Yep, it's surprising when you look at how effective non-pharmaceutical interventions are compared to pharmaceutical ones. Almost all diseases today are those of environment. Vitamins work not because they are some super-nutrients but because our diet are vitamin-deficient. And it's not just the vitamins that are needed, but vitamins in a certain ratios, and minerals too.
It's interesting that you mention the book A World Without Cancer. I've independently come to a similar conclusion but from my own line of reasoning. The body is made up of trillions of cells, each cell is a unit of life. Each cell is an organism in and of itself, but one that functions as part of a whole. There's what's effectively a contract with other cells: Provide me with nutrients and a healthy environment and I will perform my function. Like all life, these cells have a will to live. And when this ancient covenant is broken, when you lead an unhealthy lifestyle, the cells rebel and put their own survival ahead of the collective. They unshackle themselves from the rules they were bound to and reproduce without limit.
In the 1980s, MD Anderson performed basic research on vitamin cancer treatment and compared it with chemo. They found it was almost as effective, and that those provided did not suffer long term health issues and didn't destroy your immune system, as chemo is designed to do. Likewise they found vitamins as a compliment to all radiation provide superior short term and long term outcomes. Meaning any radiation treatment not accompanied with a vitamin protocol is not intended to provide an ideal outcome.
Shortly after this, they used the FDA to literally take hostages at gun point, attempt to outlaw vitamins, redefined "cured" for cancer, and came out with different chemo treatment protocols which were slightly more effective. They then began campaigning on the dangers of vitamins, with "education" campaigns.
This story leaked on the Houston Chronicle. The research was immediately halted, they were forced to retract their findings, and all researchers involved were threatened.
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