Here it is: watch.sovrintv.com

That’s the announcement. If you’d rather close this email and go and watch the film right now, please do. The rest of this will still be here afterwards. However, I would strongly urge you to read the description below at some point as I do think it helps to put the film into it’s proper context.

It also explains why it’s free, who’s in it, and what I’d like you to do once you’ve seen it.

Why it’s free

Beyond Breakthrough was made without a single pound of corporate or pharmaceutical money. There was no broadcaster, no studio, no distributor with notes. There were people on this list who read a post asking for help and sent something. Some of you sent a lot. Some of you sent what you could spare and apologised for it, which you shouldn’t have.

Below, there is a comment about the fact that this subject affects us all. Putting a paywall in front of this particular film would restrict the important information it contains.

So there’s no charge. You’ll be asked for an email address to activate the film. That’s so I can tell new followers when the next film lands. Your details don’t go to anyone else. There’s a contribution button on the page for anyone who wants to help pay for the next film. It’s entirely optional and the film plays whether you touch it or not.

What the film is actually about

In 1971 Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and declared a war on cancer. Something in the region of half a trillion dollars has gone into that war since.

Ask what we bought with it and the answer is uncomfortable. Prof. Paul Marik puts the figure in the film at roughly 3.4 months - that’s the average extension of life from cancer chemotherapy or immunotherapy. The real gains we’ve made in cancer mortality have come mostly from prevention, screening, and the dramatic reduction in the number of people smoking. Meanwhile incidence keeps climbing. The WHO projects 35 million new cases a year by 2050, a 77% rise on 2022.

And the doctors in this film are seeing something that doesn’t show up in a statistical table. Stage four at diagnosis, with no lump and no warning first. In forty-year-olds. In both parents of the same young family. Every clinician I interviewed said some version of the same sentence: this did not used to happen.

The film asks whether we have been searching in the wrong direction. For fifty years the money has followed the somatic mutation theory which says that cancer as a genetic accident and the hope has been for a single silver bullet to end it. The contributors in the film argue that cancer isn’t one disease with one switch. It’s a systemic condition shaped by metabolism, environment, immunity, emotional state and cellular structure, and that the science pointing this way isn’t fringe. Much of it is old, published, and in several cases attached to Nobel Prizes. Otto Warburg on cancer metabolism. John Beard on the trophoblast. Gilbert Ling on water inside the cell. Björn Nordenström was a man who chaired the Nobel Assembly and he conducted experiments that involved putting an electrical charge into a tumour. Nordenström’s work now being somewhat collaborated by Professor Gerald Pollack at the University of Washington.

All of this information has simply been left on the shelf until now.

I also want to be clear about what the film is not arguing, because it could be misrepresented. Nobody in the film tells you to refuse treatment. Nobody in it says chemotherapy has no place at all within the currently available options. The senior gynae-oncologist in the film still operates and still prescribes chemotherapy and radiotherapy where he judges it appropriate. Another doctor believes that for early-stage disease, conventional treatment works well. The argument is not instead of. It’s as well as. And the scandal, as they see it, is that patients are rarely told the as well as exists at all.

The nine people who sat down

I want to say something about the contributors. These portraits draw on the full interviews rather than only what survived the edit. A film has to stay a reasonable length, and a great deal of good material if often not included in the main film.

None of the interviewees are professional contrarians. Almost all of them spent twenty-five, thirty, forty years inside conventional medicine, doing exactly what they were trained to do and believing in it. They changed their minds late, usually because of one patient, and in several cases that patient was a member of their own family. Changing your mind in public, in medicine, costs you something. Every one of them knew that before they agreed to be filmed.

Dr. Vijaendreh Subramaniam, consultant gynae-oncologist. For twenty-five years, in his own words, a very good servant of the conventional medical system, and at the cutting edge of it. In 2011 his 72-year-old aunt was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer and turned down everything he had to offer her. So he brought her to live with him and treated her another way: nutritional therapy, high-dose vitamin C, ozone. Over nine months an eight-centimetre ulcerated growth with severe lymphoedema resolved down to a two-centimetre superficial ulcer, which was then excised. She lived another nine years, cancer-free, and died of a cardiac condition. What shocked him afterwards wasn’t that it had worked. It was going into the literature and finding Nobel-prize-winning science underneath it and realising that in five years of medical school and a quarter century of practice, talking to some of the most renowned cancer experts in the world, not one person had ever mentioned any of it to him.

Prof. Gerald Pollack, University of Washington. He was studying muscle contraction, productively and happily, when a colleague he was driving home from the airport told him about a conference in Hungary. At that conference he heard the cell physiologist Gilbert Ling argue that the water inside our cells is not ordinary liquid water. Pollack went home with his head spinning, gave Ling’s book to his best students, and asked them to tell him he was being taken in. They came back and said: the idea is amazing, and if he’s right, everybody else is wrong. He changed his entire research career on the strength of it because, as he says, it’s one thing to know how muscles contract and another thing to know how biology works. His lab went on to identify and name a fourth phase of water. In this film, for the first time in a documentary, he sets out what that means for cancer - that a healthy cell holds a strong negative charge, that the charge comes from structured water built on the surfaces of the cell’s own molecules, that carcinogens damage those surfaces, and that when the structure and the charge go, nothing is left to tell the cell to stop dividing.

Prof. Paul Marik, critical care physician, formerly tenured professor and chief of pulmonary critical care at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and one of the most published intensivists alive. He went looking into non-conventional cancer therapy expecting thin gruel, anecdote, hearsay, not much underneath it, but found the opposite. His monograph on cancer care now runs to around 1,600 peer-reviewed references. He made it a free download. His reasoning is disarmingly simple - patients should be told the truth, given the options, and allowed to weigh the risks themselves. At the moment, he says, that information is largely shielded from them. Prof Marik’s monograph is a highly recommended accompaniment to this film.

Dr. Shankara Chetty, natural science biologist and general practitioner, twenty years-plus in Port Edward, a small coastal town in South Africa surrounded by rural villages, forty kilometres from the nearest hospital. Being that far from everything meant he had to do everything, which is where his integrative approach came from. He’s been accused of prescribing medications from Noah’s Ark, a charge he rather enjoys since he’d sooner use an old drug whose side-effect profile he knows cold than a new one whose trials he doesn’t trust. He’s also the one who asks the question that stayed with me longest through the edit. Are we prolonging a patient’s life, or are we prolonging their death?

Dr. Lenny Da Costa, west coast of India, practising functional medicine since 2002. He got there because his mother had two heart attacks and a completely clean angiogram, and he couldn’t explain it. That sent him into a body of physiology and biochemistry he says the clinical establishment simply doesn’t look at. Tens of thousands of patients later he’s reversing heart disease and diabetes, and supervising cancer treatment for patients hundreds of kilometres away. He has never advertised in twenty-five years - people have to come looking. And this year, for the first time in his career, an oncologist asked to work alongside him on a patient, running chemotherapy while Da Costa supervised everything else. He talks about that collaboration with real delight. One, in twenty-five years.

Dr. Paramjit Kaur, Malaysia, and president of MAAFIM, the Malaysian Association for the Advancement of Functional and Interdisciplinary Medicine, which she helped found in 2019 to give doctors working this way an umbrella to stand under. She has been practising close to forty years. Her turning point came in private practice, when she looked honestly at what she was doing and didn’t like it - patients arriving on one drug, coming back for a second, then a third, none of them getting better, all of them ageing in front of her. She describes it, without flinching, as drug-pushing. So she went out and re-educated herself. She says you don’t just want to be a doctor, you want to be a healer, and that means coming out of the box you were trained in.

Prof. Adlina Suleiman, public health physician, in practice since 1985 and in academic life for thirty years, teaching medical students and postgraduates. She is also, herself, a cancer patient. She says two things in this film that I keep returning to. The first is about teaching: she is not permitted to put this material in front of her students, and she asks, plainly, how many people have died because of that. She calls it a crime and includes herself in the indictment. The second is more unusual, and braver. Her own mistake, she says, was going entirely away from conventional medicine. She had the surgery, refused the chemotherapy and the radiotherapy, went fully alternative and had a recurrence. She learned Reiki, qigong, saw a psychologist, and still couldn’t get her stress under control, because family and money and work don’t stop. Her conclusion is that the answer was to combine conventional and complementary, and that nobody ever told her the stress mattered as much as the tumour.

Dr. Taufiq Binjemain, qualified in Leeds, UK in 2000, trained as an orthopaedic surgeon, moved into family medicine, and is now on the Gold Coast in Australia . He is, in some ways, the most optimistic voice in the film about mainstream oncology. He cites the rectal cancer immunotherapy trial where eighteen out of eighteen patients had a complete response and none had relapsed two years on. No surgery, no chemotherapy, no radiation. He says CAR-T cell therapy is achieving success rates in the high nineties in some blood cancers. He is clear that for early-stage disease, cut it out and treat it, and most patients do fine. His challenge is aimed at stage four cancer, where he says the results genuinely have not moved in fifty years and at the theory underneath it, because if your account of what triggered the cancer is wrong, everything downstream of it will be wrong too.

Dr. Benjamin George, consultant plastic surgeon in Malaysia, working across stem cells, NK cells, exosomes and genomic sequencing, and the founding secretary of MAAFIM. He is in some ways the most candid about the cost of the journey into integrative care. He estimates the proportion of doctors interested in this approach is very small, and he’s honest about why. The learning curve is brutal, the biochemistry goes far deeper than anything in medical school, and stepping outside the mainstream protocol takes a leap of faith that most people, quite understandably, will not take.

Now the ask

One in two men and one in three women will develop cancer at some point in their lives.

Read that again, and then think about the actual people in your life. That statistic is not about a population. It’s about your brother. Your mother. The woman you sit next to. You.

There is no version of the future in which this subject doesn’t reach you. Either you’ll be the one sitting in the chair while someone explains your options, or you’ll be sitting next to someone you love while they hear it. And the thing that determines what happens next is, more often than not, simply what you happen to know at that moment. Not what’s true. Not what’s published. What you happen to know, that day, in that room.

That’s the whole reason to share the film.

So here’s what I’d like you to do. When you’ve watched it, send it to five people.

And when you send it, a small piece of practical advice: don’t oversell it. Don’t frame it as a conspiracy. Frame it as what it is. A documentary about combining conventional and complementary medicine, with nine doctors in it. Each with their own interesting story and one of them is a professor of public health who has cancer herself.

Post it. Forward this email. Put it in a group chat. Mention it to your GP, if you have the kind of GP you can mention things to. Send it to someone who is in the middle of it right now, if you know how to do that gently. Several of the contributors would tell you the most valuable thing a newly-diagnosed patient can be handed is the knowledge that there are more options on the table than the three they’ve been offered.

The practical bits

Watch it here: watch.sovrintv.com

Eighty-six minutes. It plays in the browser, on a phone, a tablet or a decent-sized screen, and if you have the option, use the decent-sized screen. There’s an email box at the door and that’s the only thing standing between you and the film.

If it turns out to be worth something to you, there’s a contribution button on the page. That’s what pays for the next one. It’s optional in the real sense of the word.

Also, please share your thoughts below about the film.

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There is much work to do if we want to get back a more appropriate medical system that is based on the needs of the patient rather than the commercial interests and prestige of doctors. However, the more patients that raise these issues with their doctor and the more patients that do their own research, the closer we get to the solution.

I hope that you have found this film useful.

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By this stage in the documentary, we have moved beyond the historical origins of modern medicine and the structural problems that shape healthcare today.

One of the most striking themes to emerge from the interviews in this chapter is that many of the proposed solutions are neither experimental nor particularly complicated. They often involve addressing the fundamental drivers of chronic disease rather than simply treating its consequences. Yet these approaches frequently remain at the margins of conventional practice.

Take type 2 diabetes as an example. For decades it has largely been regarded as a chronic, progressive disease requiring lifelong management with medication. The experience of doctors such as Dr David Unwin challenges that assumption. By helping patients make substantial dietary changes, many have been able to achieve drug-free remission while simultaneously improving weight, blood pressure, liver function and overall wellbeing. The significance of these results extends beyond diabetes itself. They demonstrate that, at least for some chronic conditions, the trajectory of disease may be more reversible than has traditionally been assumed.

This naturally raises another question. If lifestyle interventions can produce such impressive outcomes, why are they not more widely implemented?

Nutrition illustrates this challenge particularly well. Few doctors understand the extent to which food influences health. A ridiculous situation in itself, but even if doctors did understand this, they would not have the confidence to use dietary interventions as a therapeutic tool. At the same time, patients are surrounded by decades of marketing that has normalised the regular consumption of highly processed foods and sugar-rich products. The result is an environment in which unhealthy choices are often the easiest, cheapest and most heavily promoted options.

The remarkable rise in type 2 diabetes over recent decades cannot reasonably be explained by genetics alone. Human genetics simply do not change at that pace. The far more plausible explanation is that profound changes have occurred in our food environment, our lifestyles and our patterns of physical activity. If this is true, then preventing chronic disease requires more than better medications. It requires addressing the environmental and behavioural factors that contributed to the epidemic in the first place.

Should medication always represent the first and primary response, particularly for conditions that are strongly influenced by diet and lifestyle? If the underlying causes remain unchanged, patients may simply require increasing numbers of medications to manage progressively worsening disease.

Another recurring theme throughout this chapter is the difference between managing illness and creating health. Controlling biomarkers is not the same as restoring health. The ultimate goal should surely be to help as many people as possible avoid chronic disease altogether or, where possible, to reverse it rather than merely slow its progression.

Perhaps the most important lesson from this chapter is that many of the opportunities to improve health already exist. Better nutrition, increased physical activity, improved sleep, stress reduction and other lifestyle interventions are neither glamorous nor commercially lucrative. They rarely make headlines in the way that new drugs or breakthrough technologies do.

The challenge, therefore, may not be a lack of scientific knowledge but a question of priorities. If healthcare systems devoted the same energy to creating health as they currently devote to treating disease, the impact could be profound - not only for patients but also for healthcare budgets and society as a whole. As well as the moral and job satisfaction of doctors.

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This reductionism has achieved notable successes. It has enabled scientists to identify bacteria as the cause of infectious diseases, discover antibiotics, isolate hormones such as insulin, unravel the structure of DNA and develop some life-saving medicines and surgical techniques.

The question explored in this documentary is not whether reductionism has been valuable but whether it is sufficient for understanding the complex chronic diseases that increasingly dominate modern healthcare.

Chronic Disease Doesn’t Have One Broken Part

Unlike an infectious disease caused by a single bacterium or virus, chronic illnesses rarely have a single identifiable cause. Conditions such as cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, obesity, depression and many forms of cancer develop over years or decades through the interaction of genetics, nutrition, environmental exposures, chronic stress, sleep, physical activity, social circumstances and countless other factors. These conditions do not exist in isolation. They emerge from an intricate network of biological systems that constantly influence one another.

This interconnectedness is often more obvious to patients than it is to many doctors. Someone suffering from eczema may also have asthma and digestive problems. Another patient may experience chronic fatigue alongside autoimmune disease, migraines and anxiety. To the individual living with these symptoms, they often feel like different expressions of the same underlying problem. Yet modern medicine frequently divides them into separate specialties, each examining only one part of the picture.

Doctors Become an Expert in One Piece of the Puzzle

A cardiologist understands the heart in some detail. A neurologist possesses knowledge of the nervous system. A gastroenterologist can diagnose conditions affecting digestion. The challenge is that the human body does not divide itself into specialties. Every organ communicates continuously with every other through hormones, immune signalling, the nervous system and metabolism. The body’s systems operate as an integrated whole, even if healthcare is organised into separate departments.

This creates an important question. As medicine becomes increasingly specialised, who is responsible for understanding the patient as a whole?

Why Modern Doctors Often Have No Choice

The pressure placed upon general practitioners makes this question even more difficult to answer. Family doctors today are expected to diagnose an extraordinary range of illnesses, manage increasing numbers of patients, navigate complex administrative systems and follow expanding clinical guidelines, often within consultations lasting only a few minutes. Most entered medicine because they genuinely wanted to help people. Yet the structure of modern healthcare often leaves little opportunity to explore why someone has become ill. Instead, consultations naturally become focused on identifying the most urgent symptoms, assigning a diagnosis and determining the next intervention.

This is largely a consequence of how the system has evolved. Under immense time pressure, treating symptoms becomes far more practical than investigating several possible contributing factors. Patients themselves often expect to leave with a prescription or an immediate solution. Both doctor and patient therefore become participants in a system designed to deliver rapid interventions rather than investigations into root causes.

Treating Symptoms and Understanding Causes?

Symptoms do need to be treated. Pain should be treated. Breathlessness deserves immediate attention. High blood pressure often requires urgent management. Symptom relief is one of medicine’s greatest achievements. The challenge arises when relieving symptoms becomes the endpoint rather than the beginning of a deeper investigation.

Many modern diagnoses illustrate this dilemma. Irritable bowel syndrome describes a collection of digestive symptoms rather than a single disease with a clearly understood cause. Chronic fatigue syndrome describes persistent exhaustion. Fibromyalgia describes widespread pain. These diagnostic labels can be clinically useful because they allow doctors and researchers to communicate consistently. However, naming a condition is not necessarily the same as explaining why it developed. For many patients, receiving a diagnosis marks the beginning of another question rather than the end of the journey.

The Growing Problem of Polypharmacy

One consequence of this approach is the growing problem of polypharmacy - the use of multiple medications by a single patient. As people age, they frequently accumulate prescriptions written by different medical specialists. A medication may be prescribed to treat high blood pressure, another for diabetes, another for acid reflux, another for arthritis, another for insomnia and another to manage the side effects of previous medications. Each prescription may be individually justified. Collectively, however, they create increasingly complex combinations that can produce unintended consequences.

This has become such an important issue that deprescribing has emerged as an entire field of medicine dedicated to safely reducing unnecessary medications. Researchers increasingly recognise that medication reviews are just as important as prescribing decisions. In many healthcare systems, polypharmacy is now viewed as one of the defining challenges of caring for older adults with multiple chronic conditions.

Are We Rewarding Prevention or Treatment?

The issue extends beyond medication itself. It raises broader questions about how healthcare incentives are structured. Modern medicine excels at bringing new pharmaceuticals to the market. Yet many of the factors known to influence long-term health are far more difficult to package into standardised interventions. They require time, education and sustained behavioural change rather than a single prescription.

This does not mean that medicines are unimportant. Some drugs do save lives every day. The issue is whether healthcare systems devote comparable attention to preventing disease as they do to treating it after it has already developed.

Prevention should also be based on a systems approach. Medicating millions of healthy people with cholesterol-lowering drugs is certainly not the answer.

When Commercial Interests Enter Healthcare

Another theme explored in this documentary concerns the influence of commercial incentives within medicine. Pharmaceutical companies are commercial organisations with legal obligations to generate returns for shareholders.

History shows that pharmaceutical companies, like corporations in many industries, have very often crossed ethical and legal boundaries. Most major pharmaceutical companies have paid substantial settlements relating to criminal offenses. Including: misleading marketing, failures to disclose safety information, off-label promotion and other regulatory violations.

Can We Trust the Medical Literature?

Perhaps the most troubling examples are those involving the scientific literature itself. Evidence-based medicine depends upon the integrity of published research. If clinical trial results are selectively reported, adverse events minimised or negative studies left unpublished, clinicians may unknowingly make decisions based upon a false understanding of the evidence.

The history of medicine is filled with examples of accepted ideas being overturned by better evidence. That process should be celebrated rather than feared.

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In March 2024 I published a short self-funded documentary film titled Deadly Quiet. The film is about the appearance of strange white blood clots in the bodies of the deceased.

Deadly Quiet documents the testimony of a funeral director, John O’Looney, in the UK. John found an increase in the number of young people who were dying and an acceleration in the rate of growth of cancerous tumors. Along with the discovery of strange white rubbery clots in the blood vessels.

Across the globe, funeral directors and embalmers grappled with this perplexing phenomenon, which only started to occur since the widespread administration of the COVID-19 vaccines.

A wall of silence across different areas of society appears to have been built to conceal these findings. For example, only one member of Parliament, Andrew Bridgen, has dared to broach this subject, and the associated excess deaths.

Now, a new peer-reviewed study in the International Journal of Innovative Research in Medical Science has officially documented the phenomenon. As reported today by Focal Points.

The survey conducted for the study included 808 respondents from 5 different countries. Overall, the strange, previously not seen before clots, were seen in almost 25% of all corpses.

Here is Deadly Quiet, in case you missed it back then:

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How Modern Medicine Chose Its Path

In 1910, an educator named Abraham Flexner published a report that would reshape healthcare throughout North America and eventually much of the world.

The report is often celebrated as a milestone in medical reform. Before Flexner, medical education was chaotic. Standards varied widely. Some medical schools lacked laboratories, formal admissions requirements, or rigorous scientific training. Many historians argue that the report helped establish medicine as a modern scientific profession.

In addition, few people would willingly exchange modern emergency medicine for that of a century ago. Trauma care, antibiotics, anaesthesia, intensive care, organ transplantation and modern surgery have transformed survival from acute illness.

The challenge explored in this series concerns a different category of illness: the chronic diseases that now account for the overwhelming burden of healthcare expenditure throughout the developed world. If medicine has become increasingly scientific, technologically sophisticated and expensive, why has chronic illness continued to rise?

The Flexner Report did not simply improve medical education. It was absolutely pivotal in determining which forms of healing would be considered legitimate and which would be pushed to the margins. Homeopathy, herbal medicine, nutritional therapies, electrotherapy and other traditions found themselves rapidly excluded from mainstream institutions.

More than a century later, the consequences of those decisions are experienced every day by patients.

Before Flexner: A Medical Marketplace

At the turn of the twentieth century, medicine looked very different from today.

Patients could choose from a variety of practitioners:

• Orthodox physicians

• Homeopaths

• Eclectic physicians

• Herbalists

• Osteopaths

• Naturopaths

• Midwives

• Various traditional healers

The quality of care varied enormously. Some treatments were ineffective. Some were dangerous, and orthodox medicine was hardly immune from criticism.

Many conventional treatments of the 19th century involved bloodletting, purging, blistering, mercury compounds and arsenic preparations. Medical historian accounts show that public confidence in orthodox medicine was often surprisingly low.

Direct Suppression of Early Integrative Physicians

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, eclectic physicians blended the best of conventional science with natural holistic and plant-based therapies tailored to the individual. Much like modern day integrative physicians.

The Eclectic Medical Institute (EMI) received its charter from the state of Ohio in 1845. The EMI grew into the leading eclectic medical school during the 19^th century with distinguished professors such as John Milton Scudder, John King, John Uri Lloyd, Andrew Jackson Howe and Frederick John Locke.

After the Flexner report, the most influential orthodox doctors of the time, in collaboration with the American Medical Association, worked to establish uniform medical education requirements and this led to the demise of medical eclecticism.

The final class to graduate from the EMI was in 1933 and the EMI permanently closed its doors in 1942.

Why a SIngle Report Was So Influential

The Flexner Report did not transform medicine simply because it contained convincing arguments. It succeeded because it became part of a much larger movement that was already gathering momentum. By the beginning of the 20th century, influential universities, philanthropic foundations, medical associations and political leaders all shared a growing belief that medicine should become more scientific, standardised and closely aligned with laboratory research. The report arrived at precisely the right moment to provide both the justification and the blueprint for this transformation.

The report’s influence was magnified by the fact that it was backed by some of the most powerful institutions of the era. The Carnegie Foundation financed Flexner’s investigation, while the Rockefeller Foundation and the General Education Board later directed substantial financial support towards medical schools willing to adopt the new model. Schools that embraced laboratory science, full-time faculty and rigorous entrance requirements received funding to expand and ‘modernise’, while many institutions that could not afford these changes struggled to survive. At the same time, licensing bodies and professional organisations increasingly recognised graduates only from schools that met the new standards, creating a powerful incentive for conformity. In this way, educational reform, philanthropy and professional regulation worked together to reshape the entire medical landscape.

Viewed from today’s perspective, the remarkable success of the Flexner Report was therefore not the result of one document alone, but of an alignment between ideas, money and institutional power. Whether one views these changes as largely beneficial or deeply flawed, they were extraordinarily effective. Within a generation, nearly half of North America’s medical schools had closed, medical education had become far more uniform, and many competing traditions of medicine had been pushed to the margins. The consequences of those decisions continue to influence how doctors are educated, how research is funded, and even which treatments are regarded as legitimate more than a century later.

Medicine Lost Its Soul

Modern medicine has achieved significant scientific progress in some areas. Yet as medicine has become increasingly specialised, some doctors have questioned whether something less tangible has gradually been lost. They argue that medicine is not simply the application of scientific knowledge to the human body, but also a profoundly human relationship between physician and patient. Scientific evidence cannot replace compassion, judgement or the ability to understand the unique circumstances of the individual sitting across the consultation room.

Historically, the physician was expected to be both scientist and healer. Healing involved far more than prescribing a medicine or performing a procedure. It required listening carefully, understanding the patient’s life, recognising emotional and social influences on illness, and sometimes accepting that there was no simple cure. As medical education increasingly emphasised laboratory science and measurable outcomes, critics argue that these less quantifiable aspects of medicine received less attention. The patient is now viewed primarily as a collection of symptoms, laboratory values and diagnostic images rather than as a whole person with a unique story.

This raises an important question that extends far beyond the history of the Flexner report. Can medicine fully achieve its purpose if it excels at treating disease but neglects the process of healing? These are not necessarily opposing goals. Scientific rigour and compassionate care should reinforce one another rather than compete. Yet many clinicians today believe that growing administrative burdens, protocol-driven practice and increasing commercial pressures leave less time for the human connection that first drew them into medicine. If medicine has, in some respects, lost its soul, the challenge may not be to abandon science, but to rediscover the balance between science and the art of healing.

The Placebo Effect Provides Supporting Evidence

One of the clearest examples of medicine’s human dimension is the placebo effect. Often dismissed as little more than a psychological curiosity, decades of research have shown that a patient’s expectations, trust in their physician and the context in which treatment is delivered can produce genuine biological changes. Pain perception, immune function, hormone release and even measurable changes in brain activity can all be influenced by factors that cannot be bottled into a pill. The placebo effect is not evidence that disease is imaginary - it is evidence that the mind and body are far more interconnected than the traditional mechanistic model of medicine once suggested.

A physician who listens, explains, reassures and inspires confidence may be contributing to recovery in ways that are difficult to quantify. These human interactions cannot be patented, manufactured or standardised, which may partly explain why they have received far less attention than drugs or medical devices. Yet they remind us that medicine has always been both a science and an art.

Recognising the power of the placebo effect does not diminish the importance of evidence-based medicine. On the contrary, it challenges us to broaden our understanding of what evidence tells us. If compassionate communication, empathy and patient expectations can measurably influence health outcomes, then they should be regarded as valuable components of medical care rather than inconvenient variables to be controlled for in clinical trials. The goal should not be to replace scientific medicine with humanistic medicine, but to recognise that the best healthcare may require both.

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Last year, my mother passed away, and for most of the last eight months I have been back in the UK. My mother was the last of my family members so I had to clear a lifetime of belongings from the family home and prepare the house for sale. The emotional weight and the physical work required have been all consuming, as anyone who has been in this situation knows.

I hope to be in a position soon to post regularly. Over the coming weeks I plan to release two of my latest documentary films here on Substack free of charge. But in segments.

In the Shadow of Flexner and Beyond Breakthrough: The Shift in Cancer Care both contain a lot of information and it occurred to me recently that creating segments may allow viewers time to absorb and reflect on each section before moving to the next.

Each section will now include a commentary that will help to put the video into context. Please look out for the first installment which will be released very soon, and please share the information with everyone.

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For more than 50 years, cancer research has focused on finding a single, silver-bullet cure - a breakthrough drug or device to eradicate the disease.

But what if that search has taken us down the wrong path?

Beyond Breakthrough: The Shift in Cancer Care explores a growing movement of scientists, doctors, and patients who are challenging the conventional model and re-imagining what healing really means. From integrative and personalised medicine to metabolic therapies and bioelectricity, this feature-length documentary reveals a quiet revolution - one that dares to ask not only how to kill cancer, but how to change the conditions in which it thrives.

As the world waits for a cure, a new way forward is already taking shape.

This independent release is priced to keep the film accessible while supporting investigative filmmaking. The film is released without platform or production company sponsorship.

The full documentary is available to stream for $9.

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More About the Film

Beyond Breakthrough is an invitation to doctors, scientists, patients, and everyday people to look again. To imagine what cancer care could become if we dared to break through the limitations of the current model.

Beyond Breakthrough features a remarkable lineup of physicians, researchers, and clinicians from around the world who bring both credibility and courage to the film’s central questions. Together, they offer a rare global perspective on the future of cancer treatment.

Among them are frontline doctors like Dr. Shankara Chetty, Dr. Taufiq Binjemain, and Dr. Lenny Da Costa, who have challenged conventional thinking through clinical experience and patient-centered care.

At the core of the film’s scientific authority are three particularly distinguished figures. Professor Paul Marik is one of the most published critical care physicians in the world, widely known for his leadership in evidence-based medicine and innovative treatment protocols. Professor Gerald Pollack, a pioneering researcher at the University of Washington, has spent decades exploring the fourth phase of water - a discovery with profound implications for cellular health and cancer biology. Dr. Vijaendreh Subramaniam, a senior consultant gynae‐oncologist who for the most part of his career practiced conventional cancer treatments including surgery.

Their participation not only elevates the film’s scientific foundation but signals the urgency of reevaluating long-held assumptions about how we understand and treat cancer.

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But here’s the uncomfortable truth: we don’t need AI to destroy ourselves. We’ve already built human-made systems that work directly against human well-being. Systems so powerful that even their most credentialed experts often operate under false assumptions.

The Runaway Nature of Human Systems

AI feels unique because it’s fast, complex, and hard to understand. But in reality, it’s the latest example of a runaway system. One that begins with human intention but evolves into something self-perpetuating and detached from its original purpose.

We’ve seen this before:

• Finance evolved from facilitating trade to a labyrinth where speculation drives crashes that devastate millions.

• Media shifted from informing citizens to feeding attention-driven algorithms that thrive on outrage.

• Agriculture transformed from feeding communities to monocultures that poison soil and lock farmers into dependence.

And then there’s medicine, perhaps the clearest example of a system that has slipped out of human hands.

Medicine as the Prototype of a Runaway System

Doctors spend years studying, training, and specialising. Patients trust them with their lives. Yet many of the most credentialed physicians sincerely believe things that can be objectively proven false. Not because they are incompetent or malicious, but because they practice inside a system that has distorted their reality.

A few examples:

• The assumption that “evidence-based medicine” is neutral, when much of the evidence is funded, filtered, and published selectively.

• The belief that chronic disease is best managed through pharmaceuticals, when nutrition, environment, and lifestyle often play a far greater role.

• The confidence that medical education equips doctors with the best knowledge, when entire areas such as nutrition and integrative approaches, are ignored or dismissed.

• Most of the medical community still believes that lowering cholesterol levels will in itself reduce the risk of a heart attack. The education system that humans built ‘hid’ the overwhelming evidence clearly showing people tend to live longer with higher cholesterol levels.

• For decades, doctors told patients to avoid fat and eat more carbohydrate. This misinformation directly caused the global diabetes pandemic. What ordinary people now take as obvious - that carbohydrates drive fat gain - remains controversial in many doctors’ offices.

These aren’t minor errors. They involve fundamentally distorting doctors’ perception of reality. They shape entire treatment paradigms, influence billions in healthcare spending, and determine whether people live or die.

Consider Vioxx, which killed tens of thousands before being pulled. The opioid crisis, which is predicted to kill 1.2 million people by the end of the decade. The overprescription of psychiatric drugs and chemotherapy that often do more harm than good. And then consider that not a single person has been criminally prosecuted for these deaths.

Part of the tragedy is that once such a system gains momentum, it feeds itself:
Pharmaceutical companies fund studies → Studies influence guidelines → Guidelines shape practice → Insurance reimburses only guideline-based care → Doctors follow suit → Patients expect it → The cycle repeats.

No single doctor or researcher decides this outcome. The system, once built, runs itself.

The Mirror AI Holds Up

Which brings us back to AI. The fear is that AI will dominate human thought, replace human judgment, and perhaps even pursue goals that diverge from ours. But isn’t that already what our institutions do?

• Doctors defer to insurance codes.

• Teachers defer to standardised tests.

• Journalists defer to algorithms.

• Politicians defer to donors.

In each case, the human becomes the instrument of the system, not the other way around.

So maybe AI won’t be entirely new. Instead, it may act as a mirror forcing us to confront how much of our world is already shaped by forces we no longer control.

Will AI Make It Worse, or Show Us the Truth?

AI might become the ultimate runaway system, because unlike medicine or finance, it is adaptive and self-improving. But at the same time, it might also reveal the cracks in our existing structures.

• AI could reinforce medical dogma, rapidly generate papers that repeat flawed assumptions and further entrench the system.

• Or AI could expose inconsistencies by cross-analysing vast amounts of data to show, for instance, that many “proven” treatments don’t hold up under scrutiny.

Which direction it takes may depend less on the technology itself and more on the values of the systems we plug it into.

We Can’t Think About AI in Isolation

The biggest mistake in today’s debate about AI is treating it as something separate from human history. AI will not arrive in a vacuum. It will emerge from, and reflect, the world we’ve already built. A world where runaway systems already dominate much of life.

If our medical system is distorted, our financial system predatory, and our political system captured, then AI will only magnify those distortions. If we want AI to serve humanity, we can’t just focus on the algorithms. We have to confront the underlying structures into which AI is being woven.

So when people ask, “Will AI destroy humanity?” my answer is: we don’t need AI for that. We’ve already set ourselves on that path through the systems we’ve built.

The real question is whether AI will accelerate that destruction or whether it will, paradoxically, shine a light on where we went wrong and force us to rethink.

Ultimately, AI will be less a foreign invader than a reflection of ourselves.

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Most people, however, are largely unaware that such a war is taking place. They are kept occupied with distractions, polarising conflicts, or matters that, while emotionally charged, do little to shift the fundamental power imbalance. To support the claim that humanity is at war with itself, three key arguments can be developed: first, that extreme centralization of wealth and power constitutes structural violence; second, that the ruling elite actively implement policies that undermine the wellbeing of the majority; and third, that this arrangement endangers long-term human survival by weakening resilience and capacity for collective action.

Most people spend their lives working harder and harder to get ahead, believing that effort and perseverance will eventually be rewarded. Yet the game is far more rigged than it appears. The rules of our economic and political systems are written to favor a tiny minority, ensuring that the harder the majority plays, the further behind they often fall. What is needed is not simply more effort within this broken framework, but a clear understanding of how the system truly operates—and a deliberate, gradual shift toward a better way of living and organising society.

This realisation is also why, many years ago, I chose to leave behind a lucrative career. I could see that success within the existing system too often meant reinforcing the very dynamics I believe are harmful.

Centralisation as Structural Violence

The economist Thomas Piketty has shown that wealth inequality has grown to levels not seen since the late 19th century. A 2024 Oxfam analysis reported that the world's richest 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 95% combined.

Such disparities are not merely a matter of envy or unfairness. They amount to structural violence. Johan Galtung, the peace theorist, defined structural violence as harm that is built into social systems - preventing people from meeting their basic needs or fulfilling their potential.

When wealth is hoarded by a tiny elite, resources are denied to others. Food, healthcare, education, and shelter become conditional on market participation that many cannot sustain. Life expectancy gaps between rich and poor neighborhoods in the same city can stretch into decades. Infant mortality rates, preventable diseases, and inadequate housing are all symptoms of the violence inflicted by inequality. In this sense, the war is not metaphorical but real, though its weapons are economic policies and institutional arrangements rather than guns or bombs.

Policies That Favor the Few

The idea that governments serve all citizens equally is contradicted by the evidence. In study after study, political scientists such as Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page have demonstrated that in the United States, public policy outcomes overwhelmingly reflect the preferences of economic elites and organised business groups, while the views of average citizens have little measurable impact. Similar patterns are visible in other countries where lobbying, corporate financing of political campaigns, or direct revolving doors between industry and government skew decisions.

There are countless examples. Bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis disproportionately shielded large banks and asset holders, while millions of ordinary people lost homes, jobs, or retirement savings. Tax policies increasingly privilege capital gains and inheritance over wages, reinforcing wealth accumulation at the top. Deregulation of industries often benefits corporate profits while externalising costs onto the public in the form of pollution, unsafe products, or wasteful research projects, to name just a few.

If a foreign army imposed such conditions that forced mass unemployment, health crises, or poisoned ecosystems, it would rightly be considered an act of war. Yet when enacted by domestic elites through legal channels, it is normalised as “policy.” The form differs, but the harm is equivalent.

Distraction and Division

For such an arrangement to persist, the majority must remain unaware of their true condition or divided against themselves. Here lies one of the most insidious elements of the war: the deliberate cultivation of distraction.

Media, entertainment, and political rhetoric often focus attention on issues that, while real, do not threaten elite interests. Culture wars, identity conflicts, and partisan rivalries absorb enormous energy. Social media algorithms, optimised for engagement, amplify outrage and division. Meanwhile, the underlying economic structures remain largely unquestioned.

Bread and circuses, as the Romans called it, still applies. Consumer goods, celebrity scandals, and sporting events provide temporary relief or diversion. Even political participation is often channeled into surface level debates rather than systemic reform. The result is a society that fights ferociously over symbols while ignoring the deeper battle over control of resources and institutions.

Threat to Human Survival

Some might argue that inequality is a timeless feature of human society, not a war. Yet the scale and consequences today are unprecedented. Humanity faces collective challenges such as technological disruption and ecological collapse, that require coordinated, equitable responses. The concentration of wealth and power actively undermines this capacity.

Again in countless ways. Pharmaceutical monopolies prioritise profit over patients. Research is concentrated in areas that have even more profit potential, rather than filling genuine gaps in our scientific understanding. Cheaper, safer medicines are overlooked in favour of new dangerous expensive ones. Technology giants consolidate control over information and communication, shaping public discourse in ways that serve their interests.

These dynamics weaken humanity’s resilience. Resources that could be mobilised for survival are instead locked in private accounts, tax havens, or luxury consumption. Decision-making is skewed toward short-term profit rather than long-term planetary stability. The war is existential. Humanity is sabotaging its own ability to adapt to the challenges it faces.

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Historical Parallels

History offers many parallels where elites pursued self-interest to the point of societal collapse. In ancient Rome, growing inequality, political corruption, and neglect of the common citizen contributed to the empire’s decline. In pre-revolutionary France, aristocrats resisted reforms until the pressure of popular misery erupted in revolution. The Gilded Age in the United States saw extreme concentrations of wealth, followed by labor uprisings and the eventual introduction of progressive taxation and labor protections.

These cases illustrate a recurring pattern. When elites accumulate too much power at the expense of the majority, social stability breaks down. Today’s global elite are playing a similar game, but on a planetary scale. The difference is that humanity now has nuclear weapons, fragile ecological systems, and a global economy so interconnected that collapse in one region can cascade worldwide. The stakes are higher than ever.

Why Most People Do Not See It

If this is truly a war, why do most people not recognise it? Several answers emerge.

• The slow and systemic nature of structural violence makes it less visible than direct physical aggression. A bomb that kills thousands in a day is obvious; austerity policies that shorten lifespans over decades are less so.

• The ideological apparatus such as: the media, education, political rhetoric, frames the discussion and keeps people distracted. Wealth is often portrayed as the result of hard work and merit.

• The psychological need for hope and stability leads many to avoid confronting uncomfortable truths. To admit one is at war without weapons, strategy, or leadership is destabilising. It is easier to focus on personal goals, family, or entertainment. In this way, the war continues not only because elites wage it, but because most people unconsciously accept it.

Toward Awareness and Response

If humanity is to survive this war with itself, awareness must spread. The recognition that economic policies and concentrated power structures amount to acts of systemic violence is the first step. From there, responses could include greater transparency, stronger democratic institutions, reestablishing the rule of law, using existing legislation to breakup monopolies, universal basic services, and collective action movements that transcend superficial divisions.

Policies designed to channel resources upward while externalising costs downward have to stop. Changing these requires sustained collective action. Something only possible when people understand the true nature of the conflict.

Conclusion

Humanity is at war with itself. The centralisation of money, power, and influence in the hands of a few constitutes structural violence that harms the many. Policies enacted in service of elites act as weapons in this war, undermining wellbeing and resilience. The majority remain unaware, distracted by trivial matters or divided by artificial conflicts. Meanwhile, the capacity of the species to confront existential challenges is weakened.

Recognising this reality is uncomfortable but essential. The war will not be fought with traditional weapons, but with ideas, institutions, and collective choices. Whether humanity can survive and thrive depends on whether it can wake up to the battle already underway and reclaim the resources and power needed for its own survival.

In this article I introduce the groundbreaking research linking water science to the future of cancer care. There are specific recommendations at the end of the article.

In my upcoming documentary film Beyond Breakthrough: The Shift in Cancer Care, we explore new frontiers in the understanding of cancer. One of the most fascinating and potentially paradigm-shifting ideas comes from Professor Gerald Pollack at the University of Washington.

Pollack has spent decades studying the fourth phase of water, which he calls EZ water (short for Exclusion Zone water). Unlike the liquid, solid, or vapor we all learned about in school, this fourth phase is structured, almost crystalline, and forms inside living cells under specific conditions. Increasingly, scientists are looking at EZ water for explanations for everything from energy production to cell communication.

To understand how this impacts cancer care we have to first discuss a few key concepts.

Inside healthy cells, EZ water forms naturally alongside hydrophilic (water-loving) surfaces such as proteins, membranes, and nucleic acids. These surfaces attract water molecules, which then rearrange into a structured, honeycomb-like lattice. Because cells normally contain lots of hydrophilic surfaces, EZ water is continuously formed. The EZ water fills much of the space inside the cell.

This EZ water has a negative electrical charge. This is really important. The negative charge of the EZ water provides a strong electrical potential difference between the inside of the cell and the external environment.

However, if there is less EZ water inside the cell then the cell becomes less negative. This is a problem for a number of reasons and in particular because a less negative cell can divide much more easily into two cells - a process called mitosis.

Mitosis is at the heart of all tumor growth.

Out of control cell division is what causes all tumors to grow.

The fact that cells divide when they become less negative has been known since the 1950s when Tokuoka & Morioka did early measurements on cancer cell membrane electrical potentials, finding them to be significantly less negative than normal cells.

In the 1970s Clarence D. Cone proposed a “unified theory” linking a drop in electrical potential with cells becoming cancerous. Cone also showed experimentally that high electrical potential could block mitosis.

In more recent years, Michael Levin at Tufts University demonstrated that altering membrane voltage patterns can direct the fate of the cell, and even suppress tumors in animal models.

And perhaps most significantly, The Pollack Lab has greatly advanced the understanding of EZ water. Confirming that water adjacent to hydrophilic surfaces organises into a structured, negatively charged phase distinct from bulk water. This zone excludes solutes and particles, extends far beyond the molecular scale, and can be built and sustained by radiant energy, particularly infrared light. Pollack’s group has expanded the field by showing that EZ water stores and converts energy, may act as a kind of cellular “battery”, and influences key biological processes such as protein folding, flow in capillaries, and cell function. Their findings suggest that EZ water is not a laboratory curiosity but a fundamental, overlooked aspect of physiology and health.

Professor Gerald Pollack has published a scientific paper describing how all of this could relate to cancer. That paper is freely available here. In short, Pollack argues that EZ water is what generates negative charge in cells, and cancer cells have a shortage of EZ water.

Therapies that Build EZ Water

If low EZ water is central to cancer, then the logical path forward is not just chemotherapy or genetic research, but strategies that restore EZ water and cell electrical potential. Pollack outlines a surprising list of approaches, many of them can be implemented easily by people themselves and are already linked with health benefits:

• Hydration: Drinking water converts, at least partially, into EZ water, supporting cell voltage.

• Fresh plant juices: Intracellular plant water is rich in EZ structure; consuming it may directly deliver structured water.

• Spring or “EZ-rich” waters: Certain natural waters appear to contain more structured water.

• Sunlight: Infrared radiation, which makes up about half of solar energy, is a powerful EZ builder.

• Heat and sauna: Like sunlight, infrared heat expands EZ water, potentially restoring cell potential.

• Herbs and natural compounds: Turmeric, holy basil, coconut water, ghee, and other traditional remedies have been shown to expand EZ water.

• Grounding (Earthing): Physical connection to the Earth allows electron flow into the body, which supports EZ formation.

• Direct electron therapy: Treatments by Swedish radiologist Bjorn Nordenstrom showed that injecting electrons into tumors could shrink or eliminate them.

• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy: Both pressure and oxygen expand EZ water, aligning with reports of anticancer benefits.

Each of these therapies shares a common theme. They build structured EZ water, raise cell voltage, and counter the conditions that drive uncontrolled cell division.

Cancer is one of the defining challenges of our time. The stakes could not be higher: continue down the old path of genetics-only thinking, or explore bold new frontiers like the hidden power of water and bioelectricity. The question is: what kind of world do YOU want to help create? If this introductory article gave you value, I invite you to join Beyond Breakthrough. I need your support now to finish the film. Your choice is what turns this vision from idea into catalyst. By supporting, you’re not just learning about new science, you’re helping bring it into the world. The future we share is shaped by individual choices - and yours matters.

Click here to support the film

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With a gift of $25 or more, you’ll see the film before its official release. With $100 or more, your name will live in the credits as someone who stood up for a future where science serves humanity.

But there’s a problem - the story doesn’t hold up. The model that millions of lives depend on is increasingly shown to be incomplete, even flawed. And the consequences are staggering. An outdated framework doesn’t just stay in textbooks - it determines which treatments are developed, which are ignored, and how the entire medical system approaches one of the world’s leading killers.

Unraveling the DNA Dogma

When DNA was discovered to be the blueprint of life in the 1950s, it seemed only natural to frame cancer as a genetic disease. The logic was elegant and persuasive. If mutations in DNA create errors in cellular programming, then fixing those errors should cure cancer. This narrative gained momentum with the rise of molecular biology, and in 1971 President Richard Nixon declared the “war on cancer”, cementing genetics as the central battlefield.

Billions of dollars were directed toward identifying and targeting mutations thought to drive tumors. Laboratories, universities, and pharmaceutical companies aligned themselves with this vision. Over time, entire research careers, grant systems, and biotech startups became structured around SMT. Competing explanations such as metabolic or cellular environment based theories of cancer were pushed aside, not because they were disproven, but because they didn’t fit the dominant paradigm.

The Evidence Doesn’t Add Up

Mutations are not destiny. Countless mutations occur in healthy tissues without leading to cancer. Conversely, some tumors appear with relatively few identifiable mutations.

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), launched in 2006 as a joint effort of the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute, sought to map the key mutations across cancers. Over 12 years, researchers sequenced more than 23,000 cancer genomes, analysing 84 million mutations and producing over 2.5 petabytes of data. The project cost taxpayers about $375 million.

The results were unexpected. With the exception of a few rare cases, no single mutation could be tied to a specific cancer type. Some tumors had no identifiable driver mutations at all. Others showed vast variation, not only between patients but even within the same tumor. Children’s cancers often carried almost no mutations, while adult cancers had only a handful. If mutations are the cause, why isn’t the process more uniform?

Lab experiments raise further doubts. Cancer cells placed in a healthy environment sometimes revert to become normal cells , despite carrying mutations. For example, melanoma cells implanted into chicken embryos did not form tumors and in some cases reverted to normal markers. Similarly, myeloid leukemia cells transplanted into mice lost their malignancy and resumed normal development. These findings suggest that context or rather the condition of the body may drive cancer more than genes alone.

The Business of Broken Genes

Persisting with the genetic framework is useful not for patients, but for profit. Each new mutation-targeted drug, often with only modest benefit, can generate billions in revenue. The diagnostic industry also thrives on mutation testing and “precision oncology” platforms.

• Global oncology drug sales: $200B+ annually

• Genomics/diagnostic testing: $20–40B per year

• Research infrastructure: $10B+ annually

Altogether, the SMT-centered cancer economy conservatively commands $250–300 billion per year. A genuine paradigm shift would threaten hundreds of billions in revenue streams along with academic careers, grant systems, and journals built on SMT.

Human Consequences

The persistence of SMT is not just a scientific issue - it’s a human one. Patients spend $100,000 or more on targeted drugs only to gain a few extra months of survival at best. Families are told their cancer is genetically determined, fostering fatalism, while prevention and metabolic interventions are overlooked. Public optimism along the lines of “the cure is just around the corner” contrasts sharply with the reality patients experience.

All of this helps to explain why the fifty plus year war on cancer at a total cost of about half-a-trillion dollars, has been a failure, and cancer numbers continue to rise year on year.

Better Ideas

The alternatives are not speculative. Theories emphasising metabolism, cellular microenvironment and bioelectricity date back nearly a century and are tied to Nobel-winning science. They were never refuted, only marginalised. Today, integrative oncology, metabolic therapies, and systems biology are pointing toward a broader framework. One that could transform how we understand and treat cancer.

What if we shifted even a fraction of today’s funding toward these approaches? How many lives, how many families, might be spared unnecessary suffering?

This is the conversation at the heart of my new documentary film, Beyond Breakthrough: The Shift in Cancer Care. Because when the map no longer matches the territory, the most dangerous thing we can do is keep pretending it does.

However, since this film challenges all of the existing commercial interests mentioned above, the film can only be finished with your support. There are no companies behind this film. Only one determined filmmaker, the brave doctors who are willing to stand up and tell the truth, and you!

The financial challenges in bringing a film like this into existence are significant. I have been extremely fortunate to receive incredible support from people who follow my work. The film is pretty much finished but I need one final push to raise the last $300 to licence the music and produce the artwork.

If you haven’t already supported the film and would like to do so please use either the button or link below:

Support the film

https://donate.stripe.com/7sIbKh5zt2vyaYgeUU

Watch the trailer:

Thank you!

Justin Smith
Director, Beyond Breakthrough

Justin Smith is producer/director of the STATIN NATION documentary films, and eight other feature-length documentaries. Many of which explore critical issues in medicine and public health. His work has involved collaborations with leading medical professionals across the globe.

In addition to filmmaking, Justin is the author of Statin Nation the book, published in the United States and translated into German. He has also completed the Guardian Masterclass in Investigative Journalism.

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Cancer is on the rise and so is confusion

Cancer is no longer a rare or remote illness. Most of us have been affected by it, whether directly or through someone we care deeply about. And yet, when a diagnosis is delivered, it often brings not just fear but a rush of decisions made under pressure. People are quickly swept into a system that appears to offer only one path forward. In those moments, there’s very little space to step back and ask: Are we seeing the full picture?

Even the most compassionate doctors are often unaware of emerging or integrative approaches to care. Patients are left facing one of life’s biggest challenges with limited information. That’s what Beyond Breakthrough aims to change.

A new kind of cancer documentary

Surprisingly, there are only a few documentary films about cancer, and almost none in recent years. Those that do exist usually fall into one of two camps: either fully pro-conventional treatment or fully pro-alternative treatment. But this binary doesn’t reflect where we are now or what patients actually need.

When I first began this project, I had serious doubts about the long-term role of chemotherapy and radiation. Like many people, I hoped that the future of cancer care would leave those harsh treatments behind. But as I interviewed frontline doctors who practice integrative oncology, I came to a deeper understanding. There is a role for conventional treatment when it’s used appropriately, and combined with supportive, less toxic therapies.

That shift in perspective became a core message of the film. It’s not about choosing sides. It’s about integration, personalisation, and placing the patient at the center of care.

A story that’s both scientific and deeply human

I’ve been making health-related documentaries for 13 years, and this is the most personal one yet. Cancer is not some foreign invader. It is, in many ways, a breakdown of the body’s internal balance. Beyond Breakthrough reveals a large body of scientific evidence suggesting that our medical system isn’t just missing one or two ideas - it may be missing the entire framework.

This film explores groundbreaking insights into metabolic therapies, natural treatments, repurposed drugs, bioelectricity, and more. It’s a call to widen the conversation around cancer care. To include what’s been overlooked, forgotten, or suppressed, in some cases for more than one-hundred-years.

How you can help

When I posted about the film two days ago, I shared that I needed to raise $3,000 to complete post-production. Thanks to the generosity and encouragement of so many of you, that number is now down to just $1,300.

These final funds are essential. They’ll cover licensing for stock footage, music, and a much needed hardware upgrade to export the final video. So although it’s soon after my last update, I’m asking one more time, if you believe in this project and what it could mean for people facing cancer, please consider supporting its completion.

Donate via PayPal

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Thank you again for all your support!

—
Justin Smith
Director, Beyond Breakthrough

Other films include: Statin Nation, In the Shadow of Flexner

For over a century, brilliant scientists have proposed bold new ways of understanding cancer - and then watched their work be ignored, dismissed, or forgotten. Not because it lacked evidence, but often because it didn’t fit the dominant narrative.

These discoveries were not silver-bullet cures, but rather offered a framework for a deeper understanding of the nature of disease. Each of them challenges the current theory of cancer, which holds that cancer is primarily caused by random genetic mutations.

In my new film Beyond Breakthrough: The Shift in Cancer Care, I bring these ideas out of the shadows and into the conversation. This is not just a story about cancer. It's a story about how science evolves and what happens when it gets stuck.

Because the answers may have been hiding in plain sight all along.

The Pioneers Who Saw What Others Missed

Dr. Otto Warburg (1883–1970), a Nobel laureate, discovered that cancer cells rely heavily on the fermentation of glucose . This became known as the Warburg Effect. He believed cancer was a disease of cellular energy metabolism, not just DNA mutations. But as the genetic revolution took hold, Warburg’s insights were sidelined.

Dr. John Beard (1858–1924) was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine after discovering a striking resemblance between cancer cells and trophoblasts (cells that form the placenta). He proposed that pancreatic enzymes could stop cancer by triggering proper cell differentiation. In early clinical trials, his approach showed promise but was swept aside by the rise of surgery and radiation.

Dr. Gilbert Ling (1919–2019) was arguably one of the most brilliant cell physiologists of the 20th century. He challenged the dominant “membrane pump” theory and proposed that structured water inside cells was the true regulator of cellular behavior. His theories could explain cancer as a collapse of intracellular structure yet he was marginalized for decades.

Dr. Björn Nordenström (1919–2006) was chairman of the Nobel Prize committee in medicine. He developed the theory of Biologically Closed Electric Circuits and used bioelectricity to shrink tumors. A method tested in hospitals in Sweden and China. But his ideas never caught on in the West, where biochemical and genetic models dominate.

These scientists weren’t fringe. They were Nobel winners and nominees. Titans of their fields. Yet their most important discoveries were discarded, not disproven.

Why Now?

Despite a “war on cancer” lasting more than 50 years, the number of people with cancer is increasing year-on-year. Some of the largest increases are being seen in young people. Despite costing more than half-a-trillion dollars, the war on cancer has failed.

In Beyond Breakthrough, we explore how today’s integrative oncologists and scientists are revisiting the once-sidelined ideas of pioneering researchers. Now armed with better tools, deeper insights, and more clinical evidence than ever before.

From nutrition and metabolic therapy, to repurposed drugs and bioelectric medicine, there is a growing realisation that the future of cancer care might not come from a single “magic bullet” but from a smarter, more holistic approach.

The Film

This documentary isn’t about choosing “conventional” or “alternative”. It’s about combining the best of all worlds and giving access to knowledge, even if it challenges outdated models.

This film is for you if you've ever wondered why so many billions have been spent on cancer research, yet outcomes remain poor. Or if you’re open to the idea that suppressed science may one day become tomorrow’s standard of care.

Beyond Breakthrough: The Shift in Cancer Care explores the growing movement of scientists, doctors, and patients who are challenging the conventional model and redefining what healing really means. The trailer for the film can be seen here:

This film isn’t backed by corporations or industry interests - just one independent filmmaker, and courageous doctors and scientists who risk their reputations to speak the truth. So far, it’s been made possible thanks to people like you who believe we deserve a better healthcare system. The film is 90% complete, but I still need around $3,000 to finish it and bring this message to the world. Every contribution, big or small, makes a real difference.

Donate via PayPal

Or via the link:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PJXWV5H74DZ2L

When you contribute to Beyond Breakthrough, you are not just funding a film. You are joining a mission to change the way the world sees cancer treatment and healing. You are helping to spark a global conversation and give voice to the experts, patients, and pioneers whose work is too often ignored.

You are helping shape a documentary that may inform patients, families, and doctors for generations to come.

For any donation $25 and above, receive access to watch the film prior to its official release.

For any donation $100 and above, your name will be included in the Special Thanks section of the film credits.

Any donation $150 and above includes the above plus two tickets to the online world premiere.

If you are interested in becoming an associate or executive producer on the film with the appropriate film credit please contact me.

Thank you!

Justin Smith
Director, Beyond Breakthrough

Justin Smith is producer/director of the STATIN NATION documentary films, and seven other feature-length documentaries. Many of which explore critical issues in medicine and public health. His work has involved collaborations with leading medical professionals across the globe.

In addition to filmmaking, Justin is the author of Statin Nation the book, published in the United States and translated into German. He has also completed the Guardian Masterclass in Investigative Journalism.

What if the biggest breakthrough in cancer wasn’t a drug or a device but a new way of thinking?

Synopsis

For more than 50 years, cancer research has focused on finding a single, silver-bullet cure - a breakthrough drug or device to eradicate the disease. But what if that search has taken us down the wrong path? Beyond Breakthrough: The Shift in Cancer Care explores the growing movement of scientists, doctors, and patients who are challenging the conventional model and reimagining what healing really means. From integrative and personalised medicine to metabolic therapies and bioelectricity, this eye-opening documentary reveals a quiet revolution - one that dares to ask not just how to kill cancer, but how to change the conditions in which it thrives. As the world waits for a cure, a new way forward is already taking shape.

Watch the new trailer for the film below:

I’m delighted to say that the editing of the film is about 85% complete but I still need to raise $4,200 to finish the film. Please help if you can. Any amount makes a difference.

Donate via PayPal

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8 Reasons Beyond Breakthrough Will Change How You See Cancer

1. What we've believed about cancer’s genetic origins has been misguided for over half a century?

2. A forgotten theory from nearly a century ago is quietly reshaping how leading scientists understand cancer.

3. Unlikely substances, hiding in plain sight, may hold surprising power in the fight against cancer.

4. A little-known connection between pregnancy and cancer may reveal one of the biggest therapeutic blind spots in medicine.

5. What if the most dangerous cells in cancer are the ones our conventional treatments can’t touch?

6. Could bioelectricity, not genes, be the real master switch behind how cells divide, mutate, or heal?

7. Ancient practices and natural therapies may work in ways modern science is only just beginning to explain.

8. What if the real breakthrough isn’t a miracle drug - but a radically different story about what cancer actually is?

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The Interviewees

Dr. Taufiq Binjemain - Dr. Shankara Chetty - Dr. Lenny Da Costa - Dr. Benjamin George - Dr. Paramjit Kaur - Prof. Paul Marik - Prof. Gerald Pollack - Dr. Vijaendreh Subramaniam - Prof. Adlina Suleiman

Beyond Breakthrough features a remarkable lineup of physicians, researchers, and clinicians from around the world who bring both credibility and courage to the film’s central questions. Together, they offer a rare global perspective on the future of cancer treatment.

Among them are frontline doctors like Dr. Shankara Chetty, Dr. Taufiq Binjemain, and Dr. Lenny Da Costa, who have challenged conventional thinking through clinical experience and patient-centered care.

At the core of the film’s scientific authority are three particularly distinguished figures. Professor Paul Marik is one of the most published critical care physicians in the world, widely known for his leadership in evidence-based medicine and innovative treatment protocols. Professor Gerald Pollack, a pioneering researcher at the University of Washington, has spent decades exploring the fourth phase of water—a discovery with profound implications for cellular health and cancer biology. Dr. Vijaendreh Subramaniam, a senior consultant gynae‐oncologist who for the most part of his career practiced conventional cancer treatments including surgery. Their participation not only elevates the film’s scientific foundation but signals the urgency of reevaluating long-held assumptions about how we understand and treat cancer.

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Director’s Statement

Cancer is a deeply human story. In making Beyond Breakthrough, I set out to uncover the science and suppressed possibilities that mainstream medicine often overlooks. This film isn’t about rejecting conventional treatment but about expanding the conversation to include what has long been marginalised.

For decades, the dominant cancer narrative has been defined by a seek and destroy paradigm. Identify a culprit, target it, destroy it. But cancer is not an invader. It is, in many ways, a breakdown of the body’s internal balance. Through interviews with leading scientists and doctors, Beyond Breakthrough exposes a large body of evidence suggesting that our current medical system may be missing not just one piece of the puzzle, but the entire framework.

As an independent filmmaker, I know from firsthand experience how difficult it is to tell stories that challenge entrenched scientific and commercial interests. This film is being made without corporate funding or pharmaceutical sponsorship. That independence allowed me to ask the harder questions, such as: What if the most promising innovations in cancer care aren’t getting the attention, or the funding, they deserve? What if healing requires not just attacking disease, but restoring health?

The implications are staggering. The number of people receiving a cancer diagnosis is increasing year on year. This film provides extremely important information to patients. Information that even their doctor, in most cases, is unaware of. The film could change the course of medicine. Offering millions more gentle, more effective treatment options.

Beyond Breakthrough is not a promise of a cure. It is an invitation to doctors, scientists, patients, and everyday people to look again. To imagine what cancer care could become if we dared to break through the limitations of the current model.

I’m asking you to help make this happen and be a part of this change, either by contributing financially or helping to spread this information to everyone you know.

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Thank you!

Justin Smith

Many have described the show as brave, raw, and timely. And on the surface, it does appear to attempt a serious conversation about what it means to grow up male in today's world. But beneath the surface of this highly emotionally charged production lies a far more troubling message — one that deserves careful scrutiny.

A Show About Boys — Without Understanding Boys

The protagonist of Adolescence is a 13-year-old boy, portrayed as intellectually articulate, emotionally complex, and disturbingly absorbed in online subcultures.

In several scenes — particularly one where he is questioned by a psychologist — the boy speaks in terms far beyond what is believable for someone of his age. The boy’s dialogue involved complex themes of sexuality which is entirely inappropriate and unrealistic. Strangely, during the scene with the psychologist, the boy asks if it is OK to be talking about these subjects.

Not just the protagonist, but also other boys of the same age use dialogue which sounds more like the script of a 35-year-old social media pundit than the inner voice of a teenager. Making references to gender ideology, power dynamics, the manosphere, and “red pill” philosophy.

In the show, the protagonist becomes sexually frustrated by a lack of attention from girls, and becomes angry when a girl of this age uses emojis on social media that relate to incels (heterosexual men who blame women and society for their lack of romantic success). The protagonist finds this labelling as an incel so abhorrent that he stabs the girl to death.

It should be immediately obvious to everyone that this narrative arc is entirely unrealistic for a 13-year old boy. A 13-year old boy has not developed his sexuality, yet alone had sufficient life experience to go through a cycle of rejection multiple times that could be a precursor to the kind of hate presented in the show. There is no-way that a 13-year boy could reach this devastating position. The growth of the scrotum and testes is not complete until around 16/17 years old. Surely, that, at least, would be a prerequisite for total disillusionment with women?

At multiple times in the show the protagonist is shown to hate and resent women because of a lack of attention from women.

The often impeccable acting, strong cinematography, and the ultra-realistic long takes draw audiences in to believe the unbelievable. The problem is that most people have consumed this great work of fiction as being like a documentary. A mistake also made by the current UK prime minister.

Keir Starmer also makes a number of statements that are categorically false. He suggests that the issue described in the film is a rapidly growing problem. That’s simply not true.

Violent Crime Is Generally Not Committed By Incels

Despite what some people would like to believe, violent crime committed by individuals who identify as "incels" — involuntary celibates — is incredibly rare and represents a tiny fraction of overall violent crime. While the media has spotlighted a handful of high-profile cases involving men who were active in online incel communities, these incidents are statistical outliers. They are not representative of male behavior in general.

The FBI and other criminological bodies do not classify “incel-related” crime as a distinct category, precisely because it occurs so infrequently. Most violent crimes are not committed by men driven by ideological beliefs about gender, but rather by factors such as poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, interpersonal conflict, or gang involvement.

The danger of linking incels too casually with violent crime is that it distorts the real data and inflames moral panic. It also risks justifying discriminatory or alarmist portrayals of young men, especially those who are already struggling with social connection or mental health. Reducing such individuals to “potential threats” not only lacks empathy, it will further isolate them. But that might actually be the goal.

Links With Red-Pilling And The Manosphere

Adolescence makes casual and sweeping links between incels, being red-pilled, the manosphere, misogamy and violence. This is irresponsible and may reveal the true motivations behind the show. Being red-pilled of course makes reference to the film The Matrix, but it relates to a broad acceptance of the truth and a commitment to understanding the realities of the society in which we live. There is no real life connection between being red-pilled and incels. When Neo takes the red pill he does not become misogynistic.

More people are questioning the power structures within our societies, especially since COVID, and the influence that centralised power is having over our lives. This centralised power can be seen as analogous to “the Matrix”. It would be reasonable to expect that those in control of “the Matrix” would not want more people to question it.

Hence the erroneous links between being red-pilled, incels and violence. After watching Adolescence people will not want to be associated with any of these terms and will be directed away from learning the truth on a whole range of issues. Some people might say this sounds like conspiracy. Well it is. This is part of a wider conspiritoral objective to demoralise men and stamp out normal healthy masculinity. If you don’t believe me allow me to offer two further pieces of evidence.

Since the release of the show, a slew of articles from the corporate media (owned by “the Matrix”) have appeared to further slander men.

Some of these articles may be simply a reaction to the popularity of the show, but if that were true why are there no articles with a counterviewpoint, or a critique based on the actual evidence from society?

Adolescence does not explore masculinity in its full complexity. Masculinity it depicted in simplistic, pathologised terms. Male characters are either emotionally repressed, socially awkward, absent, or dangerous. Positive male role models are non-existent in the show. The nearest we get to a positive male role model is the police officer in charge of the investigation. But even this character has a broken relationship with his son. His son is afraid of him for reasons that are not given in the show.

There is no space in the narrative for healthy expressions of male identity. Near the end of the show, after we have been witness to the whole heart-wrenching series of events, the father of the 13-year old protagonist asks why his son couldn’t just be more like his sister - who is near perfect.

Produced With An Agenda

Adolescence is funded by Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B. Not only providing financial support but it has been reported that Brad Pitt “had his hands all over the groundbreaking British series”.

Brad Pitt has been on record multiple times during the last few years complaining about masculinity. Who knows why? But that seems to be his agenda now.

Several of the other producers of the Netflix show have also shown bias. Graham Walters is also involved in the show. His company is called Matriarch Productions. Graham said to Netflix:

“There was an incident where a young boy [allegedly] stabbed a girl. It shocked me. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening in society where a boy stabs a girl to death? What’s the inciting incident here?’ And then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again. I really just wanted to shine a light on it, and ask, ‘Why is this happening today? What’s going on? How have we come to this?’ ”

But as I said above, this kind of horrific incident is rarely associated with incels and most likely has never been committed by a 13-year old boy who’s become radicalised by masculine portrays on social media. I’m not sure how the producers did their research for the show.

The Danger Of Fiction That Feels Like Fact

Adolescence is, of course, a work of fiction. But that hasn't stopped it from being quoted and referenced as if it were a documentary case study. This is precisely what makes the show dangerous. When storytelling is emotionally compelling, audiences often absorb its messages passively — especially when those messages seem to confirm existing fears or biases.

The danger here lies not just in the show’s misrepresentation of young men, but in the cultural impact it may have. By presenting such a one-dimensional view of male identity, the show may actually deepen the very divisions it claims to expose. Boys and men watching it may feel misunderstood, attacked, or unfairly maligned. And the wider audience may come away with a simplistic and misleading picture of what it means to be a young male today.

Good fiction should challenge us. It should provoke thought, invite reflection, and help us to see the world from perspectives we might not normally consider. But it should not manipulate or mislead. Adolescence had the opportunity to tell a powerful story about boyhood, mental health, and identity in a changing world. Instead, it chose to pathologise masculinity and frame it as a threat.

That’s not just bad storytelling. It’s irresponsible.

I urge you to watch Adolescence or watch it again with the above points in mind and let me know what you think.

Vitamin D Deficiency: A Widespread and Ignored Issue

Vitamin D plays a crucial role in immune function, bone health, and cellular regulation. Yet, deficiency is extremely common. In the United States alone, an estimated 40% of adults have insufficient vitamin D levels, with higher rates among older adults, people with darker skin, and those living in northern latitudes.

In fact, 2013–2016 official survey data in the United States found that 92% of men, more than 97% of women, and 94% of people 1 year of age and older ingested less than the recommended daily amount of vitamin D from food and beverages. It is important to remember that the recommended daily amount is set to avoid specific deficiency related diseases and based on averages - it is not based on optimal health.

In the United Kingdom, 20% of people have low vitamin D levels that are associated with serious disease, and some reports suggest that 60% of the population are considered as having insufficient levels of vitamin D.

Widespread vitamin D deficiency in the UK has been known about for sometime. In 2010 researchers called for urgent intervention for the elderly and the National Diet and Nutrition Survey in 2011 stated “There was evidence of an increased risk of vitamin D deficiency in all age/sex groups.”

Despite this, vitamin D deficiency remains underdiagnosed, underappreciated and undertreated.

However, the neglect runs even deeper than that. All of the high-profile health authorities disregard vitamin D as an important factor. The American Cancer Society, on their website, encourages people not to check their vitamin D level. At the same time the organisation acknowledges the role of vitamin D in the immune system, the reduction of inflammation and the control of the growth of cells. All of these functions are of course important in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

The American Cancer Society and alike, repeatedly claim there is not enough evidence to support the use of vitamin D supplementation. They also do not seem to be motivated to collect this evidence.

It is not clear how much of the American Cancer Society’s total assets of $1.8 billion have been allocated towards researching vitamin D and cancer.

If these organisations were genuine, wouldn’t vitamin D to be a top research priority? Knowing the widespread deficiencies and how easy it would be to implement a vitamin D health initiative.

Vitamin D Studies "Designed to Fail"

A growing number of researchers and clinicians argue that many vitamin D studies, particularly randomised clinical trials, have design flaws that limit their ability to show benefits. Including:

Wrong Dosing Strategy

• Low doses (e.g., 400–2,000 IU/day) are often used in trials, even when participants are deficient. Whereas most experts recommend 5,000 - 10,000 IU/day, depending on body composition.

• Some studies didn’t adjust the dose based on participants’ baseline vitamin D status, so people who were already sufficient in vitamin D received the same dose as those severely deficient. For people with existing adequate vitamin D levels additional supplementation may not show benefit. Benefits are often greatest in those who are deficient, and those results are diluted when mixed with the already sufficient participants.

Lack of Measurement or Achievement of Target Levels

• Studies often fail to measure whether blood levels actually increased to effective thresholds (e.g., 40–70 ng/mL). Making it hard to correlate outcomes with physiological changes.

Short Duration

• Clinical trials are often only 2–3 years long but chronic diseases take decades to develop. Which makes it unlikely to detect meaningful changes in incidence or mortality.

Poor Adherence

• In some trials, participants did not consistently take their supplements, but were still included in the analysis. This again dilutes the measurable impact of the intervention.

Failure to Stratify by Risk

• Outcomes may be more visible in high-risk populations (e.g., older adults, those with chronic inflammation, darker skin, living in northern latitudes). Some trials lump everyone together, missing subgroup benefits.

For Example

The VITAL trial is one of the most cited clinical trials on vitamin D and cancer. It was a large randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that included 25,871 people 50 years and older. This trial was funded by the National Institutes of Health but has, strangely, been reported as a negative trial even though the results showed a benefit.

Participants who received vitamin D supplementation, and had a normal BMI, experienced a 38% reduced risk for advanced cancer. This was despite the fact that the trial suffered from some of the issues mentioned above. The dose of vitamin D administered was 2,000 IU/day, which is extremely unlikely to raise blood levels sufficiently.

Differentiation between normal BMI participants and obese participants is important. We know that obesity makes it very difficult to increase blood levels of vitamin D. The overweight and obese require considerably higher dosages of supplemental vitamin D. Therefore, in the VITAL trial, people who were overweight had an 11% reduced risk and the obese group (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²) experienced no protective effect.

Had the correct dose been used for the different groups of people, we would expect to see a much greater reduction in cancer risk.

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The Broader Impact on Chronic Disease and Aging

Beyond cancer, low vitamin D levels have been linked to increased risk of:

• Cardiovascular disease

• Autoimmune disorders (e.g., multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes)

• Osteoporosis and fractures in older adults

• Infectious diseases, including respiratory infections

Optimising vitamin D status would improve immune function and mobility in older adults, reducing hospitalisations, falls, and dependency. This, in turn, alleviates the pressure on younger generations who are increasingly tasked with caring for elderly family members while contributing to the economy.

The Role of Nutrient Synergy

For vitamin D to be absorbed and utilised effectively, other nutrients must also be sufficient:

• Magnesium: Essential for converting vitamin D into its active form

• Vitamin K2: Helps direct calcium to bones rather than arteries

• Zinc and boron: Support vitamin D metabolism and immune function

• Healthy fats: Vitamin D is fat-soluble and requires dietary fat for absorption

Without these cofactors, even high doses of vitamin D may be less effective.

Speeding Up Vitamin D Repletion

In individuals with very low vitamin D levels, standard supplementation may take weeks or months to restore optimal levels. However, faster repletion is possible using medically supervised loading doses, sometimes via high-dose oral or intramuscular routes. These approaches can be especially beneficial in patients with severe deficiencies, malabsorption issues, or urgent health needs.

Policy Proposal: A National Program for Vitamin D Optimisation

National health authorities should adopt a proactive approach to vitamin D optimisation, involving:

1. Routine screening for vitamin D levels, particularly in high-risk populations

2. Public health campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of vitamin D and safe sun exposure

3. Subsidized access to supplements, particularly for low-income and elderly populations

4. Professional training for healthcare providers to understand the broader role of vitamin D in chronic disease prevention

Conclusion

Vitamin D optimisation is one of the most promising, low-cost interventions available to modern healthcare systems. It offers substantial potential to reduce cancer and chronic disease incidence, improve quality of life, and support healthy aging. In a time when healthcare systems are under immense pressure and nations face the twin challenges of aging populations and rising disease burdens, a national program to monitor and improve vitamin D status is not just wise, it is essential.

Governments that act now will not only improve the health of their citizens but also reduce long-term healthcare expenditures, bolster economic productivity, and build resilience into their public health infrastructure for generations to come.

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In this article, I would like to build on that previous post by exploring possible therapeutic pathways to inhibit cancer stem cells.

Quick Historical Primer

The idea that cancer arises from primitive, embryonic-like cells actually dates back to the late 19th century when the German scientist Julius Cohnheim suggested that misplaced embryonic cells in adult tissues — what he called “embryonic rests” — could become cancerous.

It was shortly after that when, John Beard, a Scottish embryologist, observed that the invasive behavior of the early placenta (the trophoblast) behaved like cancer.

The trophoblast is an enveloping layer that is a precursor of the placenta. The trophoblast connects the embryo to the wall of the uterus. The trophoblast forms early in pregnancy - less than a week after fertilisation. The trophoblast cells behave like cancer cells. They must invade the tissues of the mother and grow to form the placenta.

Dr. Beard observed that the trophoblast stops invading at a particular point in embryonic development, prompted by the secretion of pancreatic enzymes from the developing fetus. Beard theorised that pancreatic enzymes could control or even reverse cancer by signaling these invasive, primitive cells to stop dividing.

In the early 1900s, Beard tested his theory by injecting pancreatic enzymes into animal with tumors and observed tumor shrinkage. However, his findings were dismissed, and by the time of his death in 1924, his work had been largely forgotten.

In the 1960s, the theory was revived by Dr. William Donald Kelley, an orthodontist who claimed to heal himself from pancreatic cancer using enzyme therapy, dietary changes, and detox protocols. Kelley’s clinical work attracted the attention of Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, who documented numerous long-term cancer survivors in Kelley's practice. Gonzalez and his colleague, Dr. Linda Isaacs, subsequently developed a formal enzyme-based cancer therapy that included large doses of pancreatic enzymes, dietary changes, coffee enemas, and other detox protocols.

Their work showed a great deal of promise in case reports and small pilot studies. Many patients lived many years beyond what would normally be expected. However, a large-scale clinical trial comparing their enzyme protocol to chemotherapy was marred by poor patient adherence, leading to inconclusive and disappointing results. Gonzalez and Isaacs attributed these failures to patient selection issues, lack of support, and the sheer difficulty of following the complex protocol.

Many patients under the direct supervision of Dr. Kelly or Dr. Gonzalez seem to have done very well. However, trying to replicate or scale-up the protocol for larger groups of patients might be difficult. Cancer patients might not have the strength to adhere to the protocol and family members may pressure them into not using an ‘unconventional approach’.

The Enzyme Hypothesis Revisited

With the discovery of protease-activated receptors (PARs) on cancer cells, interest in the enzyme hypothesis has been rekindled. (Proteases are enzymes that break down proteins).

Some studies have also shown that pancreatic proenzymes (an inactive precursor of an enzyme) may inhibit cancer growth in animals and cell cultures by impacting the behavior of CSCs.

Cohnheim, Beard, Kelley, and Gonzalez laid crucial groundwork by recognising that cancer is not merely a mass of rogue cells but a complex process involving primitive, stem-like cells that resist conventional treatments.

The legacy of pancreatic enzyme therapy is one of foresight. Potentially a stepping stone toward the next generation of cancer treatments.

It’s natural to ask, though, if there are easier ways to inhibit CSCs?

Alternative and Emerging Strategies to Target Cancer Stem Cells

The scientific community has started to formally recognise the concept of CSCs and a number of therapeutic pathways that may inhibit CSCs have been identified. This involves biochemical and physical pathways. In this article I would like to include some of the current most promising biochemical treatments. In other articles I will look at aspects related to bioelectricity and stress management - which are equally important. A ketogenic diet may also be appropriate. In a separate article I will also look at what causes the stem cells to behave in this way in the first place and what can be done to remove those causes.

The biochemical pathways are quite technical so I have entered them into a summary table as a PDF that you can access separately by clicking below. (Since most people will be interested in treatment I don’t want the technical details to unnecessarily distract).

Mech Pathways For Csc Inhibition

3.51KB ∙ PDF file

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TREATMENT

The following is a list of the current most promising biochemical treatments that have the best evidence to support their use in combating CSCs. The primary source of information for these specific treatments is Dr. Paul Marik’s Cancer Care monograph but I have also cross-referenced the information with other sources.

Just a quick note on the terminology used:

Clinical - refers to evidence gathered from studies conducted in humans.

Preclinical - refers to testing prior to testing in humans. It can be in vitro (laboratory based) or in vivo (animal testing).

1. Metformin

• Mechanism: Disrupts mitochondrial function, inhibits mTOR, reduces insulin/IGF-1 signaling, impacts CSC metabolism.

• Evidence:

  • Strong clinical and preclinical evidence.

  • Associated with improved outcomes in cancer patients (both diabetic and non-diabetic).

  • Multiple studies show inhibition of CSC proliferation and tumor recurrence.

• Evidence Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Tier One, repurposed pharmaceutical)

2. Curcumin

• Mechanism: Inhibits multiple CSC pathways (NF-κB, STAT3, Hedgehog, WNT/β-catenin), reduces self-renewal and chemoresistance.

• Evidence:

  • Extensive preclinical evidence, numerous in vitro/in vivo studies.

  • Human data are mostly observational, but promising.

• Evidence Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Tier One, widely researched natural compound)

3. Disulfiram (Antabuse)

• Mechanism: Inhibits aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), an enzyme overexpressed in CSCs; induces oxidative stress and apoptosis.

• Evidence:

  • Strong preclinical evidence and growing human observational data.

  • Shown to enhance chemotherapy efficacy by targeting CSC populations.

• Evidence Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Tier One, repurposed pharmaceutical)

4. Ivermectin

• Mechanism: Modulates WNT/β-catenin and Hippo pathways; reduces proliferation and survival of CSCs.

• Evidence:

  • Emerging but rapidly growing evidence base (in vitro, and in vivo).

  • Early clinical observations.

• Evidence Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Tier One, repurposed pharmaceutical)

5. Green Tea Extract (EGCG)

• Mechanism: Inhibits CSC self-renewal, blocks CSC niche signaling (WNT, Hedgehog, and Notch pathways).

• Evidence:

  • Multiple in vitro and in vivo studies.

  • Epidemiological studies suggest protective effects in populations with high green tea consumption.

• Evidence Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Tier One, supported by both mechanistic and epidemiological data, natural compound)

6. Berberine

• Mechanism: Inhibits cancer-promoting pathways (AMPK, mTOR, PI3K); suppresses CSC proliferation and survival.

• Evidence:

  • Strong mechanistic and preclinical data.

  • Limited clinical data but growing support.

• Evidence Level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Tier One)

7. Mebendazole / Albendazole / Fenbendazole

• Mechanism: Disrupts microtubules, inhibits cell division, may impair CSC replication.

• Evidence:

  • Preclinical animal studies with strong support.

  • Human data mostly anecdotal and observational but emerging.

• Evidence Level: ⭐⭐⭐ (Tier One, though less human data to date than the top agents)

✅ Conclusion: Strongest Evidence to Date

Based on cumulative mechanistic, preclinical, and clinical evidence from the Cancer Care monograph and other sources, the most robust biochemical CSC-targeting agents to date are:

Metformin, Curcumin, Disulfiram, Ivermectin, Green Tea Extract (EGCG), and Berberine.

However, we should also consider the safety profile of these agents. My understanding is that disulfiram can have significant and severe side effects. The other treatments, especially curcumin and ivermectin, are safe. Some sources suggest that curcumin is not easily absorbed and should be combined with piperine (black pepper extract).

**We should also always check for possible interactions with any other medications or supplementation we are using.

Enzyme therapy, for those who can follow the protocol, may still be able to compete in terms of efficacy. However, I think the main point from this information is that an integrative approach to cancer is essential and far superior to conventional treatments that involve only surgery. chemotherapy and radiation.

1 in 2 of us are currently on a path to a cancer diagnosis at some point.

This is something that affects us all. It is important that information is immediately available to people to enable them to make informed choices and not simply follow the profit-driven approach.

I’m creating a groundbreaking documentary film about cancer. This film will challenge conventional thinking and expose the hidden truths behind the cancer industry. But I cannot do it alone.

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This is where cancer stem cells come in. An overlooked but critical piece of the cancer puzzle.

What Are Cancer Stem Cells?

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a small population of cells within a tumor that can self-renew and differentiate into various cell types — much like normal stem cells in the body. But unlike typical cancer cells, CSCs are incredibly resilient. They survive chemotherapy and radiation, leading to relapse and metastasis. In fact, many researchers now believe these cells are the real root of cancer’s persistence.

If you destroy 99% of a tumor but leave CSCs intact, cancer may return. It’s like cutting the weeds but leaving the roots in the soil.

The medical established defines a cure as 5-year survival. But unfortunately, some cancers return as a more aggressive form of cancer some time after the ‘cure’. Cancer stem cells are likely to be one of the reasons for this.

The Forgotten Theory That Saw It Coming

Over a century ago, long before the molecular science of CSCs, a Scottish embryologist named Dr. John Beard proposed something remarkably similar. Known today as the trophoblast theory of cancer.

Dr. Beard observed that cancer cells behave a lot like trophoblast cells — the invasive cells that form the placenta in early pregnancy. Trophoblasts are designed to invade maternal tissue, grow rapidly, and create new life. But outside of pregnancy this same program could be mistakenly activated, leading to cancer.

It is worth noting that Dr. John Beard was a scientific giant of his time. He made a number of scientific discoveries, and wrote a large number of scientific monographs. In 1890, Dr. Beard was honored by the French Academy of Sciences and in 1906 nominated for the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Dr. Beard proposed that pancreatic enzymes could play a role in controlling this process, a hypothesis that has since been sidelined by mainstream oncology.

Old Ideas Meet New Science

Fast-forward to today, and modern research on CSCs echoes Beard’s theory in striking ways. CSCs are primitive, stem-like cells capable of invasion, regeneration, and resistance. They act like ancient survival programs gone rogue.

Both the trophoblast theory and CSC research suggest that cancer is not just a random collection of mutations. Instead, it’s a biological misfire — a reactivation of ancient cellular behavior, triggered by environmental stress, chronic inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, or other systemic signals.

The Mainstream View: Mutations and Chaos

Contrast this with the mainstream model of cancer promoted by most health authorities. Which states that cancer is primarily a genetic disease caused by mutations that accumulate over time. Random errors in DNA, combined with environmental insults (smoking, toxins, radiation), create uncontrolled cell division.

According to one of the doctors interviewed for my upcoming documentary film, the probability of a cell going through sufficient gene mutations to become a cancer cell could be around 1 in 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. (yes, that’s 77 zeros). Expressed another way, it’s about the same probability of being hit by lightening 17 times in one year.

No one denies that mutations are present as part of the disease but it is unlikely that random mutations are the actual cause of cancer.

The standard approach is to target rapidly dividing cells, kill as many as possible, and hope that the body's repair systems do the rest.

But here’s the problem: if CSCs are the root, then focusing only on tumor size and cell death misses the bigger picture. It explains why recurrence is so common, despite aggressive treatments.

Hope Beyond the Old Model

The good news is that researchers and integrative oncologists are now exploring ways to target CSCs. Through immunotherapy, repurposed drugs, natural compounds and potentially metabolic therapies.

Evidence suggests that lifestyle interventions (in particular, exercise, and stress management) may influence the environment that allows CSCs to thrive.

Why This Matters for You

Cancer statistics remain alarming and suggest that up to 50% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives. Recurrence rates remain high for many types of cancer often coming back when patients thought they were in the clear.

Understanding the role of CSCs could revolutionise treatment but prevention.

The Bigger Conversation

In my upcoming documentary film, I’ll be exploring these hidden aspects of cancer. From overlooked theories like Dr. Beard’s, to cutting-edge research on CSCs, and integrative therapies that challenge the mainstream narrative.

Here is a very short clip from a recent interview with Dr. Taufiq Binjemain:

We can’t afford to keep fighting cancer on outdated terms. If we want better outcomes, we need to start asking tougher questions.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to share this article, become a paid subscriber to The Self-Sovereign, or make a direct donation to the documentary film by using either of the links below:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PJXWV5H74DZ2L

https://donate.stripe.com/7sIbKh5zt2vyaYgeUU

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Sources:

• Dr. Taufiq Binjemain presentation at the MAAFIM 2024 conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

• Cancer Care, Dr. Paul Marik.

• Cancer and pregnancy. Mayo Clin Proc 2009 Nov;84(11):985-1000.

• The Trophoblast and the Origins of Cancer, Dr. John Beard and Nicholas Gonzalez

• Cancer Stem Cells: advances in knowledge and implications for cancer therapy, Chu, X., Tian, W., Ning, J. et al.

• Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, Thomas Seyfried

The Precedent: Tony Blair’s War-Tainted Exit

Tony Blair, who served as Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, left office under a cloud of controversy, primarily due to his role in the Iraq War. Once hailed as a modernising force within the Labour Party, Blair’s legacy was overshadowed by his unwavering commitment to George W. Bush’s foreign policy and the deeply unpopular invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Though Blair was not forced out in the same way as his successors, his departure was far from smooth. He had become a deeply polarising figure, and internal pressure from within the Labour Party—alongside public outrage—eventually led to his resignation. Many viewed him as a war criminal rather than a statesman, and his exit set the stage for an era in which Prime Ministers were no longer guaranteed uninterrupted leadership.

The Post-Blair Revolving Door

After Blair, Gordon Brown took over but lasted only three years. The 2010 election resulted in a hung parliament, and Brown stepped down when it became clear he could not form a coalition. This marked the beginning of a period where Prime Ministers would increasingly find their positions untenable before a general election could remove them.

David Cameron, who succeeded Brown, initially seemed secure in his leadership, winning an outright majority in 2015. However, his downfall came in 2016 when the Brexit referendum he had called did not go his way. Having campaigned for Remain, he resigned immediately after the Leave vote, unwilling to oversee a policy he did not believe in.

Theresa May then took over. She struggled to unify her party and failed to push through her Brexit deal. By mid-2019, she was forced to resign due to lack of support from her own MPs.

Boris Johnson followed, winning a landslide election victory in December 2019. However, his tenure collapsed under the weight of scandals, including the "Partygate" controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic, which eroded trust even further.

His successor, Liz Truss, had the shortest tenure in British history—just 49 days. Her economic policies triggered financial chaos, and she resigned before she could even establish herself. Rishi Sunak then took over, trying to restore stability, but his time in office was marked by declining party unity and policy stagnation. Like many of his predecessors, he resigned under pressure before an election could finish the job for him.

Is This a Crisis or an Evolution?

The instability at the top is a sign of Britain’s political system becoming dysfunctional. Frequent resignations create uncertainty and make long-term policy planning nearly impossible. The country has seen five Prime Ministers in the space of just seven years (2016-2023), leading to government paralysis and public disillusionment.

On the other hand, one could argue that this represents a more responsive democracy. Unlike in the past, where deeply unpopular leaders like Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair could remain in power despite widespread opposition, today’s Prime Ministers are more accountable to their party and the public.

In recent years, British politics has shown increasing signs of kleptocratic tendencies, where government officials and their associates use political power for personal gain rather than public service. The revolving door between government and private interests—particularly in finance, energy, and healthcare—has allowed many politicians to profit from policies they implement while in office. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed blatant cronyism, with lucrative contracts awarded to companies linked to Conservative Party donors and MPs, often without proper oversight.

Lobbying by former Prime Ministers on behalf of corporate clients, and lawmakers securing lucrative post-government jobs in industries they once regulated highlight how governance has been twisted to serve private enrichment over public interest.

At the heart of this issue is the erosion of accountability. While past political scandals in the UK led to resignations and even prosecutions, today’s leaders often face few real consequences. Boris Johnson's administration, for instance, was plagued by ethical breaches, from misleading Parliament over "Partygate" to reports of ministers spending public funds lavishly with minimal justification. Yet, instead of serious reform, political elites continue to protect their own, relying on short news cycles and public fatigue to escape accountability. As Britain struggles with economic decline, crumbling public services, and worsening inequality, the perception that the country is governed by a self-serving elite is eroding trust in democracy itself.

There are no signs of this trend reversing.

The Rise of ‘Safe Pair of Hands’ Leadership

In an era of political instability, the UK’s ruling elite has increasingly turned to so-called "safe pair of hands" leaders—figures chosen not for their vision or ability to enact meaningful change, but for their loyalty to the establishment and their role in maintaining the status quo. These leaders are often selected through internal party maneuvering rather than popular support, ensuring that power remains concentrated within a narrow elite. Rather than bold reformers, they are risk-averse caretakers whose primary function is to shield the political class from scrutiny while placating financial and corporate interests.

Rishi Sunak’s rise to power exemplifies this trend. Installed as Prime Minister by Conservative MPs without a public vote following Liz Truss’s disastrous tenure, Sunak was presented as a stabilising figure, yet his government remained deeply entrenched in the same patterns of cronyism and economic mismanagement.

Similarly, Keir Starmer, despite branding himself as a break from past Labour leadership, has surrounded himself with advisors from the financial sector and key corporate lobbies, ensuring that his policies pose no real threat to the entrenched power structures. By repeatedly selecting leaders who are beholden to party donors and elite interests, Britain’s political system has become increasingly insulated from genuine democratic accountability, reinforcing public disillusionment and the perception that elections merely serve to rotate one set of establishment-approved managers for another.

Keir Starmer's popularity has been largely driven by public exhaustion with the Conservative Party rather than strong enthusiasm for his leadership. When, not if, he fails to deliver meaningful change—particularly on issues like the cost of living, housing, and NHS reform—disillusionment will set in quickly.

The question is, are there any more cronies left in the closet to bring out, and if there are, how long will they last?