Integrative cancer and oncology news with articles and the latest news on cancer.
Moving On
It’s hard to imagine, but this magazine is now 5 years old. What started, quite simply, as dad and daughter desperately trying to find some things that just might help a person with a glioma live more that the six months on offer, turned into a mission: To provide information ALL the information, not just orthodox, but complementary and alternative and possible factors causing and maintaining so that people who want to beat cancer can take more informed decisions.
Of course that wasn’t actually how it happened. Catherine and I spent hours combing the internet looking for ideas that might make a difference to her cancer and her life. And we quickly realised two things
Firstly, there is so much, high quality, expert research out there on matters that can help. Clinical trials, no less, on complementary therapies like meditation, beneficial bacteria, diet therapies, yoga and much more. Or endless top quality research studies on vitamins and even possible causes. We were even told by an oncologist about supplements that could make radiotherapy work better but he couldn’t tell people because there had been no ’clinical trials’. Catherine just wanted to live why were these things being kept from her?
Secondly, there is so much hype and overclaim on the web not just from the ’Alternative’ community, but also from the drugs companies and the extreme orthodox community as well. What we needed was information we could really trust information that could really empower us.
And so we decided to pass on all the things we found out so that others could benefit. No more, no less. We think we can save you at least 6 months effort and endless searching, avoiding the pitfalls and the hype. And to avoid cries of vested interest, we do not receive any payments for the work we do.
That work includes this magazine now with a print run of 32,000 and in over 300 UK Cancer Centres; and this our web site www.canceractive.com - with over 50,000 hits in the average month nowadays, and my e news which goes right round the world to cancer patients and Professors alike (are you receiving it, yet?).
Moving on the new Web Site
That work is not finished. In September we will load up around 300 new pages on our web site, all as easy-to-read, easy-to-understand articles ’patientspeak’ not ’doctorspeak’. Each will be a full-length feature on a cancer Everything you need to know about prostate, or breast, or lung, or colo-rectal etc etc. We’ve taken our information and our research from sources all over the world. You can cut out the causes, and build a treatment programme using the best of the best from orthodox to complementary. It’s a real jump into hyperspace for UK cancer patients.
Moving on Lindsey Fealey
But sadly we also have a problem. A casualty of the lack of payment system well she has worked long and hard for five years is that LINDSEY FEALEY, my cousin and our CEO is leaving us to work for a local hospice and be paid. Every reader and especially every person she has helped over the last 5 years owes her a huge debt of gratitude. The charity, the web site, the magazine, the Catherine Corners, the schools’ programme, the books, the icon information index, the speaking tours, in fact everything none of this would have been possible without Lindsey. She has been brilliant. No one could really appreciate the hours she has put in and her commitment. And so on your behalf, I say a very humungous THANK YOU.
Moving on the People’s Champion
So, where next? Next is the best, most patient-orientated information internet web site in the UK. After all we see ourselves very firmly as the Patients’ Champion.
And in three months time a Bumper edition of icon called ’5-year survival’ where we look at what we have learned over the last 5 years and are joined by a number of top professors and doctors doing the same. We will look at some cancer survivors too in a special ’Living Proof’ and we will be reviewing some of the latest information from around the world on the UK’s most common cancers. So make sure you always receive your personal icon and you never miss a story that just might help you beat cancer? Why not make a donation to the charity at ensure every copy is sent to you by post? (Click here to make a donation, now)
And we will be having our first real edition of the icon Information Index you may remember we did a trial index as a draft well it has been hugely popular. If you are a support group, Complementary Practitioner, Charity, Therapist, anything to do with cancer ARE YOU IN IT? You get one listing for free.
Moving on We need YOU
Most importantly, CAN YOU HELP US fulfill our aims of being the People’s Champion? We need open minded, bright helpers, with no bias or vested interests (only that of wanting to help people beat cancer? You might be able to edit a magazine, man a phone, organise the index, write articles, even fund raise, help fulfill postal ’orders’, help sort and write on the research we are sent. Who knows? We just need help we have grown so very fast.
This issue
This issue majors on Complementary Therapies there’s a complete guide to any and all that you might use, by our friends at the London HAVEN, from acupuncture to Indian Massage and more. Take copies pin it up. It covers the lot.
Then a guide to Diet Therapies that just can make a difference. Plus an article on Herbs and how turning them into drugs defeats the understanding of their real benefits to cancer patients. Just to show we don’t throw these magazines together, It’s only Natural looks at Hoxsey the ’Quack who beat cancer’ (using herbs).
Then there’s Living Proof about Interferon as a Therapy. Our second ’Cancer in the Community’ feature looks at the subject of ’Cancer in the Workplace’ and of course there is Cancer Watch where we include the latest research from around the globe including a feature on ’phones, masts and WiFi’. Who really believes they are completely safe? I personally don’t, and recent research says that two thirds of the public don’t either. When will the Government actually address our concerns?
Is that all? Now you can see why we need helpers, fast!
And to think, someone told me that we’d never have enough articles to keep us going for a year.
So, please sing along with me, ’Happy Birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear icon, happy birthday to us.’
Chris Woollams MA Oxon