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THE CANCER BANK IS FULL

Posted on by Helena

Over the last 40 years the National Cancer Institute has spent over $90 billion on cancer research and treatment. Their annual budget is now about $5 billion per year. What has that bought us?

  • The number of new cancers each year is approximately 1.677 million.

  • The number of cancer deaths is about 35%.

  • The states with the highest rates per capita are Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Delaware.

  • Lung cancer came in first for all these states.

  • Nationally, prostate and breast came in second and third.

  • The highest death rates were in the south; Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi – etc…

  • While the death rate from breast cancer is down, the rates for contracting breast cancer are up.

  • Black males have the highest rates of cancer

  • White females have a higher incidence rate than black females

So what does this all mean?

It means that progress has not measured up to the dollars spent. It means that early detection is the main reason for the decrease in death, but that research has done little to nothing to actually mitigate – cancer.

How are the research dollars spent?

At the National Cancer Institute, 4% of funding is designated for prevention.

The American Cancer Society has stated that its funding will be prioritized as follows:

  • tobacco control

  • nutrition and physical activity

  • colorectal cancer

  • breast cancer

  • survivorship and quality of life

  • access to care

I’m not exactly sure what ‘tobacco control’ entails. But the concept is that given black males have the highest incidence of cancer and lung cancer has the highest rates, controlling tobacco could lower the overall stats. How does one – control tobacco?

Since 1965, tobacco use in the US has declined from 42% to 20%. This does not reflect any cures, it simply presents the fact that as a result of less people smoking, lung cancer incidences are lower. Research did not contribute to this result. Awareness did. If we completely eliminated smoking, the incidence rate of lung cancer would parallel.

New studies on breast cancer are stumped on why this disease is affecting more and more young women. And now the reports indicate three potential causes; birth control pills, hormone additives to our food supply, and nutritional deficiencies. We have long known that estrogen therapy increases breast cancer risk. Now we know that messing with hormones at all – increases risk in the young and old. Growth hormones can be found in milk, chicken, eggs, dairy. These hormones alter the natural balance and are linked to cancer. Period.

Parabens are chemicals with estrogen like properties. Parabens are found in shampoo, lotion and makeup. These chemicals have been found in breast cancer tissue up to one million times what is normal. Chemicals accumulate in our body. Our body has no idea what to do with them and so it stores them – forever.

And while a product may contain a low amount of paraben and claim to have no effect, the issue is that MOST products contain paraben and the cumulation effect IS the problem. In addition, the rise of Breast Cancer IS the problem. The relationship between paraben and hormones and breast cancer IS the problem. So why risk it?

Prevention is the only course of action – CURE has done nothing.

Over 34% of the budget for American Cancer Society is spent on ‘fundraising’. Their CEO raked in nearly $800,000 in compensation. In 2010, compensation, travel and conferences accounted for 62% of the program and supporting services budget.

I fail to see how the actual expenditures here have much of anything to do with their ‘stated priorities’.

Susan B Komen. A little better; 15% of their budget goes to fundraising. 26% is directed for marketing. Salaries and compensation amount to 23.5%. 8.6% is spent on donor benefits. The CEO pay package was $684,000.

But the question remains – what is spent on ‘the cure’? It would seem that cancer research is simply a cheerleading squad. What has been cured? The race participation has dropped in some states by as much as 50%. What are we racing for? To pay higher salaries?

We talk about the banking crisis, the greed and such – but isn’t the banking industry simply the largest in an ever larger pool of what we have become?

This is not to say that all charities or all banks are not fulfilling their obligations. It is to say that research is necessary in order to evaluate who is truly an advocate. In the cancer industry the last two largest and most amazing innovations came from an engineer whose wife had contracted cancer, and an eighteen year old girl in High School. Their budget? Maybe a few hundred dollars. Their motivation? One thousand percent. The time it took them? Months.

A GAME OF KINGS

Posted on by Helena

Analysts are busily writing theories regarding the cause and effects of the current oil crisis. Most often they are using historical models from previous oil gluts to draw parallels and predictions.

But what if they are looking in all the wrong places? What if the parallel has nothing to do with historical oil gluts and everything to do with another interesting model? What if, the game is Tactics II and the entire end result has already been drawn?

An interesting discovery; I found a few articles dated March 27, 2014 in which three analysts discussed the possibility of the US collaborating with the Saudi’s to flood the oil market and thus cause Russia’s economy to collapse. The articles talked about this from the perspective of oil at $90 a barrel and they came on the heels of George Soros making the recommendation. They all concluded that neither the Saudi’s or the US would follow through on such a plan because it could create a global economic tailspin.

In September, it was announced that the US and Arab allies would launch airstrikes on Syria and Iraq specifically targeting oil refineries. Oil supplies in Iraq are considered the fifth largest in the world. The Saudi King was fuming when Russia intervened and stopped the US from bombing Syria. The Saudi’s want control of Syria. The US wanted to destroy the Russian economy. A deal was struck.

But there was even more at stake.

History Lesson: the banking fiasco of the 1980’s was basically fueled by greed and competition. As of 1985, there were over 18,000 independently owned banking institutions. Today that number is around 6800. Deposits in banks swelled from $2 trillion to $9.6 trillion. As of 2011, the top five bank’s assets were equal to 56% of the total US economy and 44% of the assets held by all US banks.

That’s what they wanted, and mergers and acquisitions made that possible. A simple way to eliminate competition.

In the same way, today the oil glut is destined to root out the small guys as we watch them fold, fail or get eaten by the bigger companies. In Colorado alone there are over 100 oil companies. In Texas I counted one hundred and only got through the “e’s”. Competition is making for weaker profits from the big oil companies. Today the biggest in the US include: Exxon, Chevron, Conoco, Occidental, and Apache.

If it worked in the banking industry, why not the oil industry?

So while we point the finger at the Saudi’s and claim they are to blame for not lowering production during this freefall so as to stabilize output and pricing, no one else has lowered production either – including the US. And the US ranks third in the world for oil production. Of course, no one wants to take the gamble and be the first to lower output because the risk would be that the other countries won’t follow suit. No one really trusts anyone. If the Saudi’s cut output, they risk losing their ranking as second largest producer and the US would take over that spot. On the other hand if in these failings, the Saudi’s can take control of Iraqs oil and Syria’s oil, it pushes to first place.

Not only have companies become ripe for takeovers, countries share that risk as a grand few try to wage war for control of the countries resources (Ukraine has the third largest reserves of shale in all of Europe). Both Shell and Chevron face human rights violations that don’t seem to make the news much; Chevron is accused of recruiting and supplying Nigerian military forces involved in massacres of environmental protesters in the oil-rich Niger Delta, and Shell has faced charges of complicity in torture and other human rights abuses against the Ogoni people of southern Nigeria.

The disinformation that the media would have us believe might have some truth to it, but if the fundamental truth is corrupted, the end truth is corrupted. In the midst of this oil war there will be other casualties; alternative energy will collapse in an already feeble market as competition pushes them down the proverbial drain. Loans will default and banks will bear the brunt. Unemployment will go up. Maybe that’s why the fall happened so quickly – to quell the lingering disruption so that the reshuffling could happen faster.

Word is out that there is trouble but no one can do a thing about it. The media tries to cover the true damage with reports that consumers are really feeling the lighter load of prices, but the reality is that the average savings amounts to about $127 – per year. Not exactly fodder for a party. Whoopee…

When all is done, the bigger will control the majority of the world’s oil. Big banks – big oil – big pharma.

The winners in an world oil purge would include; Saudi Aramco, Russia’s Gazprom, National Iranian, Exxon (which is trying merge with Russia’s Rosneft), PetroChina, UK’s BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Mexico’s Pemex, Chevron and Kuwait Petroleum. Of course the Saudi’s want Iran and the US wants Russia, so those are on the table in the game of War.

And as Hillary so aptly noted, (paraphrased): Casualties? Who cares, that’s part of the game.

In reality think of it as similar to science – or even gossip – if your beginning truth is corrupted or simply a theory, no matter how many facts you pile on, the end truth will always be corrupted.