Are Americans Overtreated to Death

Continued from Yesterday

"We use sports metaphors and war metaphors all the time. We talk about never giving up and it's not over till the fat lady sings .... glorifying people who fought to their very last breath," when instead we should be helping them accept death as an inevitable part of life, he said.

This is especially true when deciding whether to try one of the newer, extremely expensive cancer drugs such as Avastin, Erbitux and Tarceva. Some are touted as "improving survival by 30 or 50 percent" when that actually might mean living three weeks or months longer instead of two.

"It's amazing how little benefit those studies show," Storey said, referring to research on the new drugs.

Dan Waeger tried just about all of them. A nonsmoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 22, and pursued treatment after treatment before dying nearly four years later, in March 2009.

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/333/8896/1369875.html

http://www.depsyl.com/

http://back2basicnutrition.com/

http://bionutritionalresearch.olhblogspace.com/