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Controversy
I see this as a very, very healthy discussion, as long as it does not turn into a personal attack on anyone. This the right place for discussions pro and con by adults about cancer.
Like Christine, I know some individuals who personally are likely to have benefitted from traztuzumab. From the little bit posted about Mr. Moss I don't interpret Mr. Moss's conclusions to be saying that no one benefits from traztuzumab but quite the opposite. It appears he says that some do. I would think that those people we personally know are probably some of those he indicates that do benefit.
When I was first diagnosed, one of the first 3 books I bought about cancer included Mr. Moss's book Questioning Chemotherapy. I'm not paid by anybody to study about it and I don't buy into whatever happens to be current. We would still all be having radical mastectomies and we wouldn't have sentinel node biopsies if we aren't willing to seriously look at those who question the status quo.
It makes perfect sense to me for Mr. Moss to state that most breast cancer patients are not HER2 positive, and of the remaining patients who are HER2 positive, there are those who are HER2+ or HER2++, with HER2++ being somewhere between uncertain to unlikely to benefit from traztuzumab. Is this not true?
But for me a very real question about traztuzumab has to be raised because the clinical trials fail to include or represent those who were diagnosed in the group I am in. I have to say this because, as we all know, more and more breast cancer patients are being diagnosed in the early stages -- and not in the later stages used for the clinical trials. I believe the group not included is a very large group, since it also includes all those diagnosed with breast cancer in the past who have not yet recurred and who, know it or not, happen to be HER2-positive.
So I too have an open mind about the question of traztuzumab. Thank you all for the interesting responses to Energystar's honest and personal comments.
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