Recently I watched Ken Burn’s documentary on the Civil War. It was a 4 star on Netflix and deserved it. But for me there was a terribly haunting reality to the show. Years before the actual battles began, almost from the founding of our country there was a lot of conflict over slavery. Our founding fathers had stepped around the issue, some even owned slaves. But there was always a voice of descent.

As communicating abilities became easier the arguments became louder. The South could see no other way of life than that which they had enjoyed for nearly 200 years. The numbers in the North who saw slavery as totally immoral grew. The lives of the slaves had finally been uncovered as subhuman.

The South saw slavery as a States’ Rights issue; the North saw slavery as a shameful, immoral, vicious abuse of one human being to enrich the lives of another. This position prevailed even though some Northerners held slaves.

Suddenly I saw how parallel the situation I was watching is to abortion – indeed all life issues. The rhetoric and anger of those who want to keep the right to terminate a life that is burdensome, embarrassing, unwanted or defective gets louder and harsher as they see their lifestyle slipping away. The right to abortion will not be secured by ignoring the millions who lovingly and peacefully march on Jan 22 in our Capital to protest abortion. Refusing to acknowledge the bus loads of young adults who fill the Capital’s churches in vigils and prayer – pledging to end this scourge on our country - will not change the argument any more than the bluster, anger and demands of the South saved their right to slavery. Like the North in the 1800s, a new generation is awakening to the horror of devaluing a human life for personal needs.

It took over 600,000 deaths on the battlefield to end the argument between the North and South. The Civil War very nearly destroyed the South. Abortion has taken 54 million lives through surgical abortions in the past 39 years. This does not even include the chemical abortions, which now outnumber the surgical abortions. When a person devalues a fellow human being’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (born or unborn) they lose their moral compass. When a nation, founded on an absolute belief in God allows this, they lose His presence, guidance, and strength. Without that they only value themselves and like the South’s “cause” are eventually doomed to fail.

President Obama worked on and supported a bill in Illinois to not allow a doctor to help a child who survived an abortion. There was even talk to extend gestation for three days after birth to allow a parent to “choose”. Mitt Romney is a godly man who lives his principles. Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are our only hope of turning this Country around.

Sincerely,

Annette H. Corrigan

Susquehanna County

Make no mistake about it, cancer is a hugely successful money-making machine, a major industry with promising growth potential. It all started when President Nixon declared War on Cancer. His advisers assured him that in ten years the disease would be eradicated. “We can hardly fail,” said Nixon. Since that time more than 40 years ago the nation has poured $200 billion (inflation adjusted) into research and $90 billion for treatments. The result: We lost the war.

In 1971, the year of Nixon's declaration of war, there were 16 deaths from cancer for every 10,000 persons. For this year, it's projected to be 18.6 deaths per 10,000. Cancer has grown steadily to be the second leading cause of death in the U.S. only slightly behind heart disease. Your chance of developing cancer is edging toward 1 out of 2.

The combined combat deaths of U.S. military personnel in WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, fall far short of the 577,000 deaths expected to be caused by cancer in this year alone.

The principal weapons of our warfare are chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

A look at each of these arms reveals why we lost the war.

Chemotherapy was introduced shortly after WW II. Doctors noted that cancer cells divided more rapidly than other types of cell. They theorized that if a poison was injected into a cancer victim's body, the toxic agent would kill more cancer cells than normal cells.

And they were correct.

But they failed to make the distinction between initial response and cure. Yes, the tumors shrank but, except in rare cases, it did not increase survival time. In fact, “The majority of cancer patients die because of chemotherapy,” wrote Albert Levin, M.D., in his book, The Healing of Cancer. He continued, “This has been documented for over a decade and nevertheless doctors still utilize chemotherapy to fight tumors.” Levin's book was published 20 years ago.

“This is the great lie about [chemotherapy], that there is a correlation between the reduction of cancer [tumor] and the life of the patient,” wrote Philip Day in his book, Why We're Still Dying to Know the Truth.

“Nowhere was scientific evidence available demonstrating that chemotherapy is able to prolong life,” concluded epidemiologist, Dr. Ulrich Able.

Nevertheless, oncologists continue to recommend chemotherapy with unshaken faith in spite of its record of failure. Yet in a questionnaire sent to oncologists, 75 percent of those who responded would refuse chemotherapy because of its ineffectiveness.

Radiation is the second weapon in the arsenal against cancer.

The patient is irradiated externally by powerful beams of X-rays or internally by surgically implanting a source of radiation next to the tumor. The approach is similar to chemotherapy in that both attempt to kill the tumor and thus cure the patient.

But the tumor is not the cancer; it is a symptom of the cancer. It is much like the symptoms of sneezing, runny nose, and general malaise are symptoms of a cold. The cause of the cold is a virus not the familiar symptoms.

If the tumor was the cause of cancer, a cure would be relatively simple to effect, just kill the tumor. Unfortunately, both chemotherapy and radiation prove this to be a false hypothesis.

Surgery, the last weapon to battle cancer, travels the same road; the tumor is the culprit. If the tumor cannot be bludgeoned to death by chemo and radiation, then surgical removal should in theory defeat the cancer. It does not. What it may do is release cancer cells into the blood stream where, in time, they can metastasize in disparate locations.

Ironically, all three cancer-fighting strategies are carcinogens. Give enough chemo or radiation to a healthy person and he will develop cancer while surgery in a cancer victim may only exacerbate the disease.

But it's worse than that. The latest research indicates that the deadly threesome are even more lethal than first thought.

Healthy cells that are killed by these treatments release a protein named WNT16B that is a super-food for cancer cells. This explains why after an initial success---and paying an average of $400,000 for chemo/radiation/surgery “treatments”---the malignancy returns with a fatal ferocity.

Part II shall examine the role that the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute played in losing the war on cancer.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA