Everywhere you go, someone asks you for money to help find the cure for some disease. It's the race for the cure! It's the telethon for the cure! It's the walk or run for a cure! At grocery stores, cashiers ask if you want to donate a dollar to help find the cure. Other retailers want to sell you fashion-minded colored bracelets that raise money to find the cure. There's always someone who wants your money in exchange for the hope that your dollar will somehow help them "find a cure" for some awful disease.

You've been lied to. I have shocking news for all those who have been running in circles to help find a cure: you've been conned. For most chronic diseases, there are no cures. Why? Because the diseases themselves are fictitious. Cancer is not a disease. I'll be covering this in more detail in my book The Illusion of Disease, which will be published later this year, but in brief, cancer is just a name given to a pattern of symptoms appearing as a natural result of certain metabolic functions caused by lifestyle decisions. It is not a disease any more than skid marks are a disease in the Town of Allopath. Cancer can't be cured with chemicals. It's no germ.

Think of it this way: if I told you to go run up a hill, you'd get to the top of that hill and you'd be breathing hard. Your face might be flushed. Your respiration would be rapid. Your heart rate would be high. It wouldn't be too difficult for me to find a doctor that might diagnose these symptoms as a "disease." We could even give it a name: Hyper-Respiratory Illness or HRI. And then we could easily get a drug company to come up with a drug to mask the symptoms of HRI — a chemical that would forcibly slow your heart and slow your breathing.

Diabetes is much the same. It's just a metabolic result. There's no disease, no infection, no virus or bacteria. There's just a result, caused by years of incorrect food choice and lack of physical exercise. So, you see, any race to find a "cure" for diabetes is about as silly as trying to find a cure for breathing hard after running up a hill.

And yet the con continues. The researchers say, "All we need is a little more money. We're close now! We'll find the cure now!" When you look at the finances of some of these organizations, it's no wonder they're not finding a cure: very little of the money they raise goes to funding research programs in the first place.

Similarly, the Childhood Leukemia Foundation spends only 13.5% of its budget on programs used to help children with leukemia. The rest of the money goes to administration (salaries and other costs) and fundraising (marketing and promotion).

(Source: www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/5459.htm)

You can find similarly disappointing numbers at other disease organizations, such as:

• the Defeat Diabetes Foundation  www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/7234.htm

• the Childhood Leukemia Foundation, Inc. (gives only 9.5% of its funds to actual programs)  www.scsos.com/PR/release.asp?prid=27

Where is all the money going? If only 5%, 10% or 20% of donated dollars are going to actually help real people, then where is the rest of the money going? Here's one example that may help answer that question: In 2001, the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, a struggling hospital system in Philadelphia, awarded CEO Martin H. Goldsmith with a $2.5 million payment, in addition to his $768,000 salary, months before 200 employees were laid off, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. (Source: www.charitywatch.org/articles/asleep.html)

Gee, did you have any idea that some of these CEOs were being paid $768,000 in annual salaries? Plus this one got a $2.5 million bonus payment. The next time some health charity approaches you for a donation, think twice about parting with your hard-earned dollars: you may just be funding the multi-million dollar bonus of some fat cat CEO.

Questionable ethics at the American Cancer Society

In a scandal that sounds eerily similar to the one carried out by the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society accepted $1 million from SmithKline Beecham in exchange for permission to use the American Cancer Society's name and logo to promote the sale of nicotine patches and gum. The problem is that the ACS did not conduct any clinical research demonstrating SKB's nicotine patch was better than any other patch. In addition, SKB then marketed these ACS-branded products in a way that state Attorneys General said, "...had the tendency and capacity to mislead, deceive and confuse consumers."

States sued, and 12 Attorneys General reached a settlement with the American Cancer Society for $12.5 million.

Favouring drug-company interests that do nothing to prevent breast cancer

One of the best-known "race for the cure" organizations in the world (at least when it comes to breast cancer) is the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Even though it claims to help breast cancer patients, the foundation reportedly helped block the Patients' Bill of Rights legislation in 1999, 2000 and 2001.

The founder of this foundation, Nancy Brinker, even served on the board of directors of a company called Caremark Rx — a firm that was selected by the Bush Administration to help run (and profit from) the Medicare discount drug program. The ties to the Bush Administration run deep, where Brinker has donated $256,000 to Bush and other Republicans. Her foundation also owns stock in several pharmaceutical companies.

Part of the foundation's involvement in pharmaceutical companies includes accepting money from AstraZeneca, the makers of tamoxifen (a drug linked to uterine cancer) and major players in the Race For the Cure events. Brinker also reportedly owns half a million dollars in stock in a cancer treatment company called US Oncology.

Are you getting the picture yet?

You can get the rest of the story at: http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/2003-10-01/news_cover.html
 

Not all health charities are bad

Of course, there are many positive, proactive health charities that are actually helping patients in significant ways. In this article, we're highlighting some of the worst ones, but it doesn't mean there aren't honest, ethical operations that put your money to good use.

One organization in San Francisco, Breast Cancer Action, disavows donations from companies that profit from cancer. That includes drug companies, tobacco companies, pesticide manufacturers and cancer treatment centers. Its mission statement is:

"Breast Cancer Action carries the voices of people affected by breast cancer to inspire and compel the changes necessary to end the breast cancer epidemic."

Here are the beliefs of the organization, as stated on its website:    

1     We are a membership organization.    

2     We honour each person's commitment and energy to our mission.    

3     We are not afraid to examine all sides of all issues.    

4     We cannot be bought.    

5     We tell the truth about what we discover.    

6     We serve individuals while reaching the broader population.    

7     We value the involvement of grassroots activists throughout the country and around the world to further our mission.    

8     We encourage people to participate fully in decisions relating to breast cancer.    

9     We believe access to information is vital.    

10   We recognize that structural changes in society are needed to accomplish our mission.

Their mission, as you can see, seems very different from the mission of some cancer charities, which seems to be the endless promotion of cancer treatments while ignoring prevention. The profits are in treatment, of course, where drug companies make billions and then turn around and offer grant money and sponsorships to the charities that "raised awareness" as a recruiting method to con yet more patients into expensive treatment facilities.

In contrast, it's nice to see the Breast Cancer Action group taking an honest approach.
 

Some charities work against their stated mission

Here's an interesting case that demonstrates the level of corruption present in many health-related charities and foundations. As reported on the Merrow Report (PBS), the foundation Children with Attention Deficit Disorder accepted $818,000 from a drug company to help produce a video that promoted Ritalin. This video was circulated widely in the U.S. public school system. It reportedly featured interviews of parents who spoke fondly of their experience with Ritalin, while the video spent only 20 seconds discussing Ritalin's negative side effects. Those Ritalin-happy parents, by the way, were all board members of Children with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Says one summary of the Merrow Report: ... CHADD (CH.A.D.D.) has been distributing misleading information to hundreds of thousands of parents and teachers that exaggerates the benefits of drug therapy, including Ritalin. The result: a 500% increase in the number of children labeled and medicated since 1990.

Sources: www.add-adhd.org/ritalin_CHADD_A.D.D.html and http://ritalindeath.com/chadd.htm

Aside from the fact that so many health charities seem to operate in unethical, dishonest ways, we still have to contend with the basic fact that there's no such thing as a cure for a fictitious disease in the first place. What do these organizations mean by a cure? Do they think they can reverse a metabolic result with a magic synthetic chemical?

You can't reverse the laws of biochemistry

You can suck the fat out of a patient with liposuction, but it doesn't make her fit. You can pump a diabetic full of insulin, but it doesn't make his insulin metabolism any punchier. You can scrape the plaque off the artery walls of a heart disease patient, but it doesn't make his heart any healthier.

You can insert, remove, inject, irradiate and chemically assault patients until they vomit and their hair falls out. But you're still not treating any real disease. You see, western medicine can mask symptoms all day long, but it doesn't alter the fundamental disease processes taking place in a body that's engaged in a pattern of health destruction.

You ever wonder why a liver transplant almost always results in the patient destroying the new, healthy liver within two years? The answer is because "liver disease" is fictitious. It's not the liver that's the problem, it's the toxic lifestyle of the patient. The foods, drugs and chemicals they are consuming would destroy ANY liver, no matter how many new ones you surgically implant into their bodies.

Liver failure isn't caused by the liver. Kidney failure isn't caused by the kidney. Pancreatic cancer isn't caused by the pancreas. These are all systemic failures that would be much better treated with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) or some other holistic modality that looks at the whole patient, not just isolated organs. Western medicine consistently makes the mistake of thinking the human body is nothing but an assembly of isolated parts.

Drugs are simply not the answer to system-wide health problems. Last time I checked, cancer wasn't caused by a lack of chemotherapy. Depression wasn't caused by a lack of antidepressant drugs. Heart disease wasn't caused by a lack of cholesterol drugs. So why do people think these chemicals are the solutions to these diseases?

Drug researchers even use the word "vaccine" to describe some of their research efforts. They claim to be working on a vaccine for cancer, and yet there's no microbe that causes cancer in the first place. So what is the patient being vaccinated against?

The real disease out there, by the way, is the disease of distorted language used by the medical community to convince people that metabolic results are "diseases." If you stabbed your leg with an ice pick, you'd probably bleed. That's a metabolic result that follows your actions. It's no disease, it's just a result. Same thing with obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, and many other so-called diseases. A person who drinks a 12-pack of cola every day, while avoiding all exercise, is going to end up obese and diabetic. That doesn't make obesity a disease, it just makes it a result. Same as stabbing yourself with an ice pick, only slower.

Let's have a race for disease prevention 

There aren't "cures" for these fictitious disease, but there sure is prevention. I say we should have a race for the prevention of diabetes. Let's have a walkathon for the prevention of cancer. Let's run around in circles and raise money to give nutrition to expectant mothers, so they can give birth to children who are not predisposed to diabetes, depression, aggressive behaviour, cancer, and the other diseases that happen when pregnant women are malnourished. I say we have a race for the prevention of disease, but we'll probably never see that. Prevention is not profitable.

When there's a race for the cure, the money raised goes into the hands of someone who's making a tidy profit conducting laboratory research or drug testing for various diseases. Some of that money goes to the pharmaceutical companies. When you give money to the race for the cure of some disease, you're really giving money to proponents of the pharmaceutical industry, who are, in effect, looking for a "magic-bullet" drug cure they'll gladly sell back to you at upwards of 10,000% markup.

Do you see why this is such a con? So you spend three hours running your legs off, coughing up cash for "the cure," and then these organizations take your money and spend it on drug research. But then, if a new drug is found that even claims to help treat the disease, do they give you the drug for free? Of course not. You have to pay for it, and you're usually paying monopoly prices in the U.S. thanks to the national drug racket operating here.

For most diseases, the race for the cure is really just a way for drug companies to shift R&D costs to suckers. You fund the R&D, and then you get to pay full price for the drug they drummed up thanks to your generous donation.

Want a real cure? Exercise for free 

No chemical, no magic-bullet drug, can reverse your lifestyle choices involving food and physical exercise. If you want to race for health, then race to get the cardiovascular benefits from it. You can just walk around for a couple of miles yourself. The benefits you receive will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in healthy chemicals circulating through your bloodstream — chemicals that your own body created, free of charge.

The race itself is the cure! That's the big secret Big Pharma doesn't want you to figure out.

If we took the whole country and had a "Race against Diabetes Day," we would all be a bit healthier, and a bit less diabetic, simply by exercising one day. That's how powerful exercise is. But the popular fundraising runs you see for diabetes are nothing but a con. How do I know that? I've seen races for diabetes sponsored by soft drink companies. That's right! The race sponsors manufacture the very products that cause diabetes! Wow, what a racket! The race promoters, for their part, don't seem at all concerned about the fact that they're providing publicity to a company selling products that actually promote the very disease they claim to be fighting against!

I can't wait to see the AA run sponsored by Absolut Vodka. Or the cure for lung cancer run sponsored by tobacco companies. We should have the run for breast cancer sponsored by makers of sunblock products (which actually promote breast cancer by blocking production of vitamin D in the body). And let's be sure to have the race for heart disease sponsored by makers of margarine and vegetable shortening. Yum! It's like having a race for obesity sponsored by a candy bar company.

Forget about the cure for cancer, the mystical cure for diabetes, or the cure for heart disease. There are no such cures from organized medicine, folks. The system is a sham. There is only prevention, only the reversal of disease through nutrition, physical exercise, avoidance of chronic stress, avoidance of environmental toxins, and participation in healing therapies, such as vibrational nutrition, healing touch, nutritional supplements, acupuncture, chiropractic care, and superfoods. The way to "cure" these diseases is to prevent them. And if you already have such a "disease," the way to cure them is to stop treating the symptoms of that disease and, instead, treat the whole patient (you). When your whole body is healthy, and your blood chemistry is healthy, and your immune system is operating at peak efficiency, you simply will not express any symptoms of disease

Helping people with symptoms

None of this talk, by the way, means I don't think we should be helping people with the symptoms of these fictitious diseases. When a person has been diagnosed with cancer, their experience of that cancer is very real, even if the labeling of their disease isn't. I'm a strong proponent of helping patients heal and, more importantly, giving them back the power to heal themselves. I've spent time volunteering in nursing homes and senior centers. I've conducted energy healing on numerous people. I've given away thousands of dollars in food and nutritional products to help low-income families get some basic nutrition (see related e-book on nutrition).
 

When it comes to donating money to find "the cure" for any disease, the great delusion is thinking that you're helping the victims of that disease by giving money to some fundraising organization. Hogwash. You want to help the victims? Help them directly! Give them the gift of human touch, or even simple things like a hand massage. Help get them away from the doom-and-gloom conventional oncologists and give them hope by introducing them to cancer treatment alternatives. Get them away from MDs and help them find NDs (naturopathic doctors).

You want to help find the cure for cancer? Find it in your grocery shopping habits, in your food choice, and in your own body. Help those around you gain the knowledge to prevent these fictitious diseases, and do your part to stop poisoning your body with cancer-causing foods (like processed meats and most manufactured foods) and substances (like popular personal care products that contain cancer-causing fragrance chemicals).

If you want to find the cure for cancer, just be the cure for cancer.

Go outside and get some sunlight. That's prevention for at least three different types of cancers right there. Drink some water. Take some herbs, vitamins and immune-boosting nutritional supplements. Get into natural health, and you won't have to experience these diseases in the first place.

You want a cure for cancer? You don't need a billion-dollar laboratory, packed wall to wall with biochemistry experts. The cure for cancer is already hard-coded into your DNA. Your body knows how to cure cancer, and with proper nutritional support, it will remember how to do so.

Now, excuse me, because I'm about to go running outside, under the desert sun, with no sunscreen. I don't need a sign-up sheet, a corporate sponsor, or money from friends to work up a sweat. I'm just running because that's part of being healthy. Gee, what a simple idea: exercising without corporate sponsorship.