Beyond the Magic Bullet: The Anti-Cancer Cocktail

by Raymond Chang

While scientists win occasional skirmishes in the battle against cancer, the overall war continues to go badly. Stories abound about revolutionary drugs that may be available in the future, but offer no real help to those who have cancer today. At present, conventional approaches continue to rely on a narrowly focused strategy of treatments, with doctors using, at best, only one or two drugs or other therapies at a time. While this may be acceptable in a laboratory setting or a clinical trial, it has done little to diminish the number of people who die each year from this dread disease. Recently, however, conventional medicine s core strategy has been re-examined, and a new, potentially more effective approach has emerged one that combines the best of Eastern wisdom with Western science. Beyond the Magic Bullet The Anti-Cancer Cocktail by Dr. Raymond Chang takes a penetrating look at this bold new way of treating cancer.

The book begins by examining modern medicine s use of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and targeted drugs in the war against cancer. It then offers a new therapy based on the knowledge that certain off-label drugs, nutrients, and therapies are each somewhat effective against cancer. By combining these therapeutic agents into a cocktail, doctors have found that they can attack the cancer all at once, on many different levels and at several different angles, with the goal of overwhelming the disease. Dr. Chang not only discusses the effectiveness of the cocktail, but also provides an examination of the most valuable agents available. For over a thousand years, Traditional Chinese Medicine has used the cocktail approach to safely and effectively fight disease. Throughout the world, the most successful treatments for HIV and Hepatitis C are based on this strategy. "Beyond the Magic Bullet The Anti-Cancer Cocktail "leads the way to a bright new future of hope and healing. "

208 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2011

About the author

Raymond Chang was an emeritus professor at Williams College in the Department of Chemistry and a textbook author. His most popular textbook was titled Chemistry, which was published up to the thirteenth edition. He also published a few children's books.
He was a naturalized American citizen who came from Hong Kong to America to start graduate studies at Yale University. There he received both his master's and PhD degrees. His family was originally from Shanghai, but Chang was born in Hong Kong as a result of his family's deportation in 1937. They left to escape the Japanese invasion of China. However, in 1941, Chang and his family returned to Shanghai for eight years before they again re-returned to Hong Kong. As a result of his forced movement through different regions of China Chang became fluent in many Chinese dialects. At the age of seventeen, Chang followed his sister to London. He received his B.Sc. with a first-class honors degree in chemistry from the University of London and Ph. D. from Yale University. He completed his postdoctoral research at Washington University in St. Louis and served as a professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York, prior to joining the faculty at Williams College in 1968.
On August 3, 1968, he married Margaret A. Scrogin. They had one daughter, Elizabeth Chang.

Reviews

[Am Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

The message of this book is very simple: treat cancer with a multitude of different drugs, herbs, supplements, and conventional treatments. E.g. chemo might be supplemented with other pharmaceutical medicines and/or foods/herbs. While it does provide general advice for some cancers, it doesn't cover all of them. So what if, like my husband, you have a gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST)? There was close to nothing in this book specific to sarcomas (which is what a GIST is) and how to treat them. The book mainly focused on more common cancers (namely carcinomas, lymphomas, etc) like breast, lung, leukaemia, etc. And even then the advice was very generalised, always coming back to: no matter what cancer you have, the best option is to opt for a variety of treatment methods, so that the cancer is attacked from many different angles.

[Mary Karpel-Jergic · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and informative account of a developing approach to treating cancer which looks exceptionally promising but is hindered because of its positioning outside the traditional medical science paradigm. Written by a medical professional (who I saw on a documentary about curing a brain cancer - named the terminator - through a cocktail approach) for a lay audience the book offers an exciting glimpse into a better understanding of cancer.

The lack of progress with developing better treatments for cancer (unlike the progress seen for HIV) is depressing to say the least. That there may be viable options for people in the last-chance saloon that could save or extend a life, but which are neglected because of a deep rooted attachment to a medical model best suited to infectious disease, is despair inducing.

Raymond Chang's articulate response to this situation is but a small voice in the ocean of traditional medical practice but I hope it will be heard and that others will join in before more lives are lost to a disease which has political and medical issues hidden at the core of its treatment.

I'm surprised that Linseed oil wasn't mentioned.

[Erlend · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way to simple and inadequate referencing makes the read more suggestive.