The FDA has few friends these days. Even setting aside the issues of collusion with pharmaceutical companies to obscure the dangers of drugs and the clear conflict of interest in which all its salaries are being paid for by the drug industry (a conflict which would not be tolerated in any other field of human endeavour), it is clear the FDA is not doing its job.

Not all the critics are from the alternative side of the fence by any means. Dr. Jerry Avorn, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, recently broadcast a new line of argument which surely is persuasive.

As presently constituted, the FDA has no real money and relies on the drug companies to carry out appraisals of its own products. But Dr Avorn argues the government should pay for drug appraisals, not because he's a socialist but because it could save a great deal of public money!

He cites the case of Vioxx. Before Vioxx was taken off the market in 2004, the nation spent about $2.5 billion a year to pay for a drug that killed a lot of people. About a billion of those were public dollars, paid through government programs like Medicaid. A tiny fraction of that $billion could have paid for the independent studies needed to learn about that risk years sooner.

"Is it not a paradox," says Avorn, "that we can find the funds to pay for dispensing expensive drugs, but not to evaluate them properly beforehand? The present marketplace-based system of drug evaluation is actually costing the US citizen more than it would cost to do things right."

Shortage of oncologists (who said hooray?)

The United States is apparently heading toward a major shortage of oncologists by 2020 as the population ages and the medical profession struggles to replace retiring physicians. A recent study looked at the problem and made the prediction, based on the fact that the aging population is growing faster than oncologists are qualifying.

The study forecast that patient demands for visits to cancer doctors would increase by 48 percent by 2020, while these doctors' capacity to see patients will rise only 14 percent.

"The graying of America will result in a substantial increase in demand for cancer-specific health care in the next 10 to 15 years. This is a looming crisis," said Dr. Dean Bajorin, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York involved in work force issues for the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Bajorin said another part of the problem is a funding squeeze the Bush administration has put on the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health and a key funder in the cancer field. [In my view that's just pubic relations for the ineffective National Cancer Institute - KS-M]

Unfortunately, of course, many oncologists are also baby boomers and facing retirement. That will exacerbate the problem.

Does it worry me? Not really. Oncologists are the main problem with cancer, not the disease itself. While they go on slapping down patients with toxins, burnings (radiation) and mutilation, we are unlikely to ever move forward to truly effective cures. The belief that we are "treating" cancer is preventing any search for real cures.

WHEN DOCTORS GO ON STRIKE

It is an incredible irony that when the doctors in Colombia went on strike, the death rate plummeted by thirty five percent, only to resume its "normal" level when work resumed. When doctors in Los Angeles went on a work slow-down in 1976 to protest soaring malpractice insurance premiums, the death rate dropped by eighteen percent. Again in Israel in 1973 when the doctors reduced their daily patient contact from 65,000 to 7,000, during a month long strike, the death rate dropped fifty percent during that month, according to the Jerusalem Burial Society.

Maybe with fewer oncologists, we'll see the cancer death rates drop!

To learn about alternative cancer therapies, go to the website cancer section

To read a heartening story of brain tumor survival - with an oncologist's help, go here!

Chocolate may be a vitamin! Have you heard the good news?

According to Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, epicatechin found in chocolate is so important that it should be considered a vitamin.

Hollenberg has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna people in Panama. He found that the risk of 4 of the 5 most common killer diseases: stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes, is reduced to less then 10% in the Kuna. They can drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. Natural cocoa has high levels of epicatechin.

'If these observations predict the future, then we can say without blushing that they are among the most important observations in the history of medicine,' Hollenberg says. 'We all agree that penicillin and anaesthesia are enormously important. But epicatechin could potentially get rid of 4 of the 5 most common diseases in the western world, how important does that make epicatechin?... I would say very important'

Nutrition expert Daniel Fabricant says that Hollenberg's results, although observational, are so impressive that they may even warrant a rethink of how vitamins are defined. Epicatechin does not currently meet the criteria. Vitamins are defined as essential to the normal functioning, metabolism, regulation and growth of cells and deficiency is usually linked to disease. At the moment, the science does not support epicatechin having an essential role. But, Fabricant, who is vice president scientific affairs at the Natural Products Association, says: 'the link between high epicatechin consumption and a decreased risk of killer disease is so striking, it should be investigated further. It may be that these diseases are the result of epicatechin deficiency,' he says. [Chemistry & Industry magazine http://www.chemind.org]

Epicatechin is also found in teas, wine, chocolate and some fruit and vegetables.

The Doctor's Chocolate

Flavanols like epicatechin are removed from normal commercial chocolates because they tend to have a bitter taste. However I'd like to recommend one special chocolate which has ALL it's antioxidants intact. I know it's good - because I designed it!

It's called The Doctor's Chocolate (I'm the doctor!). As well as being the only really healthful unprocessed tasty chocolate on the market it contains L-theanine, a scientifically-recognized stress relief compound extracted from green tea. It's much more than a premium-price candy: it's a true functional food and I'm getting stories of people being less emotional, sleeping better at night, kids with improved study grades and adults with way less stress.

Perfect against traffic stress and road rage! Just keep a bag in the glove box and nibble as you commute. Only $59.95 for a month's supply. That's less than a daily latte from the coffee shop.

To read more and order yours, go here

To see a home business opportunity, go here! and listen to the audio overview. It's a simple brilliant matrix idea. You just sign up and order your monthly supply of The Doctor's Chocolate and get your friends to do the same. Re-ordering is automatic and cuts out all that uncomfortable selling stuff (which I hate).

Take a look at the new blogging section

I have tried to find time for a number of revisions and innovations on the alternative-doctor website. Chief among these has been the new "blogging" section.

Past issues of Letter from Serendipity contained a great many useful and some very humorous items, which had been lost and buried. I'm starting to dig them out and link them up with an index. You can access the new pages here. Have some fun and keep checking back from time to time, until the project is finished.

Important new test for prostate cancer

One out of every five American men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetime. Don Ameche, Bill Bixby, Telly Savalas and rock musician Frank Zappa all died of it. Nevertheless, I am concerned that male cancers do not attract the same high-profile awareness programs that women demand. It seems that men are almost forgotten in the media frenzy.

There are virtually no screening programs for prostate cancer. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact there is no good reliable test. PSA (prostate specific antigen) is the usual standard but it is often falsely positive, being raised in benign prostatic hyperplasia. So this has to be followed by a biopsy, which is both costly and unpleasant.

A new test for prostate cancer, which measures levels of the prostate cancer gene 3 (PCA3) in urine, is showing promise in diagnosing prostate cancer in men with elevated serum levels of PSA but a negative biopsy and may save these men from having unnecessary repeat biopsies. The conclusion comes from a study in 226 subjects reported in the March 2007 issue of the journal Urology.

The new PCA3 test measures levels of a gene that is overexpressed by prostate cancer cells but is not produced (or is produced only in very small amounts) by normal cells, even in benign enlargement. The current study concludes that the new test was 72% specific for prostate cancer. It is currently available in the United States from several laboratories and is covered by several insurers.

Shirley Catanzaro

Time to mention a wonderful new program by my dear friend Shirley Catanzaro. She's a Lakota-trained medicine woman and awesome in her power and depth. She's one of the few people I would let into my psychic space and fool around with the files! Her intuitive sense of people and situations has given her what she calls, “Practical Tools for Daily Living.” These tools assist one to deal with life situations as they arise.

If you've been on a shamanic journey with Shirley, you'll remember it always. We call her an inner tour guide.

The program is called The Awakening Process and you can learn about it from her new website: www.theawakeningprocess.com

I urge you to engage her on your life journey.

Is this the most important diet book ever?

It is not a plan. In fact it explains why diet plans often don't work and why they make some people feel sick. The theme is that everyone is different - no two people tolerate foods in exactly the same way.

There is no such thing as a universal diet plan, nor can there ever be, as this book explains. What you can do is work out your own unique eating plan, which is just about perfect for you. Then you'll lose weight, look good, feel great, and live a long long time...

It's a sort of super-Rolls-Royce version of the modern detox diet, by one of the pioneers who actual first developed the concept of "detox" decades ago. As well as plentiful explanations of the science and mechanisms, there are lots of moving and heart-warming stories about how people overcame seemingly hopeless odds to recover their health and wellbeing, using these vital life and biology principles.

320 pages, paperback, 9" x 6"

Order now. Just click this link and go straight to Dr Keith's shopping cart, where you order securely on-line.

click here to buy

You can also order by phone: just dial 760 325 0105 and give us your credit card details. It takes just a few moments to do it this way.

Video Link

The Simpsons in Chiro Town. Totally for laughs, don't get serious about it. Please!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEw82pChGaQ&NR=1

Try this audio link too (an unusual drug advertizement)! tequila.mp3 It's no worse than TV drug ads but a lot funnier!

THE GUESS WHO? QUOTE: