Why Cancer Deaths Have Dropped

Why Cancer Deaths Have Dropped

When you smoke you inhale up to 4000 chemicals [that do not naturally occur in tobacco].
- Canadian Cancer Society

Deaths in Canada from almost all kinds of cancer have decreased dramatically over the past decade or two. Both organizations that address cancer as their main mission and individual doctors with a direct interest in oncology attribute this drop to two main causes:
(1) a precipitous drop in the number of Canadians who smoke tobacco (except in the 16 to 24 year age range) in recent years;
(2) better testing, of more patients, that detects cancer in its early stages, making treatment and recovery highly likely.
A few years ago, the Canadian Cancer Society published a postcard sized handout that listed some of those 4000 chemicals that tobacco companies add to cigarettes. Some you would recognize, some may be new to you. You will likely wonder why it’s necessary for tobacco companies to add these to their products. You should. One thing for certain, we won’t learn the answers from the tobacco companies.
Please read the list carefully. Imagine anyone ingesting these chemicals every day of their life:
- acetone (paint stripper, poisonous, dangerous when inhaled)
- mercury
- lead
- benzene
- dimethylnitrosamine (a known carcinogen)
- nicotine (world’s most widely used addictive drug)
- cadmium (used in car batteries)
- carbon monoxide
- benzopyrene (carcinogen, even present in the cheapest forms of olive oil)
- vinyl chloride (makes PVC)
- hydrogen cyanide (used in chemical warfare, interferes with the body’s ability to utilize oxygen)
- aminobiphenyl (carcinogen)
- urethane (modern form of varnish)
- toluene (industrial solvent)
- arsenic (poison for white ants)
- dibenzacridine (listed as a hazardous material in workplaces)
- phenol (listed as a hazardous material in workplaces)
- DDT (insecticide)
Those who ingest these chemicals in effect are committing a slow form of suicide. Yet tobacco remains legal and little has been done by governments to force tobacco companies to remove these harmful additions from their products.
Along with earlier testing of patients for cancer, paid for in Canada by provincial health care programs, everyone in the medical community has actively encouraged patients to have the necessary tests.
In my personal case, my family doctor recommended a colonoscopy when I was in her examination room for another purpose. Subsequently, procedures by two gastroenterologists removed four slow growing tumours from my colon. My wife would have become a widow within a decade had the tumours not been removed.
I was informed that my tumours meant that my children should be examined similarly when they reach age 40. Colon cancer can run in families.
In turn, I encouraged my wife to have a colonoscopy. Over the past few months she has had two fast growing tumours removed from her colon. Without encouragement from me (and prior to that from my doctor to me), I would likely have become a widower within one year. One year.
My sister and parents all died years ago of cancer, almost certainly caused by smoking and in my mother’s case from inhaling second-hand smoke over many decades from my father, a heavy smoker. My sister became a heavy smoker during her failed marriage. Addictions of all kinds take hold in people who can’t cope with the constant stress and anxiety they experience.
My wife and I have encouraged her siblings to have colonoscopies soon. My wife’s father died of cancer many years ago. He did not smoke, but he did have a colon. At that time it was not considered wise for doctors to discuss cancer with the families of cancer patients (and victims), especially colon cancer because it happened in a part of the body nobody wanted to discuss openly.
We consider ourselves very lucky to have learned about this one kind of cancer in time.
A very close friend is dying of colon cancer as I write this. He didn’t know about getting tested in time. Even if he did, he likely would not have been tested because he believed that cancer hits others, but would not strike him down. It did.
This brings us to cancer prevention and cures. A cure is what a medical professional or other consultant does for you. Prevention is what you do for yourself. My mantra is: don’t concern yourself with fixing it after it’s broken, prevent it from happening in the first place.
Our bodies come already primed with up to 150 specific micro-locations in which cancer can grow. Most of them, in most of us, never blossom into full blown cancer. Why does it happen in some of us, but not all? As cancer takes many different forms in our bodies, we may assume that, like the common cold, it is almost impossible to stop. We may be wrong.
Most of us non-chemistry-loving folk have a clue about what acid is. Vinegar, for example, is an acid. So is the liquid in lead-acid batteries, as evidenced by clothing I have had to discard in the past because it developed acid holes from my careless handling of car batteries. We can consume some mild acids, while others will kill.
Ordinary drinking water is mildly acidic. Our bodies, being mostly composed of water, tend to be mildly acidic unless we undertake measures to counteract the acidic effects of water.
Cancer cells tend to develop and reproduce in an acidic environment.
Fruits and vegetables tend to be slightly alkaline, the opposite of acidic. We have been told to eat fruit and veggies for their nutrition and their anti-oxidant effect. Anti-oxidants float around our bloodstream corralling little buggers called free radicals, that left on their own will find cancer starting places and tickle them until they grow into cancer cells.
Cancer cells do not thrive in an alkaline environment. In fact, they tend to shrivel and die when our body is slightly alkaline. [The internet abounds with anecdotal examples of consuming alkaline substances curing cancer.]
In general, our bodies function in a more healthy manner when they are slightly alkaline. That is, when our pH level is slightly below the even or balance mark of 7 (on a scale from 0 to 14).
I will leave it to you to google the subject of pH (Potential Hydrogen, the way acidity or basicity is valued). As to possible alkaline therapies or body maintenance, only people in extreme need of immediate pH correction (“Help, I’m dying of cancer and don’t know what to do to save myself”) need to adopt unusual measures. Everyone should eat fresh fruit and veggies.
Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda (not baking powder) are known to be alkaline if you are looking for places to start searching.
In conclusion, I leave you with one thought about your health: if you are not in control of your own health by being fully informed about what you eat, drink and breathe in, you leave your health and your life in the control of large corporations that make pharmaceuticals that supposedly cure you and chemicals that poison the food you eat.
Ignorance is not pretty. It’s comforting for a while, but it never ends well if adopted as a lifestyle.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to raise children with enough life skills to help them survive a world filled with harmful influences.
Learn more at http://billallin.com