More About Arsenic and Leukemia

Followup on data we presented several years back -

Arsenic early in treatment improves survival for leukemia patients, study finds

ScienceDaily (2010-11-12) -- Arsenic, a toxic compound with a reputation as a good tool for committing homicide, has a significant positive effect on the survival of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia, when administered after standard initial treatment, according to a new, multi-center study. ...  read full article

More from Natural Health News
Vitamin A and Arsenic Effectively Treat Leukemia, Also Vitamin C

Hushed Up: Disease causes

From Edward Priestley.

The Christie Hospital in Manchester, where I gave bone marrow for research over 20 years ago said recently they hope to increase survival rates for lymphatic leukaemia from about 20% to 40%. Whether this will actually happen remains to be seen.
These are not survival rates the public are generally led to believe.
I believe many of those raising funds for leukaemia research must be aware there are known causes (toxic chemicals, medical drugs, radiation) but they do not speak out. I know from my own and others' experiences patients and their families are intimidated by the not to speak out. It was one of the first things my consultant at Halifax told my wife and I after I was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia - "Do not bandy your condition about".
So as soon as I was able, nearly a year later, when I 'escaped' from Hammersmith Hospital, I wrote articles in the media on causes. This resulted in many local sufferers contacting me. Every one of their conditions had an obvious cause when you investigated.
There are frantic efforts to improve blood disease treatment because of the increase in incidence, so the causes do not have to be admitted.
The refusal by the UK Government to warn children of these dangers of solvent abuse on leaflets shows just how resistant they are to warning the public of the dangers.
Speaking of the many medical drugs which cause leukaemia is taboo in the media. Professor Judith Marsh wrote to me in 2006 saying she and 11 other of the world's leading experts, most of whom I know well, could not get a research paper published. They were very disappointed because the paper included information on the causes of aplastic anaemia and leukaemia.
She, like the rest, still says the cause is unknown in about half of cases, but they never tell patients the causes even when they are 100% sure of it. When you investigate causes you find that nearly 100% of patients have no idea of the causes, which like my own case, was never investigated by them.
Ref. Harrison's Principals of Internal Medicine "The percentage of cases of aplastic anaemia where a cause is found depends on the vigour with which a cause is sought.".
In other words, if you never look for a cause you never find one. You could say the same for many medical drug, chemical and radiation induced conditions like Parkinson's, most cancers etc.

Vitamin A and Arsenic Effectively Treat Leukemia, Also Vitamin C

UPDATE: 27 March 2010 - In 1974 the US Cancer Institute presented scientific papers on the findings that Vitamin A was effective  in preventing cancer as well as preventing cellular proliferation.  Additionally, later in 1974 other scientific papers reported that vitamin A is definitively an anti-cancer supplement offering cellular protection and offers protection from malignant growth.  The scientist found that vitamin A reversed the cellular damage caused by the carcinogen and it helps your body's defense mechanism to destroy cancer cells.  This is definitely a substance that offers protection against and reversal of cancers according to the findings.

One must ask exactly what is behind the major effort against using nutritional supplements in the prevention and treatment of cancer today.

UPDATE: 31 March: Vitamin C for Leukemia

Get your copy of CHI's Vitamin C Healthy Handout with your tax deductible donation to learn how to do high dose vitamin C therapy at home.
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ORIGINALLY POSTED 17 FEB 09
This is a very interesting report because it offers an option that is less toxic than standard chemotherapy. It also shows that vitamins are effective and helpful in cancer care.

Leukemia patients treated with arsenic, vitamin A
"The treatment was effective ... and worked better than either drug given alone."
Mon Feb 16, 2009
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Doctors appear to have safely and successfully treated patients with cancer of the blood and bone marrow with a combination of arsenic and vitamin A, according to long-term study in China.

In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the doctors said they prescribed the regimen to 85 patients and monitored them for an average of 70 months.

Of these, 80 patients went into complete remission and the researchers did not find any associated long-term problems in their heart or lungs and there was no development of secondary cancers.

"Two years after their treatment, the patients had arsenic blood and urine levels well below safety limits, and only slightly higher than controls," they wrote.

"The treatment was effective ... and worked better than either drug given alone."

The authors recommended that the treatment be given to patients with blood and bone marrow cancer, or acute promyelocytic Leukemia.

While vitamin A is regarded by some experts as a viable treatment, this is the first time that its use has been monitored for such an extended period of time.

Since the 18th century, arsenic compounds have been used as medicines to treat certain ailments. The US Food and Drug Administration approved it for the treatment of people with blood and bone marrow cancer in 2000.

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Artificial Sweetener Causes Cancer

New Study Suggests Artificial Sweetener Causes Cancer in Rats at Levels Currently Approved for Humans

Report in Environmental Health Perspectives calls for reevaluation of acceptable limits of aspartame consumption

[Research Triangle Park, NC] ] A statistically significant increase in the incidence of malignant tumors, lymphomas and leukemias in rats exposed to varying doses of aspartame appears to link the artificial sweetener to a high carcinogenicity rate, according to a study accepted for publication today by the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). The authors of the study, the first to demonstrate multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered to rats in feed, called for an "urgent reevaluation" of the current guidelines for the use and consumption of this compound.

"Our study has shown that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic compound whose carcinogenic effects are also evident at a daily dose of 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg), notably less than the current acceptable daily intake for humans," the authors write. Currently, the acceptable daily intake for humans is set at 50 mg/kg in the United States and 40 mg/kg in Europe.

Aspartame is the second most widely used artificial sweetener in the world. It is found in more than 6,000 products including carbonated and powdered soft drinks, hot chocolate, chewing gum, candy, desserts, yogurt, and tabletop sweeteners, as well as some pharmaceutical products like vitamins and sugar-free cough drops. More than 200 million people worldwide consume it. The sweetener has been used for more than 30 years, having first been approved by the FDA in 1974. Studies of the carcinogenicity of aspartame performed by its producers have been negative.

Researchers administered aspartame to Sprague-Dawley rats by adding it to a standard diet. They began studying the rats at 8 weeks of age and continued until the spontaneous death of each rat. Treatment groups received feed that contained concentrations of aspartame at dosages simulating human daily intakes of 5,000, 2,500, 500, 100, 20, and 4 mg/kg body weight. Groups consisted of 100 males and 100 females at each of the three highest dosages and 150 males and 150 females at all lower dosages and controls.

The experiment ended after the death of the last animal at 159 weeks. At spontaneous death, each animal underwent examination for microscopic changes in all organs and tissues, a process different from the aspartame studies conducted 30 years ago and one that was designed to allow aspartame to fully express any carcinogenic potential.

The treated animals showed extensive evidence of malignant cancers including lymphomas, leukemias, and tumors at multiple organ sites in both males and females. The authors speculate the increase in lymphomas and leukemias may be related to one of the metabolites in aspartame, namely methanol, which is metabolized in both rats and humans to formaldehyde. Both methanol and formaldehyde have shown links to lymphomas and leukemias in other long-term experiments by the same authors.

The current study included more animals over a longer period than earlier studies. "In our opinion, previous studies did not comply with today's basic requirements for testing the carcinogenic potential of a physical or chemical agent, in particular concerning the number of rodents for each experimental group (40-86, compared to 100-150 in the current study) and the termination of previous studies at only 110 weeks of age of the animals," the study authors wrote.

The authors of the study were Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belpoggi, Davide Degli Esposti, Luca Lambertini, Eva Tibaldi, and Anna Rigano of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center, European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, Bologna, Italy. Funding for the research was provided by the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, Bologna, Italy. The article is available free of charge at http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/8711/abstract.html.

EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at http://www.ehponline.org/. Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing handles marketing and public relations for EHP, and is responsible for creation and distribution of this press release.