Who would not concede medical science has done amazing things: antibiotics, polio vaccines, prenatal surgery, separating conjoined twins, the list goes on. But when people talk about evidence-based medicine do they know what that even means?
Evidence-based medicine, in theory, starts with research in some area, establishing an experiment with all known biases removed, all collected data analyzed, and the right conclusions drawn, e.g., a new drug did better or worse against a placebo in a study to test its efficacy against a certain disease. Then the results are shared with the community including governing bodies that make sound judgements for the benefit of society. To truly qualify as science, the same results should be obtained by anyone wishing to duplicate the experiment.
Now let’s see how evidence-based medicine works in practice: a study is conducted by a research group with a funding source that likely has stake in their conclusion, a paper is composed to describe the results, after which the paper is submitted for publication in a prestigious journal such as Nature, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine. Then — and here’s the critical part— for the paper to get published and the results shared with the community it is subject to and must pass peer review. And this is where science takes a dirt-nap.
The peer group consists of experts and gatekeepers that compare the results to the current ruling paradigm which they guard ferociously. If the conclusions don’t line up with that paradigm, it gets declined. Even if the research is sound, the paper and its conclusions are summarily rejected. Worse yet, if the proponents of the new conclusions don’t get in line with the ruling paradigm, they are vilified mercilessly: Ignaz Semmelweis was hounded to suicide in the 19th century after he asserted that his fellow surgeons wash their hands and follow antiseptic protocols between operations to reduce mortality rates. Another surgeon in the late 20th century, Judah Folkman, was stripped of his license to practice medicine when he asserted that malignant tumors required a significant blood supply, an idea called angiogenesis which is now universally accepted. And not too long ago, the idea that bacteria could exist in the stomach would have been ridiculed: even though the evidence stared researchers in the face for over a century, the discovery of H. pylori—the cause of ulcers among other things—was only recently declared in the 1980’s and bestowed Nobel Prizes on its discoverers. In essence, the evidence-based medicine we practice is based not on science, but on whether a select group likes the conclusions. It is structured to reject new ideas.
This is one of the points of a new book, The Cancer Code by Dr. Jason Fung, in which the author gives an account of the malady, its nature, history, treatment, and ongoing medical research. I read the book with great and personal interest since I was diagnosed with NHL in 1980 when I was fourteen. Back then, the ruling paradigm (which Fung labels as Cancer Paradigm 1.0) explained cancer as “excessive growth”, an abnormality combated with the dreadful treatment triad: cut (surgery), burn (radiation), poison (chemotherapy). In a twist of irony, many of these treatments are themselves carcinogenic. Cyclophosphamides and methotrexate are extremely toxic with side effects to include infertility, leukemia, and death. Ionizing radiation is the stuff of comic book superpowers, if only the effects weren’t deadly too. No wonder I, with countless others, have longed for a cancer cure from the advances of modern science, a cure free of short- and long-term side effects, a cure that renders any news of a cancer diagnosis another day at the beach.
Fifty years before President Biden issued his politically motivated proclamation, President Nixon declared War on Cancer in 1971, promising to find a cure as once we promised to land a man on the moon. The age of genomics dawned a short while later when Francis Collins and Craig Venter shared an award for mapping the human genome in 2000. Enter Cancer Paradigm 2.0 in which the ancient pathology is viewed as a single genetic mutation—an approach known as Somatic Mutation Theory. Find the mutation, isolate the errant gene, rectify the flaw, and Bob’s your uncle. But after decades of research, billions of dollars in funding, numerous papers, and peer reviews propping up this second paradigm, we have very little to show than a few treatments for just a handful of rare hereditary cancers while the most common forms continue to claim lives as before.
Why? Because the paradigm is predominantly wrong; and despite all our so-called science and evidence-based medicine with thousands of studies that did nothing but provide continued employment, elevated careers, and tens of thousands of published papers steered toward a faulty result the peerage expected and insisted on—and not at all what the data was saying—we have nothing close to a cure despite presidential proclamations and everyone having proximity to the problem.
I will applaud that a few high-ranking scientists in the field finally got the courage to say what everyone knew: the Somatic Mutation Theory utterly failed to explain the attributes of cancer which include constant and numerous genetic mutations, glycolytic energy pathway, metastasis, and several other hallmark behaviors. In a fit of frustration, the problem was handed off to an industry that had a long and illustrious history of following science wherever it may lead….
In 2009, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in an uncharacteristic move, reached out beyond the expected cadre of researchers to ask other scientists for help in the war on cancer. The call went out not to cancer biologists or cancer researchers, but to theoretical physicist Paul Davies and astrobiologist Charley Lineweaver. With no prior knowledge of cancer and, most important, no preconceived notions, these two would usher in the next chapter in our understanding of cancer.
As anyone knows who took college physics, there is no ignoring what the data says if the deterministic math doesn’t align. When classical physics failed to explain the behavior of particles at atomic and subatomic levels, it was clear that something else was needed. Blackbox radiation’s frequency dependent behavior did not comport with the usual Newtonian functions. With a new mathematical model to better describe the Blackbox phenomenon, the world of quantum physics was born thanks to Max Planck who went where many physicists refused to go.
Shedding the prejudice of evidence-based medicine with no preconceived notions, the NCI appointed physicists arrived at a startling explanation and here it is in a cogent nutshell: cancer is cellular atavism.
For those unfamiliar with the term, atavism is the expression of a once dominant trait. When a person is born with a hairy face, webbed hands, gills, or a tail, these are examples of atavism. It is the return of a characteristic that once defined a species, but centuries of evolution have driven it out. Animals and plants, of multicellular composition, rely on the boundaries established by God and nature so that brain cells are brain cells, heart cells are heart cells, and liver cells are liver cells. But when one of these cells reverts to the unicellular form it evolved from (usually by application of a continuous stressor), this is what the physicists conclude is cancer. And what are these unicellular traits? Mutate, spread, glycolytic energy, survival at all costs—sound familiar? This is cancer paradigm 3.0 which perfectly explains all of cancer’s attributes and why a real cure has been so far away. It should strike a chilling chord that every one of us, with every cell in our body, is staving off cellular atavism at every moment.
I was tickled at this revelation, but also disappointed that decades of “science” was wasted by an army of lab-coat wearing fundamentalist. But why would this surprise me when nearly three quarters of published research findings are false (“Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” John Ioannidis, 2005 PLOS Medicine), including and especially, NCI. Perhaps the new paradigm will usher in the cure people have hoped for, but as of now, the cure for cancer, even after forty years of technological advancement, is still the same dreaded triad: cut, burn, and poison.
Evidence based medicine is what Churchill said of America: it will do the right thing but only after it has tried everything else first. Medical research will eventually get to the right conclusion at a prejudicial pace, but only after propping up numerous failed paradigms in the face of overwhelming evidence, and only if someone is willing to risk their career and life for the sake of the truth. Remember that when you go stampeding to Ozempic, mRNA vaccines, Hybrid immunity, or what’s being pushed by the CDC and FDA.
When people say “scientists agree” they are not talking about science. Science is always provisional and never consensus. And sadly, when science is coerced as it is done in the “evidence based” model we practice—it’s three fourths bullshit.