Here's the transcript of the June 24, 2000 show:
I apologize, we missed the introduction, and the first few seconds of Bill's reply. We will try to see if we can get it later. Enjoy for now.
McPhee sometimes has trouble with words. For instance, instead of Gerson, she says something that sounds like Gershwin, the composer. There are a few places, where we just didn't know what was said, and you will see a few ...... there.
Bill O'Neill:.... patient treatment center, and we deliver a different kind
of cancer treatment. We deliver what we call patient based, evidence based
treatment and what this means to us is that we will diagnosis the very
unique clinical qualities of each cancer patient and we will develop
therapeutic protocols based on the very unique clinical presentation of each
patient.
CMP: So you can basically, people come to you with information and they,
they... you then do what with it?
Bill: Well what we do is that we practice a cancer diagnostic and cancer
treatment that is very different from conventional medicine. Conventional
medicine operates under the assumption that cancer is a proliferative
disease. And in fact, it's not, because we know over the past 70 years or so
we've been treating the disease as though it were a proliferative disease
and that is that these cells are wildly growing out of control. And over the
past 70 years in spite of our advancements or changes in approach we really
haven't effected the life time survival rate. It still hovers about seven
to nine percent.
But if we look at principals of clinical cancer and immunology and
orthomolecular medicine we begin to understand that the disease is not a
proliferative disease but rather an immune system disorder. And what we do
in our laboratory is we look at each patient to understand what their unique
clinical immunological disorder and once we understand what their immune
disorder is, then we can develop treatment to address the very specific
clinical needs of each unique patient. And what we found over the past
number of years is that the clinical outcome or the response rates or
survival rates have been improved dramatically.
CMP: So how do you mean you develop treatments. So what goes on? Are you a
facilitator to this? Are you a clinic?
Bill: We are a laboratory and a clinic. What we do in our laboratory is we
take tissue, blood and urine from these patients and we break it down and we
look at it at a molecular level. And our goal is to understand the very
unique biochemical and metabolic presentation of each patient and once we
understand this, once we understand what their chemical and metabolic
profile is, we will compare it to an optimal profile. And through that
comparison we are able to discern exactly what is right and what is wrong
with the patient and why they have a cancer.
Once we know that information then what we do in our laboratory, we will
build a therapeutic protocol that is designed to shift very specifically
the patient's biochemistry and metabolism back to the point where we know
that the patient will have the immunological competency to be parasitic on
these damaged or malignant cells.
CMP: Wow! So when you're putting together all your assessments, where do
people go from there? So your assessment is done, then what?
Bill: Then we develop the protocol. The protocol can be something as simple
as what we call an orthomolecular formula, and these formulas are designed
to address a very unique biochemical and metabolic needs of each patient.
Essentially what we build in our laboratory is all of the ingredients
required to shift their biochemistry from where it is to where it needs to
be and that can be delivered in the form of an oral medication or an IV.
Now some patients we find need more than that and we test to find out what
specifically they may need and we are able to deliver to patients very
specific forms of what are called immunotherapies or autologous
vaccinations.
Immunotherapy involves understanding first of all what's broken in the
patient's immune system and then fixing it. Fixing that that's broken by
dosing very specific proteins or cytokines to amplify or augment their
immune system.
Vaccines are a little different. Vaccines involve taking some of the
patient's cell line and we culture this in our laboratory and we pull off
their actual cancer cells ñ their own unique cancer, what's called an
antigen. It's somewhat like an antibody and we re-inject this antigen back
into them while we simultaneously inject some proteins as well and we've
been doing this for a variety of different cancers for the past five years
or so. And our response as an example for very advanced cancers is two and a
half times the national average through surgery, radiotherapy and
chemotherapy.
CMP: Well that's good news.
Bill: Yeah, it is. It's very good news to us. The other very fascinating
thing that we're learning through all of this is that cancer treatment does
not have to be toxic.
Our approaches are all natural and we use natural drugs. We also use
prescription drugs, but we have in our laboratory the ability to titrate
drugs, and what this means is we're able to dose and cycle drugs so that
they don't cause adverse reactions or side effects. So, that's another very
fascinating aspect of this type of cancer treatment because we've been kind
of socialized to expect that when someone has cancer they're bald or
they're very sick or they're vomiting all the time and that simply doesn't
have to be the case anymore.
CMP: Now, is something like this affordable?
Bill: Well, it's uhm, that's a really good question. One of the very big
problems in our socialized health care system which is ..........is
not only the state that it is in, but the fact that it's such a huge burden
on the system and that it takes an enormous amount of effort and time to
make changes.
We're essentially outside the system and we're able to take what are
considered the leading edge approaches in cancer diagnostic and treatment
and to deliver it to the healthcare consumer immediately. What that means
to them is that it essentially isn't covered by Provincial formularies such
as OHIP in this Province and what it does mean is that they do have to pay
for it out of pocket. Now about 50 per cent of the patients that we work
with have private health care. The private health care insurer will cover
the treatments and the treatment cost to a patient can be anywhere from
about $10,000 to $20,000 over a period of about 12 months.
CMP: Wow! We've got joining me in the studio, is Dr. Mohamed Khaled.
Mohamed, have you got a question at all for Bill O'Neill?
MK: Hi Mr. O'Neill.
Bill: Hi Dr. Khaled.
MK: Gee, it sounds pretty technical. I wonder, for our listening audience,
can you give us an idea of what exactly you're describing other than
immunotherapy? We understand about cancer and the variety of different
causes it has, but please tell us what kind of cancer this might work better
for than others and what kind of experiences the patient will have there.
Because it sounds like what you're doing as I understand it is immunotherapy
directed at specific cancers which may work for some but not other cancers.
Bill: Well, that's a good question. What we're learning through sort of
like a conventional delivery system right now is that the way that we
approach the disease is essentially not working. And if we look at some
detail in that approach we find everything from the treatment itself through
to the way that we stage or class it simply is not working. For example, we
may have someone with a particular type of cancer, say breast cancer, and
they have a very advanced stage of the cancer and they do quite well through
a variety of different treatments, but the overall survival rate may be
three or four percent for that particular cancer. So, the question that
begs to be asked is are we staging this disease properly and are we calling
it the right thing?
MK: So how do you do that differently?
Bill: Well, how we do it differently is we don't necessarily focus in on the
tumour. We focus in on why does the patient have the cancer and our research
has demonstrated, as have a variety of other proponents internationally,
demonstrated that there are essentially two types of cancer. There are what
are called immunogenic cancers and anogenic cancers.
Immunogenic simply means that the patient's body recognized the damaged
cells but it didn't have the requisite ability to underwrite some form
of immunological response in managing it. Now, an anogenic cancer is a
cancer where the patient has the requisite ability to immunologically manage
the cancer but didn't have the necessary ability to recognize or distinguish
the cancer cells from the normal cells and our assays in our lab, we've
developed a whole variety of assays that allow us to distinguish between
these two types of cancers.
MK: So you not focusing so much on colon versus breast, or lymphoma, you're
working at the chemical marker that's within the cancer and how the cancer
seems to relate to the body?
Bill: That's essentially it. We know that we all have malignant cells in us
all the time and we know that all species with few exceptions are born with
the requisite DNA-scripted biochemistry and metabolic competency to be
parasitic upon these damaged cells. And when a host organism, when a patient
loses their biochemistry or their metabolic competency there's a chance that
these cells could grow into clusters or tumours.
So what we do in our lab, first of all when we diagnose a patient, we will
do what we call the orthomolecular profile. We'll look at their
biochemistry and we'll look at their metabolism at a molecular level. And
once we have the patient's blueprint in front of us, we'll reference their
blueprint to an optimal human blueprint that has the requisite biochemical
and metabolic competency to be parasitic.
MK: So, let me ask you a question about that if you don't mind. I've seen
similar approaches before where people have, you know, pages full of
multiple chemicals and so on, and say I'm here I should be here. What if
you've got the optimal chemical profile, how do you know what the right
amount of sodium is for a cancer patient? What's the right amount of
magnesium or zinc or cadmium, and how do you know that's scientific and how
do you know that relates to the lady or the person you see in front of you?
Bill: Well, I know this from two perspectives. First of all, one is the
prerequisite to our data was massing a variety of international data on
human biochemistry and human metabolism and we developed a very extensive
database on this information and these measures. And what we now know,
retrospectively, on the basis of reviewing hundreds and hundreds of patients
we've treated since 1993, is that in fact, this approach is working.
So, you know, we're not suggesting necessarily that this is the cure for
cancer because our goal is not to cure cancer. Our goal is to find out what
anomalies might exist within a patient that,that might represent some
keyholes from which we can build keys in our laboratory.
So, if, uh, you know, we've got a handful of people. For example, we do
very well with prostate cancer and simply by, by taking that patient's blood
and tumour, and urine to our laboratory and doing the runs on molecular
profile, and we have such a large number of prostate cancer patients who are
in what conventional physicians would characterize as a remission, we
characterize as having the biochemical and metabolic competency to be
parasite on the damaged or malignant cells.
So, it's, it's a tough question to answer in the sense that there, you know,
we,we expect that there is some empirical or mutable data out there. That's
not necessarily the case. We're constantly evolving our understanding and,
and our data and uh, like anything else in today's world it's a very dynamic
and fast paced process. We're constantly updating our databases and
gleaning a clearer, a clearer understanding of all these measures.
CMP: With cancer striking thousands of North Americans each year, you know
it's frightening and I want to be able to talk with Bill McNeill and Dr.
Mohamed Khaled on diet and some of the other solutions on why we've reached
the epidemic proportions that we have. I'm Christine McPhee with The Touch
of Health, don't go away.
CMP: With prevention, staying healthy is primary but you know what? For
those that are patient responsible and taking control, you know, cancer may
be not quite the ________ as it is and it won't be as frustrating and it
won't be as confusing and maybe most of us won't feel as guilty.
Bill, I want to get talking with you as well as Mohamed with my last
question. Diet being an important part, uh, what would be.... there's so
many theories out there, the raw food juicing, there's the Gershwin, there's
the Brouse(?)uh, to be able to eliminate any eating whatever for 40 days.
What do you recommend?
Bill: Well uh food is obviously important and uh,understanding one's
nutritional status and acting on it is critical. I think that there's uh a
predisposition, unfortunately, to a variety of different fads, particularly
associated with the field that we specialize in, cancer. There's a lot of
foods out there that get a uh very significant bad rap, not because of the
food themselves but because of the way they're processed.
Our food chain is essentially extremely polluted. Extremely polluted now
are genetically modified food that in many cases is entirely inconsistent to
life and is, uh has not been tested and it's effects are unknown.
I think that uh the other factor to consider is in the past 100 years, the
amount of exposure that has been compressed, and by exposure I mean toxic
insults and chemistry, organic and otherwise,uh has been compressed and uh
we've been confronted with an enormous uh adaptation challenge.
The human body is amazing. It can adapt, but the degree and extent of
exposure over the past 100 years has been such that our bodies have simply
not been able to adapt. For example, we know that higher levels of
antioxidants would be beneficial to all of us and uh we we simply don't have
high enough blood and tissues levels of these. We know that various
different types of blood chemistry have very different needs, biochemical
needs, and so you know for example, uh uh.
CMP: Okay so blood typing is pretty much how you focus in to be able to give
a diet recommendation. Mohamed, how do you feel, like the variety that's
out there. If somebody on cancer....raw food, eating protein, no meat. What
kind of solution? Where do you go?
MK: Well Christine, it would be nice if I could say here's a solution to
cancer. Here's our diet. But what we do at our clinic and I think it's,
there again, very individualized, is tell people to eat well. Eat healthy
food, fresh fruit and vegetables. Stay away from all the processed food that
comes out of a can, out of a box, out of a paper bag that you buy from a
restaurant and try to eat healthy whole foods. And that's really a very good
way to lead your life and help prevent cancers from occurring and help fight
the cancers that you have.
I think supplemental nutrition is very important because there is not a
situation where you just want to stay well. You have to have as much
energy, as many nutrients, as many antioxidants as you can to fight the
battle. So we like to supplement our cancer patients and we like to use a
lot of good healthy, whole food. That's what I say.
CMP: Bill, let's talk about quickly exercise. Do you encourage that? Is
there types of exercise? Intake of oxygen is so vital. Cancer does not live
in an oxidatative environment, you know. Do you recommend a lot of that? Do
you, you know, ummh?
Bill: Yeah. These are factors. We will. When you do an overall assessment
of the patient upon intake, we we will look at all of these factors,
lifestyle, stress, exercise, nutrition, spiritual and emotional status. We,
we'lllook at the entire ecosystem and we'll work with the patient in
developing and designing a protocol that doesn't include just the medical
part.
But well you know, we look at things like stress in one's lifestyle too, and
you know the amount of exercise one's getting to relieve that stress and
we'll develop a therapeutic protocol that will address uh all of these
factors, you know whether it's financial or physical or emotional or
spiritual or medical.
And so you know there's so many components. And you know, we know that
moderation is the key but we also know that in today's very complex society,
sometimes moderation is difficult and so we'll look to,uh you know,
facilitating some moderate to aggressive approach with each patient.
CMP: So, everyone being an individual, and Mohamed how do you feel about
that?
MK: You know it's very interesting what he has to say because I think that's
a very good approach. At our clinic we have a variety of different
practitioner's who look at the patient. We look at the patient from their
mental health, to their spiritual health. We look at the patient's uh
physical and exercise needs. We look at the patient's nutritional needs.
CMP: How do you do that? Do you do that by an assessment? What?
MK: I'll tell you what we do. When people come in for an assessment they
see myself. They see another lady that I work with named Gabriele Sutton,
whose an integrative medicine consultant. They'll see another doctor that we
work with who's a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. We put together a
program for the patient which may involve diet, nutrition,um, homeopathy.
Then we give them to the other practitioners that work within our clinic and
we work on the patient as a team.
So it is really a team-based clinic and we have homeopaths. We have
aromatherapists. We have stress management, people to help you with
medication, with exercise, as well as myself as the medical doctor and the
other practitioners working together to provide for the patient.
CMP: Hearing all this and someone getting involved,um, you know the
alternative medicine way could be a full time job, a full time job, cause
you've got to see this person and then that person.
MK: Well you know, I think the goal is to let patients become independent.
Let patients live their life well and to stay away from what you're
referring to really which is sort of the uh victimization of the patient,
so the patient really has to spend all of their life dealing with their
illnesses. We don't want that. We want patients to get out there and live
their life. Feel independent. Be happy. Do as much as they can outside of
our clinic. But patients sometimes need support when they have cancer. They
have to deal with their cancer and that's what we're there for. But really
the whole idea is let patient's live their life and not spend their time
being patients or being sick.
Bill: Well, if I might intervene, I have to agree entirely with you
Mohamed. I think that uh uh often times we need the contrast of black to
see white, and uh I'm referring specifically to our approaches, not
necessarily clinically but sociologically in our regional cancer centers
across Canada. And uh I, I get many patients who have, in the cancer center,
who have failed the treatment, patients who are in a very advanced state and
they come through the door here.
One of the very first things that we know which is fundamentally critical is
that they are hopeless and desperate and they've been significantly severely
injured on a physiological as well as a psychological level.
CMP: You know what? We have to be able to go. And where can someone reach
you Bill?
Bill: In Ottawa, it's 613-239-0220.
CMP: Thank you very much. And Mohamed in your clinic in Waterdown, where
can they reach you?
MK: They can call my office. It's 905-333-4936, and we'll set them up for an
assessment.
CMP:Thank you very much for everyone from the same attitude, hope and
motivation and don't go away we'll be right back.
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