Campaign for Cancer Prevention: The Cause to Find the Cancer Causes

Posted Dec 06, 2010 by

Direct Funding for Cancer Research from Crowd-Sourcing Millions on Causes

Guest blogger: Dr. Eric Ding, who started the Campaign for Cancer Prevention on Causes from his dorm room at Harvard in 2007. The cause has grown to almost 6 million members and has just funded and completed the first breast cancer study through public grassroots small donations.

There are arguably few things in the world more heartbreaking than watching someone suffer and die from cancer—and that is witnessing the agonizing slow pace of cancer research. Second to that is the frustration of the glaring gap between brilliant cancer scientists with innovative ideas and the funding to help realize them for cancer prevention. Bold solutions are needed to create efficient avenues for linking public momentum and research for preventing the clear and present dangers of cancer.

Our Campaign for Cancer Prevention (CCP) is one such avenue – and it involves transferring the momentum of human social energy to the direct initiation of cancer projects that can truly shift our approach. Thus, the CCP is pleased to announce it has successfully funded the first-ever medical research study from entirely small dollar social-network-driven donations channeled directly to major scientific projects.

This first CCP funded study, titled “Circulating Carotenoids, Mammographic Density, and Subsequent Risk of Breast Cancer,” was groundbreaking and important for breast cancer prevention, especially in light of the recent mammogram screening controversy. The study was featured as the lead article of the respected journal Cancer Research.# First-authored by Rulla Tamini and conducted at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital as part of the famed Nurses’ Health Study, the study found that higher levels of carotenoids in women’s blood predicted lower future risk of breast cancer —with notably stronger protective benefits among women with higher breast density on mammograms. This important finding shows the potential benefits that can come from routine mammogram screenings, and the potential cancer prediction and cancer prevention benefits of studying circulating markers in our blood.

Aside from the significance of the research, this novel method of direct-to-science scientific research funding is also revolutionary and transforming—as we’ve bypassed traditional avenues and founded an entirely new avenue to support cancer research through social media and channeling of grassroots momentum.

For perspective, most research studies conducted at hospitals and scientific institutes around the country are funded by large cancer nonprofit organizations that often have 25-50% overhead costs and up to 2-5 years of bureaucratic delays in administration. Instead, CCP used the power of social media, and community organizing – and cut down innovation delivery time down to less than 9 months. We believe 6 months or even less should be possible in the future.

The cause may have started in a Harvard dorm room and a basement computer lab, but we all know some of the best ventures of our generation with similarly humble beginnings. With the help of Causes and a close team2, we have spent the last three years building the membership to nearly six million members. We wanted to provide an opportunity to directly connect average citizens who care about preventing cancer with leading scientists doing cutting-edge research – transferring energy from simply doing cancer walks with nebulous donation endpoints, to an awaiting set of live cancer projects ready to be launched by social media donations and activism. In over three years, cause members have donated more than $275,000 in grassroots donations for this study and other innovative cancer research at Harvard. Moreover, its not just any laboratory of small-clinic research, but direct cancer prevention research in arguably the most acclaimed and internationally recognized study in the world, the Nurses’ Health Study at Harvard.

The value of the Campaign for Cancer Prevention cause also goes well beyond fundraising. One simply cannot pay someone a million dollars to amass 6 million people passionate for a single cause— the value of such a membership of dedicated cancer prevention supporters is immeasurable and priceless. With this large a community, there is enormous potential of rich information to be aggregated in a worldwide social network centered cancer study to uncover important clues and enrich our understanding about the life determinants that cause and prevent cancer. Such is one of our future hopes to further involve the public membership, and activate the true social potential of the cause membership.

Having survived a large tumor as a child and been frustrated by the slow pace of cancer research, I wanted to help pave new avenues to efficiently channel direct activism for cancer, and leverage the social momentum energy to spur even further key innovations for prevention. Ultimately, our first Campaign for Cancer Prevention success story, representing a unique synergy between social media, direct science, and cancer prevention research, will only be the beginning of what is to come. It will be the cause to discover the causes.

#A journal published by the American Association for Cancer Research (http://www.aacr.org/).

2CCP team members: Laura Shiers, Vasanti Malik, and Andrea Feigl, with additional support of Lesley Solomon.

Eric Ding is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is director of the Campaign for Cancer Prevention. He created this Campaign after surviving a baseball-sized tumor as a child, after originally given less than five years to live. He went on to earn dual doctorates from Harvard University at age 23, and trained in cancer prevention and cancer epidemiology with Harvard-NIH/NCI cancer training program

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/InBus-F-Good/1312340053 <fb:name linked="false" useyou="false" uid="1312340053">InBus F Good</fb:name>

    and we’d love to help out with a customized version of our Ribbon Awareness support campaign. see http://www.computerhelpers4good.net for our first offering, and then let us know through emails on that program guide.

    • http://www.facebook.com/jean.brett.12 Jean Brett

      you’ve got my support

      • http://retrochalet.blogspot.com/ Cindy Fahnestock-Schafer

        Thanks, this is just what i needed to read as I’m trying to raise money for cancer at a bbq festival and i have gotten so frustrated with all i’m going through but i have to remember the bottom line and what the cause is all about http://www.hoggingup.com

  • Nicola

    MA perchè non in lingua italiana?

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  • EFXP

    Wow. Good work.

  • SANKARSUVAI

    Very Impressive. The survival rates indicated by the doctors is only an average and there are exceptions. I am sure you had the will power and positive thinking ability to prove the theory wrong. It is the duty of the medical community to improve the survival rates. They also have a responsibility to ensure that in the pretext of telling the truth they are not telling the patient about the survival rate and in many cases, they thus scare the patient to an early demise. Where some of the cancers like Myeloma are not curable and only treatable the medical community should work hard to find out cures I am a Myeloma survivor of 8 years and now at 63 years I would like to believe that there are several medical options which can combine with chemo , surgery and radiation to prove the survival theories wrong.

  • Gloria Slater

    Great work, Eric. I would really love to see someone step outside the box entirely and do research on total cancer prevention. I have 8 close family members who have died or nearly died of cancer and heart disease. I am 63 and have never had any problems at all since I’ve been actively eating properly, exercising, believing healthy and promoting wellness. My 7 brothers and sisters have not embraced this lifestyle and have had severe brushes with cancer and cardiovascular disease. Wellness equals prevention and leads to disease free lives. I guess I have a cause!

  • bakhtawar mirza

    superb…. (y)

  • Dr.Rawan

    Good work (my support for u)

  • Sara

    Good work. Please focus on children’s cancer research and cures. Especially neuroblastoma.

  • http://www.facebook.com/henri.gonsan.5 Henri Gonsan

    Thanks a lot. This is one of the best initiatives

  • gautam gigoo

    god bless you sweet eric you r angel you r am soo happy for you keep smiling my all love and happiness for you wish you very long and healthy life love you sooo much :))))

  • http://www.facebook.com/ngoga.egide.9 Ngoga Egide

    I encourage the idea of cancer prevention!But one of the causes is the ignorance.People don’t start when young,when childs to prevent.They remember to do something when they face cancer attempting them.
    We’re organizers of motivational talks,we’ll talk about it and i think we’ll have to invite ERIC FEIGL-DING ,this man working on such campain.We have to partner and save our world

  • http://www.facebook.com/gregorykarl.davis Gregory Karl Davis

    Cannabis curing cancer is researched in depth here through this ministry that is seeking to qualify the results. http://www.facebook.com/notes/gregory-karl-davis/naturally-derived-dronabinol-cannabis-extract-improved-by-cbds-cannabidiol-addit/492652777422023

    • mike

      Bet this post does not last too long the AMA does not want this to get out ….All the money is in treatment not curing…..

  • RositaMassallo

    Good luck,its hard to think when u have a relative wit cancer an has little to be in this world I have a cuz that’s slowly is dying of breast cancer,an I pray the lord to was her pain an to guide her way.

  • http://www.facebook.com/geraldine.alexander.94 Geraldine Alexander

    I love this blog. I believe,also, that the best way to prevent cancer is to begin with a good diet that include foods that can prevent cancer cells from forming.

  • disqus_A4xEB3sRg1

    Cancer was cured almost a 100 years ago – see the work of Max Gerson or the Gerson Therapies. Also 1 of the american presidents, Nixon I think, comissioned a study on Cannabis & found that it had remarkable anti-cancer & anti-tumour properties but this too was suppressed!! Cancer thrives in an acidic low oxygen environment – change the PH to a more alkaline, oxygen full environment and cancer cells die off.

    • plumplum

      Rubbish.

      • Jake Witmer

        It may be “rubbish” but the problem is that it is illegal to verify or falsify the study, as per the FDA and AMA’s death-cult method of operation that prohibits everything that they, as self-appointed medical dictators, have not “approved.” Only slaves need approval, free men do not.

        • plumplum

          Then feel free to continue taking untested remedies (except, they ahve been recommended by internet experts (??!#$) .. and good luck.

  • Louva

    Great work,Eric

  • zhang.ghost

    Cannabis curing cancer is researched in depth here through this ministry that is seeking to qualify the results.

  • Jake Witmer

    Systemic knowledge is needed here. Here’s a list I made of alternative cancer approaches, preventative approaches, and treatments, including ones that claim to be “cures.”

    1) Tullio Simoncini, on youtube, book: “Cancer is a Fungus” overview: Claims that the omnipresent candida yeast infections in cancerous tissue are the root cause of cancer, and not opportunist infestations. Simoncini claims to have reversed cancer in hundreds of patients by pumping a strong baking soda solution into the arteries that feed the cancers, creating a strong alkaline environment around them. It is the method of administration that matters most, and he claims to have perfected it. (Hospitals are not set up to repeatedly administer such simple non-drug-based and low-profit margin treatments, nor are most doctors trained in such techniques. Simoncini’s instructions and methodology are published in great detail, and in youtube videos for free.)

    2) Diet – “The China Study” – well known study on Chinese diet, indicating that certain elements of the chinese diet may prevent cancer. (As an aside, I bought apricot kernels in Beijing airport, as they are a common snack in China, sold as “bitter almonds,” salted or unsalted. Also, Ling Chi shelf fungi and cordyceps were sold there at prices higher than the gold that is sold there. In the USA, all the prior are illegal to be sold without a lengthy permit process. In China, they are sold as “traditional chinese medicine.”)

    3) Gerson: Diet therapy, juicing, avoidance of animal-based foods, toward the goal of reverting the body to alkaline chemistry. Bolstered by some of Ray Kurzweil’s dietary findings, culled from software databases.

    4) Richardson Cancer Treatments, Hoxsey Clinics. The progenitors of B17, apricot kernel extract therapy. To be effective, the book claims that the B17 or “laetrile” must be administered in large doses, intravenously. G Edward Griffin’s book is the most comprehensive source of information about this therapy, which is now banned in the USA. Additionally, studying this therapy is also illegal (research is illegal in “the land of the free!”) in the USA and Canada. The “trophoblast theory of cancer” is also mentioned in Griffin’s book, which indicates that some studies indicate that cancer is caused by cells that have improperly differentiated into placental cells, due to an absence or proper pancreatic enzymes in the blood that serve to check the growth of these cells.

    5) dca – “Dichloroacetate” is a simple, natural substance (unpatentable, and thus not able to be tested by drug companies because of a lack of possible profitability and competition with their other patented drugs). Youtube Glenn Beck dichloroacetate for an interview with the Univeristy of Toronto researches whose study found that dicholoracetate selectively killed cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed, in petri dishes. Of course, medical help is necessary to safely administer even a cure like this, into the bloodstream.

    6) Vitamin K2 – Vitamin K2, in large doses (300+ micrograms), appears to activate (make bio-available) vitamin D3, as well as a protein known as “GAS-6″ which either differentiates cancer cells back into normal cells, or kills them.

    7) Turkeytail mushrooms – long chain polysaccharides appear to sometimes reverse even late-stage cancer. Anecdotally, mycologist Paul Stamets (the leader of an American study into these effects, which were first noticed in Japan) appears to have cured his mother of late-stage breast cancer, which reversed when she was given large doses of the Turkeytail mushroom, Trametes versicolor. (TEDmed talk by Paul Stamets is on youtube)

    8) Regenerative medicine – Stephen Badylak at the University of Pittsburgh successfully regrew and replaced a cancerous esophagus in 2003. All the connective tissue, nerves, and muscles also regrew, resulting in a functional esophagus. He did this by figuring out that the extra-cellular protein matrix (which connects cells in the body at various stages of development) is what differentiates adult mesenchymal stem cells. After hundreds of surgeons mistook natural swelling around transplanted organs for the reddish tinge of infection, yanking successfully transplanted organs out of their recipients, the FDA and AMA cracked down on his process, limiting how fast he could teach and perform the process to tiny handfuls of patients.

    9) Rife Machines – Royal Rife was an inventor who figured out that electronic resonances killed many kinds of bacteria at certain frequencies. He believed that viruses and bacteria caused most cancer, possibly by damaging DNA, or other cellular mechanisms (which could also be conceivably be damaged by other causes that mimic the mechanism of the destructive bacteria, such as asbestos or excessive sunlight). He also noticed that cancer cells themselves could be killed by different frequencies than normal, healthy cells. He built several machines in his lifetime that emitted different electrical frequencies. He was a controversial figure who was labeled a “quack” and a “fraud” by the AMA. He countered by claiming that the AMA was a medical cartel and protectionist racket (I believe he was right about that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean his work was correct).

    All the prior cases exist in an unfree market. Without a free market, information itself is illegal, in direct violation of the First Amendment, and the property rights protected by the Fourth Amendment.

How have you used Causes to create an impact in your community?

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