Bacteria: The Ultimate
Cause of Cancer?
by Alan Cantwell
New Dawn No. 76
(January-February 2003)
As a
physician-dermatologist I have studied various aspects of the cancer
microbe for over 30 years. In my book, The Cancer Microbe (Aries
Rising Press, 1990), I recount a century of research by various
scientists who have documented the reality and importance of bacteria
associated with cancer. Despite a wealth of information on the
microbiology of cancer, this body of work has been largely ignored.
Why would medical
science overlook the finding of bacterial elements in cancer,
particularly when the treatment of advanced cancer is often abysmal
and when the cause (or causes) of many types of cancer remain
unknown? If and when the bacterial cause of cancer is widely
accepted, it will be left to medical historians to determine why the
medical community failed to recognise cancer bacteria. At the present
time, it is fair to say that most physicians are either unaware of
cancer microbe research, or ignore the published findings, or are
openly hostile to this research.
Unfortunately,
medical doctors are limited by dogma about cancer-associated bacteria
that eliminated a bacterial cause for cancer a century ago. In the
late nineteenth century, when the bacterial cause of many infectious
diseases was discovered, it was decided that cancer did not act like
an infectious or contagious disease, and therefore it was concluded
that bacteria were not causative.
Although a few
scientists later found highly unusual and pleomorphic bacteria, these
bacteria were simply dismissed as “contaminants” – or as
microbes that had “secondarily infected” cancerous growths.
Furthermore, there was no single or consistent type of microbe found,
and animals experimentally infected with cancer microbes did not give
develop cancer. Thus, decades before the rise of virology and
molecular biology, and at a time when “mycoplasma” forms of
bacteria were not known, the medical establishment concluded that
bacteria were not involved as a cause of cancer in any way. This
conclusion has coloured medical thought about cancer to this day.
Historically, it
took centuries for doctors to recognise microbes as the cause of any
disease. By the use of lenses, germs were discovered 200 years before
physicians finally understood that microbes were capable of causing
disease. For two centuries the dogma was that those exceedingly tiny
“animacules” could not possibly be a threat to a grown person.
Once something
becomes dogma in medical science, it is very difficult to change
medical thinking. Ordinarily, infectious bacteria can be easily
recognised in disease because they can be seen microscopically in
tissue sections from disease states. Sometimes careful “special
staining” of tissue sections is necessary to make microbes more
visible and more easily identifiable. (In cancerous tissue, the
cancer microbe is most easily viewed with an “acid-fast” tissue
stain, like the special stain employed to identify the mycobacteria
that cause tuberculosis and leprosy).
In this
so-called modern era of medical science, one would think it
impossible for disease experts to overlook disease-causing bacteria.
However, when a new and deadly lung disease broke out among
legionnaires in Philadelphia in July 1976, two hundred twenty-two
people became ill and thirty-four died. The cause of the lung disease
remained a medical mystery for over five months. Bacterial infection
was ruled out when all tests were reported as negative. Fortunately,
one astute and careful microbiologist finally discovered bacteria.
Joe McDade at the Leprosy Branch of the CDC, was able to detect
“unusual bacteria” in guinea pigs experimentally infected with
lung tissue from the dead legionnaires. Further modification of
bacterial culture methods finally allowed the isolation of causative
bacteria, now known as Legionella pneumophila.
Yet another
modern example of dogma-defying research is provided by recent
studies proving that bacteria (Helicobacter pylori) are a common
cause of stomach ulcers, which can eventually lead to stomach cancer
and lymphoma. When I went to medical school, stomach ulcers were
thought to be due to stress, lifestyle, or improper diet, and it was
not uncommon to send ulcer patients to psychiatrists for analysis.
For a century,
physicians refused to believe that bacteria could cause ulcers
because they thought bacteria could not live in the acid environment
of the stomach. In 1982 a researcher, who was unable to convince his
colleagues that bacteria could cause ulcers and gastritis, actually
proved his case by drinking a culture of H. pylori. When he rapidly
became ill with stomach symptoms, he admitted himself to the hospital
where these bacteria were found to be associated with his gastric
disease. It also turned out that these bacteria could indeed be
detected in the stomach lining of stomach ulcers, but only when the
tissue was stained in a special way to detect the bacteria. The CDC
now claims that H. pylori causes more than 90% of duodenal ulcers and
80% of gastric ulcers. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s
population is infected with these microbes.
The present
experience with ulcer-causing microbes proves that bacteria can
indeed pop up in diseases where they are least expected. Such a
caveat is appropriate for doctors who think they know everything
about cancer and who pooh-pooh all aspects of cancer microbe
research.
One perennial
complaint about the so-called cancer microbe is that is pleomorphic.
For some reason, the idea that a proposed cancer germ could have more
than one form is a threat to doctors and some microbiologists. Indeed
the cancer germ has been described as having a virus like and
fungus-like, as well as mycoplasma-like phase. Such a “life cycle”
is deemed nonsense and microbiologic heresy.
The many guises
of the pleomorphic cancer microbe was studied extensively in the
1960s and 70s by four remarkable women scientists: Virginia
Livingston (a physician); Eleanor Alexander-Jackson (a
microbiologist); Irene Diller (a cytologist); and Florence Seibert, a
chemist, tuberculosis expert, and inventor of the tuberculin skin
test. Their individual and collaborative studies are essential
reading to understand the proposed microbiology of cancer.
This research
clearly indicated that cancer microbes are best detected by special
tissue testing (similar to those used in tuberculosis and leprosy
research). And that the cancer germ has some similarity to
pleomorphic tuberculosis germs.
In all its many
forms the tuberculosis microbe is certainly pleomorphic. (See the
work of mycoplasma expert Lida H. Mattman.) The bacteria that cause
TB are known as “mycobacteria”. Some forms of the bacillus are
round “coccoid” forms; other forms are more typically “acid-fast”
and “rod” forms. All mycobacteria form a phylogenetic link or
bridge between the bacteria and the “higher” fungi. “Myco” is
Greek for fungus. Ergo, myco-bacteria.
Under appropriate
conditions, bacteria can lose their cell wall and become amorphous,
smaller, highly pleomorphic “cell-wall deficient forms.” Under
suitable conditions, mycoplasma can enlarge to giant-sized forms
(“Large bodies”) resembling fungal and spore-like forms. It is
vital to be aware of and to recognise such unusual and hard-to-detect
forms in tissue microscopic sections because, in my experience, this
mycoplasmal form is the form the cancer microbe takes inside the body
in human disease. Due to their small size, Mycobacteria form a bridge
between (larger) bacteria and smaller) viruses. Microbiologists love
to separate (and classify) viruses, bacteria, mycoplasma, and fungi,
as distinct entities. In fact, there is interplay between all of
them. It is well-known that bacteria can be infected with viruses.
Nevertheless, scientists cannot seem to understand how microbes can
change into virus-like, mycoplasma-like and fungus-like infectious
agents.
Because the
cancer microbe is related to the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, it
is helpful to compare the microbiology of cancer with what we know
about the microbiology of mycobacteria and their production of
various forms of clinical TB.
Over the past
half-century we have learned that TB is not always caused by the same
identical germs. TB infections of the lung may be caused by various
“atypical” mycobacteria that are not identical to the common
Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Also some atypical mycobacteria have been
discovered in various disease states that are not considered
tuberculosis. Thus, there is no reason to expect all
cancer-associated bacteria to be exactly the same germ.
Furthermore, just
as everyone who harbours H. pylori does not develop stomach ulcers,
we should not expect all “cancer microbes” to produce cancer.
Also it is not unreasonable to consider that cancer microbes have the
potential to produce disease states that are not considered cancer.
For many years I
identified cancer microbes in a variety of disease states. In The
Cancer Microbe, I show photomicrographs of cancer microbes in
“autoimmune” diseases such as scleroderma, in AIDS-related
Kaposi’s sarcoma, in enlarged lymph nodes in AIDS, in breast
cancer, in lymphoma and Hodgkin’s disease, in a lung disease called
interstitial pneumonitis, in sarcoidosis, in an immunoblastic sarcoma
and even in a skin cancer.
Not everyone who
becomes infected with TB germs develops clinical tuberculosis. People
can harbour the TB germ without ever becoming ill. The same is true
for cancer microbes. Not everyone who carries them develops cancer.
According to
Virginia Livingston, the microbe is “ubliquitous.” It is found in
various disease states and also can be found normally. This is a
difficult for some medical doctors to believe because of the idea
that an infectious agent must always infect. Livingston infuriated
the scientific establishment by naming the cancer microbe “Progenitor
cryptocides” – meaning “hidden killer”). She claimed the
microbe was present in every cell. Due to its biochemical
peculiarities, the organism was responsible for initiating life and
for healing of tissue; and was the microbe ultimately responsible for
eventual degeneration and death of all life. Such ideas, of course,
are at odds with medical thought. However, my own studies have
suggested that the cancer microbe is indeed ubiquitous and
indestructible, which is further reason why it should be taken
seriously, particularly in diseases that are poorly understood, like
cancer and “diseases of unknown etiology.”
Most importantly,
cancer microbes are significant because they can be identified in the
cancerous tissue in various forms of cancer. A few of these microbes
can be seen in “normal” tissue, but strikingly larger numbers can
be seen in the areas of the tumour. These microbes can be identified
in “pre-cancerous” conditions, suggesting that these germs are
present before the actual induction of the cancer. Furthermore, when
cancer is “cured” by radiation and chemotherapy, the microbe can
still be found in the damaged, previously cancerous areas.
The reason we
cannot “cure” cancer is that we cannot stop the destruction
caused by these “hidden” and “unrecognised” bacterial
elements. The reason antibiotics do not work well in cancer is
because the microbes (in the mycoplasmal phase inside the body) are
not susceptible to antibiotics.
In cancer
research, there is controversy as to whether cancer is one disease or
many. For instance, could breast cancer and lung cancer and prostate
cancer all be caused by the same agent. This would be deemed highly
improbable, but if cancer microbes were shown to be associated with
all three forms of cancer, the possibility that all three kinds of
cancer might be related becomes more possible.
When Livingston
and colleagues injected cancer microbes into animals and chickens,
some developed cancer, some developed degenerative and proliferative
diseases, and some developed nothing of note. Apparently the
individual “immunity” of the host was an important factor in
terms of what response the cancer microbe would elicit.
Tuberculosis
infection can affect many parts of the body. Tuberculosis confined to
the skin is very different disease when compared to TB of the lung or
of the bone. Yet, all three manifestations of the disease are linked
together because the TB germ can be found in all three. If cancer
microbes are indeed proven as infectious agents in cancer – then
various forms of cancer may indeed be manifestations of the same
cancer microbe.
There are many
“factors” that determine whether a person will become infected
with TB. Obviously, smoking is a big factor in lung cancer, radiation
is a big factor in skin cancer and leukemia, and so on. However, in
defense of the cancer microbe theory, it would be fair to suggest
that anything that damages tissue would provide a soil for the
possible development of cancer microbe activity in the tissue that
could lead to cancer or the development of degenerative or
proliferative disease.
Finally, is
cancer contagious? For a century physicians have said “no.” But
now we know that certain viruses like HIV can lead to cancer. Certain
wart “papilloma” viruses can be spread sexually and result in
cervical cancer. If further infectious agents, like cancer microbes,
are found in cancerous diseases, we may have to reevaluate the
contagiosity of cancer.
Obviously in this
short communication, few people will be convinced that bacteria cause
cancer. For me, it took many years of study, microscopic observation,
and communication with microbiologists, pathologists, and colleagues,
to become convinced that Livingston and her associates were correct
in their claims of a cancer microbe.
A wealth of
knowledge pertaining to the cancer microbe (both pro and con) can be
found on search engines such as www.google.com. Simply type in
“cancer microbe”, “alan cantwell”, “virginia livingston”,
“Eleanor Alexander-Jackson” and other names mentioned in this
communication.
For a list of
scientific publications in medical journals pertaining to the
microbiology of cancer, go to the Pubmed website
(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) and type in “Cantwell AR”, “Livingston
VW”, “Alexander-Jackson E”, “Diller IC”, “Seibert FB.”
For serious
students of the microbiology of cancer, I would recommend the
following books:
Cantwell, Alan: The
Cancer Microbe (1990), Aries Rising Press, Los Angeles
Cantwell, Alan: AIDS:
The Mystery and the Solution (1986), Aries Rising Press
Livingston, Virginia:
Cancer: A New Breakthrough (1972), Livingston Clinic, San Diego
Livingston, Virginia:
The Microbiology of Cancer (1977), Livingston Clinic
Hess, David: Can
Bacteria Cause Cancer (1997), NY University Press
Mattman, Lida: Cell
Wall Deficient Forms; Stealth Pathogens (1993), CRC Press
Reich, Wilhelm: The
Cancer Biopathy (1973), Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, New York
Doctor Cantwell,
retired from active practice, can be contacted via email at
alanrcan@aol.com. He is the author of The Cancer Microbe, published
by Aries Rising Press, PO Box 29532, Los Angeles, CA 90029. The book
may be ordered from Book Clearing House (www.bookch.com) or via
1-800-431-1579. Dr. Cantwell’s book Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS
Genocide Plot, is available from New Dawn Book Service.
