This is a book by a Danish medical doctor named Peter C. Gotzsche, and below is a review of it by a surgeon and vein specialist named Bob DuPriest. So, what follows is Bob’s writing:

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This is a great book. If you are interested in breast cancer you must read it. If you have concerns about ethics in medical research and the influence of self-interest, power, or money on research and publication, this is the book for you. If you are a woman undergoing routine screening, you will want to read this. If you are a physician that deals with cancer or women you must read this book.

This is the personal story of an heroic Danish researcher who was asked by the Danish Board of Health to “take a look at” breast cancer mammographic screening because of a pending vote. The book details a 10 year odyssey and battle to expose the truth and lies and harms of routine mammographic screening. Peter Gotzsche discovered that no one knew, or at least no one was discussing, the harms of screening, and further, that the benefits were vastly overrated.

The basic premise of screening, “find cancer early, treat it when it is small, results will be better,” is highly suspect. Does screening decrease the number of mastectomies? No, and you will discover why. What has happened to the incidence of breast cancer since screening has started? Why is there such an increase in the number of women being treated for non-malignant breast disease (called intraductal or lobular cancer in situ)? Has screening decreased the amount of advanced breast cancer? Clue: no. Why does a decrease in 5 year breast cancer mortality mean nothing?

If you start to get bogged down in the book, jump to the last few chapters. To see current recommendations from Dr. Gotsche see this: http://www.cochrane.dk/screening/mammography-leaflet.pdf

Finally, Dr. Gotsche will explain how to decrease the incidence of breast cancer by one-third.

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I, Dr. Cinque, haven’t read this book myself yet, but I know that many medical voices have questioned the efficacy of routine mammography. And keep in mind that it entails a significant amount of radiation to the breast- which is a carcinogenic factor- although less so today than years ago due to advances in the x-ray technology. And some have argued that the mashing of the breast tissue against the mammography plate might be having the effect of dispersing cancer cells and causing metastasis.

I can only tell you that if I were a woman, I would definitely not undergo routine mammography.

New research into prostate cancer has revealed that surgery has little or no benefit in extending the lives of patients.

The study, which has not yet been published, compared surgically removing the prostate gland with 'watchful waiting' and found there was little difference between the two.

Experts are believed to be 'shaken' by the news because thousands of men could have gone through painful and unnecessary surgery.

One expert, who did not want to be named, told the Independent newspaper: 'The only rational response to these results is, when presented with a patient with prostate cancer, to do nothing.'

The Prostate Intervention Versus Observation Trust (PIVOT), led by Timothy Wilt, started in 1993 and analysed 731 patients over 12 years.

It found that those who had an operation to treat the cancer had less than three per cent chance of survival compared with those who had no treatment.

The results were presented at a meeting of the European Association of Urology in Paris in February and were met with a stunned silence.

One urologist said that it definitely was not a finding the medics would be eagerly tweeting about.

Cancer of the prostate is the most common male cancer and affects 37,000 men every year with up to 10,000 deaths.

In half of all cases it is slow growing with suffers living for many years and often dying of another disease.

It is believed some specialists are now questioning whether the disease should be considered a cancer at all.

The surgery, known as radical prostatectomy, can often leave patients impotent or incontinent.

A consultant urologist at Guys and St Thomas' NHS Trust said that older men with typical prostate cancer are not usually offered surgery at all. However, he added that besides watchful waiting there is the option of radiotherapy, which should be considered. 

Dr Kate Holmes, head of research at the The Prostate Cancer Charity, said: 'Early data from the Pivot trial certainly suggests that surgery to remove the prostate does not provide any significant survival benefit for men with low to medium risk of prostate cancer.

• Gleason Score: score given to prostate cancer based upon its microscopic appearance. Cancers with a higher Gleason score are more aggressive and have a worse prognosis. The Gleason scores range from 2 to 10, with 10 having the worst prognosis.
• Core biopsies positive:  usually urologists take 6-12 total biopsies at a time, called cores. The percentage of positive cores varies and often changes over time.
• PSA: a tumor marker that, taken with the other two factors above, may indicate prostate cancer. The higher the score, and the more rapidly it climbs, the worse the prognosis. It usually slowly increases over time in men with low-grade prostate cancer.

An article published online on April 26, 2012 in the Annals of Neurology reports a protective effect for diets containing high amounts of blueberries and strawberries against cognitive decline in older women. Berries are high in compounds known as flavonoids, which may help reduce the negative impact of inflammation and stress on cognitive function.

Lead researcher Elizabeth Devore of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School said that "Our study examined whether greater intake of berries could slow rates of cognitive decline."

Dr. Devore and her associates evaluated data from women who were between the ages of 30 and 55 upon enrollment in the Nurses' Health Study in 1976. Dietary questionnaires completed every four years since 1980 were analyzed for the frequency of berry intake as well as the intake of 31 individual flavonoids representing six major flavonoid subclasses commonly found in US diets. Cognitive function was tested every two years in 16,010 participants who were over the age of 70 between 1995 and 2001.

Consuming a relatively high amount of blueberries or strawberries was associated with a slower decline in cognitive function test scores over the follow-up period compared to women whose intake was lower, resulting in a delay in cognitive aging of up to 2.5 years. Greater intake of the anthocyanidin class of flavonoids and total flavonoids was also associated with a reduced rate of decline.

"Substantial biologic evidence supports our finding that berry and flavonoid intake are related to cognition," the authors write. "Berry-derived anthocyanidins are uniquely and specifically capable of both crossing the blood–brain barrier and localizing in brain regions involved in learning and memory. In multiple studies of rats, blueberry or strawberry supplementation significantly reduced age-related declines in neuronal signaling and cognitive behavior, and supplementation at older ages reversed neuronal and cognitive decline."

"We provide the first epidemiologic evidence that berries can slow progression of cognitive decline in elderly women," Dr Devore announced. "Our findings have significant public health implications as increasing berry intake is a fairly simple dietary modification to effect cognition protection in older adults."

I don’t’ know about you, but this time of year, I eat berries just about every day. Domestic strawberries are available year-round now, even blueberries are available year-round due to importation from the southern hemisphere during our winter. But, domestic blueberries from Florida are in now, and the Texas blueberries will start very soon, and I’ll be eating those. And after that the northern blueberries will abound all summer.

Unfortunately, my attempt to grow berries at home failed. They started out good, and I even got a small harvest the first year. But then they developed a fungus which ravaged the plants. I tried it twice, with both blackberries and blueberries. Perhaps if I had used a chemical fungicide it would have saved them, but I didn’t want to do that.

But, I’m grateful for the blueberries I can buy, and I do make the most of them.        

Dr. Uffe Ravnskov is probably the world’s leading cholesterol skeptic, and he is surely the most highly credentialed one, being a medical internist, a board-certified nephrologist (kidney specialist) , a professor of Medicine, and  widely published medical researcher.  Here are the highlights from his April newsletter.

It mostly concerns statin drug treatment, and statins are still the most widely prescribed medicines in the world. He starts by referring to Dr. Duane Graveline's book ”Lipitor: Thief of Memory.” Dr. Graveline suffered terribly and almost died from statin treatment, and ever since, he has become a leading voice against statins. Impaired memory is one of the many serious side effects of statin treatment.  Thousands have reported cognitive problems from statin use, and for many of them, the problems disappeared after discontinuation of statins, which was also the case for Dr. Graveline. Dr. Ravskov reports that, finally, a few months ago, the  FDA officially admitted in a new "safety alert" that such problems exist. It’s about time! Fortunately, many newspapers reported it, including the New York Times and the Boston Globe.

Reports to the FDA of memory problems from statins began over ten years. So, why did it take them so long to act?  Dr. Ravsnkov cites Dr. Marcia Angell from her book, ”The Truth About the Drug Companies. How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It”. Dr. Angell is the former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. Here is what she said:

”Congress also put the FDA on the pharmaceutical industry´s payroll . . . Fees . . . soon accounted  for about half the budget of the agency´s drug evaluation center. That makes the FDA dependent on an industry it regulates.” (page 208)

”The FDA is subject to industry pressures through its eighteen standing advisory committees on drug approvals. These committees, which consist of outside experts in various subspecialities, are charged with reviewing new drug applications and making recommendations to the agency about approval. The FDA almost always takes their advice. Many members of these committees have financial connections to interested companies . . . Members of FDA advisory committees are said to command unusually high consulting fees from drug companies.” (pages 210-211).

This issue has touched me close to home. I had an uncle who died recently, and officially, he died of Alzheimer’s disease. His mental deterioration was very gradual. It started  over 12 ago, soon after he began statin treatment for high cholesterol. By the end, he was in full-blown dementia. But, for most of his adult life, he was a very brilliant man, an engineer by profession, and a mechanical genius; he could fix anything. So, it was very sad to see him decline the way he did. But, did he really have Alzheimer’s? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else. There is no blood test for it, and a definitive diagnosis requires a brain autopsy. Is it possible that his statin use contributed to his dementia? It is very possible. Even probable, I'd say.  He lived to the same age as his father, 91, and his father (my grandfather) never had Alzheimer’s. My grandfather was lucid until the very end. And he never took statins.

So, why didn’t I intervene for my uncle? I tried to. I spoke to my aunt about it, his sister. And she took what I said very seriously. She spoke to his adult children about it, and she even called his doctor and balled him out. But, I don’t believe the statin was ever stopped. And of course, as he deteriorated, they started giving him lots of other drugs as well. As with so many people, Modern Medicine had a ruinous effect on my uncle's health and on his life. And he was previously, a very vigorous man- until he started with all that medical stuff.

I had my annual blood work done this month, and the results were good. My total cholesterol was 170, and I am happy with that. It’s not as low as the cholesterol haters strive for, but cholesterol is a very vital substance that is used constructively in many, many ways, including to make hormones, bile acids, cellular membranes, intracellular membranes, Vitamin D, and even for the immune system and the brain. Cholesterol is so important to the brain that it makes its own cholesterol, and I mean a lot of it.

My HDL was 60, and my LDL was 110, which is 10 points higher than the upper limit of what is now considered normal, which is 100. What I plan to do about it is absolutely nothing.  As it is, I eat largely a plant-based diet, and the only animal food that enters my diet occasionally is an organic egg. I could cut it out, but I don’t think I will. And that’s because I feel good, and I am not the least bit worried about it. I don’t take statin drugs, and I am not interested in taking anything to lower my cholesterol. That's one boat I ain't rockin'.     

The article that follows attests that even getting just the bitewing x-rays increases the risk of brain tumors slightly. If you get the full-mouth x-rays, it increases the risk much more. This really does not surprise me because 30 years ago, Dr. Jon Gofman, a leading physician/scientist with vast knowledge of the biological effects of radiation, said that dental x-rays would do this.However, I am going to keep getting the bite-wing x-rays because it is the only way for the dentist to see between the teeth. I don't do them every year, but I do them  and will continue to do them every other year. I think it's worth it because the health of the teeth and gums has great effect on your general health and your resistance to disease. And it's also a matter of peace of mind. Howeer, I never do the full-mouth x-rays. I only do the 4 bite-wing x-rays, where you bite down on the tab. And that is what I recommend to you.

People who received frequent dental X-rays a generation ago, before stricter radiation dosages were put in place, are at greater risk for developing a type of non-cancerous brain tumor, according to Yale University researchers.

The findings are being published today in the American Cancer Society's online journal, Cancer.

"We know people will be very concerned, but we are not telling people they should stop going to see their dentist," said the study's lead author, Dr. Elizabeth Claus, a professor at Yale's School of Public Health and an attending neurosurgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The Yale study looked at more than 1,400 people from Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, California and Texas who were diagnosed with a meningioma, a non-cancerous tumor that can cause a range of medical problems with vision, speech and motor control, as well as causing headaches. The study also looked at a similar group of people who did not have a meningioma.

The average age of the patients was 57, according to Claus.

Researchers found that patients with meningioma were twice as likely to have had dental X-ray exams since childhood in which they bit down on a tab of X-ray film at least once a year. That type of test is known as a bitewing exam.

There was an even stronger link between meningioma and the panorex dental exam, in which a single X-ray picture of teeth is taken outside of the mouth. Patients who had this exam when they were younger than 10 years old had a nearly five times greater risk for meningioma.

Claus pointed out that today's dental X-ray technology and practices use significantly lower radiation dosages than in the past. She estimated there has been at least a 50 percent reduction in dosage since the 1980s.

Meningioma occurs in eight out of every 100,000 people, according to the National Institutes of Health. This makes it a rare disease, even though it is the most commonly diagnosed brain tumor.

In a statement released to the media, the Chicago-based American Dental Association says it has a long-standing position that "dentists should order dental X-rays for patients only when necessary for diagnosis and treatment," but called certain aspects of the Yale study into question.

The association faulted the study for relying on "individuals' memories of having dental X-rays taken years earlier," and that "results of studies that use this design can be unreliable because they are affected by what scientists call 'recall bias.'"

The ADA stresses it encourages use of protective aprons and thyroid collars on all patients to minimize radiation exposure. It also says X-rays are needed to detect oral diseases that can't be found through visual and physical examination.

Claus says the Yale study looked into a connection between meningioma and dental X-rays because ionizing radiation is the "most consistent environmental factor" known to be a risk factor for the tumor.

Claus also says the study should serve as a starting point to examine how often dental X-rays are necessary even with today's practices and technology. She says the American Dental Association suggests that children have one dental X-ray every one to two years, that teens have one every one and a half to three years, and that adults have one every two to three years.

"It is worthwhile to have a discussion as to whether they are needed in every instance," Claus says. "That is probably our biggest message."

A recent study, reported in the medical journal The Lancet, found that taking a daily dose of aspirin can reduce the risk of cancer. The new study, led by Dr. Peter Rothwell of Britain's Oxford University, found that low-dose aspirin can reduce the risk of some cancers by as much as 50 percent. That, of course, is huge.

For a long time, it has been suspected that aspirin may be a cancer-preventive. However, clinical studies have been mixed, and these results are the best yet to be reported. According to Dr. Harold Kaufman, head of cancer treatment center at Rush University Hospital in Chicago, the new study was “well designed and very compelling.”

The greatest effect was seen in colorectal cancer, but an impressive effect was also seen in many other types of cancer, including lung, breast and prostate cancers. These are about the most common kinds of cancer that there are.

No one knows for sure how aspirin works, but in regard to colo-rectal cancer, we know that aspirin increases the shedding of the cells that line the digestive tract, and as these cells shed, the early manifestations of intestinal polyps may get sloughed off in the process, nixing their further development. The general anti-inflammatory effect of aspirin may also be a factor.

Of course, there is risk to taking aspirin. It is a powerful irritant, and it’s been said that every time you take an aspirin, it makes a hole in the lining of your stomach. The way to minimize that risk is to:

keep the dose of aspirin small, such as a baby aspirin (81 mg),

take it after your largest meal of the day so that when it hits your stomach it lands on food and not on membrane,

and finally, take a buffered form of aspirin.

I have taken a look at this study, and I must admit that it looks impresive. Indeed, there may be something to it. However, I have NOT started to take aspirin. I am holding on to the idea as a possibility for myself in the future, but I am going to pass on it for now. And here’s why:

I have a fear of aspirin. I have known, and known of, people who have died from taking high doses of aspirin, and that includes one suicide, and it was a very painful death for this person. He actually regretted it after swallowing a whole lot of aspirin, and he called 9-1-1 for help, but it was too late; they could not save him even though they got to him.

I think about what Dr. Herbert Shelton used to say, that if something is toxic and deadly in a high dose, that it’s effect in a smaller dose is in the same direction. It is just a lesser degree of the same effect and not a different effect. And with that thought in mind, it does seem that we are poisoning ourselves whenever we take aspirin.

However, this concept of Shelton’s, although generally true and often worth respecting, may be overly simplistic. We know for instance that there is a big difference between chewing on a coca leaf and taking cocaine. Coca leaves contain “coca alkaloids” in the amount of .4%, and the stimulating effect has been compared to drinking coffee. However, when these leaves are processed into pure cocaine powder, it becomes infinitely more potent and dangerous.

Well, we can make an analogy with aspirin because “natural salicylates” occur in a wide variety of plants, including common fruits and vegetables. But, in the context of the whole plant food, there is zero chance of incurring the potential harm from aspirin. In other words, you can’t develop stomach bleeding, ulcers, or have a hemorrhagic stroke from eating fruits and vegetables, but people could die and do die from taking aspirin.

So, there is definitely risk involved with taking aspirin. However, we should keep it in perspective. By taking it conservatively- in the manner I described above- the risk can be minimized, and the risk/reward ratio may indeed be quite positive, not for everyone, but for a large percentage of people. It’s often said that one should always consult with a trusted doctor before beginning an aspirin regimen- whether it’s for cancer prevention or heart disease prevention or both- and I’m sure that’s good advice.

But for me, at this time, I am not going to begin an aspirin regimen. I simply do not feel that my personal cancer risk is great enough to warrant assuming the risk that aspirin therapy poses, no matter how small. Besides, I am doing other things for cancer prevention. For instance, I take melatonin at night, and if you read Dr. Pierpaoli, he says that melatonin is like a “smart bomb” that gets into every nook and cranny with its anti-cancer effect. I also take optimized turmeric, which has effects that are directly comparable to aspirin (blood-thinning, anti-inflammatory) but without any risk of bleeding.

But, I will continue following the aspirin studies as they come out, and I will keep an open mind about this.  I won’t rule out taking aspirin at some point in the future if I feel my situation warrants it.

Dr. John Cannell is head of the Vitamin D Council, and he is undoubtedly one of the most knowledgeable physicians in the world on Vitamin D. In his most recent blog, he discussed a paper that concerned three infants and toddlers who had rickets who were given Vitamin D, and they wound up with slightly elevated blood calcium, above the normal range.

Before discussing the paper, Dr. Cannell pointed out that in East Germany, before the fall of Communism, every child in the country was given a pharmacological dose of Vitamin D3: 600,000 IUs. It was mandated for every child in the country, every 3 months for the first 18 months of life. It came to 3.6 million IUs of Vitamin D3 in the first year and a half of life.

That is way too much Vitamin D, but amazingly, only 1/3 developed high blood calcium, and none got clinically toxic. They surely would have if it had been Vitamin D2, so thank God they knew better than to do that. The highest calcium levels that resulted from it was 13 mg/dl, which is high but not life-threatening. Note that in East Germany at the time, normal blood calcium was considered to be between 9.4 and 11.2, the same as in Norway. In the US, normal is considered 9 to 10.5.

But, Dr. Cannell argues that the higher range is the correct one, and that our “normal” in the US is based on a population of Vitamin D-deficient people. Here is how he put it:

“How do we get these calcium ranges? We take several thousand vitamin D deficient children, measure their calcium and use a Gaussian distribution to calculate “normal.” How do I know the kids are vitamin D deficient? Because virtually all the kids in the USA are vitamin D deficient, thanks to video games, the sunscare, and sunblock. For the first time in human history, we are raising a generation of indoor children. Because calcium and vitamin D are connected, such children will have slightly lower calcium levels than would several thousand truly “normal” kids. Therefore, we use the abnormal to calculate the normal.”

Dr. Cannell then pointed out that the three children with rickets who had “hypercalcemia” were all below 11.2, which is to say that none of them really had high blood calcium. And that was in response to a dose of 150,000 IUs- which was a quarter of the dose routinely given to kids in East Germany.

And now Dr. Cannell is afraid that doctors here will refrain from giving children appropriate Vitamin D because of the misconception that these three children were harmed. It’s a pity.