Executive Summary

• Docetaxel is presented as effective against cancer by medical authorities and cancer centers.

• How accurate is this presentation?

Introduction

Docetaxel is a major chemotherapy drug.

What cancer centers, oncologists, and medical authorities don’t do is explain the actual effectiveness of Docetaxel for chemotherapy.

Common Side Effects

The following quote is from Oncolink, a biased website run by The Harvard Medical School that is just a business development front end for their very profitable chemotherapy treatment business.

Low White Blood Cell Count (Leukopenia or Neutropenia)
White blood cells (WBC) are important for fighting infection. While receiving treatment, your WBC count can drop, putting you at a higher risk of getting an infection. You should let your doctor or nurse know right away if you have a fever (temperature greater than 100.4°F /38°C), sore throat or cold, shortness of breath, cough, burning with urination, or a sore that doesn’t heal.

Tips to preventing infection:

Washing hands, both yours and your visitors, is the best way to prevent the spread of infection.
Avoid large crowds and people who are sick (i.e.: those who have a cold, fever, or cough or live with someone with these symptoms).
When working in your yard, wear protective clothing including long pants and gloves.
Do not handle pet waste.
Keep all cuts or scratches clean.
Shower or bathe daily and perform frequent mouth care.
Do not cut cuticles or ingrown nails. You may wear nail polish, but not fake nails.
Ask your oncology care team before scheduling dental appointments or procedures.
Ask your oncology care team before you, or someone you live with has any vaccinations.
Low Red Blood Cell Count (Anemia)
Your red blood cells are responsible for carrying oxygen to the tissues in your body. When the red cell count is low, you may feel tired or weak. You should let your doctor or nurse know if you experience any shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, or pain in your chest. If the count gets too low, you may receive a blood transfusion.

Low Platelet Count (Thrombocytopenia)
Platelets help your blood clot, so when the count is low you are at a higher risk of bleeding. Let your oncology care team know if you have any excess bruising or bleeding, including nose bleeds, bleeding gums, or blood in your urine or stool. If the platelet count becomes too low, you may receive a transfusion of platelets.

Do not use a razor (an electric razor is fine).
Avoid contact sports and activities that can result in injury or bleeding.
Do not take aspirin (salicylic acid), non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) such as Motrin/Advil (ibuprofen), Aleve (naproxen), Celebrex (celecoxib), etc. as these can all increase the risk of bleeding. Please consult with your healthcare team regarding the use of these agents and all over the counter medications/supplements while on therapy.
Do not floss or use toothpicks and use a soft-bristle toothbrush to brush your teeth.

And what must be compared against this truncated listing of the side effects is that this type of chemotherapy has a poor history of effectiveness.

The Establishment Explanation of Chemotherapy

This video explains how chemotherapy works and does explain some of the negative aspects of chemotherapy. However, anyone can propose a hypothesis of how the mechanism works — particularly after a treatment has been around for decades, it is not only the mechanism that must be explained, but there must be strong evidence that the treatment works. The proposed improvement explained in this video is primarily due to pharmaceutical companies rigging the math. 

How the Reality of Chemotherapy is Hidden from the Public

The problems with chemotherapy became apparent nearly immediately after the discovery of chemotherapy — or the use of mustard gas as a treatment against cancer. This is explained in the following quotation.

“If one reads the literature of the time, there was a real sense of excitement that perhaps drugs could cure patients with cancer,” Vincent DeVita, Jr., the prominent oncologist, wrote of the first widespread use of nitrogen mustard as a chemother- apeutic agent. Sadly, after the drug was widely distributed and some time had passed, the excitement proved premature. The remissions induced by nitrogen mustard turned out to be brief and incomplete. The drug was able to”soften” the typically hard nodes for only a matter of weeks.

The cancer then sprang back to life, again packing the lymph nodes full of solid malignancy. It was a blow to the fragile, tantalizing hope for chemotherapy.
The euphoria was followed by pessimism, and the prospect of drugs affecting the outcome for cancer patients in any meaningful way was again shrouded in uncertainty.

However, not only is the origin of chemotherapy as mustard gas not explained to the public, but the apparent limitations of chemotherapy are also not explained.

Oncology Drugs Average of Less Than Three Months Improvement in Increased Lifespan

A 2017 paper published in JAMA Oncology presented some stunning conclusions. Of sixty-two new oncology drugs approved between 2003 and 2013, only 43 percent offered a survival benefit of three months or longer, 11 percent offered a survival benefit of less than three months, 15 percent had an unknown survival benefit, and 30 percent offered no survival benefit at all.

45% of Oncology Drugs Reduce Patient Safety

Furthermore, 45 percent were associated with reduced patient safety. A 2017 study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that looked at the survival and quality-of-life benefits of forty-eight cancer drugs approved in Europe by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) between 2009 and 2013 reached similar conclusions: “This systematic evaluation of oncology approvals by
the EMA in 2009–13 shows that most drugs entered the market without evidence of benefit on survival or quality of life. At a minimum of 3.3 years after market entry, there was still no conclusive evidence that these drugs either extended or improved life for most cancer indications. When there were survival gains over existing treatment options or placebo, they were often marginal.”