Medical Journal Articles | Grace Gawler Media

Why a brave mum said no to chemotherapy – Adelaide Now: Grace Gawler comments

My Institute has found it a challenge to get articles published about the dangers of exclusive use of alternative medicine in treating cancer; an alarming and growing trend in Australia! So when I saw the article “Why a brave mum said no to chemotherapy” in ‘Adelaide Now’ a mainstream newspaper – I was rather shocked. I have seen a lot of ovarian cancer during my career – I am yet to see anyone recover without conventional treatments and complementary approaches combined and I am amazed that anyone would recommend mothers to not have chemotherapy! Today cancer medicine both here and overseas has many excellent treatments for ovarian cancers especially new anitibody treatments. I have supported many women who were smitten with alt/med then faced the hard yards of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I know many long term survivors.

As an educator in cancer medicine and a qualified naturopath working with cancer patients for almost 4 decades… and as one who on a daily basis sees the advantages of the synergy of complementary and conventional medicine versus the disadvantage of cancer patient’s alt med choices – I believe the article and associated blog (mumsnothavingchemo.com) to be highly misleading and a misuse of the author’s position as a journalist.

: Get the facts right for others that follow

I believe in free speech – but free speech must act both ways with right of reply accepted for healthy debate. I became concerned when I wrote a polite and balanced comment below the above mentioned online article in the ‘comments box’. Within minutes of pressing the submit button however – the box had vanished. I then wrote to the editor of the Adelaide paper in a letter to the Editor. Silence! Continue reading “Why a brave mum said no to chemotherapy – Adelaide Now: Grace Gawler comments”

Steve Jobs case reveals alternative medicine dangers in cancer treatment-Grace Gawler

Biography reveals that Apple’s Steve Jobs refused potentially life-saving surgery on his pancreatic cancer because he felt it was too invasive. Nine months later, he got the operation but it was too late.

The next time you hear of an miraculous natural cancer cure remember the words of the late Carl Sagan – “Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence.” Personally after nearly 4 decades of working in strategies to manage and recover from cancer, I remain surprised and shocked at the numbers of patients refusing surgery or valid treatments only to try some miraculous cure based on anecdotes and with little or no evidence. If patients really understood the nature of cancer and how it behaves and metastasizes (spreads through the body) – I believe they would make different choices. (More on this topic next blog)

Take the example of two patients who 9 years ago were diagnosed with the same type of breast cancer with the same hormonal status and one positive lymph node. One patient went the conventional route – surgery, chemo and a hormone blocking agent – she remains well and vibrant to this day.

: Breast Cancer Cell

The other lady – like Steve Jobs, believed surgery was too invasive so she chose to keep her lump and node after a she received her biopsy result. Rather than booking in for the surgeon, she fled to a well known cancer naturopath who advised to her to fast, juice and take a variety of herbs and supplements as well as other treatments such as Scalar energy. Her treatments cost her a small fortune. Although she had massive tumour development by the time she found me, 7 years on…she believed that the tumours were resolving by simply “coming out” of her body, a theory condoned by the naturopath concerned who also that said all her ‘test’ results were excellent, therefore she must need emotional healing. This lovely lady had more secondary tumours than I had seen in my 4 decades of working in this field.

: Stage 1V breast cancer

She passed away this year after a hellish battle for her life – her final months extended by compassionate conventional medicine. By the time she realised what she had chosen was not working and that she had listened to the wrong people – it was indeed too late. There is a mantra repeated daily in my practice.. “I wish I had come sooner!”
Recently while in conversation with a friend – another most unfortunate story came to light; sadly it is also a story I hear all too often and it has the same tone as Steve Job’s outcome and my above mentioned patient. Continue reading “Steve Jobs case reveals alternative medicine dangers in cancer treatment-Grace Gawler”

Steve Jobs leaves a teaching legacy for all cancer patients says Grace Gawler

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs recent death from neuro-endocrine pancreatic cancer has once again highlighted the need for more public awareness surrounding issues of alternative medicine and the role of belief systems in cancer treatment choices i.e. alternative versus conventional medicine – when ideologies take over, negating logic and scientific evidence. Steve Jobs was not alone; our institute is very concerned at the large numbers of cancer patients trying alternative medicine as their first-line treatment option.

I say this with respect – but the question begs – what drove a man like Steve Jobs to believe he could beat operable cancer by using the same “alternative” tools he had been using for most of his life? Albert Eistein said: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” In my clinic I see many patients who have been loyal to an alternative lifestyle ) including alt med, for most of their life and when they get cancer diagnosed – they simply do more of it in pursuit of a cure! Almost a pray harder mentality.

Apparently, even a close friend with prostate cancer who was in remission, advised Jobs not to take the alternative medicine path – yet at great personal risk, he refused surgery to experiment with natural therapies. Natural Health News editor – Mike Adams was quick to gain kudos and write about Job’s death on October 5 stating that he died because of conventional medicine – however information released from Apple Corporation soon revealed a very different story – Adams had incorrectly reported the story – indeed it was quite the opposite. Continue reading “Steve Jobs leaves a teaching legacy for all cancer patients says Grace Gawler”

Survive and Thrive One Day Intensives – an Antidote to Alternative Medicine – Grace Gawler Institute

What is the best path for cancer patients? The new Grace Gawler Institute’s Survive and Thrive One-Day Intensives are designed to streamline the cancer experience, take away the confusion and replace it with confidence by learning the “How Tos” of being a successful patient. Being a Successful patient is not always about conquering cancer – sometimes it is living well with cancer while extending life that exudes good quality – while other times it may be an unexpected remission or partial remission. One thing that experience tells me is that 99% of patients will benefit enormously from the Grace Gawler Institute’s approach.

I believe that with good oncological advice/treatment in combination with support and skilled psycho-oncology, that patients give themselves the best chance. With modern advances in cancer medicine – the longer you live with it and manage it, the greater the chance of a new breakthrough treatment. For example, if you did not see last Monday’s Australian Story – I recommend you view this inspiring documentary about two Australian scientists and their quest for one of medicine’s holy grails – finding a way to treat cancer without the side effects.
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/fortheholygrail/default.htm

The two scientists epitomise care and compassion in what can appear to be a heartless and mercenary profession. I believe it is essential that we rise above the old negative paradigms of conspiracies about research and ‘big bad Pharma’ and embrace the true holistic model of medicine. It is hard to imagine where we would all be without modern medicines assistance. This is true complementary medicine and in the true sense of the word; it is holistic medicine. To not include conventional medicine as a part of a holistic medicine model (i.e. truly treating the whole person) is quite ludicrous in 2011. Body, mind, emotion and spirit all need attention. If a cancer is ravaging the body – doesn’t it make sense to treat the body and all its compartments and psychology by the best means possible? Continue reading “Survive and Thrive One Day Intensives – an Antidote to Alternative Medicine – Grace Gawler Institute”

Beating the Silence Again Grace Gawler

In 2007 Katherine Kizilos wrote a feature article for the Age newspaper Melbourne. The article begins…” She survived her husband’s illness only to fall prey herself to disease but Katherine Kizilos finds that Grace Gawler used the experience to launch a new life.”Gawler is a name familiar to those who want

grace_pic_the_age — Photo : The Mebourne Age

to believe the human spirit conquers disease. Ian Gawler lost his leg to bone cancer but not his life and with wife Grace established in 1981 Australia’s first cancer support service, the Gawler Foundation. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE

My life has had a theme of issues pertaining to silence – holding silence where appropriate, and breaking silence when essential!

My book Women of Silence (1994) was the first to open doors of communication surrounding breast cancer and emotional recovery – a little spoken of issue in those days; it formed the basis of breast cancer support groups in Australia.
Katherine Kizilos’ 2007 article after more than 2 decades of silence was the first article to publicly raise the the issue of Ian Gawler’s remission from cancer being in some way associated with tuberculosis – a very important scientific connection to make in the interest of cancer patients. An opportunity to discuss this important topic resurfaced in 2010 when the (MJA) Medical Journal of Australia published my refute letter in response to an incorrect version of Ian’s recovery story that appeared in the MJA in December 2008, under the title “True Stories”. But then – more silence…. with most newspaper medical reporters refusing to comment, with one exception! Continue reading “Beating the Silence Again Grace Gawler”

Lies That Cost Lives-Anecdotes and False Claims in Cancer Care -Grace Gawler Comments

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/cured-cancer-patients-died-court-told-20101119-180z9.html

The Australian reporter Debbie Guest has been doing a great job reporting on the case of Hellfried Sartori and now the deaths of 25 cancer patients – linked to his treatments. Sartori is playing a key role in an ongoing inquest in Western Australia. The controversial case is providing a birds-eye view into the cancer cure conundrum that is facing many chronically ill cancer patients around the world. I believe this is the tip of the iceberg in fraudulent cancer-cure discovery.

This blog serves as a vehicle to discovery and disclosure regarding misreporting, poor research, pseudoscience and truth bending that is causing unnecessary pain, stress and suffering to our most vulnerable people – cancer patients. Desperate cancer patients so easily fall prey to treatments that appear to be bone-fide, especially when statistics and high success rates get bandied about. Almost every day another cancer cure product promo virally invades my email inbox! I appreciate the dilemma of choice for patients – but this is certainly a case for the old adage – all that glitters is not gold! The question begs…How can we help cancer patients to discern? Continue reading “Lies That Cost Lives-Anecdotes and False Claims in Cancer Care -Grace Gawler Comments”

Gawler and Jelinek – MJA Cancer Patients at Risk with Errors of Consequence

Visit Grace Gawler’s personal website at www.gracegawler.com

Thankyou Healthyliving.middaily for publishing this MJA report http://healthyliving.middaily.com/the-gawler-foundation-conference-opportunity-to-discuss-flawed-mja-report.html

As stated in “healthyliving.middaily” – I too believe a public enquiry needs to be held into the 11 Dec 2008 MJA errors authored by Ruth Gawler and George Jelinek – not my preference but if my diligent attempts to discuss, mediate and secure a public statement have failed, then it must be achieved through other channels. As I have said before, patients usually don’t read medical journals and they are the ones who need to be informed.
The waters of communication and transparency have become very muddied indeed. I emailed detailed proof to the authors of the MJA 2008 article hoping they would make a public statement – but, no reply. Ruth Gawler and George Jelinek work for the Gawler Foundation – however the Gawler Foundation believes that the MJA article has nothing to do with them? This is even more amazing because the Foundation uploaded the MJA 2008 link to their website on 10 December and it has been there since. http://gawlerfoundationmedia.com.au/2008/12/ Note – The day before their article in MJA was officially published.
The new-look Gawler Foundation bases their programs on the content of the 2008 article in question – the article that is incorrect! So they all need to get the story right because it is told around the world via the internet, at their national support groups, conferences, in books, workshops and most importantly now – in medical journals. See blogspot thesecondsight
http://thesecondsight.blogspot.com/2010/11/when-facts-meet-merchandising.html

I have spent time emailing and faxing my irrefutable proof to the CEO of the Gawler Foundation. In response she posted a letter on the gawlerfoundationmedia site. It fails to address the issues but of great concern is her last sentence. “These articles are in no way helpful to the important work of the Foundation nor to those people suffering from cancer.”
Well, if letting cancer patients and doctors know that incorrect material has been published in a reputable medical journal when it comes to this issue of a high profile cancer remission such as Ian Gawler’s, I would think it to be very helpful indeed!
Despite the challenges I remain undaunted in my duty to get this medical maze sorted out. I am hopeful that A Current Affair who filmed an interview with me in early October will eventually go to air…it is currently deferred until they can interview Ian and Ruth Gawler and or George jelinek. This week video footage relevant to the clinical timelines ( taken in the Philippines between March 1976 – May 1979) has been subject to complaint and removed from you tube – seemingly with no recourse from me as the owner and with permission from all to be filmed including Ian. As well my email has been corrupted and still in process of restoration. And now the Gawler Foundation is threatening defamation via a legal letter requesting that I immediately cease publishing material defamatory of the Foundation. I ask – Is the truth defamatory?
The Yarra Valley Living Centre was my vision for cancer patients & I devoted years of my life to establishing it. As Gawler Foundation co founder, ex director, therapist and the person who was there 24/7 for years for Ian Gawler as dedicated caregiver, I could never have imagined that my own Foundation would threaten to sue me for being involved with misreporting a part of my own story that, of necessity ran parallel with Ian’s. Now that takes some inner processing!
The following is reported on Healthyliving.middaily
“Cancer patients are amongst our most vulnerable community members. Fear driven by horror stories of chemo suffering and words for alt/med like ‘ cut, burn and poison they put faith in alternative cancer cure stories.

So when significant errors about a high profile alternative cancer cure story are found in the prestigious Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) article by Dr Ruth Gawler and Prof George Jelinek from the Gawler Foundation about the cancer healing history of Australia’s most famous cancer patient, Ian Gawler (IG) it is cause for a public enquiry…” Read more at
http://healthyliving.middaily.com/the-gawler-foundation-conference-opportunity-to-discuss-flawed-mja-report.html

visit my personal website www.gracegawler.com

Ian Gawler – Is Bemusement the Appropriate Response for Cancer Patients and Caregivers?

More at www.gracegawler.com

For more than 3 decades, Australia’s most famous recovered cancer patient has travelled under the medical radar without his medical history being questioned – that is until now.

Health, wellbeing and aspiring to assist people with life challenging illness has been a life-long passion. My interest in healing was I believe genetic – a product of my mother’s Irish side of the family. Going back some 52 years to my first day at primary school, I was the only child with wholemeal salad sandwiches, I was vegetarian and had to manage a lot of teasing. My Irish genes served me well and I developed a doggedness for standing up for myself, for what I knew was right and what I knew was right for me. I was also heavily influenced by my health and lifestyle conscious uncle Leo White – alias Kid Young, an Australian champion boxer who was terrific bloke as well as a mentor. I knew that I had a vocation early in life. This manifested initially through healing and veterinary work – I worked as a part time nurse when I was at high school and met Ian Gawler when he came as a locum vet. He offered me a job at his clinic and eventually a relationship blossomed – but within a few months he was diagnosed with bone cancer and had a leg amputated. The rest is history or should I say now, ‘his-story’.
The ‘her – story’ – my important role in his recovery, seems to have been relegated to the ‘his-story’ books. Continue reading “Ian Gawler – Is Bemusement the Appropriate Response for Cancer Patients and Caregivers?”

The Gawler Foundation Conference Opportunity to Discuss Flawed MJA Report

Visit www.gracegawler.com or http://gracegawler.com/Institute/
The Gawler Foundation Conference An opportunity to explain MJA errors

The Gawler Foundation’s annual conference will be held at the Hilton Hotel Melbourne this weekend November 12 and 13. I trust that this could be an opportunity for speakers such as Professor Ian Olver from the Cancer Council and the MJA article’s authors, to discuss and disclose to the public, health professionals and the cancer community, why such significant errors in the timelines and photographs relating to Ian Gawler’s cancer recovery were altered and published in Australia’s most prestigious journals – the Medical Journal of Australia. Read more at…http://gracegawlermedia.wordpress.com/

The Gawler Foundation Conference An opportunity to explain MJA errors

Visit www.gracegawler.com or http://gracegawler.com/Institute/
The Gawler Foundation’s annual conference will be held at the Hilton Hotel Melbourne this weekend November 12 and 13. I trust that this could be an opportunity for speakers such as Professor Ian Olver from the Cancer Council and the MJA article’s authors, to discuss and disclose to the public, health professionals and the cancer community, why such significant errors in the timelines and photographs relating to Ian Gawler’s cancer recovery were altered and published in Australia’s most prestigious journals – the Medical Journal of Australia. The MJA took a total of one year to deliberate on the facts I had provided before publishing my refute article. Fortunately I had kept original photos and documents that prove my case. You can view my refute letter by selecting the link below:
‘Patients at Risk from Inaccurate Clinical Reporting in a High-Profile Story: Comment and Corrections’ 20 September 2010 MJA Volume 193 Number 6 20 September 2010- pp371-372 http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/193_06_200910/letters_200910_fm-1.html
Recently I met with Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke whose daughter Monique tragically died last year from advanced secondary breast cancer. A believer in natural therapies approaches to cancer, she avidly read self-help books and used natural therapies to alleviate her cancer symptoms for some time. She did not believe in mammograms. By the time she reached hospital – it was too late. Devastating for loving parents to endure.
The Satori case from Perth reported in the Australian newspaper last Saturday is another chilling report and a tip of the iceberg in alternative cures for cancer that are flooding the community!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/cancer-patient-smelled-of-spices/story-e6frg6nf-1225948551756
Over the past few years I have seen an alarming increase in emaciated and debilitated cancer patients on vegan diets – some while on chemotherapy and others who have been following the natural therapies path. I have seen in my practice some shocking tumour masses befitting 3rd world countries where treatments are not available. The Cancer Council reported the following in an article by Jill Stark March 2010 the Melbourne AGE: Continue reading “The Gawler Foundation Conference An opportunity to explain MJA errors”