Can Bacteria Cause Cancer?: Alternative Medicine Confronts Big Science

Growing numbers of cancer patients are exploring diet, food supplements, herbs, and nontoxic immunotherapies such as bacterial vaccines as a means of therapy. Yet most cancer research organizations refuse to even evaluate these alternatives. Can Bacteria Cause Cancer? argues convincingly that unless these neglected alternative therapies are fairly tested and legalized, cancer may well affect one in two people by the twenty-first century. David J. Hess begins his investigation with one of the great medical mysteries of the twentieth century - the relationship between bacteria and chronic disease. Is it possible Hess asks, that bacteria can also contribute to the many other known causes of cancer? To answer this intriguing question, Hess takes us into the world of alternative cancer researchers. Maintaining that their work has been actively suppressed rather than simply dismissed, Hess examines their claims - that bacterial vaccines have led to some dramatic cases of long-term cancer remission - and the scientific potential of their theories. Economic interests and cultural values, he demonstrates, have influenced the rush toward radiation and chemotherapy and the current cul-de-sac of toxic treatments.