It is now apparent to everyone that surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are only palliative approaches in the treatment of cancer, and that the immune system is the key to completely eradicating cancer cells throughout the body.

   Thus immunotherapy has emerged over the past few years as the "new hope". Although immunotherapy had been tried early in the 20th Century, the efforts failed, and so this is the second time around. With greater knowledge of microbiology and immunology, the scientists are more hopeful, though faced with perplexing problems.

   The first problem barring the application of immunotherapy as conventionally employed against other diseases is that cancer cells are not all the same, and therefore, just as with the wide variety of influenza viruses, it is not feasible to produce vaccines against them. This puts the entire responsibility of reaction against cancer, when it appears, upon the body's own defenses, and the only potential of immunotherapy therefore, is to somehow boost the general capability of the immune system.

   This is easier said than done because, in the first place, the immune system which in most cases appears normal enough, does not seem to always recognize the cancer cells as enemies and may make little or no effort to destroy them, although it is known that lymphocytes and macrophages are perfectly capable of doing so. Immunotherapy technique is to employ various vaccines and other forms of stimuli to encourage the immune system into greater activity.

   The sounds reasonable enough because the circulating white cells, although perhaps depleted in numbers, often appear to reasonably perform their other normal functions.

   At this point the researchers are stalled and perplexed and the reason for this is that their entire concept, although sensible, is based on false assumptions, which are:

1. That cancer is a local problem wherever it appears in the body.
2. That the patient's body, apart from the cancer, is healthy.
3. That the patient's immune system is normal, or near normal.

   None of these is the case, and although the immune system may be partially functional, the thymus appears unable to program it effectively, and so the cancer cells are ignored. So until the activity of the thymus is restored, the cancer cells will escape destruction.

   The immune system of a cancer patient is depleted and ineffectual, and to try and stimulate it with vaccines or other artificial methods is like whipping an exhausted horse. Indeed it can be regenerated, but only by removing stress and building up the health of the entire body.

   Natural remission of cancer may occur merely by improvement in immune function perhaps brought about solely by alleviation of stress factors. In this case the disappearance of cancer tumors in itself cannot be considered a cure, it means only that the cancer is being held in check by the body's white cells.

   To achieve a cure the cancer milieu within the body must be cleared and the entire body restored to vigorous health.