statistics and speak about all cancers and not just carcinomas. I go into depth on the politics and economics of the chemotherapy industry, on the biases, fallacies and frauds that occur, and on ways of warding off the sometimes catastrophic side effects that accompany this treatment.

The essential point of the book is that one must question the measure of success in chemotherapy. Oncologists have tended to equate an increasing percentage of "responses" with progress. However, responses are generally measurements of tumor shrinkage, for as little as one month's duration. One cannot automatically assume that a response--even a complete response--will lead to increased survival. One must look for increased survival. Yet the number of cancers for which life prolongation through chemotherapy has been proven through randomized clinical trials is very small. (I do bend over backwards to point these out, when they occur.)

So when a doctor says her regimen yields a 40 percent response rate, "what exactly is she promising? A short-term shrinkage of tumors--or actual life-prolongation? What effect is this treatment likely to have on the patient's quality of life? And what is the cost?" It is only by obtaining information such as this that patients are able to make rational treatment choices. Questioning Chemotherapy is intended to help patients by providing them with a critical perspective on this now dominant modality.

Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Equinox Press (October 8, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188102525X
• ISBN-13: 978-1881025252
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I've ever read on chemotherapy, January 1, 1999

By 

Chet Day (Shelby, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Questioning Chemotherapy (Paperback)

Ralph Moss' "Questioning Chemotherapy" is a book that every person faced with cancer must read before submitting to toxic chemicals which may very well destroy the body's immune system.

Unlike many alternative health authors who base their conclusions on anecdotal evidence, Moss uses the medical establishment's own research to prove that in almost all instances chemotherapy is NOT a viable approach to improving cancer survival rates.

Moss also makes the important point that current cancer research has never bothered to examine the mental anguish, physical suffering, and poor quality of life endured by almost everyone whose doctors talk or scare them into undergoing chemotherapy.

Learning about the economics behind chemotherapy drives the final nail into the coffin of a "therpy" that educated people in the future will consider outrageous and reflective of the current dark ages of so-called modern medicine.

This is a must read book for anyone who wants to know the truth behind chemotherapy or anyone whose doctor wants to inject toxic chemicals into their bloodstream.

85 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenge your oncologist, August 23, 2004

By 

Bill Henderson "Author, Cure Your Cancer" (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Questioning Chemotherapy (Paperback)

It takes a lot of courage for a cancer patient to challenge the "expert" knowledge of his or her cancer doctor. This book gives you that ability. Life-saving? Indeed.

Before you submit to any cancer treatment, you need to read all of this book. It is comprehensive and detailed about every type of chemotherapy and every type of cancer. Side effects are horrific and natural substances which offset them are actually discouraged. Virtually nothing has changed since this book was published in 1995 except some of the drug names.

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 ongologists 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.

Dr. Moss includes information on which cancers, all of them rare, chemotherapy works. This list has not changed since it was published by the National Cancer Institute in 1971. One of these is Embryonal Testicular Cancer, for which cyclist Lance Armstrong is the poster boy. Another is Wilm's Tumor. My 3-year old daughter was completely healed of Wilm's Tumor by removal of a kidney and treatment with chemotherapy 45 years ago.

Don't be fooled by terms like "response rate" or "5-year survival." For metastatic cancer (the only kind that kills), the success rate of chemotherapy (defined as long-term remission) is 3%.

Get Dr. Moss' book and dramatically improve your chances of recovery with the knowledge he gives you here.

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every patient diagnosed with cancer has to have this book!, January 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Questioning Chemotherapy (Paperback)

Ralph Moss provides the most authoritative criticisms and evaluation of alternative cancer therapies. People should begin with Questioning Chemotherapy and then move onto any of his other books. The other book that should follow is John Boik's Cancer & Natural Medicine