Chemotherapy, which uses toxic drugs, not only destroys cancer cells, it also attacks normal cells, including those of the bone marrow the foundation of the immune system and cells of the intestinal walls and hair follicles. Chemotherapy can drastic

Radiation is useful in slowing down certain cancers but rarely cures. It often causes significant damage and dysfunction in organs and tissues. Like chemotherapy, radiation can severely weaken the patient's immune system.

Surgery leaves cancerous cells behind in 25 per cent to 60 per cent of cancer patients, allowing malignant growth to recur, as numerous studies have shown. In disrupting the tumour, both surgery and surgical biopsy (a procedure to detect cancer in its early stages) may contribute to the spread of cancer.

Although conventional techniques have been successful in controlling early stages of cancer and relatively rare forms of the disease, these treatments do little to improve the outlook for most patients. On the contrary, "the possibility exists that treatment makes the average situation worse," according to the late Dr Hardin Jones, then professor at University of California, Berkeley, California.

After analyzing cancer survival statistics for several decades, Jones concluded in 1975 that "patients are as well, or better off untreated." Jones' disturbing assessment has never been refuted. Three studies by other researchers upheld his theory.

Orthodox doctors sometimes claim that all nonconventional cures are due to spontaneous remissions or the after effects of conventional therapies. This argument is untrue. Spontaneous remission may reverse cancer in 1 out of 10,000 cases.