The majority of the public seems to be impressed by what is identified by the generic appellative of “qualifications,” and it rarely questions whether or not such apparently impressive details of someone’s carrier actually corresponds to a superior level of knowledge and understanding of the specialization field in question.

Furthermore, if the public is asked to evaluate not one, but a full team of individuals showing similar accomplishments, as reported on papers they provide, and working in an Institution nationally recognized as a “leader” in said field, the same public cannot do anything else but acknowledge the superiority of the presented group and accept them as “molten gold,” as they say in Europe, and everything this team of seemingly superior beings suggests.

Could the general public stand up and say: “ I am not convinced! Explain it to me with simpler words, where there is room for common sense to analyze facts”? Is anybody going to say that? Somebody should, but again the majority of the public won’t stand up and say it, for fear of being accused of ignorance or stupidity.

A physicist should say it, then. Actually a physicist (yours truly) did, and was accused of being a fraud and not “sounding” like a physicist, not to mention also not looking like one either. That physicist is now going to expose a few facts about “credentials” and is going to expose some of the errors (only some, there is no time for all) in research done by the “divine” medical experts.

As we have already mentioned in the past, divinity is a widespread complex in the medical field, with very little justification for it, as if there ever was one, when human beings are concerned.

So, what do I, the maligned physicist, have to say about research in medicine and the miracle of related breakthroughs? Having been born, raised, and educated in Europe, in a very prestigious school system and university, having added more degrees from other institutions and having spent the majority of my life studying, I came to the conclusion that universities and teams do not matter much. What matters is the individual’s abilities and dedication. As a result, attributing as much value to the institution and to the team’s combined credentials could be the first error in the effort to evaluate the importance of research work.

Furthermore, the second error in the evaluation process is connected with the overall cost of a study. Contrary to the general belief greatly supported by special interests, money has very little to do with major scientific discoveries. Again, knowledge and dedication are the main ingredients.

Finally, the greatest error is committed by the paid researchers themselves, while desperately trying to achieve fame. As a consequence, the research efforts on minor insignificant details were born. As I often say, our universities suffer from the “Research on Commas Syndrome”.

Of course, in a sentence, commas are not totally insignificant details, but they certainly serve only a minor function. So does most of the research done in science today, and more so in medicine than any other field, because medicine is not a science at all.

Again, I insist that medicine is merely an empirical practice, and therefore, being devoid of underlying theory as hard science is, and simply relying on suppositions, medical research is naturally subject to gross mistakes. There isn’t any room for guess work in real science, and great skills in deductive reasoning are essential. Unfortunately this is non-existent in medical training.

For this reason, usually an empirical researcher is not only basing his/her conclusions on appearances (which is the greatest error a scientist could make), but he/she is also completely ignoring the fact that different justifications could be found for similar appearing occurrences.

With this being said, let’s examine what yours truly (a physicist) considers to be the most recent blunder in medical research, which was actually carried out at and published by the very prestigious Duke University.

I have had a lot of fun with this, and have extensively discussed it on the recent transmission of the “Medical Conspiracy” radio show. However, since this is a rather important issue, it was judged important enough to be repeated in our newsletter.

A special research team at the Duke Cancer Institute decided to dedicate their work to determining “how cancer spreads.” If your first reaction is to restrain yourself from laughter, you are certainly in tune with our way of thinking, but let’s continue with our report.

The supposed novelty of this research centers on the claimed discovery of a group of proteins, whose presence is normally found during embryonic development. Actually they are referring to the process where stem cells morph to build tissue, also known as epithelial-mesenchymal transition, identified for simplicity as EMT. While the reverse process of mesenchymal-epithelial transition is identified with the MET label.

The researchers claim that cancer cells have the same ability to change from epithelial cells similar to the organ from which they arose, to mesenchymal or connective tissue-like cells, which they discovered floating in the blood during routine tumor marker tests. If anybody is ready to applaud and scream: “Great Discovery!”, please curb your enthusiasm, forget where the information originated, and use your thinking power.

Ask yourself: “What are epithelial cells?” They constitute the covering (skin) of an organ. Now ask yourself: “What are mesenchymal cells?” They are also called fibroblast-like cells, and in turn fibroblasts are cells capable of forming collagen fibers. Any thought yet about what is really happening?

Here is the first consideration that comes to mind: a tumor encapsulation is formed with collagen fibers. Exactly! That can lead to a simpler, obvious, and much different conclusion than the one supposedly reached by the team of experts at Duke.

What is floating in the blood are debris from the tumor encapsulation, not embryonic-like mutations, and therefore they cannot undergo the reverse transformation of MET once they supposedly reach the new destination. Besides, if the Duke team’s theory had any value, then you would have to conclude that the public has been duped for years on the subject of metastasis and biopsy results.

How can anybody, for example, talk about breast tissue found in tumors growing in the lungs or liver (in other words, talk about the infamous and much feared metastasis) if the cells undergo MET transformation? This would be a contradiction, wouldn’t you say? That would only support our long-lived skepticism on the ability to recognize the source tissue from biopsies.

As a result, knowing that the immune system cannot destroy a growing tumor, contrary to what naturopathic physicians say, and realizing that it can at least control its growth by surrounding it with the encapsulation, isn’t it logical that debris of the encapsulation and cells capable of forming collagen would be floating in the blood? All of which brings us back to the realization, confirmed by the many cases we have treated, that standard treatment is normally the primary cause of cancer occurring in new locations.

I am not going to deny that once the tumor reaches an extreme size, the cancer might eventually spread to other organs, but usually it is surgery that puts live cancer cells into the blood stream, as much as it is true that other cancer occurrences are simply side effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Finally, I would like to quote the Chancellor for Health Affairs at Duke University:

“It has never been more critical that a leader step forward to accelerate our understanding of cancer- and champion the effort to finally defeat it. That leader will be the Duke Cancer Institute.”

 

My answer is: REALLY? “Will be?” Now keep in mind that the total investment in the Duke Cancer Institute, including a new Cancer Center Facility, will cost approximately $400 million. Do you really believe that they would want to welcome a treatment that only takes a few days, and would cost, even after a tremendous price exaggeration, no more than one (1) round of chemotherapy, and can easily be delivered (as it is at this time) in a modest outpatient facility?

Would they welcome such a breakthrough, or would they demonize it, covering up the results and ostracizing the person who developed it?

They already have done the latter.