The Conquest of Cancer—A Long-Ignored Breakthrough: Autologous Tissue Anticancer Immunization Therapy

By Vladimir Kalina

Important findings and decisive breakthroughs in medicine have nearly always encountered fierce opposition, and it took a long time before they were finally recognized as major discoveries. This book describes the circumstances of a revelatory experience made by Dr Karel Fortn in 1957 and its fundamental scientific significance in the struggle against cancer. It is also an attempt to explain why an important breakthrough can be ignored in the light of so much evidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524679224

Vladimir Kalina

The authors career as biotechnologist is marked by surprising coincidences as if in preparation for the unexpected involvement in a medical issue of importance. Born in Prague, his school years started in Paris when in 1940 war events brought him to Britain. Enticed by his teachers at Kings College School in London he found early interest in the medical sciences. At that time he was intrigued by the advent of antibiotics and the penicillin adventure in which Sir Ernst Chain became one of the Nobel Prize laureates. Surprisingly, in 1950 the author made his acquaintance in Czechoslovakia when Prof. Chain was there as consultant for the government. They met again in Switzerland under similar circumstances. Later, when the author was defending a thesis in bioengineering at Dijon University he was honoured having Sir Ernst as President of the jury. The critical coincidence relating to later work is that shortly after Dr Fortyns revelatory biological finding in 1957 the author had in mind a project based on the same principle. Becoming acquainted by chance in 1999 both realized they passed their matriculation in the same school. What followed is the result of their mutual understanding of the cancer challenge.

Book preview

The Conquest of

Cancer

A Long-Ignored

Breakthrough

Autologous Tissue

Anticancer Immunization

Therapy

Vladimir Kalina

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Copyright © 2017 Vladimir Kalina. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/17/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7918-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7919-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7922-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017903877

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

To the

memory of Sir Ernst Boris Chain, Nobel Prize laureate, who was at the source of a succession of personal events which have finally led to my involvement in a medical issue rivalling in importance his struggle to obtain the recognition of penicillin as a potent antibacterial drug and the opening of a new discipline in medicine.

The textual form of the manuscript has been dictated by many complicating and disturbing circumstances. It is felt that the obstacles encountered in the pursuit of a cause of general concern ought to be made known to the largest public possible, and so the author would like readers to be indulgent towards the rather uncommon way of presenting a specialized topic. Although the book is intended more particularly for the information of interested specialists, the greater part of the text should be accessible to all interested readers.

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

1.1 The reality of a long-ignored hope

1.2 The message

2. The continuing struggle against cancer

2.1 An unprecedented challenge

2.2 What is wrong with cancer research

2.3 The seeming impasse of science in spite of important progress in cancer therapy

2.4 The complexity of the immune system – an underestimated reality

2.5 The biological principle of survival and immune system tolerance to cancer

2.6 The conflict of interests – a major obstacle

3. The history of a discovery

3.1 The unusual circumstances of a discovery

3.2 A new therapeutic principle with many implications in medicine

3.3 Public reactions to a forgotten discovery

3.4 Violent opposition to a hopeful method in the treatment of cancer

3.5 Official prohibition of Dr Fortýn’s method

4. A new approach to cancer therapy

4.1 Cancer as an anomalous disease

4.2 Cytogenesis of malignant tumours and their tolerance by the immune system

4.3 Potential mechanisms in the suppression of tolerance

4.4 Immunological basis of Dr Fortýn’s devitalization

technique

4.5 The phenomenon of spontaneous remissions

4.6 The devitalization ratio

4.7 Model simulation of the effect of the devitalization ratio Rd on the immunolytic process

4.8 Limiting factors in immunolysis

4.9 Biological safety of the devitalization method

4.10 Fundamental principles of a new approach

to cancer therapy

5. Dr Fortýn’s original surgical method

5.1 Background

5.2 Definition of the surgical devitalization technique

5.3 Methodical particularities of the devitalization technique

5.4 Devitalization interventions on different organs

5.4.1 Gastrointestinal tract - GIT

5.4.1.1 Operation on the oesophagus

5.4.1.2 Devitalization of the small intestine, the colon, and rectum

5.4.1.3 Devitalization of the stomach

5.4.2 Kidney

5.4.3 Breast

5.4.4 Liver

5.4.5 Pancreas

5.4.6 Lungs

5.4.7 Melanoma

5.4.8 Lymph nodes

6. Animal model experiments

7. Application in veterinary practice

8. Clinical application of Dr Fortýn’s surgical technique

8.1 Clinical application of devitalization in different types of cancer

8.2 Application of Dr Fortýn’s surgical technique in colorectal cancer

9. ATACIT – Autologous tissue anti-cancer immunization

therapy

10. Potential field of application of ATACIT

11. ISATID – Implantable securing autologous tissue immunization device

12. SICT – Safe integrative cancer therapy

12.1 Principle and background elements of a new approach to cancer therapy

12.2 Critical drawbacks of standard cancer therapy methods

12.3 Clinical status of patients prior to therapy

12.4 Reparatory Medication (RM)

12.5 Blocking of Tumour Metabolism (BTM)

12.6 Proteolytic Enzyme Cancer Therapy (PECT)

12.7 Hormone Antagonist Therapy (HAT)

12.8 Local Physiological Hyperthermia (LPH)

12.9 Monitoring Techniques (MT)

12.10 Simulation of Oncogenic Process and Immune Response (SOPIR)

12.11 Therapeutic strategy

13. Ethical and legal aspects

13.1 Recognition of new promising therapy

13.2 Limitations of standard therapy

13.3 The right of patients to choose a therapy on the basis of full informed consent

14. Obstacles to medical and scientific recognition of Dr Fortýn’s technique

14.1 Incoherent and contradictory argumentation

of opponents

14.2 Disqualifying atypical character of Dr Fortýn’s surgical technique in modern medicine

14.3 Obstacles to a constructive approach

15. Necessary conditions for demonstrating the curative potential of ATACIT

15.1 Clinical protocol for demonstration study

15.2 Demonstration objectives

16. Conclusion

Epilogue

1. Letter of Health Secretary to President of the Association of Patients of Czech Republic

2. Summary of the results of devitalization interventions in metastasizing colorectal carcinoma and metastasizing malignant melanoma to 15 June 2002.

Tables and Illustrations

Acronyms

References

Acknowledgments

This book, which is intended to draw the attention of a wider public to a burning issue that concerns us all, is also a tribute to the late Dr Karel Fortýn who tried all his life as a surgeon to communicate to the medical community the biological significance of an extraordinary finding. Unfortunately, with little or no comprehension of his work by his peers, the effort was in vain. An outstanding exception, whom I would like to thank here more particularly, is Associate Professor Dr František Chaloupka, who supported the case devotedly from the very beginning. Since I became acquainted with him, Dr Chaloupka was the person in whom I found the encouragement to continue jointly in the many-year effort of Dr Fortýn after his tragic death early in 2001.

Important progress in the promotion of Dr Fortýn’s surgical method has been rendered possible thanks to the particular support of Swiss Bellefontaine International. My gratitude is due to the director, Mr. Peter Yip. The company is involved in anti-aging care that involves the application of immunomodulation principles to counter degenerative ailments of patients, and has been able to see a certain connection with Dr Fortýn’s autologous tissue anti-cancer immunization therapy. Actually, the company is sponsoring the development of an implantable immunization device to be applied in the prevention of recurring cancer after a remission. This project would not have been possible without the interest and relentless effort of Dr Vratislav Horák, who maintained the necessary continuity of previous work, and his many years long collaboration with Dr Fortýn at the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics in Liběchov, Czech Republic, in spite of tremendous difficulties and little support.

Many thanks are here expressed to the late Professor Louis Rey, biophysicist, who is known for his remarkable achievements in cryobiology. His encouragement and active support in establishing contacts with scientific institutes and research centres in the promotion of autologous tumour immunizing devascularisation (ATID) were very valuable.

Here I thank all my friends who encouraged me over the years with the many wishes of success as they urged me to persist in my task. I thank Roman Honzátko, my colleague from school years, who acquainted me with Dr Fortýn in 1999 and whose unyielding effort in keeping the agenda of events and relevant documentation is particularly appreciated.

Special thanks are due to Pierre Nicolas, former scientist at the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne with whom I worked long years before retirement. I thank him not only for his encouragement and precious advice, but more particularly for his contribution in the development and application of the mathematical model for the simulation of the immunolysis of tumour tissue. I earnestly thank Dr David Kopsky for his collaboration in the presentation of ATID theory in the scientific literature and his precious advice and contribution concerning the modalities and requirements in conducting clinical trials.

The compilation of this book proceeded despite difficult situations and many obstacles, and in the absence of a favourable academic environment normally necessary when undertaking such a project. This is why I owe the deepest gratitude to my family who encouraged and supported me all the time. So my biggest thanks are due to my son, Daniel, who has helped me as a surgeon, and very especially to my wife, Eva, for her patience with me over so many years as I expended endless effort and endured many deceptions.

1

Introduction

The subject that is brought here to the attention of readers concerns a new and hopeful approach to cancer therapy. Far reaching in the possibilities it offers and too important perhaps to be recognized as real, the matter has been ignored for more than forty years. There are many objective reasons for this situation, but as most of them remain hidden to the public, we cannot really be surprised by the prevailing indifference towards a salient problem of general interest.

1.1 The reality of a long-ignored hope

If good ideas were consistently and readily accepted by the public at large, and by the scientific community in particular, this book would never have been written. It would have been unnecessary. The fact that the development of an important project has not progressed through the habitual channels towards acceptance is certainly a regrettable circumstance. Although this is not so uncommon among scientists working in many different fields of interest, it is a tragedy when the matter concerns human lives that might have been saved. We should be thoughtful of all the suffering that most of us have witnessed at some time in our lives when, in the midst of our families, our dearest were afflicted by the most dreaded of diseases. Today every third person is threatened by cancer, and nearly every fourth actually dies of the disease. So, if there is an opportunity to change this situation, we have no right to remain indifferent.

We have all learnt to accept the authority of well-established public and scientific institutions, and it is only natural to have confidence in officially recognized trends and new developments of major importance. So when there is a controversy that we do not really understand, we are more inclined to accept the official verdict. In consequence, if there are controversial reasons for being sceptical and resentful towards a seemingly pretentious announcement of a new approach in the treatment of a disease that threatens us all, we should nevertheless assume a questioning attitude and rely more on our own judgement both as laymen and concerned specialists.

In a social environment of growing existential uncertainty, we must be aware of the conditioning of our minds under the influence of all the pressures exerted by the media and all forms of manipulation that are the cause of public disinformation. We know this is important when we have to search for truth in a multitude of incoherent arguments that are incessantly being brought to our attention, especially when many of them are presented irresponsibly by those in whom we have confidence and whom we normally tend to believe.

Even when some new favourable event appears improbable in the light of what we have already recognized as real or true, there is no valid reason for us to reject the matter only for the sake of comfort or peace of mind, especially if new evidence can justify the reconsideration of our view and change an adamant standpoint. We should consider the regrettable damage caused by dedicated specialists who unjustly discredit many important ideas that are ultimately marginalized and even completely disregarded by the scientific community. This often happens only because not enough attention has been attached to all underlying facts.

Many disputable arguments in different areas of investigation are thus accepted by the public only because they have been pronounced by a recognized authority. We know that many promising ideas that have been tested in the past and were abandoned following problematic results or only very modest success are completely disregarded today in the light of contemporary achievements and discoveries. The latter are almost obligately considered to offer new, better, and more spectacular possibilities. Old ideas are simply ignored as obsolete. Scientists who are all seeking novelty in many fields do not bother to review previous unfruitful work that does not arouse the necessary motivation and sufficient interest for obtaining funds and government grants. This happens even if, in the context of accumulated knowledge and new observations, the abandoned original idea actually provides clues for the elaboration of novel concepts or offers solutions that were not evident in the beginning. This way, without qualified support and the necessary funds for research and development, important contributions may disappear into complete oblivion to the general loss of an unaware public. We may well close our eyes when this concerns technical projects, especially when we know we can rely on valid alternatives, but when medicine and human lives are involved, such a situation is unpardonable. We should not let ourselves be coerced into blind acceptance of a manipulated reality that is not in the interest of society.

In our case, it is difficult to understand why some hopeful methods in the treatment of cancer can be completely disregarded at a time when our consciousness of the threat of one of the most cruel diseases is so deeply rooted in our minds and when so many of its victims are hopelessly condemned by contemporary medicine to palliative care only.

1.2 The message

If science has once dismissed a principle upon available evidence, it will tend to disregard new evidence in its favour rather than revive the original argument.

Unfortunately, the most difficult argument we are trying to challenge has actually nothing to do with science. It is the very simple statement often advanced by specialists working in the field that, if the therapeutic method we will be describing here was really so spectacular, it would have been applied in general clinical practice everywhere long ago.

One of the aims of this book, therefore, is to explain the reasons for the prevailing dismal situation; but the main intention is to arouse general interest in a new approach to cancer therapy for the benefit of cancer patients, especially in cases for which we know existing standard methods are doomed to fail. It is also an appeal to specialists in the medical field, and all people of goodwill who are not indifferent to the problem, to be more inquisitive. All are also urged to insist on the correct application of principles that have a sound legal basis but are nevertheless ignored for obscure reasons, often under cover of irresponsible disinformation. It is a hope that, if readers are convinced by the message the author is attempting to transmit, they will not hesitate to exert their influence wherever possible and whenever they can so that the new promising therapeutic technique described will be given all the attention it merits.

2

The continuing struggle against cancer

Research is continuing all over the world in hundreds of specialized cancer institutes and clinical establishments employing thousands of scientists, and yet more new centres of competence are being created. In many countries, anticancer leagues and various associations of patients are actively collecting funds for research and prevention. Sporadically we hear of new promising discoveries. Unfortunately, the announcements are nearly always accompanied by the now-notorious opinion that only further experiments and clinical trials will show whether the new drug or technique is really effective in human beings. All we can say, after so many years, is that the immense effort to overcome cancer has not been crowned with any decisive success.

2.1 An unprecedented challenge

Cancer has always been the most dreaded disease, and researchers all over the world have long been attempting to find the ultimate cure. An all-out effort in the struggle against cancer was initiated in December 1971 when US President Richard Nixon officially announced that the long-engaged battle would be won within five years. The argument was supported by a wave of optimism that emerged under the influence of spectacular achievements in science and space exploration. It was manifested by the general feeling that important results in the many challenges facing modern society could be obtained if backed by the right determination and the necessary resources. At that time, Sidney Farber, a renowned oncologist who shared the view of other scientists, declared that we were close to the goal and that what we needed was the energy and the funds equal to those that had enabled man to land on the moon.

Later, many other promising announcements were made in connection with cancer research following preliminary results obtained in the testing of new therapeutic strategies. One of the more important ones was made by James Watson, Nobel laureate, who declared that cancer would soon be overcome. The declaration followed the announcement by Juda Folkman’s research team that new, very promising experimental results were obtained using anti-angiogenesis drugs in mice. The announcement of the extraordinary properties of cytostatin made the stock values of involved pharmaceutical companies climb, but later led to a scandal when other research teams were unable to reproduce the claimed results. The event was even reported in the prestigious journal Nature. Such situations are not uncommon, and we only need recall the case of a biotherapeutics company in the early 1990s, which was founded by prominent scientists. This establishment offered to cancer patients, at a very high cost, therapies involving special experimental procedures. These relied mainly on the use of monoclonal antibodies and biologically active agents, which were supposed to induce an anticancer response of the immune system. Expectations were not met, and the whole affair ended as a complete failure.

It is certain that much of the exaggerated optimism stimulated research and opened the doors to new challenging concepts and considerable financial support. Over a period of thirty years of sustained direct effort, more than fifty billion dollars in the form of grants and various subsidies have been injected into research in the major industrialized countries. If we also take into account the immense sums invested independently by pharmaceutical companies worldwide, we determine that never have so many resources been mobilized in such a short time for a single cause or single aim in the medical field without attaining pursued objectives. This is the reason that most of the hope is now centred on a determined effort in the direction of prevention and early detection rather than an expectation that an important breakthrough will be made in the form of a revolutionary therapeutic method.

So now, after so many deceptions in the past decades, any prognostics for a breakthrough in the near future do not appear reassuring, and there is much scepticism. In 1996, Laurent Schwartz, in an article entitled ‘Cancer resists science; cancer will soon be the first cause of mortality in the Western World’, underlines the fact that the absence of a marked specificity of cancer cells in comparison with normal healthy cells is a major obstacle to the possible development of a potent weapon against cancer [1]. This concerns all the major approaches to the problem including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and more recently, gene therapy. Four years later, Franco Cavalli, in the article ‘The future of oncology: More of the same’, underlines the impasse which seems to reign in the sphere of cancer research in spite of the enormous progress in molecular biology [2].

There seems to be no doubt that the present situation in cancer research is conditioning the minds of specialists as well as the public towards the conviction that progress will not only be very slow and very costly, but also that only the most prestigious medical centres will have the resources to come up with important contributions that could change the existing scene. Unfortunately, this is a condition that a priori disqualifies important observations or discoveries made by independent specialists who do not have the necessary support of prestigious medical establishments and institutions.

To understand this situation, we have to see what is fundamentally wrong with cancer research.

2.2 What is wrong with cancer research

Cancer research is now a very costly venture in which cancer patients seem to be forgotten.

The sad reality

Among the many fields of scientific endeavour, cancer research has long occupied a special position because of the dreadful notoriety of cancer as a deadly disease; yet, in spite of a tremendous worldwide effort, apparently cancer continues to resist science. Thus, following decades of both intensive and extensive work without the achievement of any decisive breakthrough, there is now general scepticism concerning the possibility of developing a really efficient therapy, especially in desperate situations in which cancer has been diagnosed too late. So now it seems there is more confidence in the success of prevention than hope in some spectacular positive outcome leading to a really successful therapy.

Therefore, quite inadvertently, specialists working in the field are becoming more preoccupied by the character and scientific value of their long-term research projects than by the primary objective of relieving the suffering of cancer patients. This is a sad reality because it is no secret that, after all the improvements that have been made in cancer therapy, still nearly every third human being is statistically condemned to be afflicted by the disease, and every fourth individual actually succumbs to it.

Medicine and its obligations

We would normally expect that cancer patients would be assisted under all circumstances by any known satisfactory means available without the risk of sanctions for those willing to perform exceptional interventions. This ought to apply especially under extreme vital conditions when there is no hope of a positive response to proven standard therapy in a curative intent. Both physicians and surgeons should therefore be authorized to apply officially unrecognized yet known safe and effective techniques under the full informed consent of the patients and under specified clinical protocols to avoid any possible abuse. This is basically expressed in the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, intended as a statement of ethical principles to provide guidance to physicians and other participants in medical research.

Article 32 of the Declaration of Helsinki states: ‘In the treatment of a patient, where proven prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic methods do not exist or have been ineffective, the physician, with informed consent from the patient, must be free to use unproven or new prophylactic, diagnostic and therapeutic measures, if in the physician’s judgement it offers hope of saving life, re-establishing health or alleviating suffering. Where possible, these measures should be made the object of research, designed to evaluate their safety and efficacy. In all cases, new information should be recorded and, where appropriate, published.’ It is in this spirit that the struggle against cancer should be pursued, and it is also the argument that has been motivating the author in his effort to promote an efficient therapeutic method against so many odds.

To our great dismay, especially in cancer therapy and cancer research, we find that medicine is actually failing to honour its obligations. After the introduction of strict legislation to prevent clinical abuse, medicine is now found responsible for the paradox that patients cannot always accede to novel methods that could save their lives. The barriers to the application of certain promising innovations are so important that medical science is indirectly assuming the blame of misinforming and deceiving not only a confident and totally unaware public, but more particularly, those who are politically responsible in all affairs concerning the budgeting of public health and the establishment of regulatory measures.

If there is blame, it weighs on medicine as a whole, but this circumstance gives no pretext for an excuse to all who are indirectly contributing to the maintenance of the unsatisfactory state of affairs. The situation is aggravated by the lack of communication and constructive interaction between different medical disciplines. No corrective pressures seem to be exerted even when there is a salient drift from ethical obligations in a certain independent medical field. It is regrettable that medical specialists everywhere seem to be preoccupied only by their own activities and research interests. This has to be seen as a result of the increasing burdens and requirements caused by the constantly growing complexity and sophistication of contemporary medical practice and research in general.

Setbacks of institutionalized cancer research

The institutionalization of cancer research is now so thorough that the greater the organizational structures involved, the greater the obstacle to the promotion of marginalized yet simple and effective therapeutic strategies. The loss of independence in research necessarily restrains project orientation possibilities throughout the investigation domain. Positive principles that have once been abandoned or authoritatively condemned by reputed institutions are not likely to be reviewed even in the light of new scientific findings that support the indications and conclusions of previous work.

Under the challenging circumstances involved in an all-out effort to overcome cancer, it would appear more appropriate and logical to examine objectively, without any opportunist bias, every clue and every promising approach that once showed undeniable positive results. There is no acceptable reason that concepts based on principles that seem effective but appear less attractive from a scientific point of view should be disregarded or simply banished.

The complicating reality is that science is now so obsessed by deep-rooted sophistication and new technological developments that it is often unable to make the right conclusive synthesis in the midst of so much available information and it tends to miss the opening of new research horizons. There are situations in which important scientific evidence is disregarded because it is judged either obsolete or too elementary or trivial to be given the attention it actually merits. We should bear in mind the pertinent remark of the British physician Sir William Withey Gull: ‘At the base of all scientific inquiry lies the belief that every natural phenomenon, trifling as it may seem, has a fixed and invariable meaning’. Unfortunately, attention is now really given only to elaborate papers presented in very selective high-impact scientific journals or to the results obtained in the laboratories of prestigious medical institutions. This actually means that, when it comes to publishing new findings in any specialized field, the format and the source of publication of a scientific article can become more important than the significance of the message it is really supposed to convey.

It is in this light and in the face of such obstacles that we must see the existing struggle to conquer cancer. What has been an honest battle in the past now appears more as a pretext to obtain funds for scientific research rather than a real effort in the interest of cancer patients. Such an environment contributes to the inadvertent conditioning of human attitudes towards the immoral exploitation of an unsatisfactory state of affairs. Even damaging alternative therapies may thrive because of the disappointing situation in the sphere of official medicine. Here, individual responsibility and professional conscience necessarily take particular importance, but unfortunately, their manifestation is overwhelmed at all levels by insensitive corporate and institutional interests as well as irresponsible professional rivalry.

Deceptive funding of research

Enormous sums are expended on cancer research worldwide, often only to develop slightly better, but far more expensive, drugs. The increased costs of new therapies are mostly found to be disproportional to the benefits, and the money is provided by confident taxpayers through increasing medical insurance costs and hospital treatment costs. A great deal of money is also provided by goodwill organizations that collect funds for research, prevention, and health care. However, those who contribute should have entire confidence that available resources are distributed and used in a way that assures maximum benefit to the public at large and to victims of cancer in particular. There are many indications that this is not always the case in spite of the supervision and advice of important committees of experts. For instance, the American National Cancer Institute alone has an overall yearly budget of more than $6 billion. This enormous sum contrasts brutally with the fact that there are simple potent techniques for cancer therapy that do not receive any financial support for their development. Grants are simply refused. The irony of such refusals is often seen in the ‘justifying’ argument that there is a lack of adequate scientific evidence or an absence of sufficient developmental background. The incapacitating circumstances actually create a vicious circle. Today, even the publication of convincing preliminary observations and clinical results can be a major problem because very costly studies are required for papers to be developed properly and presented in a form that will be accepted. To be given the necessary attention, new findings or conclusive observations must be based either on an extensive statistical evaluation of the results obtained in authorized and preregistered clinical trials, or proof must be provided by the lucid, unambiguous demonstration of a biomolecular mechanism that must first be adequately defined on scientific grounds. Often, all of this requires the collaboration of several highly specialized teams, and only large research establishments backed by industry can afford the process.

Furthermore, the way financial support can now be obtained to promote activities in any particular scientific field determines to a large extent the actual nature and structure of research projects. Those that facilitate decision making, either in the attribution of grants or integration into larger ongoing research programs, obviously have a greater chance of being supported. This may have nothing to do with the intrinsic innovative potential of a basically new idea. The more we know about a project on the grounds of previous scientific progress, the more supporters it will find. Projects that cannot be integrated into the structures of already-existing research and development programs are simply disregarded. There is too much bias in the procedure of selection, and there are few or no corrective mechanisms that allow individual projects to be judged on their real value in the interest of society. There is, in fact, no independent legitimate platform where serious promoters of innovative concepts can freely defend their views in order to obtain wider scientific support.

Negative role of industries

Mainstream activities generally develop from pivotal scientific acquisitions that stand for new approaches to major problems. Cancer research worldwide is thus mostly duplicative, and with every failure in attaining fixed objectives or obtaining expected results in a given mainstream activity, the burden of wasted effort is incalculable. Nevertheless, there seems to be no space for