Tom Van Flandern

Both my wife and myself have had cancer and the long therapy. It can be successful. There is nothing humorous about this disease. Tom should concentrate all his mind and will on fighting this. I wish him success on a personal basis. He is the last intellectual mentor I have.

Gregg Wilson
Redmond, Washington


Gregg Wilson

To a quick and healthful healing for Tom. Colon cancer can be nasty, but it is beatable.

His theories and approach to science in general have had a huge impact on my private studies into the sciences. His ideas were some of the first alternatives I ever came across.

My hat is off to you sir, for bringing a sound reasoning and questioning nature back to the astronomy paradigm.

To health and healing for you Tom.

This is indeed sad news, Tom has been somewhat of a raw model for me when it comes to free thinking. Im sure though that he will be able to beat this and be back in good time to see the science start turning in his favor!

I wont send a personal email, I'm confident he will be able to read this right here when he gets back.

Fredrik Persson
Physics Student second year
Lund University, Sweden

Tom, Both my wife and I wish you a speedy recovery. We enjoyed our meeting with you and your wife last July at your home. You have had such a great influence on so many here at this message board and in the world of astrophysics.

You might check out the Sanoviv.com resources. I have been on the nutritional supplements from Dr. Wentz and highly recommend them, also talked with several survivors of cancer that received treatment at the Sanoviv medical facility and they are now in remission. Please let me know if there is anything that we can do to help out, we are here for you. John

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by cosmicsurfer</i>
<br />You might check out the Sanoviv.com resources. I have been on the nutritional supplements from Dr. Wentz and highly recommend them, also talked with several survivors of cancer that received treatment at the Sanoviv medical facility and they are now in remission. Please let me know if there is anything that we can do to help out, we are here for you. John
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

One must distinguish between prevention of cancer and elimination of an existing cancer. Optimum diet and avoidance of, say, smoking or drinking of alcohol, may very well push off a potential cancer, but an existing cancer has to be killed. However "barbaric" - surgery, radiation and chemotherapy have a very high rate of success. Of seven persons who I know have had cancer - including my wife and myself - those five who went the route of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy have all survived. For years.

The two, who chose "alternative" therapies, died.

There is not a moral or ethical issue here. It is hard reality. One cousin died of lung cancer because she smoked all her life. The other cousin died of lung cancer because she <b>never</b> smoked. Getting cancer is very much like being struck by lightning. Being good or bad has nothing to do with it.

Gregg Wilson

My name is Michael Van Flandern, I'm the oldest of Tom's four children.

In my previous post I disclosed that Tom was exploring alternative treatments for cancer. I should clarify that Tom has met with 2 traditional surgeons and 2 traditional oncologists. All 4 experts told Tom the same thing. Tom's life expectancy without treatment is at most a few months. With chemotherapy and/or surgery his life might be extended for a few more months but surviving 3 years would be a major victory (put him on the far right of the bell curve). His chances of surviving 5 years are virtually nil. Radiation was also discussed and ruled out given the scope and location of his tumors (but Tom's has yet to see a radiation expert).

Personally, I agree with Gregg's assertion that cancer requires radical intervention once it develops. I also recognize that people are diagnosed with cancer all the time and survive. However, the key to sucess with conventional treatment seems to be catching the disease in time. In this case, unfortunately, that did not happen.

Most traditional treatments would significantly reduce the quality of Tom's remaining life without offering any significant probability of long term sucess. Under these circumstances, exploration of alternative treatments seems very appropriate. Tom and his family are under no illusions about the nearly certain outcome of this situation. If any traditional treatment offered a better prognosis the situation would obviously be different. Personally I still hold out hope that a combination of traditional medicine (such are targeted radiation) and alternative medicine might hold some promise. But it's unlikely Tom will pursue any treatment certain to reduce his remaining quality of life a without reasonable probability of success.

Well that's enough for now. The good news it that Tom is doing better at the moment that we would have thought possible. Next time I'll post a little more about the circumstances of his diagnosis last month and what's happened since.

Again thanks for your well wishes and messages. Tom is reading them and we all very much appreciate them. Thx -Mike