|
|
Do
Killer Microbes Cause Breast Cancer?
Suppressed and Forgotten Research Could Hold the
Key to a Cure for this Dread Disease
©
2003, by Alan Cantwell, Jr. M.D.
Despite
a century of cancer research the cause of breast
cancer remains unknown. Age, diet, stress,
hormone factors, genetic predisposition, and
cancer viruses are all suspected as possible
causative factors, but totally ignored are
infectious bacteria which have been implicated
in breast cancer and other forms of cancer.
A century ago when major diseases like
tuberculosis, leprosy, and syphilis were
discovered to be bacterial (not viral)
infections, many physicians suspected bacteria
might also cause cancer. At the close of the
nineteenth century (when the science of
microbiology was in its infancy), many different
microbes were cultured from cancer. Variously
called "cancer coccidia," "sporozoons" and
"cancer parasites," a few of these microbes
produced cancer tumours when injected into
animals. But many did not, and most doctors
finally assessed these cancer germs as
laboratory "contaminants" or as "secondary
invader microbes" that infect the tissue after
the cancer is already formed.
The idea of a cancer parasite was finally
dismissed in 1919 by noted American pathologist
James Ewing. In his popular textbook, Neoplastic
Diseases, he declared: "Few competent observers
consider it (the parasitic theory) as a possible
explanation in cancer." In Ewing's opinion,
cancer did not act like an infection. Therefore,
he concluded that microbes couldn't possibly
cause it. He wrote: "The general facts of the
genesis of tumours are strongly against the
possibility of a parasitic origin."1
Subsequently, few doctors dared to contradict
Ewing by investigating bacteria in cancer.
Nevertheless, during the 1920s a few persistent
physicians like pathologist John Nuzum of the
University of Illinois College of Medicine;
surgeon Michael Scott from Butte, Montana; and
obstetrician James Young of Edinburgh, Scotland,
continued to publish research showing that
bacteria were implicated in breast cancer and
other forms of cancer.
Working independently of one another, all three
researchers cultured unusual bacteria from
breast cancer, as well as from breast cancer
tumours in mice. The peculiar growth of the
"pleomorphic" cancer germ defied the established
laws of microbiology by its ability to change
shape and form, depending on how it was cultured
in the laboratory, as well as the amount of
oxygen supplied for growth and the age of the
culture.
At first, the germ was barely visible as tiny
round coccal forms. Later, these cocci enlarged
into rod-shaped bacteria, which could connect
together to form chains resembling a fungus.
Small cocci could also enlarge into larger yeast
and fungal-like spore forms.
Nuzum grew his "micrococcus" from 38 of 41 early
breast cancers, and from the cancerous lymph
nodes and metastatic tumours resulting from
spread of the cancer to other parts of the
body.2,3 During his 6 years of intensive
bacteriological study, he learned the microbe
could pass through a filter designed to hold
back bacteria, indicating that some forms of the
microbe were as small as the size of some
viruses. With special stains he detected these
small round coccoid forms within the breast
cancer tumour cells. Although Nuzum couldn't
produce cancer tumours in mice, he was able to
induce breast cancer tumours in 2 of 5 dogs
injected with the microbe.
In a dangerous human experiment he injected the
groin of a 70-year-old man with the bacteria he
cultured from breast cancer. After 62 injections
over an 18-week period, a skin cancer formed in
the man's groin. This experiment showed that
breast cancer microbes were also capable of
producing a different kind of cancer, such as
skin cancer.
Young found his microbe in 16 cases of breast
cancer, and in two mice with breast cancer. He
identified "spore forms" and clumped "spore
balls" in microscopic sections prepared from the
mouse tumours.
Scott described three stages in the life cycle
of his parasite: rod forms, spore or coccus-like
forms, and large spore-sacs resembling a
fungus.6,7 He treated cancer patients with an
effective antiserum against these microbes, and
spent the rest of his life trying to alert his
colleagues to the infectious cause of cancer.
But the antagonism of the medical profession to
Scott's cancer parasites and his antiserum was
overwhelming, and he died a forgotten man.
During the last half of this century cancer
microbe research was barely kept alive by a
quartet of women, now all dead. The published
research of Virginia Wuerthele-Caspe
Livingston-Wheeler (a physician), Eleanor
Alexander-Jackson (a microbiologist), Irene
Diller (a cellular biologist) and Florence
Seibert (a chemist) provides indisputable
evidence that bacteria are implicated in cancer.
Livingston, who never let the male-dominated
medical profession intimidate her, independently
discovered the cancer microbe in the late 1940s
and never stopped talking about it until her
death in 1990, at the age of 84. Aided by
Alexander-Jackson, who supplied the
bacteriologic expertise, they became an
unstoppable research team.8-12 The two women
found a special stain (the acid-fast stain) that
allowed the microbe to be recognised in culture
and within the cancer tumour. Like the
researchers back in the 1920s, they confirmed
the microbe was filterable; and electron
microscopic photos provided further proof that
the filterable forms were indeed viral-size.
Livingston named the microbe "Progenitor
cryptocides" (Greek for the hidden-killer),
which angered cancer experts, microbiologists,
and American Cancer Society spokespersons, all
of whom insisted the cancer microbe did not
exist!
In the 1950s Irene Diller of the Institute for
Cancer Research at Fox Chase, Philadelphia,
discovered fungus-like microbes in cancer cells.
Joining forces with the Livingston team, Diller
worked with specially bred mice with a proven
cancer incidence. By injecting them with
microbes cultured from breast cancer and other
tumours, she was able to more than double the
cancer incidence of the mice.
She injected healthy animals with cancer
bacteria. When cancer tumours developed she
successfully cultured the microbe from the
tumours - thus proving that these bacteria were
implicated in the production of cancer.
Utilising Livingston's methods, Diller also grew
the microbe from the blood of cancer
patients.
In the early 1960s Florence Seibert became so
impressed with Diller's research that she quit
retirement to help prove that bacteria cause
cancer. Back in the 1920s Seibert devised a
method to make intravenous transfusions safe by
eliminating contaminating ubiquitous bacteria.
Later, as one of the foremost authorities
investigating the chemistry and immunology of
the acid-fast bacteria that cause tuberculosis,
she perfected the skin test for tuberculosis
that has been used worldwide ever since. In
1938, she was awarded the famed Trudeau Medal,
the highest prize given to tuberculosis
research.
Experiments conducted by Seibert and her
research team showed these acid-fast and TB-like
cancer microbes were not laboratory contaminants
because they were able to isolate bacteria from
every piece of tumour (and every acute leukemic
blood) they studied.
In her autobiography, Pebbles on the Hill of a
Scientist, published privately in 1968, she
wrote: "One of the most interesting properties
of these bacteria is their great pleomorphism.
For example, they readily change their shape
from round cocci, to elongated rods, and even to
thread-like filaments depending upon what medium
they grow on and how long they grow. This may be
one of the reasons why they have been overlooked
or considered to be heterogenous contaminants...
And even more interesting than this is the fact
that these bacteria have a filterable form in
their life cycle; that is, that they can become
so small that they pass through bacterial
filters which hold back bacteria. This is what
viruses do, and is one of the main criteria of a
virus, separating them from bacteria. But the
viruses also will not live on artificial media
like these bacteria do. They need body tissue to
grow on. Our filterable form, however, can be
recovered again on ordinary artificial bacterial
media and will grow on these. This should
interest the virus workers very much and should
cause them to ask themselves how many of the
viruses may not be filterable forms of our
bacteria."
Seibert's provocative papers, some emanating
from the prestigious Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences, should have caused a stir.
But with the quartet slowly closing in on the
infectious cause of cancer, funds from previous
supporters (like the American Cancer Society)
suddenly dried up. All cancer microbe
researchers eventually discovered that studying
cancer bacteria was the kiss of death as far as
funding was concerned. And without adequate
funding, this type of cancer research was made
more difficult.
But coming from thirty years of research into
the acid-fast bacteria that cause tuberculosis,
Seibert knew that the discovery of a pleomorphic
and acid-fast microbe in cancer was tremendously
important. She fervently believed that knowledge
of this microbe would be instrumental in
developing a possible vaccine and more effective
antibiotic therapy against cancer. In Pebbles
she confided: "It is very difficult to
understand the lack of interest, instead of
great enthusiasm, that should follow such
results, a lack of certainty not in the
tradition of good science. The contrast between
the progress made in tuberculosis where we know
the cause, where we have good general diagnostic
tests, where we have a vaccine and effective
antibiotic controls, and that made in cancer
with the millions invested, is very striking.
Some dedicated scientists should indeed find it
rewarding to confirm or deny these painstaking
and time-consuming experiments, for the sake of
establishing the first necessary step in the
important problem of the etiology of cancer."
Like the other women, Seibert observed the
virus-like forms of the cancer microbe within
the nucleus of the cancer cells. She theorised
this infection could disrupt and transform
nuclear genetic material that could lead to
malignant change. Even though cancer microbes
might appear to be simple and common microbes,
their ability to infiltrate the nucleus of cells
meant they were far from harmless.
In 1990, at the age of 92, Florence Seibert was
inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame,
along with Barbara Jordan (Government), Billie
Jean King (Athletics) and Margaret Bourke-White
(Arts). When she died the following year her
passage was noted in Time and People magazines,
and in major newspapers like The Los Angeles
Times. All the obituaries mentioned her
contributions to the safety of intravenous
fluids and her great achievement with the TB
skin test. But not a word was written about her
cancer microbe research, to which she devoted
the last thirty years of her life.
Each year 190,000 American women are diagnosed
with breast cancer. And the prognosis is still
dismal for women whose breast cancer has spread
to the lymph nodes and beyond. Yet the medical
establishment remains adamantly and irrationally
opposed to cancer microbe research. It is
perhaps understandable from an economic
viewpoint that the medical profession would not
welcome a proposed infectious cause of cancer
that would challenge the highly lucrative
multibillion-dollar cancer industry.
Physicians confidently ignore cancer bacteria
because they have been carefully taught in
medical school that there are no significant
bacteria detectible in cancer. They still
believe that cancer microbes represent
contaminant bacteria or bacteria of no
significance. Thus, published reports of cancer
microbe research are rarely cited and the
subject remains virtually unknown.
The idea of a microbe with virus, bacteria, and
fungal-like stages is also anathema to most
doctors. However, over the past several decades
the study of cell-wall deficient bacteria and
"mycoplasma-like" bacteria (which are both
bacterial and viral-like) indicates that
microbes indeed have a complex life cycle. In
1919, when Ewing offered his damning opinion of
cancer parasites, none of these microbiologic
peculiarities were even recognised!
In some instances, cancer microbe research
appears to be deliberately suppressed. For
example, the National Cancer Institute on its
"cancer Facts" web page
(http://oncolink.upenn.edu/pdg/600911.html)
informs viewers about Virginia Livingston and
states: "There is no scientific evidence to
confirm her theories of cancer causation or to
justify her treatments." Obviously, this
official judgement is a blatant lie because, as
we have noted, Livingston's discoveries have
been confirmed by many competent scientists.
In addition, Livingston has written three books
on the cancer microbe: Cancer: A New
Breakthrough (1972), The Microbiology of Cancer
(1977), and The Conquest of Cancer (1984).15-17
More recent books on bacteria in cancer include
Alan Cantwell's The Cancer Microbe (1990) and
Can Bacteria Cause Cancer? (1997) by David J
Hess.
Using acid-fast staining techniques, bacteria
have been identified in breast cancer, lymphoma,
Kaposi's sarcoma (the so-called "gay cancer" of
AIDS) and other forms of cancer.20-22 Figure 1
shows bacteria identified in breast cancer,
indicating that such microbes are already
present within the tumour and are not laboratory
contaminants. Microbes have also been identified
in "normal" and cancer-free breast tissue
removed at the time of surgery. This suggests
that the bacteria are not "secondary invaders"
because they are identifiable in areas before
the tissue has been invaded by cancer.20 Figure
2 shows the appearance of a microbe cultured
from the same breast cancer. Note how the size
and shape and appearance of the microbes within
the tumour (Fig. 1) approximates the appearance
of the bacteria cultured from the metatastic
spread of the tumour to the skin (Fig. 2).
The current lack of knowledge about the cause of
advanced breast cancer has resulted in the
recommendation of some very expensive and
death-defying treatments for this horrendous
disease. Bone marrow transplants, which carry a
5% death rate, are being proposed as a routine
treatment, at a minimal cost of $100,000 per
patient.
As described in Karen Stabiner's To Dance With
the Devil: The New War on Breast Cancer (1997),
the procedure is not pretty.23 First, a catheter
is placed in a woman's chest to deliver the
drugs. A surgical treatment is then performed to
scrape out bone marrow from her pelvis, followed
by 7 days of growth hormone injections. Then
starts days of intravenous chemotherapy that can
cause kidney and bladder damage. A catheter is
placed in the bladder, followed by a round of
intravenous BCNU, or carmustine, a drug that
makes a woman feel like she is falling down
drunk. Patients become sleepy, sullen,
disoriented, agitated, and angry. Loss of bowel
control and vomiting are common. After all this,
women are put into isolation because the white
count drops precipitously, making her vulnerable
to all sorts of infections. There may be
inexplicable spiking fevers and rashes, and the
inevitable loss of hair. After three weeks,
patients are allowed to go home where they are
told to watch for, "interstitial pneumonitis," a
potentially fatal after-effect if not diagnosed
and treated early.
Bone marrow transplant for breast cancer is not
guaranteed, nor is it considered a cure. Women
have been known to die of cancer three months
after the procedure, proving that some patients
do not respond to chemotherapy no matter how
high the dose.
Even with radiation, chemotherapy and surgery,
the cost of dying of cancer is not cheap. At the
price patients are paying, physicians should not
have the luxury of being ignorant about cancer
microbe research, particularly when these
microbes can be identified in cancer tumours.
With 40,000 American women dying annually from
breast cancer, it is time medical science
re-evaluated the parasite of cancer that James
Ewing so casually dismissed in 1919. Perhaps if
he hadn't been so adamant about cancer microbe
research, his colleagues might have been able to
do more to save him when he himself eventually
died of "the Big C."
REFERENCES
Ewing J: The parasitic theory. In, Ewing J (Ed):
Neoplastic Diseases (Ed1). Saunders,
Philadelphia, 1919, pp 114-126
Nuzum JW: A critical study of an organism
associated with a transplantable carcinoma of
the white mouse. Surg Gynecol Obstet 33:167-175,
1921.
Nuzum JW: The experimental production of
metastasizing carcinoma in the breast of the dog
and primary epithelioma in man by repeated
inoculation of a micrococcus isolated from human
breast cancer. Surg Gynecol Obstet 11:343-352,
1925.
Young J: Description of an organism obtained
from carcinomatous growths. Edinburgh MedJ (New
Series) 27:212-221, 1921.
Young J: An address on a new outlook on cancer:
Irritiation and infection. Brit Med J, Jan 10,
1925, pp 60-64.
Scott MJ: The parasitic origin of carcinoma.
Northwest Med 24:162-166, 1925.
Scott MJ: More about the parasitic origin of
malignant epithelial growths. Northwest Med
25:492-498, 1925.
Wuerthele Caspe (Livingston) V,
Alexander-Jackson E, Anderson JA, et al:
Cultural properties and pathogenicity of certain
microorganisms obtained from various
proliferative and neoplastic diseases. Amer J
Med Sci 220:628-646, 1950.
Wuerthele-Caspe Livingston V, Alexander-Jackson
E: An experimental biologic approach to the
treatment of neoplastic disease. J Amer Med
Women's Asssn 20:858-866, 1965.
Wuerthele Caspe Livingston V, Livingston AM:
Demonstration of Progenitor Cryptocides in the
blood of patients with collagen and neoplastic
diseases. Trans NY Acad Sci 34(5):433-453, 1972.
Wuerthele Caspe Livingston V, Livingston AM:
Some cultural, immunological, and biochemical
properties of Progenitor cyptocides. Trans NY
Acad Sci 36(6):569-582, 1974.
Alexander-Jackson E: A specific type of
microorganism isolated from animal and human
cancer: Bacteriology of the organism. Growth
18:37-51, 1954.
Diller IC: Growth and morphologic variability of
pleomorphic, intermittently acid-fast organisms
isolated from mouse, rat, and human malignant
tissues. Growth 26:181-209, 1962.
Seibert FB, Yeomans F, Baker JA, et al: Bacteria
in tumors. Trans NY Acad Sci 34(6):504-533,
1972.
Wuerthele Caspe Livingston V: Cancer, A New
Breakthrough. Nash Publishing Corp, Los Angeles,
1972.
Livingston-Wheeler VWC, Wheeler OW: The
Microbiology of Cancer. Livingston Wheeler
Medical Clinic Publication, San Diego, 1977.
Livingston-Wheeler VWC, Addeo EG: The Conquest
of Cancer. Franklin-Watts, New York, 1984.
Cantwell AR Jr: The Cancer Microbe: The Hidden
Killer in Cancer, AIDS, and Other Immune
Diseases. Aries Rising Press, Los Angeles,
1990.
Hess DJ: Can Bacteria Cause Cancer? Alternative
Medicine Confronts Big Science. New York
University Press, New York, 1997.
Cantwell AR Jr, Kelso DW: Microbial findings in
cancer of the breast and in their metastases to
the skin. J Dermatol Surg Oncol 7:483-491, 1981.
Cantwell AR Jr: Histologic observations of
variably acid-fast coccoid forms suggestive of
cell wall deficient bacteria in Hodgkin's
disease. A report of four cases. Growth
45:168-187, 1981.
Cantwell AR Jr: Kaposi's sarcoma and variably
acid-fast bacteria in vivo in two homosexual
men. Cutis 32:58-64,68, 1983.
Stabiner K: To Dance with the Devil: The New War
on Breast Cancer. Delacourt Press, New York,
1997.
___________________________________________________________
Dr. Cantwell is a dermatologist, and an AIDS and
cancer researcher. He is the author of The
Cancer Microbe, and AIDS and the Doctors of
Death (both published by Aries Rising Press, Los
Angeles). Correspondence address: PO Box 29532,
Los Angeles, CA 90029, USA. Email:
alanrcan@aol.com
The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 48
(May-June 1998)
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Most
physicians are wrong in their understanding of most
diseases, most of the time."----Cantwell's law
View
all articles by Alan Cantwell, Jr.
M.D.
The
Cancer Microbe
The
Hidden Killer in Cancer, AIDS, and Other Immune
Diseases. By Alan Cantwell. Covers a century of
research into the infectious cause of cancer that
has been suppressed and ignored by the medical
establishment.
Get
the Book!
|
|
|
