Review of Winning the War on Cancer

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Joanna Karpasea
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Latest Review: Winning the War on Cancer by Sylvie Beljanski

Review of Winning the War on Cancer

Post by Joanna Karpasea »

[Following is a volunteer review of "Winning the War on Cancer" by Sylvie Beljanski.]
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4 out of 5 stars
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Sylvie Beljanski’s “Winning the War on Cancer”, was a surprising read. As a long-time fan of alternative medicines, I presumed this book would be a rather dry reference book listing remedies one could take to prevent or treat cancer. It turned out to be so much more than that!

Sylvie chronicled the career of her father, Mirko Beljanski, a famed molecular biologist with 133 research papers to his name. While working at the Pasteur Institute in France, he discovered that the bark of the Pao Pereira tree killed cancer stem cells and that cancer wasn’t due to mutation as was the prevailing scientific thought at the time. It was caused by the destabilisation of DNA and the trigger of this destabilisation was environmental toxins.
Just as there are chemicals in the environment that can cause cancer and plants that are poisonous, some plants work in reverse and can halt cancer in its tracks.

So, why is it that we now have one in three people who will get cancer at some point in their lifetimes? Why does cancer still ravage when there is an effective herbal remedy backed by scientific evidence? Why do doctors say the only treatments are chemotherapy and radiotherapy when these treatments have a notoriously low success rate, with many side effects including secondary cancers?

The answer is that chemotherapy is big business and takes in millions of dollars for the pharmaceutical industry. Most drugs are modified from a natural product and these modifications allow them to be patented. This means that only one specific company is allowed to produce and sell the drugs. It guarantees them an income by eliminating their competition and means they can raise the price of their medications as much as they like, giving themselves soaring profits at the expense of the consumer.

Tree bark like Pao Pereira, however, cannot be patented because it is natural and things in nature belong to everyone. Only modification allows for a patent. Without a patent, big pharma cannot monopolize a medicine, or charge big bucks. The public may source it cheaply from elsewhere. Without guarantees of large profits, they aren’t interested in providing nature’s medicines. Neither is there money granted to universities to research herbal remedies when sponsors know they are not going to reap huge financial rewards.
Mainstream doctors say that there is no evidence that herbal remedies are safe or effective while omitting the fact that this is because no one will fund the study of them.

After Beljanski discovered DNA destabilisation and the anti-cancer effect of Pao Pereira, he was blocked at every turn by jealous academics vying for power, and big pharma whose profit margins were threatened by his science.
What followed next seemed more like a crime thriller than a book about natural remedies and it was difficult to put the book down. It included office raids by the military, false arrests, accusations of murder and a fatal car accident with suspicious timing.

This led the author, Sylvie Beljanski, on a quest to bring justice to her father in opposition to the French government and bring her father’s medicine to the public. She encountered numerous obstacles including falling into an Amazonian River with flesh-eating piranhas, butting heads with the Brazilian Ministry of Forests when they destroyed her stock and dealing with an angry, less-than-supportive husband whom she eventually divorced.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book which felt more like a novel but was fully referenced with all of Mirko Beljanski’s research.
My only criticism is that Sylvie rightly criticized big pharma for their monopoly on cancer cures but later asserted that only her father’s brand of Pao Pereira could fight cancer effectively when she tested other brands of the extract. This came across as trying to monopolize a supplement, which didn’t sit well with me. The link at the end of the book to a free podcast also didn’t seem to work, although I did explore the website and there are other free podcasts available.

I give the book a 4 out of 5 for its scientific content and ability to keep the reader engaged. I removed one star for my criticism but I advise everyone to have this book so they have another option if they were ever to get cancer in the future.

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Winning the War on Cancer
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