From time to time Vegetarians in Paradise presents informative articles by guest contributors on subjects of interest to vegetarians and vegans. This month we introduce Dr. Jerry Green, the author of How You Can Use ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE to Be a CANCER RESISTOR. We are grateful to Dr.Green for sending us this excerpt from his book.

Here is a list of things to help ensure you get cancer:

1. Eat North American food. People who eat ethnic food are a bunch of flakes, fruits and nuts.
   
2. Eat a high fat, low fiber diet. Those vegetarians don't know what really tastes good.
   
3. Buy all your foods in a supermarket. Use lots of canned, packaged and processed foods. They're cheap and convenient. There's no time to prepare foods from scratch.
   
4. Avoid tasteless tofu and beans. The gas is enough to kill you.
   
5. Use birth control pills as soon as you become sexually active and
   continue until menopause. Getting pregnant is worse than getting cancer.
   
6. Use estrogen replacement hormones at the first sign of menopause. Hot flushes should not have to be tolerated.
   
7. Avoid fresh vegetables and fruits. Mothers telling their kids to eat their vegetables are misinformed.
   
8. Smoke cigarettes. Ignore the health warning signs on packages that were forced on the tobacco companies by investigative journalists and concerned citizen groups.
   
9. Smoke and take birth control pills at the same time.
   
10. Allow your doctors to subject you to as many x-rays as possible. Mammograms, CT scans, dental x-rays, chest x-rays. Its always nice to see what's going on inside. Besides, it keeps the medical industrial healthy and allows your doctor to maintain his 4 wives, 3 homes and 2.3 children.
    
11. Overwork and under-sleep. Getting ahead is more important than your health.
    
12. Drink tap water. Or "aqua fresca" straight from the ocean or lake. The 35% of people who drink bottled water are wasting their money.
    
13. Never crack a joke or a smile. Life is too serious to waste time on humor.
    
14. Live close to high tension wires.
    
15. Stay as close to your television and computer screen as possible. The view is better.
    
16. Have unprotected sex with as many partners as possible.
    
17. Live in a large city. The bigger the better. Try Los Angeles, New York or Toronto.
    
18. Eat in restaurants, especially fast food ones as often as possible. They are fast, cheap and convenient.
    
19. Live close to industrial manufacturing plants. Some of the nicest people work there.
    
20. Don't get involved in environmental or political action. Those people are a bunch of tree huggers who will never change anything. You can't fight city hall.

The point is that each factor above has been shown to be linked or suspected to be linked to causing cancer in animals and humans. A wise person would say that even with a suspicion, it would be prudent to use cautious avoidance if possible.

Almost everyone knows someone who has cancer; it is an all too common disease. Everyone is interested or should be interested in preventing cancer.

There are many things you can do. In alternative medicine, we find that what treats also prevents.

Just as there are many reasons why you have decided to read this book, there are many reasons why people get cancer. As in most things in life, causation is multi-factorial.

SOCIETY'S EVIL "OVERS"

I believe the cause of disease partly rests in what I call the evil "overs" in our society: over-eating, over-drug, over-work, over-indulge, over-drive, over-whelm, over-achieve. Do we ever hear of anyone lamenting that they over-loved, over-rested, over-relaxed?

LIES YOUR DOCTOR MAY TELL YOU

There are limits to medicine that your doctor may not always indicate. With Rodney Dangerfield they are more straight forward. He went to his doctor for a face lift. The best his doctor could offer was seat covers. He complained about water on the knee. His doctor told him to use sponges.

Here are some common lines used by ordinary doctors:

"We got it all."
Most internal cancers are systemic, i.e. they are throughout your system at an early stage even though there may appear to be a single lump. There is usually something that has gone wrong with your immune system to allow this to happen. Simply removing the solitary tumor does not address this situation. When you return months or years later, the doctor may say, "It's returned." He usually knows it was there all the time but is afraid to admit the inadequacies of his treatment.

"It's one in a million."
Doctors often say this after you suffer a serious side effect from a drug or surgery. Depending on your age and health status, some risks of being harmed may be much higher than one in a million: one in ten or one in two are possibilities.

"Trust me, I'm a doctor."

"Which medical school did you attend?"