Hello. In these difficult times, it is as well to consider other difficult times, and how the spirit of man has overcome adversity. Hence the second column of March's newsletter has been dedicated to the words of Martin Luther King Jr, in the belief that they are appropriate to all circumstances and everyones life.

People often say to me that they can't chose between therapies. I wonder if they appreciate the vast difference of opinions amongst Doctors of Medicine, and with this in mind I have given space to one such man in my March newsletter. For more information on Professor Karol Sikora and on other trail blazing cancer specailists within the NHS and amongst complemetary therapists go to http://www.canceractive.com/page.php?n=1281 The following transcript has been taken from this web site.

Trailblazing Oncologist

Come the year 2025, cancer prevention will be as natural as cleaning your teeth. Based on individual risk assessment, you will plan your lifestyle for optimum health, with nutriceuticals or smart foods built into your chocolate bar. More people - some 3.3 million people in the UK will actually have cancer than the present 1.2 million, but that's because they will be living longer and living with, rather than suffering from the disease. A reformed health system will provide good, free core treatment, with 'extras' such as the Herceptins and Avastins of that still-distant day factored in for those who want to pay. Gone will be (and good riddance to) the iron-bedded oncology ward, where you wait around, stressed and pyjama passive, for your turn in surgery, or for tests and consultant visits at any old time to please the medical powers-that-be.

Professor Karol Sikora - whose vision of the coming, consumer-led cancer culture this is - predicts relaxing hotel-style treatment centres where you book in to suit your self, where there are no patients, only people, no waiting rooms with antiquated faux-leather seating and where minimally-invasive surgery (think advanced radio-imaging and robotics) involves no more than an overnight stay. Just as we now have our Sheratons and Holiday Inns, so we will have international cancer providers for specialist care that will be ours to choose and book.

Come the year 2025, cancer prevention will be as natural as cleaning your teeth

Most radically, Professor Sikora anticipates the key to the future lying not in new drugs or new technologies but in personalised cancer medicine: 'Costs will be saved because people will not be given across-the-board drugs that might not work for them. Doctors will understand the molecular cogs that have led to the cancer, the pathways by which the cancer has arisen. Essentially they will prescribe specific drugs to correct the abnormal pathways.' The microscope could be defunct for pathologists of 2025 'as they use all sorts of fancy molecular probes on tissue samples, guiding the oncologist to increase the effectiveness of treatment for each individual.'

If this new model of medicine comes to pass, Professor Sikora will be its Romulus or Remus, a vital founding father. He is Professor of Cancer Medicine, Clinical Director and honorary consultant oncologist at Imperial College School of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London and is also a special adviser to the World Health Organisation and a member of the 900 strong doctors Steering Committee for Reform. Prostate cancer is his clinical speciality A once-cynical convert to complementary medicine, he set up the first, then still controversial holistic clinic at Hammersmith, where it flourishes still. He takes an open-minded, intensely human approach to demystifying cancer and empowering those who confront it. For speaking out against the sacred cow of NHS and the shortcomings of the National Cancer Plan he is something of a thorn in the government's flesh.

My thoughts on this - you are not choiceless in anything. Be aware, educate yourself, and explore the myriad of possibilities and opportunities available to you.  Eventually you will find the right treatment for you.

Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (10 Dec, 1964)

I refuse to accept the idea that the "is-ness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "ought-ness" that forever confronts him.

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear annihilation.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.

I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.

I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up.

I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed and non violent redemptive goodwill proclaimed the rule of the land. And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.

I still believe that we shall overcome.

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