American Cancer Society's Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Methods

Rating:
Summary: Biased AGAINST known cancer cures
Review: This is a shallow book that favors profitable, expensive pharmaceuticals with horrible side-effects. The American Cancer Society has financial ties with the cancer industry and has a lousy track record on presenting PREVENTIVE methods of avoiding cancer. They only focus on chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.

The Role of the ACS in the War Against Cancer
The verdict is unassailable. The American Cancer Society bears a major responsibility for losing the winnable war against cancer.
The launching of the 1971 War Against Cancer provided the ACS with a well-exploited opportunity to pursue it own myopic and self-interested agenda. Its strategies remain based on two MYTHS -- that there has been dramatic progress in the treatment and cure of cancer, and that any increase in the incidence and mortality of cancer is due to aging of the population and smoking while DENYING any significant role for involuntary exposures to industrial carcinogens in air, water, consumer products and the workplace.

Most of the funds raised by ACS go to pay overhead, salaries, fringe benefits, and travel expenses of its national executives in Atlanta. They also go to pay Chief Executive Officers, who earn six-figure salaries in several states, and the hundreds of other employees who work out of some 3,000 regional offices nationwide. The typical ACS affiliate, which helps raise the money for the national office, spends more than 52 percent of its budget on salaries, pensions, fringe benefits, and overhead for its own employees.

Salaries and overhead for most ACS affiliates also exceeded 50 percent, although most direct community services are handled by unpaid volunteers. DiLorenzo summed up his findings by emphasizing the hoarding of funds by the ACS.


"Most contributors believe their donations are being used to fight cancer, not to accumulate financial reserves. More progress in the war against cancer would be made if they would divest some of their real estate holdings and use the proceeds -- as well as a portion of their cash reserves -- to provide more cancer services."

Aside from high salaries and overhead, most of what is left of the ACS budget goes to basic research and research into profitable, patented cancer drugs.

The current budget of the ACS is $380 million and its cash reserves approach one billion dollars. Yet its aggressive fund-raising campaign continues to plead poverty, and lament the lack of available money for cancer research, while ignoring efforts to prevent cancer by phasing out avoidable exposures to environmental and occupational carcinogens.

Meanwhile, the ACS is silent about its intricate relationships with the wealthy cancer drug industry and chemical industries.

Read more....... http://www.corporations.org/cancer/boycottacs.html





Rating:
Summary: From the Publisher:
Review: Written to help the public, the consumer, patients and their families understand what works, what's dangerous, and how best to evaluate the hundreds of claims that can be found on the internet and in the popular press. Each entry is researched and based on scientific evidence. Possible problems or complications are identified and clearly highlighted for easy reference.

Hundreds of entries covering a broad range, such as herbs, vitamins, minerals, diet, manual healing, and biological methods written in clear, understandable language.

"...The American Cancer Society's Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Methods...is likely to prove as valuable to oncologists as patients. It's hard to imagine a patient's question on complementary and alternative cancer methods that it doesn't address...It is so comprehensive and authoritative it could well be subtitled the DeVita, Hellman, and Rosenberg of non-traditional cancer..." - ONCOLOGY WEEK IN REVIEW