CAPTCHA, e-mails, and other news
Four days of luxurious rain, my grandkids gone (it’s Sunday), and a perfect time for writing and maintenancing my site. This is the longest period of inactivity (blogwise) since I started. So it’s time to get back down to business.
First off I have added a Captcha plug-in to the site. Captcha is that feature that requires site users to correctly copy a series of letters. The theory is that only real humans can read these. Lately I have been getting 2-3 news users registering each day, all with questionable user names and many from eastern European countries. Most of these, if not all, are registered not by humans, but by automated “bots” or robots, programmed to log onto multiple sites in order to market questionable products, services, or pornography. Other “bots” are designed just to set up a link to multiple blogs in effort to artificially inflate their ranking in search engines.
Today I deleted over 300 users. I may have inadvertently deleted some legitimate site users. I apologize for this. In any case any new or deleted users will have to copy the Captcha phrase in order to register or post a comment. I apologize for any inconvinience. The situation was just getting out of hand. I was filtering almost 10,000 spam messages annually.
Also woefully behind was my replies to emails. Valerie Bosserman, The World As I See It…., wrote me to say that she is a finalist in the CureToday Extraordinary Healer Award for my essay on Megan’s chemo nurse. Megan, her daughter, died just two years ago of ACC. Copy and past the link below to see the story. (http://www.curetoday.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/cureEvent.HealerOverview/id/43) I sure support any organization that recognizes the efforts of oncology nurses. CureToday.com – Combining science with humanity, CURE makes cancer understandable.
I added a few new blogs to my lists. Gillian Anstey is from South Africa and writes about her breast cancer at From under my hat. Of special interest to me is a new T-PLL patient (that’s my disease) preparing for a stem cell transplant – Curing Vancura. Tracey Hawker writes about her husband’s esophageal cancer at CaringBridge / johnhawker / Welcome. Selena is an APL survivor maintaining a blog at Oh My Aches and Pains! Kristal writes a blog about life after cancer and training for a triathlon as a cancer fundraiser: TriathlonKrista. A 37 year old single mom fighting Colon cancer for 5 years, has gone from stage 3 to 4 now, has metastasized to liver, and diaphragm – I’m Still Here…
The American Institute for Cancer Research will hold its annual Conference on Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity & Cancer in DC in late October. Check the Events Calendar above for details. Stand Up 4 Cancer has released two new videos as part of their Innovation Research Grant Profiles. Check them out. (http://tiny.cc/su2cIRGDrWalensky) and (http://tiny.cc/su2cIRGDrSilva). Click and past in your browser address bar.
Julien Lieb, MD offers the following information on the effect of antidepressants on selected cancer. Prostaglandins are infinitesimal, ephemeral and powerful molecules regulating the chemistry of every cell in the body, including cells regulating mood, and those regulating immune function. When produced within normal limits, prostaglandins regulate the chemistry of every cell; when produced excessively, physiology becomes pathology. When brain cells produce excessive concentrations of prostaglandins, they depress mood and immunity. In 1973, David Horrobin showed that antidepressants inhibit prostaglandins, and in 1977 that prostaglandins regulate nucleic acids (DNA and RNA).1,2 Others subsequently showed that prostaglandins regulate the synthesis, inhibition, and expression of genes, and the growth, differentiation, and replication of cells, with cancer the accelerated replication of abnormal cells.1,2 Excessive synthesis of prostaglandins induces cancer, with genes determining the variations. In 1998, Brenda Penninx showed that at age 70, chronically depressed people have an increased risk of 88% of developing cancer, and 50% of dying of it.
More than seventy clinical, laboratory, and epidemiological studies have shown that antidepressants kill cancer cells, inhibit their proliferation, convert multidrug resistant cells to chemotherapy sensitive, augment chemotherapy, protect nonmalignant cells from damage by radiation and chemotherapy toxicity, and target the mitochondria of cancer cells while sparing those of healthy ones.1,2 Antidepressants have therapeutic potential in many cancers that are often treatment resistant, such as gliomas, cancers of the lung, kidney, liver, and uterus, inflammatory breast cancer, and multiple myelomas.2 Antidepressants are capable of arresting lung cancer in advanced stages, and even reversing it. That antidepressants are effective for a multitude of malignancies, decries the myth that cancer is a hundred diseases, when it is one disease with a hundred variations.
Antidepressants alleviate cancer pain, alone or combined with narcotics, remit nausea and vomiting, promote sleep, relieve anxiety and depression, and combat fatigue. Other inhibitors of prostaglandins, such as COX-1 and COX-2 inhibitors, also have potential value in defeating cancer. The components are in place for a revolution in cancer prevention and treatment, as may be confirmed by accessing �Medline� or �Pubmed,� and entering �antidepressants� and �cancer.�
The history of medicine is littered with the suppression of innovation. Today many cancer organizations rely on the opinions of medical advisors, some of whom are political operatives of vested interests disguised as healers. It is not for a lack of innovation that we are in our predicament, but the suppression of it. In �Against Method� Paul Feyerabend wrote that suppressing a paradigm in preference to one politically favored could permanently damage society, and that resistance to progress could be so intractable that political intervention might be needed. ** This is certainly a viewpoint, if a bit out of the mainstream. It must be assessed within a broader medical and scientific context which is beyond my expertise. As with all such information, you should discuss it with your medical doctor.
That’s all the news that is my news. Later this week, look for a cancer book review, cancer website reviews, and a few guest posts. Hopefully I am back on track.
















































Ireland – here we come. At least I hope so. We haven’t packed or done any other preparations. But I have been working on the website, putting together journal posts and guest posts and storing them as drafts. This way I can publish them ready-made from abroad. I may post a quick Irish update or two just to let you know what’s happening. I want to regain momentum in my writing. Six weeks of various viral illnesses has made for unsteady progress for the blog and website. I hope to take a lot of photos there though the forecast is for steady rain. That means, among other more obvious things, pretty flat lighting for photos.
~ Some late reporting on our favorite “band” of musical gynecology surgeons, N.E.D. (“no evidence of disease”). The band N.E.D. performed at the Inaugural GCAM Race to End Women’s Cancers that took place Sunday, November 8th, in D.C. The race, organized by the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation (GCF), aims to raise awareness and funds for gynecologic cancers through a 5K, half-marathon and 1-mile walk. N.E.D. has filmed a PSA about the race that can be viewed here: 





