SPEAKER Reel
Series Overview
Genre: Documentary
Logline: The newest hope for cancer is one of the oldest. Buried for a century, the metabolic theory of cancer is overturning entrenched dogma and reshaping the future of cancer treatment.
Director/Producers: Brad & Maggie Jones
Writer/Editor: Brad Jones
Original Music by Clearside
Format: 4k
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Filming locations: United States, Canada
Show Contact
Brad Jones
Maggie Jones
SYNOPSES
Short Synopsis
A century ago, a brilliant, Nobel prize-winning scientist staked his reputation on a new understanding of cancer’s origins: a dysfunction in the cancer cell’s ability to create energy. His discovery, known as the Warburg Effect, is the foundation for the metabolic theory of cancer. It was all but forgotten.
In the 1950s, the idea that cancer is a genetic disease captured minds and research funding. Yet the theory that genetic mutations are the root cause of cancer has never been proven. In fact, evidence is mounting against it despite establishment attempts to force increasingly contradictory data to fit this profitable model.
With a history shaped by an ever-changing swirl of social and political influences – from Nazism to corporate profits – this is the story of the revolutionary scientists and practitioners committed to following scientific evidence rather than institutional dogma to find effective cancer treatments.
Long Synopsis
For over fifty years humanity has marshalled every resource in the war against cancer with little to show for it. The eye-watering amounts of money spent on research and drug development have failed to generate meaningful treatments or improve patient survival.
But what if our most basic, foundational assumption about what causes cancer is wrong?
The idea that cancer is a genetic disease captured minds and research funding with the discovery of DNA in the 1950s. Yet the theory that genes are the root cause of cancer has never been proven. In fact, research is mounting against it, despite establishment attempts to force increasingly contradictory data to fit this profitable theory.
The genetic mutation theory of cancer is ensnaring our best and brightest minds and diverting research dollars, while simultaneously not producing meaningful results. The once heralded treatments targeting genetic mutations have been found to extend life by only months or weeks – at astronomical patient cost.
But there is light on the horizon shining from an unexpected source… the past.
A century ago, a brilliant, Nobel prize-winning scientist staked his reputation on a new understanding of cancer’s origins: a dysfunction in the cancer cell’s ability to create energy. His discovery, known as the Warburg Effect, is the foundation for the metabolic theory of cancer and a new generation of effective cancer therapies – all of which can be used in conjunction with conventional therapy to dramatically improve outcomes. Despite the overwhelming published evidence for their safety and efficacy, these low cost therapies are struggling for exposure without the profit potential to justify extensive human trials and marketing costs.
CANCER/EVOLUTION is the story of the revolutionary scientists and practitioners committed to following scientific evidence rather than institutional dogma to find effective cancer treatments. In the process, they are starting to redefine not just cancer treatment, but our very definition of cancer and what causes it.
DIRECTORS' STATEMENT
One month after my 40th birthday I was diagnosed with terminal, stage 4 lung cancer that had spread to my eye, liver, four tumors in my brain, and more than a dozen lymph nodes throughout my chest, neck and abdomen. My prognosis of six to eight months with conventional treatment seemed optimistic. My doctors were focused on making me comfortable. I was dying.
One year later I was cancer free.
In that intervening year I devoted myself to studying the metabolic theory of cancer and researching the cutting-edge, evidence-based therapies that are just now being published. I contacted the heads of promising studies and was a nagging voice in their email inbox. I attended scientific conferences and met with the doctors and scientists who are shifting the cancer paradigm. I’m proud to now consider them my friends.
When I finally achieved no evidence of disease, coloring my overwhelming joy was burning anger that so few people are aware of these published lifesaving treatments — including most oncologists. It’s not their fault. Current metabolic therapies involve lifestyle treatments that can’t be patented and inexpensive, off-label drugs whose patents have already expired. There are no cute pharmaceutical reps to evangelize them to doctors or conglomerates paying for slick TV ads with terrifying disclaimers. Instead, there is study after study quietly published in journals some doctors probably haven’t read since medical school.
Those who are aware of the research are unable to recommend therapies that aren’t FDA approved standard of care without risks to their practice. Therapies don’t become standard of care without hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trials. Trials aren’t done unless there’s a chance of recouping their cost.
I recognize that I am incredibly privileged to have the background, education and interest that allowed me to wade through oceans of research to find the science that works.
Survival shouldn’t only be for the privileged.
Production Stills
