About Cancer

This investigation began when through my researches for my book I could demonstrate that all cancers can readily be linked to chemical and radiation causes, but there is one that was an exception. It was the cuckoo in the nest and this was cervical cancer. This cancer variation is now firmly established and universally attributed to having been caused by a virus as many of the articles in this Ezine more than testify. However, the evidence proves otherwise and I shall prove beyond any doubt that what I have said is true but before proceeding with the evidence to support this heretical statement, let us take a look at some background information about the disease. Clues to the cause of the disease can be found within the information that now follows.

Worldwide, cervical cancer is the third most common type of cancer in women. According to the NCCC (National Cervical Cancer Coalition) about 14,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with the disease each year and more than 3,900 women die in each year from this disease. However, the number of women getting the disease in the western world is very few when compared to the rest of the world. Women in developing countries account for about 85% of both the yearly cases of cervical cancer (estimated at 493,000 cases worldwide) and the yearly deaths from cervical cancer (estimated at 273,500 deaths worldwide). In fact, whereas breast cancer is the leading cancer for women in the west, in the majority of developing countries, cervical cancer remains the number-one cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Keep these statistics in mind because what they tell us is very important as far as determining the cause of cervical cancer is concerned.

Initially I was taken aback by the revelation that a virus caused cervical cancer but then I began to wonder what it was that led the medical profession to almost unanimously adopt this idea when all other cancers clearly showed that chemicals (or radiation) was responsible. As I looked into this more deeply, I came across a most perplexing riddle. You see, what set doctors along a path in search of a viral cause of the disease was triggered by an obscure report in a regional medical journal in Venice. It was made by an Italian surgeon and an amateur epidemiolist named Rigoni-Stern in 1842. He had analysed 150,000 death certificates from the Veronese district for the years 1760-1839 and found that out of 74,184 women who died, 1288 of them were nuns. The cause of death of the nuns varied but many had died of breast cancer, five times more common than other women. Incidently, he correctly attributed one of the reasons for the increase in breast cancer in nuns compared to other women was due to the corsets they wore). He recorded four deaths from uterine cancer (cervical cancer was not distinguished from other cancers of the uterus), while he had expected at least six based on 361 cases in the remaining 72,896 women.

From this somewhat vague analysis, others saw this data as evidence that there was little or no cervical cancer among Catholic nuns compared with the rest of the Italian female population. Subsequent doctors endeavoured to expand on this obscure report, adding various invented details, including the idea that cervical cancer in prostitutes was prevalent. So arose the myth that as nuns were supposed to be celibate and yet cervical cancer was rare among them, and that the disease was said to be quite common among prostitutes this could only mean one thing. Cervical cancer was caused by something that was sexually transmitted and it was not long before this speculation became accepted as fact. Professor Skranbanek put things in perspective when he said that, "A reference to an obscure Italian communication has become a de riguer in the opening paragraphs of articles on the aetiology of cervical cancer, but how many authors have read the orignal? Skranbanek, proved as did Dr Griffiths of Luton Hospital, that the basis upon which the theory that a sexually transmitted virus was a red herring, that has led to doctors following a false trail ever since.

For a hundred years or more the search for the elusive virus was searched for, with Smegma and Herpes at one time thought to have been the cause, but eventually proven to be unfounded. Then came along Professor Harald zur Hausen and his team who found that a number of HPV virus strains could be found in women who had cervical cancer. The elusive virus had been found and ever since then, this has become the established scientific hypothesis. But is wrong!

If HPV does not cause cervical cancer as I have said, even though most if not all of the medical profession would disagree with me, then what do I say is the cause of the disease? To answer this question we need first to take a look at the intriguing statistic that I mentioned earlier in this treatise, because it gives us a vital clue. "Women in developing countries account for about 85% of both the yearly cases of cervical cancer".

Did you know that the Office of Rare Diseases (ORD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States lists cervical cancer as a "rare disease"? This means that Cervical Cancer, or a subtype of the disease, affects less than 200,000 people in the United States, a country that has a population of over 300 million people. According to the estimated new cases and deaths from cervical (uterine cervix) cancer in the United States in 2007 by the National Cancer Institute are 11,150 new cases with deaths about 3,650. This compares to 470,000 new cases and 230,000 deaths every year to cervical cancer world wide, most of which occur in developing countries. The good news is that cervical cancer incidents are on the decline in the West and it is believed that the introduction of the Pap test is responsible. This may be partially true, but how does one explain that cervical cancer was already in decline before the Pap test was introduced?

The World Health Organisation says that "More than 80% of the burden of this easily detectable and preventable disease is borne by developing countries" To illustrate this the WHO have published a map of the world that shows the projected global incidence of cervical cancer for 2005 in various countries, and it is most informative. The reason I say this is because I have seen an almost exact duplicate of this map elsewhere, accept that it has nothing to do with cervical cancer. It is a map that shows the national energy consumption of wood fuels in the world. The correlation is remarkable and self evident. OVERLAY THE STATISTICAL WORLD MAP OF CERVICAL CANCER DISTRIBUTION AND A MAP OF THE COUNTRIES THAT USE WOOD AS THEIR PRIMARY FUEL AND YOU WILL FIND AN ALMOST PERFECT MATCH.... This is no coincidence.

Thank you

Fred Harding

Author and Historian