Racing to a Cure: A Cancer Victim Refuses Chemotherapy and Finds Tomorrow's Cures in Today's Scientific Laboratories

by Neil Ruzic

Overview

Racing to a Cure is not a cancer memoir. It is a cancer cure memoir. In 1998 Neil Ruzic was diagnosed with mantle-cell lymphoma, the deadliest cancer of the lymph system, whose spread is reaching epidemic levels in the U.S. and Europe. Instead of following recommended courses of chemotherapy and radiation, he took control of his treatment by investigating cures being developed in the nation's cancer-research laboratories.

Although chemotherapy harms the immune system and is increasingly demonstrated to be an ineffective long-term cure for the vast majority of cancers, it remains the standard treatment for most cancer patients. Ruzic, a former scientific magazine publisher and originator of a science center, refused to accept this status quo, and instead plunged into the world of cutting-edge treatments, exploring the frontiers of cancer science with revolutionary results.

Ruzic went on the offensive: visiting scores of laboratories, gathering information, talking to researchers, and effectively becoming his own patient-care advocate. This book presents his findings. A scathing critique of the chemotherapy culture as well as unscientific "alternative" therapies, the book endorses state-of-the-art molecularly based technologies, making it an illuminating and necessary read for anyone interested in cancer research, especially patients and their families and physicians.

Neil Ruzic was expected to die within two years of his initial diagnosis. Five years later he has been declared cancer-free and considers himself cured.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252073571
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	03/07/2006
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Neil Ruzic (1930-2004) was the founder and former publisher of several worldwide scientific magazines, including Industrial Research and Oceanology International. He was the author of 250 articles and 11 books, including Where the Winds Sleep and The Shallow Sea.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
1.	Into the Pit	1
2.	Watch and Learn	12
3.	The Chemo Culture	23
4.	Life before Cancer	38
5.	Our War Within	51
6.	A Half-Billion for Proof	63
7.	The Language of Medicine	76
8.	Cancer Vaccines	88
9.	Premature Results	101
10.	Co-stimulating T Cells	110
11.	Do They Have to Die?	125
12.	Alternative Magic	139
13.	Allies in the Quest	154
14.	False Alarm	169
15.	Does Prayer Work?	184
16.	Project Indolence	195
17.	Cure Cancer in Ten Years	207
18.	Think Tanks	219
19.	Transplants: Risk vs. Cure	232
20.	Pathways to Success	245
21.	From India with Results	254
22.	Anti-angiogenesis	266
23.	The Mystery of Splenectomy	282
24.	The Strep Connection	294
25.	Patient Rage	307
26.	The Biotherapy Revolution	321
27.	Detour	332
28.	Cure!	352
	Acknowledgments	365
	Notes	367
	Glossary	401
	Index	409

Editorial Reviews

"In September 1998 publisher and scientific journalist Ruzic was diagnosed with mantle-cell lymphoma. . . . He faced a prognosticated further life-span of 18 months, and that would be made insufferable by side effects from the prescribed chemotherapy. . . . His scientific mind was certain that there were other, perhaps more effective and certainly less deadly treatment options, if one could find them. He made finding a cure for his cancer a full-time job. . . . He discovered that an abundance of biological therapies is being developed in the scientific, rather than the strictly medical arena, and he reports that those biotherapies and vaccines are proving highly effective for cancer treatment. His well-written memoir recounts a four-year odyssey that took him from splenectomy and diagnosis, through successfully ditching chemotherapy in favor of biotherapy, and to what he boldly calls a cure."—Booklist (starred review)

"[Ruzic] here chronicles his pursuit of a nontoxic cure for his mantle-cell lymphoma. No ordinary patient memoir, this book provides an intriguing glimpse into the world of cutting-edge cancer research from the perspective of a well-heeled, highly educated patient willing to challenge conventional medical wisdom. Instead of undergoing chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant, recommended by several oncologists despite poor survival rates, Ruzic visits cancer research laboratories around the country, attempting to enter clinical trials for new biotherapies such as monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Though eventually successful, he is hampered at every turn by aspects of what he terms the 'Chemo Culture,' oncologists who insist on toxic chemotherapy while ignoring newer, safer options and FDA regulations that require chemotherapy before a patient can enroll in clinical trials of new therapies. . . . His arguments are thought-provoking and deserve a wide audience. Recommended for academic, medical, public, and consumer health collections."—Library Journal

From the Publisher