It sounds like a hippy approach to medicine: everyone has the power within them to heal cancer and all we have to do is to find a way to unlock our inner potential.

Oncologist Dr. Steven Rosenberg holding up bag of lymphocytes in medium to check for growth of cancer killing T cells at the National Cancer Institute.
Oncologist Dr Steven Rosenberg holding up bag of lymphocytes to check for growth of cancer killing T cells

But an increasing number of studies are reaching exactly that conclusion when it comes to treating cancer with immunotherapy, in which the body’s protective cells are turned on a tumour. Or, put another way, patient, heal thyself.

A few weeks ago, it was revealed that a 52-year-old man was free of skin cancer, two years after being injected with his own cells - the most recent in a series of immunotherapy studies which have offered similar tantalising successes. And this week, a major journal will publish the latest studies, suggesting that this approach is on the right track.

The problem is that current conventional cancer treatments are crude. Surgery to cut out the cancer can work, if it has not spread elsewhere in the body. Or, given that rapidly dividing cancer cells are more vulnerable to damage than normal cells, another approach is to blitz them with toxins -chemotherapy drugs - or radiation.

There is also a new generation of treatments emerging, based on understanding how genetic changes in a cell make it run amok and create a tumour. But a recurring problem with any treatment is that cancer cells that are not killed tend to be mutant ones that can rapidly evolve to outwit these smart drugs.
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In comparison, immunotherapy revolves around bolstering the body’s own defences so that they can mount an effective attack on cancer. One of the pioneers in this field is Dr Steven Rosenberg, now at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda.

He was inspired by witnessing a spectacular, and extremely rare, case of a spontaneous remission from cancer - in 1969, he came across a patient who wanted a gall bladder removed. But when Rosenberg checked his records, he found that the patient had been sent home to die more than a decade earlier with stomach cancer.

Rosenberg then began a long series of tests on animals, and the important discovery that the patient’s own white blood cells must first be depleted to give immunotherapy a chance to work (originally, Rosenberg found that the majority of transferred cells did not survive, but that by suppressing the patients’ immune systems to “make room” for the new cells, as doctors do during a tissue transplant, he could make the transferred cells survive, grow in the body and begin killing the tumour cells).

Finally, in 1994, after infusing a patient’s white blood cells which had been selected for their anti-tumour activity (called T cells), he reported success using the cells to fight melanoma, the deadly form of skin cancer.

Two years ago, he announced striking results after using the first gene-engineered cells. This time the patient’s T cells had undergone a gene transplant to make them attack tumours. Of the 17 patients who took part, the results were stunning for Mark Origer, who was suffering from an advanced form of the disease, so-called metastatic melanoma that had spread to seed daughter tumours throughout the body.

The trial started in 2004. In December that year, Origer had white blood cells removed and genetically altered with the help of a virus (viruses are commonly used to introduce genes, in this case to make the white blood cells more effective cancer fighters). After five years of losing the battle with the disease, Origer was well enough to attend his daughter’s wedding in September of 2005.

What is so remarkable is that the cancer had spread to Origer’s liver, where it is usually extremely hard to treat. Yet, by the time of the wedding, only one small spot remained in his liver, which surgeons removed. Another patient, “Thomas M”, also staged a remarkable recovery -but the other 15 did not respond to the treatment.

“We have now treated 93 patients with metastatic melanoma using their own anti-tumour cells with a response rate (slowing of disease, or shrinking of tumours) of 72 per cent - about three times better than any other treatment,” said Dr Rosenberg, who is now using the approach of what he calls “adoptive cell transfer” to deal with other cancers, such as prostate, endometrial and kidney cancers.

A few weeks ago, a simpler kind of immunotherapy was announced by Dr Cassian Yee, who led a team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. Once again, he focused on melanoma and used hand-picked white blood cells to combat the cancer.

The researchers isolated a handful of these cells from patients whose melanoma had spread. All the cells recognised a protein called NY-ESO-1 - which existed in the tumour, but not most healthy cells. When injected back into the body, the lab-grown cells started to attack this and other tumour molecules.

he most dramatic results in this preliminary trial were seen, as mentioned above, in a 52-year-old man, who was suffering from advanced skin cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes and one lung. Within eight weeks of undergoing the procedure, when five billion of his own immune cells were injected, he was free from tumours. Two years on, he remains clear of the disease.

Yet there is still a need for large-scale trials to understand why the outcome of immunotherapy is so spotty: it can have no effect on some patients, and dramatic ones on others. In the Seattle trial, the patient who was cleared was one of nine with metastatic melanoma. The other eight did not do as well. Another problem is that it is a major exercise to grow a patient’s own cells in the lab - it costs tens of thousands of dollars per patient, said Dr Yee.

Now there is an alternative. The company Micromet, which has its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and does its research in Munich, Germany, is developing an elegant way to recruit anti-cancer cells, in the bodies of the patients themselves. Christian Itin, the CEO of Micromet, said they were using antibodies, called BiTE antibodies, which are able to activate T cells to attack cancer.

One problem with immunotherapy, he explained, is that as tumours become more advanced they become more “invisible” to the white blood cells because the cancer cells lack molecules for white blood cells to hang on to and stage their attack. Normal antibodies are designed to latch on to one molecular target but those developed by Micromet bind to two, the cancer cell and the T cell, and bring the two together. “They instruct the T cells to attack and kill the tumour cells,” said Itin.

Phase one and two clinical trials of the BiTE antibodies are now underway in Europe, including patients with lung and gastrointestinal cancer. Recently, at the International Conference of Malignant Lymphomas, the company presented an update on their trial for MT103, the BiTE antibody being tested for a cancer of the lymphatic system, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

All seven patients enrolled so far (all of whom had exhausted conventional treatments) have had either a complete or partial response. This included some whose cancer had spread to the bone marrow. Remissions for all these patients continue, with the longest being for more than a year.

According to Prof Michael Keating, at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, this kind of immunotherapy shows promise when it comes to blood cancers. Meanwhile, other BiTE therapies - for cancers including melanoma, lung and gastrointestinal cancer - are in development.

Although there have been many false dawns in the worldwide effort to improve cancer treatments experts believe that the latest studies could represent a landmark.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Significance of results

In the Phase II M. D. Anderson study of 25 patients, curcumin was given on its own without chemotherapy.

Razelle Kurzrock, M.D.“The effects of curcumin were encouraging,” says the study’s principal investigator, Razelle Kurzrock, M.D., chair of M. D. Anderson’s Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase I clinical trial program). “It showed activity in patients, and there were no side effects.”

A concern before starting the study was that curcumin normally is poorly absorbed, meaning that only low levels get into the bloodstream after the capsule form has been taken by mouth.

Bharat Aggarwal, Ph.D.“Therefore, the fact that low levels of curcumin resulted in benefits in the study, even in a small number of patients, suggests that if we could find a better way to administer curcumin and get it to the tumor, we could see a greater response,” Kurzrock says.

The fact that curcumin had any effect on patients with pancreatic cancer, which is difficult to treat successfully, is significant to Bharat Aggarwal, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Experimental Therapeutics.

“The results are important,” says Aggarwal, a laboratory scientist who has studied curcumin as a potential cancer-fighting agent in cancer cells and mice for nearly 20 years.

Research methods

Patients received 8 grams of curcumin by mouth every day for two months. Maintenance therapy was continued at the same dose and schedule until the disease progressed.

Primary results

Twenty-five patients were reported in the paper.

Of those patients, curcumin resulted in:

Prolonged stable disease: Two patients temporarily experienced no significant tumor growth; one for eight months and another patient for just over 2.5 years (an additional 12 months after the study was compiled for publication).

Tumor regression: One patient experienced a decrease in tumor size of 73%, although the tumor grew back soon afterward.

“Interestingly, at the time of progression, the lesions that had shrunk remained small, but other lesions grew larger,” according to the study.

“That suggests that a resistant clone of cancer cells emerged, which is a real problem in treating cancer,” Kurzrock says.

In addition, no side effects were observed in patients.

Background

Curcumin is a substance that comes from the root-bearing Curcuma longa plant, a member of the ginger family. Curcumin is an ingredient in turmeric, a spice used in foods such as curry.

Curcumin has been studied in numerous research studies and has been found to contain potential anti-tumor abilities.

Curcumin is used in India as a:

* Food preservative
* Coloring agent for food and textiles
* Spice (2% to 5% of turmeric is curcumin)
* Folk medicine to:
o Cleanse the body
o Heal wounds
o Prevent wrinkles
o Suppress inflammation

Knowledge of curcumin’s anti-inflammatory properties and the growing realization that cancer can result from inflammation has spurred mounting interest in the spice, Aggarwal says.

The study was conceived and developed through a collaboration among Kurzrock, who chairs a department devoted to studies with new drugs; James Abbruzzese, M.D., chair of M. D. Anderson’s Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology and an expert in pancreatic cancer; and Aggarwal.

Their work demonstrated that in laboratory and animal studies, curcumin was especially potent against pancreatic cancer.

What’s next?

Researchers are seeking funding for additional clinical trials using curcumin.

“We plan to study curcumin together with other anti-cancer drugs, since combined therapy is likely to enhance results,” Kurzrock says. “In addition, we are developing a liposomal form of curcumin (curcumin packed within a fat-type capsule) that can be taken orally and travel directly through the bloodstream. Hopefully, this form will improve the ability of curcumin to reach the tumor.”

Source: www.cancerwise.org

The object of this book is to get you into the frame of mind in which, instead of the normal method of stopping whereby you start off with the feeling that you are climbing Mount Everest and spend the next few weeks craving a cigarette and envying other smokers, you start right away with a feeling of elation, as if you had been cured of a terrible disease. From then on, the further you go through life the more you will look at cigarettes and wonder how you ever smoked them in the first place. You will look at smokers with pity as opposed to envy.

Provided that you are not a non-smoker or an ex-smoker, it is essential to keep smoking until you have finished the book completely. This may appear to be a contradiction. Later I shall be explaining that cigarettes do absolutely nothing for you at all. In fact, one of the many conundrums about smoking is that when we are actually smoking a cigarette, we look at it and wonder why we are doing it. It is only when we have been deprived that the cigarette becomes precious. However, let us accept that, whether you like it or not, you believe you are hooked. When you believe you are hooked, you can never be completely relaxed or concentrate properly unless you are smoking. So do not attempt to stop smoking before you have finished the whole book. As you read further your desire to smoke will gradually be reduced. Do not go off half-cocked; this could be fatal. Remember, all you have to do is to follow the instructions.

With the benefit of twelve years’ feedback since the book’s original publication, apart from chapter 28, ‘Timing’, this instruction to continue to smoke until you have completed the book has caused me more frustration than any other. When I first stopped smoking, many of my relatives and friends stopped, purely because I had done it. They thought, ‘If he can do it, anybody can.’ Over the years, by dropping little hints I managed to persuade the ones that hadn’t stopped to realize just how nice it is to be free! When the book was first printed I gave copies to the hard core who were still puffing away. I worked on the basis that, even if it were the most boring book ever written, they would still read it, if only because it had been written by a friend. I was surprised and hurt to learn that, months later, they hadn’t bothered to finish the book. I even discovered that the original copy I had signed and given to someone who was then my closest friend had not only been ignored but actually given away. I was hurt at the time, but 1 had overlooked the dreadful fear that slavery to the weed instills in the smoker.

It can transcend friendship. I nearly provoked a divorce because of it. My mother once said to my wife, ‘Why don’t you threaten to leave him if he doesn’t stop smoking?’ My wife said, ‘Because he’d leave me if I did.’ I’m ashamed to admit it, but I believe she was right, such is the fear that smoking creates. I now realize that many smokers don’t finish the book because they feel they have got to stop smoking when they do. Some deliberately read only one line a day in order to postpone the evil day. Now I am fully aware that many readers are having their arms twisted, by people that love them, to read the book. Look at it this way: what have you got to lose? If you don’t stop at the end of the book, you are no worse off than you are now.

YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO LOSE AND SO MUCH
TO GAIN! Incidentally, if you have not smoked for a few days or weeks but are not sure whether you are a smoker, an ex-smoker or a non-smoker, then don’t smoke while you read. In fact, you are already a non-smoker.  All we’ve now got to do is to let your brain catch up with your body. By the end of the book you’ll be a happy non-smoker. Basically my method is the complete opposite of the normal method of trying to stop. The normal method is to list the considerable disadvantages of smoking and say, ‘If only I can go long enough without, a cigarette, eventually the desire to smoke will go. I can then enjoy life again, free of slavery to the weed.’

This is the logical way to go about it, and thousands of smokers are stopping every day using variations of this method. However, it is very difficult to succeed using this method for the following reasons:

1 Stopping smoking is not the real problem. Every time you put a cigarette out you stop smoking. You may have powerful reasons on day one to say, ‘I do not want to smoke any more’ - all smokers have, every day of their lives, and the reasons are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. The real problem is day two, day ten or day ten thousand, when in a weak moment, an inebriated moment or even a strong moment you have one cigarette, and because it is partly drug addiction you then want another, and suddenly you are a smoker again.

2 The health scares should stop us. Our rational minds say, ‘Stop doing it. You are a fool,’ but in fact they make it harder. We smoke, for example, when we are nervous. Tell smokers that it is killing them, and the first thing they will do is to light a cigarette. There are more dogends outside the Royal Marsden Hospital, the country’s foremost cancer treatment establishment, tha any other hospital in the country.

3 All reasons for stopping actually make it harder for two other reasons. First, they create a sense of sacrifice. We are always being forced to give up our little friend or prop or vice or pleasure, whichever way the smoker sees it. Secondly, they create a ‘blind’. We do not smoke for the reasons we should stop. The real question is ‘Why do we want or need to do it?’ The Easy Method is basically this: initially to forget the reasons we’d like to stop, to face the cigarette problem and to ask ourselves the following questions:

1 What is it doing for me?
2 Do I actually enjoy it?
3 Do I really need to go through life paying through the nose just to stick these things in my mouth and suffocate myself?

The beautiful truth is that it does absolutely nothing for you at all. Let me make it quite clear, I do not mean that the disadvantages of being a smoker outweigh the advantages; all smokers know that all their lives. 1 mean there are not any advantages from smoking. The only advantage it ever had was the social ‘plus’; nowadays even smokers themselves regard it as an antisocial habit.
Most smokers find it necessary to rationalize why they smoke, hut the reasons are all fallacies and illusions.

The first thing we are going to do is to remove these fallacies and illusions. In fact, you will realize that there is nothing to give up. Not only is there nothing to give up but there are marvelous, positive gains from being a non-smoker, and health and money are only two of these gains. Once the illusion that life will never be quite as enjoyable without the cigarette is removed, once you realize that not only is life just as enjoyable without it but infinitely more so, once the feeling of being deprived or of missing out are eradicated, then we can go back to reconsider the health and money - and the dozens of other reasons for stopping smoking. These realizations will become positive additional aids to help you achieve what you really desire to enjoy the whole of your life free from the slavery of the weed.

Perhaps I should begin by describing my competence for writing this book. No, I am not a doctor or a psychiatrist; my qualifications are far more appropriate. I spent thirty-three years of my life as a confirmed smoker. In the later years I smoked a hundred a day on a bad day, and never less than sixty.

During my life I had made dozens of attempts to stop. I once stopped for six months, and I was still climbing up the wall, still standing near smokers trying to get a whiff of the tobacco, still traveling in the smokers’ compartments on trains. With most smokers, on the health side, it’s a question of ‘I’ll stop before it happens to me.’ I had reached the stage where I knew it was killing me. I had a permanent headache with the pressure of the constant coughing.

I could feel the continuous throbbing in the vein that runs vertically down the centre of my forehead, and I honestly believed that any moment there would be an explosion in
my head and I would die from a brain hemorrhage. It bothered me, but it still didn’t stop me. I had reached the stage where I gave up even trying to stop. It was not so much that I enjoyed smoking. Some time in their lives most smokers have suffered from the illusion that they enjoy the odd cigarette, but I never suffered from that illusion. I have always detested the taste and smell, but I thought a cigarette helped me to relax. It gave me courage and confidence, and I was always miserable when I tried to stop, never being able to visualize an enjoyable life without a cigarette.

Eventually my wife sent me to a hypnotherapist. I must confess that I was completely skeptical, knowing nothing about hypnosis in those days and having visions of a Svengali-type figure with piercing eyes and a waving pendulum. I had all the normal illusions that smokers have about smoking except one I knew that I wasn’t a weak-willed person. I was in control of all other aspects of my life but cigarettes controlled me. I thought that hypnosis involved the forcing of wills, and although I was not obstructive (like most smokers, I dearly wanted to stop), I thought no one was going to kid me that I didn’t need to smoke. The whole session appeared to be a waste of time. The hypnotherapist tried to make me lift my arms and do various other things. Nothing appeared to be working properly. I didn’t lose consciousness. I didn’t go into a trance, or at least I didn’t think I did, and yet after that session not only did I stop smoking but I actually enjoyed the process even during the withdrawal period.

Now, before you go rushing off to see a hypnotherapist, let me make something quite clear. Hypnotherapy is a means of communication. If the wrong message is communicated, you won’t stop smoking. I’m loath to criticize the man whom I consulted because I would be dead by now if I hadn’t seen him. But it was in spite of him. not because of him. Neither do I wish to appear to be knocking hypnotherapy; on the contrary, I use it as part of my own consultations. It is the power of suggestion and a powerful force that can be used for good or evil. Don’t ever consult a hypnotherapist unless he or she has been personally recommended by someone you respect and trust. During those awful years as a smoker I tho ught that my life depended on cigarettes, and I was prepared to die rather than be without them. Today people ask me whether I ever have the odd pang.

The answer is, ‘Never, never, never’ - just the reverse. I’ve had a marvelous life. If I had died through smoking, I couldn’t have complained, I have been a very lucky man, but the most marvelous thing that has ever happened to me is being freed from that nightmare, that slavery of having to go through life systematically destroying my own body and paying through the nose for the privilege. Let me make it quite clear from the beginning: I am not a mystical figure. I do not believe in magicians or fairies. I have a scientific brain, and I couldn’t understand what appeared to me like magic. I started reading up on hypnosis and on smoking. Nothing I read seemed to explain the miracle that had happened. Why had it been so ridiculously easy to stop, whereas previously it had
been weeks of black depression? It took me a long time to work it all out, basically because I was going about it back to front. I was trying to work out why it had been so easy to stop, whereas the real problem is trying to explain why smokers find it difficult to stop. Smokers talk about the terrible withdrawal pangs. but when 1 looked back and tried to remember those awful pangs, they didn’t exist for me. There was no
physical pain. It was all in the mind.

My full-time profession is now helping other people to kick the habit. I’m very, very successful. I have helped to cure thousands of smokers. Let me emphasize from the start: there is no such thing as a confirmed smoker. I have still not met anybody who was as badly hooked (or, rather, thought he was as badly hooked) as myself. Anybody can not only stop smoking but find it easy to stop. It is basically fear that keeps us smoking: the fear that life will never be quite as enjoyable without cigarettes and the fear of feeling deprived. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is life just as
enjoyable without them but it is infinitely more so in many ways and extra health, energy and wealth are the least of the advantages.
All smokers can find it easy to stop smoking - even you! All you have to do is read the rest of the book with an open mind. The more you can understand, the easier you will find it. Even if you do not
understand a word, provided you follow the instructions you will find it easy. Most important of all, you will not go through life moping for cigarettes or feeling deprived. The only mystery will be why you did it for so long.

Let me issue a warning. There are only two reasons for failure with my method:

1 FAILURE TO CARRY OUT INSTRUCTIONS Some people find it annoying that 1 am so dogmatic about certain recommendations. For example, I will tell you not to try cutting down or using substitutes like sweets, chewing gum, etc. (particularly anything containing nicotine). The reason why I am so dogmatic is because I know my subject. I do not deny that there are many people who have succeeded in stopping using such ruses, but they have succeeded in spite of, not because of them. There are people who can make love standing on a hammock, but it is not the easiest way. Everything I tell you has a purpose: to make it easy to stop and thereby ensure success.
2 FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND Do not take anything for granted. Question not only what I tell you but also your own views and what society has taught you about smoking. For example, those of you who think it is just a habit, ask yourselves why other habits, some of them enjoyable ones, are easy to break, yet a habit that tastes awful, costs us a fortune and kills us is so difficult to break.
Those of you who think you enjoy a cigarette, ask yourselves why other things in life, which are infinitely more enjoyable, you can take or leave. Why do you have to have the cigarette and panic sets in if you don’t?

I was talking to my wife. She thought that I had flipped. Understand able if you consider that she had watched me fail on numerous attempts to quit. The most recent had been two years previously. I’d actually survived six months of sheer purgatory before I finally succumbed and lit a cigarette. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried like a baby. I was crying because I knew that I was condemned to he a smoker for life. I’d put so much effort into that attempt and suffered so much misery that I knew I would never have the strength to go through that ordeal again. I’m not a violent man, but if some patronizing non-smoker had been stupid enough at that moment to suggest to me that all smokers can find it easy to quit, immediately and permanently, I would not have been responsible for my actions.

However, I’m convinced that any jury in the world, comprised of smokers only, would have pardoned me on the grounds of justifiable homicide.
Perhaps you too find it impossible to believe that any smoker can find it easy to quit. If so, I beg you not to cast this book into the rubbish bin. Please trus t me. I assure you that even you can find it easy to quit.
Anyway, there I was two years later, having just extinguished what I knew would be my final cigarette, not only telling my wife that I was already a non-smoker, but that I was going to cure the rest of the world. I must admit that at the time I found her skepticism somewhat irritating. However, in no way did it diminish my feeling of exaltation, 1 suppose that my exhilaration in knowing that I was already a happy non-smoker distorted my perspective somewhat. With the benefit of hindsight, I can sympathize with her attitude, I now understand why Joyce and my close friends and relatives thought I was a candidate for the funny farm.

As I look back on my life, it seems that my whole existence has been a preparation for solving the smoking problem. Even those hateful years of training and practicing as a chartered accountant were
invaluable in helping me to unravel the mysteries of the smoking trap. They say you can’t fool all the people all of the time, but I believe the tobacco companies have done just that for years. I also believe that I am the first to really understand the smoking trap. If I appear to be arrogant, let me hasten to add that it was no credit to me, just the circumstances of my life. The momentous day was 15 July 1983, I didn’t escape from Colditz, but I imagine those who did felt the same sense of relief and exhilaration as I did when I extinguished that final cigarette. I realized 1 had discovered something that every smoker was praying for: an easy way to stop smoking.
After testing out the method on smoking friends and relatives, I gave up accountancy and became a full-time consultant, helping other smokers to get free. I wrote the first edition of this book in 1985. One of my failures, the man I describe in chapter 25, was the inspiration. He visited me twice, and we were both reduced to tears on each occasion. He was so agitated that I couldn’t get him to relax enough to absorb what I was saying. I hoped that if I wrote it all down, he could read it in his own good time, as many times as he wanted to, and this would help him to absorb the message.
I was in no doubt that EASYWAY would work just as effectively for other smokers as it had for me. However, when I contemplated putting the method into book form, I was apprehensive. I did my own
market research.

The comments were not very encouraging:
‘How can a book help me to quit? What I need is willpower!’
‘How can a book avoid the terrible withdrawal pangs?’
In addition to these pessimistic comments, I had my own doubts. Often at the clinics it became obvious that a client had misunderstood an important point that I was making. I was able to correct the situation. But how would a book be able to do that? I remembered well the times when I studied to qualify as an accountant, when I didn’t understand or agree with a particular point in a book, the frustration because you couldn’t ask the book to explain, I was also well aware, particularly in these days of television and videos, that many people arc not accustomed to reading. Added to all these factors, I had one doubt that overrode all the rest. I wasn’t a writer and was very conscious of my limitations in this respect. I was confident that I could sit down face to face with a smoker and convince that smoker how much more enjoyable social occasions to regard it as their failure. We regard it as our failure, we failed to convince those smokers just how easy and enjoyable it is to quit.
I dedicated the first edition to the smokers that I had failed to cure. That failure rate was based on the money-hack guarantee that we give at our clinics. The average current failure rate of our clinics world-wide is under 5 per cent. That means a success rate of over 95 per cent, Although I was aware that I had discovered something marvelous, I never in my wildest dreams expected to achieve such rates. You might well argue that if I genuinely believed that I would cure the world of smoking, I must have expected to achieve 100 per cent. No, I never ever expected to achieve 100 per cent. Snuff-taking was the previous most popular form of nicotine addiction until it became antisocial and died. However, there are still a few weirdoes that continue to take snuff and probably, there always will be. Amazingly, the Houses of Parliament are one of the last bastions of snuff-taking. I suppose this is not so surprising when you think about it, politicians are generally about a hundred years behind the times. So there will always be a few weirdoes that will continue to smoke, I certainly never expected to have to cure every smoker personally.

What I thought would happen was that once I had explained the mysteries of the smoking trap and dispelled such illusions as:
* Smokers enjoy smoking
* Smokers choose to smoke
* Smoking relieves boredom & stress
* Smoking aids concentration and relaxation
* Smoking is a habit
* It takes willpower to quit
* Once a smoker always a smoker
* Telling smokers that it kills them helps them to quit
* Substitutes, particularly nicotine replacement, helps smokers to quit, in particular, when I had dispelled the illusion that it is difficult to quit and that you have to go through a transitional period of misery in order to do so, I naively thought that the rest of the world would also see the light and adopt my method.

I thought my chief antagonist would be the tobacco industry. Amazingly, my chief stumbling blocks were the very institutions that I thought would be my greatest allies: the media, the Government, organizations like ASH, QUIT and the established medical profession. You’ve probably seen the film Sister Kenny. In case you haven’t, it was about the time when infantile paralysis or polio was the scourge of our children. I vividly remember that the words engendered the same fear in me as the word cancer does today. The effect of polio was not only to paralyze the legs and arms but to distort the limbs. The established medical treatment was to put those limbs in irons and thus prevent the distortion. The result was paralysis for life. Sister Kenny believed the irons inhibited recovery and proved a thousand times over that the muscles could be re-educated so that the child could walk again. However, Sister Kenny wasn’t a doctor, she was merely a nurse. How dare she dabble in a province that was confined to qualified doctors? It didn’t seem to matter that Sister Kenny had found the solution to the problem and had proved her solution to be effective. The children that were treated by Sister Kenny knew she was right, so did their parents, yet the established medical profession not only refused to adopt her methods but actually prevented her from practicing. It took Sister Kenny twenty years before the medical profession would accept the obvious.

I first saw that film years before I discovered EASYWAY, The film was very interesting and no doubt there was an element of truth. However, it was equally obvious that Hollywood had used a large portion of poetic license. Sister Kenny couldn’t possibly have dis covered something that the combined knowledge of medical science had failed to discover. Surely the established medical specialists weren’t the dinosaurs they were being portrayed as? How could it possibly have taken them twenty years to accept the facts that were staring them in the face? They say that fact is stranger than fiction, I apologize for accusing the makers of Sister Kenny for using poetic license. Even in this so-called enlightened age of modern communications, after fourteen years, even having access to modern communications, I’ve failed to get my message across. Oh, I’ve proved my point, the only reason that you are reading this hook is because another ex-smoker has recommended it to you. Remember, I don’t have the massive financial power of institutions like the BMA, ASH or QUIT. Like Sister Kenny, I’m a lone individual. Like her. I’m only famous because rny system works. I’m already regarded as the number-one guru on helping smokers to quit. Like Sister Kenny, I’ve proved my point. But Sister Kenny proved her point. What good did that do if the rest of the world was still adopting procedures which were the direct opposite to what they should be?

The last sentence of this book is identical to that in the original manuscript:

There is a wind of change in society, A snowball has started that I hope this book will help turn into an avalanche. From my remarks above, you might have drawn the conclusion that I am no respecter of the medical profession. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of my sons is a doctor and I know of no finer profession. Indeed we receive more recommendations to our clinics from doctors than from any other source, and surprisingly, more of our clients come from the medical profession than any other single profession. In the early years, I was generally regarded by the doctors as being somewhere between a charlatan and a quack. In August 1997, I had the great honor to be invited to lecture to the 10th World Conference on Tobacco or Health held in Beijing. I believe that I am the first nonqualified doctor to receive such an honor. The invitation itself is a measure of the progress that I have made.

However, I might just as well have been lecturing to a brick wall Since the nicotine chewing-gum and the patch have failed to cure the problem, smokers themselves appear to have accepted that you don’t get cured from addiction to a drug by prescribing the same drug. It’s equivalent to saying to a heroin addict: don’t smoke heroin, smoking is dangerous, try injecting it into your vein (don’t try this with nicotine, it will kill you instantly). Because the medical profession and the media haven’t a clue about helping smokers to quit, they concentrate on telling smokers what they already know: smoking is unhealthy, it’s filthy and disgusting, it’s antisocial and expensive. It never seems to occur to them that smokers do not smoke for the reasons that they shouldn’t smoke. The real problem is to remove the reasons that they do smoke.
On national no-smoking days, the medical experts say something like: This is the day that every smoker tries to quit!’ Every smoker knows that it is the one day in the year that most smokers will smoke twice as many as they usually do and twice as blatantly, because smokers don’t like being told what to do, particularly by people who dismiss smokers as mere idiots and don’t understand why they smoke.
Because they don’t completely understand smokers themselves or how to make it easy for smokers to quit, their attitude is ‘Try this method. If it doesn’t work try another: Can you imagine if there were ten different ways of treating appendicitis? Nine of them cured 10 per cent of the patients, which means they killed 90 per cent of them and the tenth way cured 95 per cent. Imagine that knowledge of the tenth method had been available for over fourteen years, but the vast majority of the medical profession was still recommending the other nine. One of the doctors at the conference raised a very pertinent point that hadn’t occurred to me. He pointed out that doctors might well find themselves liable to a legal action for malpractice, by not advising their patients of the best way to quit smoking. Ironically he was a great advocate of nicotine replacement therapy (nicotine gums, patches, etc.), I try hard not to be vindictive, but I hope he becomes the first victim of his suggestion.

As I write, the Government has just wasted £2.5 million on a shook TV campaign trying to persuade youngsters not to get hooked. They might just as well have wasted it on trying to persuade them that motorbikes can kill you. Do they not realize that youngsters know that one cigarette won’t kill them and that no youngster ever expects to get hooked? The link between smoking and lung cancer has been established for over forty years. Yet more youngsters are becoming hooked nowadays than ever before. Youngsters don’t need to watch smoking horrors on TV. Smokers tend to avoid such, programmes anyway. Practically every youngster in the country has witnessed the actual devastation that smoking causes within their own family. I watched my father and my sister destroyed by the weed; that didn’t prevent me from falling into the trap.
I appeared on a national TV programme with a doctor from Ash who had never smoked in her life and had never cured a single smoker, categorically informing the nation how this campaign would prevent youngsters from becoming hooked. If only the government had had the common sense to give that £2.5 million to me, I could have financed a campaign that would have guaranteed the death of nicotine addiction within a few years. I truly believe that the snowball has become a football. But after fourteen years that is still a spit in the ocean. I’m grateful to the thousands of ex-smokers who have visited my clinics, read my books, watched my videos and recommended EASYWAY to their friends, relatives and anyone who will listen to them, and 1 pray that you continue to do so. However, the snowball won’t become an avalanche until the medical profession and the media stop recommending methods that make it harder to quit and accept that EASYWAY is not just another method: BUT THE ONLY

SENSIBLE METHOD TO USE!

I don’t expect you to believe me at this stage, but by the time you have finished the book, you will  understand. Even the comparatively few failures that we have say something like: ‘I haven’t succeeded yet, but your way is better than any I know.’ If when you finish the book, you feel that you owe me a debt of gratitude, you can more than repay that debt. Not just by recommending EASYWAY to your friends, but whenever you see a TV or radio programme, or read a newspaper article advocating some other method, write to them or phone them asking why they aren’t advocating EASYWAY. That will start the avalanche and if I live to
witness it, I will die a happy man.
This third edition of EASYWAY is to give you the state of the art technology on just how easy and enjoyable it is to quit smoking. Do you have a feeling of doom and gloom? Forget it. I’ve achieved some marvelous things in my life. By far the greatest was to escape from the slavery of nicotine addiction. I escaped over fourteen years ago and still cannot get over the joy of being free. There is no need to feel depressed, nothing bad is happening, on the contrary, you are about to achieve something that every smoker on the planet would love to achieve : TO BE FREE!

If you are expecting me to inform you of the terrible health risks that smokers run, that smokers spend a small fo rtune during their smoking lives, that it is a filthy, disgusting habit and that you are a stupid, spineless, weak-willed jellyfish, then I must disappoint you. Those tactics never helped me to quit and if they were going to help you, you would already have quit.

My method, which I shall refer to as EASYWAY doesn’t work that way. Some of the things that I am about, to say, you might find difficult to believe. However by the time you’ve finished the book, you’ll not only believe them, but wonder how you could ever have been brainwashed into believing otherwise.

There is a common misapprehension that we choose to smoke. Smokers no more choose to smoke than
alcoholics choose to become alcoholics, or heroin addicts choose to become heroin addicts. It is true that we choose to light those first experimental cigarettes. I occasionally choose to go to the cinema, but I certainly didn’t choose to spend my whole life in a cinema.

Please reflect on your life. Did you ever make the positive decision that at certain times in your life, you couldn’t enjoy a meal or a social occasion without smoking, or that you couldn’t concentrate or handle stress without a cigarette? At what stage did you decide that you needed cigarettes, not just for social occasions, but that you needed to have them permanently in your presence, and felt insecure, even panic-stricken without them?

Like every other smoker, you have been lured into the most sinister subtle trap that man and nature
have combined to devise. There is not a parent on this planet, whether they be smoker or nonsmoker,
that likes the thought of their children smoking. This means that all smokers wish they had never started. Not surprising really, no one needs cigarettes to enjoy meals or cope with stress before they get hooked.

At the same time all smokers wish to continue to smoke. After all, no one forces us to light up, whether we understand the reason or not, it is only smokers themselves that decide to light up. If there were a magic button that smokers could press to wake up the following morning as if they never lit that firs cigarette,. the only smokers there would be tomorrow morning would be the youngsters who are still at the experimental stage. The only thing that prevents us from quitting is: FEAR!
Fear that we will have to survive an indeterminate period of misery, deprivation and unsatisfied craving in order to be free. Fear that a meal or social occasion will never be quite as enjoyable without a cigarette. Fear that we’ll never be able to concentrate, handle stress or be as confident without our little crutch. Fear that our personality and character will change. But most of all, the fear of ‘once a smoker always a smoker,’ that we will never be completely free and spend the rest of our lives at odd times craving the occasional cigarette. If, as I did, you have already tried all the conventional ways to quit and been through the misery of what I describe as the willpower method of stopping, you will not only be affected by that fear, hut convinced you can never quit.
If you are apprehensive, panic-sticken or feel that the time is not right for you to give up, then let me
assure you that your apprehension or panic is caused by fear. That fear is not relieved by cigarettes but
created by them. You didn’t decide to fall into the nicotine trap. But like all traps, it is designed to ensure that you remain trapped. Ask yourself, when you lit those first experimental cigarettes, did you decide to remain a smoker as long as you have? So when are you going to quit? Tomorrow? Next, year?

Stop kidding yourself! The trap is designed to hold you for life. Why else do you think all these other
smokers don’t quit before it kills them?
This book was first published by Penguin a decade ago and has been a bestseller every year since then, I now have ten years’ feedback. As you will soon be reading, the feedback has revealed information that has exceeded my wildest aspirations of the effectiveness of my method. It has also revealed two aspects of EASYWAY that have caused me concern. The second I will he covering later. The first arose from the letters that I have received. I give three typical examples: I didn’t believe the claims you made and I apologize for doubting you. It was just as easy and enjoyable as you said it would be. I’ve given copies of your book to all my smoking friends and relatives, but I can’t understand why they don’t read it, I was given your book eight years ago by an ex-smoking friend, I’ve just got around to reading it.

My only regret is that I wasted eight years.
I’ve just finished reading EASYWAY. I know it has only been four days, but I feel so great, I know I’ll never need to smoke again. I first started to read your book five years ago, got half-way through and panicked. I knew that if I went on reading I would have to stop. Wasn’t I silly? No, that particular young lady wasn’t silly. I’ve referred to a magic button. EASYWAY works just like that magic button. Let me make it quite clear, EASYWAY isn’t magic, but for me and the hundreds of thousands of ex-smokers who have found it so easy and enjoyable to quit. it seems like magic!

This is the warning. We have a chicken and egg situation. Every smoker wants to quit and every smoker can find it easy and enjoyable to quit. It’s only fear that prevents smokers from trying to quit. The greatest gain is to be rid of that fear. But you won’t be free of that fear until you complete the book. On the contrary, like the lady in the third example, that fear might increase as you read the book and this might prevent you from finishing it.

You didn’t decide to fall into the trap, but he clear in your mind, you won’t escape from it unless you
make a positive decision to do so. You might already be straining at the leash to quit. On the other hand you might be apprehensive, Either way please bear in mind: YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY

NOTHING TO LOSE!

If at the end of the book you decide that you wish to continue to smoke, there is nothing to prevent you from doing so. You don’t even have to cut down or stop smoking while you are reading the book, and remember, there is no shock treatment. On the contrary, I have only good news for you. Can you imagine how the Count of Monte Cristo felt when he finally escaped from that prison? That’s how I felt when I escaped from the nicotine trap. That’s how the millions of ex-smokers who have used my method feel. By the end of the book: THAT’S HOW YOU WILL FEEL!
GO FOR IT!

A successful accountant, Allen Carr’s hundred-cigarettes-a-day addiction was driving him to despair until, in 1983, after countless failed attempts to quit, he finally discovered what the world had been waiting for —the Easy Way to Stop Smoking. He has now built a network of clinics that span the globe and has a phenomenal reputation for success in helping smokers to quit.

His books have been published in over twenty different languages and video, audio and CDROM
versions of his method are also available. Tens of thousands of people have attended Allen Carr’s clinics where, with a success rate of over 95%. he guarantees that you will find it easy to quit smoking or your money back. A full list of clinics appears in the back of this book. Should you require any assistance do not hesitate to contact your nearest therapist. Weight-control sessions are now offered at a selection of these
clinics. A full corporate service is also available enabling comp anies to implement no-smoking
policies simply and effectively.

He has always been a typical boy, full of energy and life. We started to notice he did not have the usual energy when he started to take naps everyday. He would have to be picked up from school atleast once maybe twice a week because he was sick at his tummy and throwing up. the pain in his legs was so bad it was hard for him to get upstairs to his room. After the third doctor visit I was told to take him down to Scottish Rite for some tests. The doctor said he may have pneumonia. His blood was at life threatning levels, he was white and his lips had no color. About three hours later a blood specialist came in and told us he had Leukemia. She said Leukemia is a cancer. I dont remember anything else she told us. So we were taken to the cancer center and put in a room where we would be for the next 4 weeks. They put a line in his chest so he could recieve his Chemotherapy and many medicines thru it without getting stuck with needles all the time. His spinal fliud had no cancer in it so that was a good thing. The Chemo made him very sick, it was so hard for him just to get to the bathroom. After the 10 days of Chemo thay told us he could go home when his blood counts got high enough to fight infection. Then he got Typhlitis (inflammation of the organs) and was put on more medicine and was unable to eat for 5 days. After they felt comfortable enough for him to go home we were out of there as soon as they said we could go.

We did get a 5 day break before starting the second round of Chemo. This time around was relatively easy compared to the first. He did not get as sick at his stomach and was up and around a lot more. The doctors did find that he had something in his lungs when it got close to time for him to go home. His medicines were changed around and he did get to go home for almost three weeks because chemo couldnt be started with his lungs not doing good. I did not complain though, we were glad to get a break. But Jesus healed his lungs and we ended up back in for round three before we knew it. He did get to go to a Braves game, Stone Mountain, and have some friends over. It was fun while it lasted. I wont lie, we were excited to see everybody back at the hospital too. Round three has just finished up and he felt great for about a week and the fevers came on again, he had Alpha Strep, so now he is fighting it like a champion to get rid of it! Round 3 was so hard on him, he was so sick for what seemed like forever.

9/1/08 About that infection, it cleared up and he got to go home for ten days before the start of round 4. Tomorrow is the last day of chemo this round. He is still feeling pretty good so far. There are blisters forming on his head. He is getting to have more nausea as usual. No fever so far. I brought his X-Box yesterday to keep him busy, I am hoping it will pass the time and keep his mind off what is going on. Lungs are clear, counts are dropping. It is like getting on a roller coaster and I can’t see what is around the corner but there is nothing I can do to stop it. We just have to hold on and ride it out.

9/25/08 Round four almost complete, we are still here in the hospital, he developed an absessed sore and it caused all kinds of issues for him. Surgery was done to drain the fliud from it on the19th. There has been pain pain and discomfort but overall this round was no too bad on him. He got one fever which tylenol handled and he has been hanging with his buddies playing video games. Hopefully home is in the near future!!!!

More about Austin Howell Story Here

I was born in a small village in southern Ontario, Canada in 1934 to bilingual French parents (both now deceased) and had 6 sisters and 3 brothers.

I met my dear wife at the office where we were both employed, we were married in 1963, our cherished son Gregory was born in 1964. To complete our life journey, we were also blessed with two fantastic daughters and now two grandsons that we just adore.

The passing of our son’s lovely wife Maureen, our daughter-in-law, with that dreadful disease cancer was very traumatic to us, as you are quite aware, was devastating to our son Greg by the loss of his young wife.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time cancer had come into our lives.

This all started with my brother Jules (eldest) with prostate cancer..he had quite a battle with this disease, surgery of the Prostate Gland then Radiation then Chemo and is still dealling with wth the issues of the after effects from all the procedures.

My sister Margaret the 4th one to be born was diagnosed with Kidney Cancer in 1996 but was fortunate to have been detected at an early stage and has been in remission ever since.

My other sister Marie born just before me was also diagnosed with clavicle cancer and passed away in 1998. I was present at her bedside in the Hospital when she died and if anyone else have ever experienced this (as Greg did) it is not pleasant.

And, the story doesn’t end there, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, was treated for the disease, and am a survivor.

We will be making a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society on behalf of all the above mentioned.

Regards Paul/Terry

Via: write2fight.com

I was born in Canton, Ohio on March 1969. I was adopted into a wonderful Hungarian/Siren Family; whom I cherish dearly. I as well, have a wonderful 15 year old daughter. She is undoubtedly my guiding star.

My mother and daughter have endured alot over the course of the past two years. It has meant the world to me, that they have been lovingly by my side. Unconditionally showing me their support and Love. My family has been my guiding light throughout my journey with Cancer, and I would like to send my unconditional thoughts of Love and Praise.

It’s with great sadness that I bring the news of the passing of a Dear Friend who is coincidentally named Rebecca Ann. She was known by all who knew and loved her as Becca. She was only 36 years old and she fought Melanoma avidly, with gracious vigor.

We had actually met, after much confusion in the clinical lobby at the National Cancer Institute. There were four Rebecca’s in the lobby that day awaiting to see the Doctor’s. It’s an odd coincidence, but none-the-less, one that was meant to be. I had in all actuality, thought that it was her sister who had been diagnosed with Melanoma. Becca was so lively the entire wait, you would never have known that she was the patient.

We had corresponded for months and had asked the Doctor’s at the National Cancer Institute if we could do our IL-2 Cancer treatments at the same time. Our research nurse was more than happy to make this happen.

Our online community of family and friends, at www.mpip.org (Melanoma Patients Information Page; cheered us both on, during this difficult treatment. We became known, as “the IL-2 Queens”. We supported one another throughout this treatment and beyond.

I know, that I have been given a wonderful opportunity to share my story. I feel that it would be unfair and unjust to speak of myself, solely. My Life has forever been touched by Becca.

If you were to visit the Mpip bulletin board today, you would see, what a grave impact she had on the Melanoma community. Many other’s, have, as well; aided in my discovery of new treatment options. They have given support, when very little was given or asked of them.

I feel honored and privileged to tell you, not only my story and journey through a Cancer diagnosis, but many other’s who have lite the way. They are the true heroes and heroines of the day. It is in great Memory and Dedication, that I submit to you this:

The Power is in YOU! The power was in Becca to help guide me through a very difficult Cancer Treatment. She was sent here, to be by my side. To fight, alongside; myself, and countless other Melanoma Cancer Patients.

I believe in the greatness that surrounds our lives. I believe that everything happens for a reason. My Melanoma diagnosis is a blessing in disguise. I have learned to live stronger, hold on longer, and fight harder.

My be-loved friend, Becca, is a Melanoma Angel. She is watching me from Heaven above. I look forward to the day, that I may say: Thank-You. You touched my Life.

A Cancer patients journey in Life is one paved with great emotional awareness and zest. We learn to look at Life through a different perspective. I believe, that Cancer can be our cure. Our cure to Life’s ailments and strides. We have been given a gift. A gift; of LIFE. To learn to truly Live.

Thank all of your reader’s for helping raise an awareness. Early detection can and does save Lives. See your dermatologist. Get your yearly Doctor check-up’s. Let everyone know, “it’s NOT JUST” skin cancer. It’s Melanoma, a deadly form of Cancer.

May all those who have fought the good fight and all those who continue to fight the good fight LIVESTRONG and forever long; they with forever be in our hearts, mind, body, and soul.

As far as benefit fundraising… The Melanoma Research Foundation. Dr. Rosenberg at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. He is determined to find the Cure for Melanoma. On a more personal note: I want to help outreach to Melanoma Patients/Families in Financial need. It is TRULY very difficult to find resources and funds for your Living Expenses while trying to fight this battle. I’d like to help financial aide those in need ~ A program needs to be made… where the INDIVIDUAL ~ Cancer patient gets the funds needed to help them with their monthly expenses while off work and fighting this battle.

I wish Peace to all in your journey and path through Life. Discover yourself. Live your Life. Make your Dreams come true and hold on tight.

Kind Regards, Becky (stage IV Malignant Metastatic Melanoma patient and warrior)

Via: write2fight.com