For quite a few years before I retired from university research, I worked with the Department of Neuro-oncology at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, AZ. The main focus of this work was to explore the anti-cancer effects of flavonoids from a Chinese herb called the Baikal Skullcap. The main results of this work were that these flavonoids: a) kill brain cancer cells directly without harming normal brain cells; b) enhance the anti-cancer effects of chemotherapy, thereby reducing drug dosage; and, c) reverse drug-resistance. This was an amazing project that still proceeds slowly at BNI. We were never allowed to use this extract on patients, even those with only weeks to live, in spite of its demonstrated usefulness and lack of toxicity in many studies in other countries. I was puzzled about the lack of progress in what seemed to be very promising. So here is what I found out...

Cancer research is now a tremendous multibillion dollar industry. It has benefitted financially from President Richard Nixon's declaration of a war on cancer in 1971. More than $69 billion have been spent on this research. Every year, the American Association for Cancer Research holds it annual conference for the sake of offering researchers an opportunity to report on their latest results. The 2008 conference, held April 12-16 in San Diego, had more than 2,000 such reports, which is typical every year. Thousands of additional, full research articles on cancer research appear in hundreds of journals every year.

The biggest challenge for treating cancer is when it spreads, or metastasizes. Nevertheless, no new or useful research has been able to explain why or how cancer spreads or what to do about it in the past 37 years of intense cancer research. Oddly enough, researchers have mostly given up on this subject. This may be why Americans "have heard the same song for a generation - that we're finally making progress against the disease, that we've turned the corner. And it doesn't jibe with what they see and experience in their own lives," said Clifton Leaf, a Hodgkin's disease survivor and former Fortune Magazine editor who is writing a book on the "dysfunctional" cancer research industry.

Leaf believes that researchers have created their own problems by avoiding the toughest issue in cancer. The National Cancer Institute doesn't track how much of its budget goes toward metastasis research, but Leaf found that only 0.5 percent of institute grant proposals have focused on metastasis since the war on cancer began.

Think about this for a moment: If a cure for any cancer happened to be discovered by this monster industry, what do you think would happen to the industry? This is a topic that could go on for a full book, which is what Clifton Leaf is writing. A review in Fortune magazine, publised about three years ago, already pointed out what a money-making machine this industry is and what it does to perpetuate itself.

Regardless of the slow or no progress in modern cancer research, plenty of good knowledge about preventing, treating, and living with cancer has been available since the 1930s. Burton Goldberg and his fellow editors have even compiled a book, An Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer, which is the best single source of information about cancer and alternative medicine. You will find that so many natural approaches have been successful for so long that they have been banished from the U.S. Many have reappeared in some excellent clinics in Mexico and other countries.

How about stateside approaches? We have a few naturopathic specialists in the U.S, particularly in the Phoenix area, who have been able to help people with all-natural cancer support. (We aren't allowed to call it treatment - the FDA has a monopoly on that.) My colleague, Dr. Joe Brown, is an excellent example. (More info. at DrJoeBrown.com)

It is a shame that almost everyone has either lost a loved one to cancer or knows someone else who has. The cancer research industry has no good answers. This just isn't right.